Hey maybe I'm just on a hot streak tonight but do you sometimes or ever post an article where you don't introduce something about yourself in the opening sentence?
The author opens this review by quoting themselves from a previous article? Shameless. And that article written six years ago? Have you learned nothing of your craft in that time?
Please cover every tiny tidbit of information surrounding the new Weezer album (as they are on a hott streak), as well as any and all news regarding Weezer cover bands. Thank you.
"I forgot that Scott McKenzie’s countercultural anthem “San Francisco” existed but now that I remember, I really hope that Mad Men makes use of it during its final season next year — maybe to accompany Sally’s inevitable embrace of her inner flower power and her escape out west?"
What an interesting way to start a post, sharing some HIGHLY RELEVANT facts about how you forgot a song (strong music journalism!), and then VERY RELEVANTLY tying it in to some TV show you like. Then punting completely on commenting on the song at all. In the least. (It's not bad!) Very good writing. Solid.
Finally, a long hard look by blogger with an aka at her memories and personal experiences about an album and band that have already largely passed from the collective consciousness and left little of lasting value in their wake.
"If you’re a Metallica fan and you’re not enjoying this moment in their career, you’re absolutely robbing yourself of some unexpected, sublime joy."
Pretty sure there's room for disagreement there, but you're a blogger on an indie music site, so I guess you're the expert.
Although it would be nice if they had literally anything interesting to say about it -- this reads like a freshman essay cribbed mostly from Wikipedia.
"... but that’s the value in puzzling over history from time to time." It's just an album that came out two decades ago. It happens a lot and is almost never meaningful. There's no perspective or thoughtfulness or revelations of context. Just content for the sake of content. Zzz.
It's the cheapest form of writing, these Top 10 lists. Making one on the anniversary of Cobain's death is particularly crass, so go ahead and defile however you like I guess. These lists are shameless.
Since the arrest was for inciting a riot, not rioting, it's totally irrelevant whether there ever a riot or not. From the Austin police site:
"Regardless of the size of a crowd, the encouragement of unruly and unlawful behavior is against the law and cannot be tolerated."
I saw her open for The National several years ago when she was first coming up, and she was amazing. Just her and her guitar, and that's where all her dramatics and histrionics stayed. Now all this drama is spun out into a persona, costumes, whatever-the-frog she was doing in the videos for the two new tracks, spilling herself around some plastic Tetris shape. And for me at least, the deeper she goes down this rabbit hole the more boring her music -- divorced from the visual act of St. Vincent -- becomes.
And when she pulls off the small stage show so well. She's so badass covering "Beyond Good and Evil" on Fallon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JySQE4axlJY, and what was that, last year or so?
No shit: " But this one, in particular, has virtually no middle ground to it: Either Oberst is the victim of a terrible and malicious trolling hoax, or he’s a titanic criminal scumbag."
Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between, you know, like in a world where everything isn't black and white.
There's a never ending shamelessness in stereogum today ... these lists are universally shit, which is why there used "Shit List" posts citing other sites for pulling this page-view grabbing nonsense. But these posts always have plenty of comments, so I'm sure Spinmedia ain't care. The writers here all surely work for peanuts, which based on the quality of the copy put up anymore ...
People can defend it how they'd like, but the truth is it's lazy, hack writing. It means nothing. This list and the copy around it is completely arbitrary.
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