Prepared myself to feel somber and nostalgic; heard the outrageously overused Prelude to the Bach Cello Suite 1 in G; felt disappointed and kind of annoyed.
This is perhaps the correct emotion to think about band breakups?
Speaking of things that are not punk rock - is it just me, or does it seems like all of a sudden, bashing on Spotify is the least controversial stance a band can take?
Maybe it just took a bunch of geezers who "got theirs" (I consider even Foals "geezers who got theirs" at this point) complaining about the culture of Spotify listening to highlight all the wonderful, populist sides to the thing for me.
Is it just me, or does it seem kind of unfair/ironic that the #2 spot goes to Gorguts (totally deserved), Svart Crown slips in the 40 range (also great), yet Ulcerate get excluded altogether? The consensus seems to be that Vermis doesn't quite top Destroyers of All, but come on, they're the most obvious influence on the new Gorguts sound! Don't they get a nod just for that!? Sigh.
The top 2 choices are unimpeachable though - you're doing God's work, guys. Thanks for the year of thoughtful metal writing.
A bold statement, since "whoever is calling them racist" definitely includes, though is not limited to, actual Native Americans, whom I wouldn't consider "a little naïve and/or fairly stupid" just for being unamused by Mastodon's brand of black humor.
Rule of thumb for determining if someone/thing is racist - don't just take the white person's word for it.
Did it bother anyone else that the South Park creators, in all their pop-cultural astuteness, presented Henrietta as a "mall-emo" dresser, but listening to pre-mall-emo Emo music? I mean, come on - she had posters for (parodies of) Saosin and Senses Fail, what the #&*$ is she doing listening to SDRE?
Oh well - hardly the time or place to fall into a "nobody understands me emo!" trap. Great to see latter-day SDRE getting the love it deserves (believe it or not, old-school emos can be such purists sometimes).
Being pretty pleased with this list, and not having a whole lot to add, I'd just like to point out that the author really, REALLY seems to like the words "plangent" and "alacrity". But hey, it's of Montreal - if we didn't appreciate some high-fallutin' vocab, what would we be doing here?
Damon Krukowski has definitely been putting out a steady stream of great think pieces on the subject that have been more informed and constructive than all the high-profile criticisms I've read - hopefully he can get elected chairperson of The UN Taskforce For Fair and Sustainable Music Streaming Models ={p
Mostly why I'm commenting though is this kind of funny habit I've noticed of 'gummers referencing an article, review, interview, whatever, that they've read, and (deliberately?) neglecting to mention the source, which, 99 times out of 100, is P4K.
To all those commentors out there with a fear of getting P4K-shamed; it's ok! We've read the same thing over there, too!
I know that it's his life and all, and I'm trying to respect his privacy on the subject, but he'd really be doing a world of good to sexually confused teens everywhere (especially the ones who grew up with The Smiths and are now in adult bodies) if he just cut the dorky jokes and talked earnestly about his weird relationship with desire. He's a pretty singular icon for a generation (or two) of boys too misanthropic to be "gay" gay, and he's probably making a killing of this book - I'll stop short of saying "he OWES us", but COME ON!
I think the most fascinating part of the Morrissey's autobiography might just be that it was published through Penguin Classics - the surest sign that the criteria for this particular line of books might not necessarily be the lasting impact of the book, but the ego of the author (I mean, personally, I think The Moz and Nietzsche make pretty good company).
Oh man... if she thinks the lady on the cover of Cursive's Domestica was too "sad-eyed, winsome, and well-cleaved", she would NOT be a fan of The Starting Line in the years to come (restating the obvious, I guess).
For the emo purists who want to flash some feminist cred, there's always Pohgoh (although it's telling that I literally can't think of another female-fronted 90s emo band...) (and that very, very few people ever cared about Pohgoh)
I think P4K's relationship to Deftones is a pretty illuminating parallel - since P4K's audience already KNOWS the kinds of bands Deftones were associated with back in the day, the momentum required to overcome readers' prejudice and convince them that the band is actually SUPERIOR IN EVERY WAY to their supposed "peers" might be too much (I have a few Deftones records myself, btws... funny how that works).
Emo, and metal too, come to think of it, are in a very different position - the public face of these genres has been in decline for so long that readers no longer have any frame of reference for what's going on. It becomes much easier to latch onto a certain sound or record label (Profound Lore, Topshelf) and declare THIS the gold standard when you don't have to bother explaining what exactly sets them apart from their peers, since no one even knows who those peers are anymore.
Don't get me wrong, both labels have consolidated a lot of talent, but it could have just as easily have been Seasons of Mist and Deep Elm, or Ajna Offensive and Count Your Lucky Stars. The fact that it's so arbitrary is one of the most frustrating parts.
I think what the genre really needs is a respectable media source FOR the genre, staffed with a bunch of discerning and intelligent writers with some real depth of knowledge and a critical eye (sorry, absolutepunk - you're just kind of hype men). Think of what Resident Advisor did for electronic music, or what Invisible Oranges did for metal.
Yeah, about that... it's hard to come up with anything more than the easy answers as to why women don't seem to have ANY voice in indie-leaning emo, now or then, but consider if you will - when was the last time you saw a woman doing a set in the Boiler Room? (a woman who wasn't summarily accused of trolling, that is)
If it helps any of the recommendations stick, I've always considered pre-Transatlanticism DCFC a sort of honorary emo band. I mean, you can NOT listen to the climax in "Fake Frowns" or the "Ooh baby what a way to cut lengthwise" refrain in "Bend to Squares" and not think all-caps emo, especially the more subdued, indie-pop oriented stuff The Promise Ring and Mineral were coming out with around the turn of the millenium.
...although, to be fair, I AM sort of a Brent Dicrescenzo apologist. Firstly, I can barely tolerate listening to Joan of Arc, and second, for all its dick-swinging (love that choice of words), he wrote some pretty hilarious, creative reviews. The consensus seems to be that them cleaning up their act and getting "objective" was a good thing, but I think their old gonzo style was appropriate at the time for their limited audience - you have a lot more freedom when you don't exercise such monolithic power.
In fact, I don't even blame them for slamming emo at the time - I just think it's disingenuous of them to embrace it without putting any effort towards reevaluating its legacy and its merits.
Not going to take the bait in defending any of the bands you mention, but by GOD I will defend the right of white boys to bitch about first world problems - they have made some truly great art. Like, to varying degrees, most of the stuff on this blog that isn't hip hop or dance.
... Oh hell, I'll take the bait too and say that Tell All Your Friends was damn fun and well-executed.
Man... a whole lot of mixed emotions about this supposed emo "revival". On one hand, glad that these bands are some critical attention from the more omnivorous press (no one's going to be converted by a "best new music" (that's literally what it's called) on punknews.org). On the other hand, it's a tad patronizing that the same press that used its critical leverage to pan the #&*$ out of emo at the start of the decade then ignored it outright for another decade or so, is suggesting this narrative that all the good bands are emerging NOW, and they're all good for reasons that didn't apply to the bands they panned or shunned. When P4K's TWIABPAIANLATD review said emo was "reemerg[ing] as a viable, visible genre of independent rock" it was, like... I don't know, when the popular girl in high school complements the nerd's outfit? I'm just thinking, "there is no way your intentions with that gesture can be pure, and if they are, the proper way to start off is with an apology".
And yeah, I'm more annoyed by P4K in that regard than the fact that Stereogum kindly posted a list of really great starting points for people who are getting into it, but at the same time, I don't remember the last time Stereogum gave any love to an emo band that wasn't on this list or wasn't within the last year. Like, were you guys waiting for someone's permission? 'Cause you kind of missed out on a lot of really great emo between '06 and '12 (although readers astutely voted Brand New's "Daisy" into the top 50 in 2009, which made me smile).
If anyone's looking for more good stuff in this vein - Their / They're / There is probably the best Kinsella project (either one) since American Football, Dads are on their way up, and the webzine Musical Mathematics has put out a bunch of great comps for free online (it's where I found Everyone Everywhere last year)
Ohhhh boy. Stumbling across a comment chain in which "misandry" is discussed like it was, you know, REAL... I get that same squirmy, "must-get-out-of-here-at-all-costs" feeling I get in enclosed spaces where people who aren't black are using the n word. Don't mind if I show myself the door.
"On The Bus Mall" at #1 - I am vindicated.
Always enjoyed the song just for the craft, but after seeing My Private Idaho, it finally clicked that I hadn't been paying attention to the lyrics AT ALL - not that it's necessarily a direct inspiration, but with a little more perspective, the song absolutely floored me as no Decemberists song had before.
However, a list without "Oh Valencia", "16 Military Wives", OR "July, July" is like an AnCo list without "My Girls" - I mean, just who do you think you're trying to impress?! You'd think we'd take a little more pride in the fact that indie bands consistently write better pop songs than pop bands.
The nerve of these guys - unleashing something like "Teeth Like God's Shoeshine" (probably my favorite song of the 90s, hands down), and then having the audacity to follow it up with an entire, actual ALBUM. You don't even have to worship the band to admit that no one does opening thesis statements like these guys - "Dramamine", "Teeth Like God's Shoeshine", "3rd Planet", "The World At Large" - all "Call me Ishmael"-class.
Anyways, always good to see the torch is still going strong, critically speaking. I know my nostalgia isn't paying the band half the respect it's due, but this and TIALDFSWNTTA were pretty much the world to me going to high school in rural-ish Idaho with barely a glimmer of an idea what indie rock was.
So, it's good that he's "voicing his opinion", but exploitive because he's "selling it as art" and "creat[ing] an image for himself"?
I'm sorry, but if "On Fraternity" is exploitive, I don't see a way he could possibly be NON-exploitive. Maybe getting in line to rehash the obvious in the tumblr-feminism/SJB echo chamber? Or attempting to do the impossible and create something that DOESN'T build an image of who he is as an artist?
I really think we ought to just take the guy at his word when he says this is about him being sick of patriarchy and not wanting to be complicit in it. Yeah, it's not necessarily news to women, but its probably a wake up call to a lot of his male listeners. Maybe it'll even bring some new readers to Andrea Dworkin. Besides, even if everyone on the planet knew about patriarchy, no one's talking about it with as much bluntness and as much visibility in the world of "indie blogs" - I can't see how bringing visibility to the issue outside of its usual hotspots could possibly be a bad thing.
I would probably consider transferring schools if Will Sheff just caved in and finally accepted a tenured position as professor of Rock And Roll As Literature.
Spotify is sort of a consensual piracy anyways, and so I think they have the same moral quandaries - sure, it seems pretty justifiable when you're just doing "research" or "expanding your horizons", but how much do you have to love an album you've listened to for free before you buy it? And if you've already fallen in love and gotten over it, why bother? Is actually paying for music then just a holier-than-thou gesture?
At the end of the day, people only have so much money/time to invest in music - if that gets divied up in a way that leaves out a bunch of great bands, well... tragedy of the commons right there. If every band and record label and IP decided to go all Atlas Shrugged on our ass, maybe we'd reassess the value of music in our lives and bid a little higher...
Or maybe not.
The reason I think the "band over genre" approach is more problematic for things like dance music and metal than it is for music that scans as "indie" is that all of the different things that come under the fold of "indie" are essentially lyric-based popular music - nothing is codified, and for the most part, its greatest bands don't have imitators who could ever be mistaken for the band itself. Radiohead and Modest Mouse and Animal Collective are great because (among other, band-specific reasons) no one sounded like them at their prime and no one has really sounded like them since (not for lack of trying, of course).
Metal and Dance, however, DO have a sort of codified aesthetic within each subgenre - when a "badass motherfucking [metal] album" is created, we're talking about relatively small and gradual deviations from the normal parameters. The deviations might result in music that is more (Deafheaven, Opeth) or less (Portal, Anall Nathrakh) accessible on average than bands operating within the template, but the innovations are really only meaningful to people who know what the template IS and have some kind of love and knowledge of it. This is different than saying that the music itself can't be meaningful to outsiders, of course, but any opinion of theirs other than "I like this" or "this moves me (because ___)" wouldn't really hold a lot of credibility.
I can't speak for dance, but I think metal is relatively unique this way. In other genres, it's perfectly reasonable that there might be this singularly great band who outsiders can listen to without having any reason to go deeper (experimental pop => AnCo, psych rock => Tame Impala), but when the critical media claims (or even gives the impression) that this is true for some metal band, most metalheads will call their bluff. I think Deafheaven are Great and Innovative, but not Peerless the way an 8.9 might make you think.
PS: Tom Ewing talks about this phenomena pretty succinctly and insightfully in a Poptimist called "The Heart of the Crowd" - definitely worth a quick read
Ears still ringing from Deafheaven's Seattle show last night, and I can only imagine that the roomful of (mostly) stiff, chin-stroking diletantes looked a lot like Brooklyn (you'd think they'd only even HEARD of the word "mosh" in a cultural anthropology class or something)
Oh, and speaking of co-opting identities for fashion... Daria anyone?
http://24.media.tumblr.com/054c46185df7335ba2b2d916ac47979b/tumblr_mnfxfcyczl1qdn1ado1_r1_500.gif
"You will forget and I will remember"? Dodos have always been sort of opaque and even-keeled, but between this and "Confidence" I'm starting to wonder if Carrier will be the emotional carpet-bombing (relatively speaking) that I've always hoped for from them.
8/27 can't come too soon.
TEST ICICLES? "Not a unique sound?" Them's fightin words - like, skinniest and least-sober guy in a back alley, alone, saying reckless things about people's mothers kind of fightin words.
Unless you're of the elite group that think Test Icicles were somehow riding The Blood Brothers' coattails, which, given your apparent affinity for Ke$ha, I'm going to assume isn't the case.
Question - Is there a genre or era so far removed from the tastes of Stereogum's core audience that prospective commentors don't even have an opinion about it?
Answer - Not yet.
1. Vampire Weekend: Unbelievers (am I the only one who thinks this is THE killer summer single on here!?)
2. Unknown Mortal Orchestra: No Need For a Leader (come on, these guys don't write anything BUT summer songs!)
3. Beach Fossils: Taking Off (ditto - this also happens to be one of my favorite songs of the year, period)
4. Foxygen: San Francisco (I'm sure this is going to get short shrift for being released in the winter... sigh)
5. Nightlands: Born to Love (Black horse candidate, sure, but if the shoe fits...)
And not to rain on y'alls imaginary-convertible-roadtrip or whatever, but to everyone throwing out one Deafheaven song... you REALLY must be new to this whole metal thing. I love Sunbather as much as the next guy, but not even that album title is a good reason to tokenize a fringe genre just to maintain the appearance of being diverse and omnivorous or whatever. If your summer playlist is really all about cathartic fury, cushioning your short list with Daft Punk doesn't show it.
Gotta love how (relatively) uncontroversial that #1 pick is - for my part, as much as I'd love to say The Knife, Altar of Plagues or Deafheaven made my favorite record this year (and they all came kinda close), Modern Vampires is just unfuckwithable.
Is this one of those games they play at music-writer camp where they put a discography on shuffle, pick the first 10 songs, call them the best, and see how convincingly they can justify them? Sort of like those improv warm-up games that are SUPER fun... for improvers...
So, let's ignore the list for a second - how could three Martsch-ian quips make the write-up, not a single one of which being "No one wants to hear what you dreamt about unless you dreamt about them"?!
Anyways, the top 3 are all timeless, but Perfect From Now On is the crowning jewel, hands down - no disrespect, but Keep It Like a Secret sounds like a sincerely apologetic retreat by comparison.
PSA: You wouldn't use the n-word if you weren't black, right? Cool. So, "tranny" is kind of the same. Just sayin'.
But as far as her content - while it's entirely probable that Morrissey doesn't have a half-decent album left in him, that's... kind of the point. It's breaking down the barriers between fan and artist, producer and consumer, and just like capitalism, that isn't always a "good" thing, per se, but it's obviously good for the participating parties, or else they wouldn't participate in the transaction (and hey, maybe everyone knows will know he's done and he WON'T raise the money if he tried - now THAT'S what informed consumerism looks like).
And if you think that money SHOULD be going to small bands - sure, local buzzbands can have all the kickstarters they want, but the economies of scale are working against them. Demand doesn't get created out of thin air, and that's why record labels (hopefully) aren't going away any time soon. AFP is proposing an alternative mode, not a new standard. The model won't work for everyone, but it will empower certain fans/artists in a way that's mutually beneficial.
Man, first The Album Leaf teaming with Sun Kil Moon, now Eluvium + Ira Kaplan? I'd make a crack about the micro-trend of sentimental ambient producers teaming with aging indie-rock frontmen (Helios + Alan Sparhawk? Hammock + J Mascis?), but frankly, it's all been so gorgeous, why bother?
Whelp, I guess it's time to prostrate myself to the Stereogum police before I dig myself into a "leave AFP ALLOOOOONE!" hole I can't crawl back out of. And yeah, you nailed it - been a big fan since the self-titled Dresden Dolls debut, but I clearly have some backtracking to do if I'm gonna convince anyone I'm not a part of the cult of personality. As penance, I humbly submit my person favorite anti-AFP screed commented on her own blog, which manages to be both more insightful and obscene than just about everything I've seen here:
"This is some of the most self-indulgent, masturbatory, egotistical nonsense I've ever read.
You are hijacking the concept of art so that you can publicly masturbate to your own inner thoughts as if they are so deeply profound, and then plug your ears and shield your eyes in response to the people who have legitimate criticisms about it. You are hiding behind the excuse of "that's what art does! it polarizes people!" in order to live in your own bubble of self-indulgence, and to make yourself immune to anyone who has anything to say against you.
This is not "art". Neither is acting out a rape scene with Margaret Cho (remember that? still waiting for an apology to all the survivors you triggered so badly). Calling your bullshit "art" does not excuse you for your legitimate shameful acts.
You are not as wise as you think you are, dear.
ps- If you want me to suffer through your poem again (as if I missed something so deeply intuitive and profound about it the first time I read it), I would only ask that you read people's criticisms of it again in return. Read them again."
With that off my chest - none of the stupid shit she does is making those Dresden Dolls records any less great, as far as I'm concerned (and remember, kids - AFP is only a celebrity if you let her be)
Ah, yes - I see that we are now all, as enlightened and sensitive netizens, hand-selected advocates for the victims and their loved ones, entrusted with the sacred duty of informing the internet what does and does not offend our clients. Primary directive: going out of one's way to shit all over some songwriter from Boston and her blog poetry. Maybe you could organize under a catchy name, like, "Keepers of the Grief and Anger Orgy" - sort of like nuns, except protecting us from speculative empathy for perpetrators and bad art instead of knowledge about sex.
I think the more important question is - why do people who don't care about Amanda Palmer because of her music give a damn about what Amanda Palmer writes TO PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT HER MUSIC? If you head to her blog, she's written some pretty articulate defenses for this (not quoted here, of course), but why on earth should you care to even find out? The poem, by her own admission, was written in 10 minutes and shared (with her fans!) on a whim. She does shit like that this all the time. She's open and impulsive, maybe to a fault, but accusing her of opportunism is just unfair - it's on her mind because it's on EVERYBODY's mind.
If we want to talk about opportunism, let's talk about Allston Pudding's 130 track local mixtape being sold for the bargain-basement price of 1$ in donations - it's like getting paid in both cred and karma to undervalue art! Also, guess what? People too poor to even participate in marathons suffer from life-destroying freak acts of violence too, but that market never really returned much of an investment for either the news media or music blogs.
In conclusion/tldr: Seriously, when did Stereogum turn into the TMZ of the indie blogosphere, and when did its commentators start using tabloid-stock as a basis for their own moral high ground?
While everyone else is talking about how to fit more and more into a bigger tent (Li'l Wayne? For reals now?), where's the talk of MAKING ANOTHER TENT? There's obviously a market for outdoor festivals featuring massive top-40 acts, and since your average top-40 listener/concert attender listens primarily to other top-40 acts, why can't we just have top-40 festivals without bolstering them up on the backs of smaller indie acts?
That's great if every indie culture/content-generator on the web wants to pretend like the indie/mainstream divide no longer exists, but I'm pretty sure most of the blog-followers who are paying hundreds of dollars more than they did years ago so they can see Grimes at a festival headlined by RHCP will have a different opinion. It might take a massive corporate/artist sponsor to get the ball rolling, but segregating things a little bit might be in all listeners' interests - When major festivals have 4+ artists playing simultaneously at any given time, you have to accept that you're working on diminishing returns.
But hey, maybe this is just the (400$+) price we have to pay for being such enlightened musical omnivores now. Ugh.
After seeing the 100% undeniable ranking of Destroyer albums, I was starting to think Stereogum was on the right path towards making less opportunistically controversial rankings - sigh... I guess we're back at rock bottom again. I mean, come on, Secret Meeting? All The Wine? Mistaken For Strangers? Apartment Story? Maybe Available from SSFDL to shake things up a bit? And most of all, KAREN?!
Still, hard to argue with #1.
In defense of Brent Discrescenzo, I think that his Lateralus meta-review is probably the most entertaining content on all of P4K, right up there with Nick Sylvester's take on Louis XIV "The Best Little Secrets Are Kept" ("We call it a fuck band. Get it? ... Fuck rhymes with rock. Which rhymes with dick. We're also a dick band"). I say that as someone who used to be a confused and desperate high school freshman whose favorite album was Lateralus and who had no reason to believe that would ever change.
As far as I'm concerned, Lateralus is still their best album (Aenima had too much momentum-slaughtering filler), but "Wings For Marie/10,000 Days" is pretty much the greatest song, like, ever. That's the high schooler in me speaking, but blog-reared college junior is giving his grudging approval.
PS: is there seriously no one on this site who is excited about the very real possibility of a new Tool album this year? Because, I mean, unlike Jane's Addiction, Tool have yet to make a BAD album... right?
meemo!" trap. Great to see latter-day SDRE getting the love it deserves (believe it or not, old-school emos can be such purists sometimes).