These are good points. Another point: so much art has been made. So much. There is so much fun art out there with some additional meat on its bones. Olivia Tremor Control, for example! Literally, if you spent your entire life trying to, you'd never hear all the fun and yet rich and complicated music in the world. So, even if this is fun, is that enough to demand (scarce) time and money?
I can't quite agree with the idea that Free Energy are somehow being unorthodox by crafting hooks for the sake of hooks. For what other sake are hooks crafted? I think that argument actually speaks to why I find these guys so uninteresting; to play music is a joy. To listen to music is a joy. These things I hold to be true. To play music that is only about how playing music is a joy seems to me like a missed opportunity to add dimension. (I understand a lot of great music is about this, but the stuff I personally return to the most has some other aspect to latch onto.) The Mountain Goats play joyful music; that their songs can also challenge and shake you is a testament to their craft. So, a band like this, while you might waste five pleasant minutes on them, will never move you in the way as a band that goes beyond that structurally intrinsic joy.
Accidentally thumbed this up when I meant to thumb it down. So, ignore the little green hand and know that I, a person on the Internet whom your will never meet and whose opinion you don't care about in the slightest, disagree with this sentiment. Weep, ye mighty!
Conversely, I love this. I think it's a mistake to evaluate any Christopher Owens album too quickly; I didn't know how I felt about FSHG for months after its release. But as with that one, I could tell right away with Lysandre that it was rewarding and worth the time. Sure, it's different from the Girls albums, but it's not less complicated; the manic sax on "New York City," which I wasn't sure about at first, now strikes me as a very appropriate accompaniment to a song that is less about being up than it is about uppers. There's some great stuff here, and largely I find the arrangements charming; "Riviera Rock" is great. And, while I'm disagreeing with the write-up (which, by the way, is well done and espouses a position I bet will be pretty popular), I actually thought Owens's reasons for breaking up the band were poignant and convincing. I'm just writing this comment because I don't want anyone to skip this album. I love Elvis Costello, but I didn't listen to Brutal Youth or Mighty Like a Rose until I was deeply in love with the rest of his catalog, because no one seemed to like them. Well, those albums are great; it's not that they're less successful rehashes of his previous work, it's that their new beasts no one happens to like. This isn't a less successful Girls album; it's a new kind of album from Owens that very well might disappoint some of his fans. But it's still a thing very much capable of being loved. Listen for yourself!
Great article, James, but I've got a problem with this sentence: "A teenager who has only ever experienced music as a series of ones and zeros will not suddenly start buying physical product, no matter how persuasive the arguments or stringent the laws." This exactly contradicts my own experience, in that I did just this two years ago. At the time, I was just starting to get seriously into music. I would read Pitchfork's The Out Door and be frustrated that some exciting-sounding releases were vinyl-exclusive and therefore beyond me. I was also discovering fidelity, pirating FLAC versions of albums and being stunned by the difference. Finally, I was purchasing MP3 versions albums I already had as FLACs because I wanted to reward the artists whose music I was enjoying--the ethical stuff had weight for me. The result of all these impulses was that one day I wandered into a thrift store and bought a fifty-dollar turntable. So, I wouldn't be so comfortable dismissing the possibility of we children of the digital age changing our ways. We're not beyond discussion.
I'm not sure I can buy that. Like you said, the old records will always be there; does it make sense to stop making new music so as not to reflect poorly on them? What about the people whose favorite R.E.M. album is from their later period? It does feel to me like the coward's way out.
I wish this had focused a little more on instrumental psych, which had a terrific year. We got great albums from Glacial, the Gunn-Truscinski Duo, Oren Ambarchi, and Rangda, among many others.
The Olsen album is amazing. I played "Lonely Universe" on my radio show without first having heard it, and it made me stop what I was doing and listen for the duration.
What bothers me about this write-up is its assertion that a work of art can be considered separately from its moral dimension. Maybe it can be, but I'm not comfortable with the idea that if something is ethically unsound, we should simply set that aside and enjoy it anyway.
Very excited to check this out based on the mentions of Lowe and Costello (the latter's is my desert-island discography). But, before I plunge in, I've got to ask: did you really call Elvis Costello an alpha male?
Actually, in interviews J. Spaceman has said that he wanted to call the album Huh? and hopes it's eventually referred to by that title, so, way to do your part, Wesley Morgan Paraham.
What's the appropriate amount of time for a band making great music to stay together? Minor Threat lasted three years and produced as few recordings as Das Racist or Girls; is that in any way a comment on their vitality or on the eighties?
Little typo in that first period: "compliment" should be "complement." Unless, you know, there's some bro-love going on between Neurosis and Neil Young, which I guess is possible.
That's not what I'm arguing, miguelito1. The consensus picks were poor, but that doesn't mean we should kowtow to acts we love mostly for their earlier work. For, say, songwriter albums, neither Time Out of Mind nor Modern Times holds one single candle to Tallahassee. We have plenty of classics specific to that time period; there's no reason to go fishing in others.
Sleater-Kinney, yeah, totally. Post-1996 Bob Dylan though? Fuck what you heard, that's a legacy pick. And to be honest, so is Sonic Youth. They've put out some great music in that window but nothing among their best and nothing I personally would have put on that list.
I missed this initially, but this article is by James Jackson Toth, also known as Wooden Wand! If you don't know him, look him up: he's an unbelievably talented songwriter, and his most recent album, Briarwood, was, in my opinion, one of the best of last year. It's really weird seeing his name capping an article on Stereogum.
End Hits remains perennially underrated. One of these days, someone is going to capitalize on the opportunity these lists present, give it a close listen, and reevaluate it.
I don't listen to Surfer Blood and consider PItts' actions utterly loathsome, but it's worth noting that Chris Brown beat a woman almost beyond recognition. While despicable, this isn't that.
I don't know much about Dead Can Dance, but here's an excerpt from their interview on Pitchfork: speaking of her daughter and herself, Lisa Gerrard says, "I wish she had not been afflicted with this artistic soul-- that she could have just been happy to meet a nice man and have kids or something. I see in her that almost innate responsibility to communicate to the deeper side of the human being." She sounds like a poetry teacher I had as an undergrad. I dropped the class.
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