I like Dolph Lundgren movies. He punches shit real good. Dolph Lundgren is not Daniel Day Lewis. Dolph Lundgren will never be Daniel Day Lewis. I acknowledge this. I have no problem with this. I cast a critical eye towards any critic that would try to tell me otherwise. In fact, if a critic tells me a Dolph Lundgren movie is the best movie ever, I'm going to disregard every other review that critic will ever write because he's clearly insane. Dolph Lundgren has a limited range and it's limited precisely to making things bleed. I don't pretend his movies are anything but gloriously awful trash.
Honestly though, I've only heard good things from fans about FLAG. I'm inclined to give the band a chance after the positive press and the few live clips that have appeared on the Internet.
Strange aside: I was looking up Minor Threat lyrics like six or seven years ago and somehow ended up Stormfront.org not knowing what it was. There are legitimately people out there in the world who believe Ian McKaye is a white supremacist. This is a terrible world sometimes.
I don't know about Tool. They were a band I loved in high school, but that seemed to be the limit of how far they followed me. Like, they're an entry-level weird band. They're great until you find the really weird shit like the Melvins, King Crimson, and Nurse With Wound, then they just seem sort of average in comparison. Even amongst their MTV contemporaries, I don't think their music has held up as well. White Zombie, Helmet, and Type O Negative (Bloody Kisses in August, maybe?) still sound essential.
But seriously, I think Bowie preference will break down into two camps when regarding his albums: fans of traditional rock music vs. fans of art rock, avant garde, electronic music, etc. The former will gravitate towards his glam period, as shown in the love for Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and Hunky Dory, while the latter will talk up his Berlin era work. Neither is necessarily right, but both will try to claim so. I think it's more about your general outlook on music because Bowie's catalog encapsulates such a wide range of styles and ideas.
"All the Time" and "Chances" are boring because they're The Strokes going through the motions. Everything else is uniformly amazing. If this is what they intend to do, I hope they never return to guitar rock.
Also, Michael, I forgot a point I wanted to mention: certain careers attract certain personality types, account for gender and racial differences, and various other sociological explanations. It's why the military is something like 80% straight white, conservative men. It's also why creative industries see a drop in that same group. Your industry might attract a disproportionately lower number of straight white men. This could explain why you're "the minority" wherever you work. It's not because of systemic discrimination but because of much higher interest in the field on the part of people who don't match your genetic and psychological make up.
You're both ignoring the other person's points.
Shuffles: While Michael is obviously oblivious to macro-level disadvantages for being a non-white, non-male individual, he's speaking on a micro-level. In certain industries, such as fashion or certain areas of the art world, it actually can be advantageous to be part of a minority group as those industries tend to rebel against the homogenous "average" white masses. If he's working in one of those fields then he might feel a certain sense of resentment from co-workers because he represents what they're trying to distinguish/distance themselves from. It doesn't justify his blanket generalizations, but it accounts for his hostility.
Michael: While your specific job seems to cast you down, it's an extremely rare occurrence. "Average" white males were hit hardest by the recession because they worked in and dominated industries hit hardest by the recession, i.e. banking, financial services, retail, etc. They still haven't recovered because many of these fields either didn't recover to the extent of where they originally were or they learned to get by with less. By and large men still dominate most career fields. I'm currently pursuing work in PR. Women outnumber men in the number of total practitioners in the field by a fairly decent margin, but men still earn disproportionately higher salaries for the work they do. It's sounds like the career you're pursuing is niche, which is probably why you're experiencing resentment. It doesn't justify your treatment (if that's actually what's happening), but it also explains the reactions of your co-workers.
I'm sorry but this argument is flat-out wrong. Private mail carriers CAN compete with the USPS because their lobbying arms have spent millions of dollars over the past twenty years to affect legislation that PREVENTS the USPS from competing. This is why the USPS doesn't offer overnight or mail tracking services in a fashion similar to UPS or FedEx. UPS specifically has launched massive campaigns to fashion the USPS as the antiquated service it has become. Why? Because now UPS can use the USPS as its own remote delivery service, saving the company millions of dollars by not having to deliver to areas that are too far out of the way.
Don't blame the USPS for this. Blame crony capitalism and a willful, systematic destruction of public properties, which has tied the organization's hands on this, for creating an environment where labels suffer.
Sorry if this comes across as a personal attack, it's not intended to be. I'm just tired of the Libertarian argument of "government bad, because it's government" when many fiscal Libertarians and conservatives have intentionally gutted the organization, and other government agencies, so it was destined to fail.
This isn't meant to be a shill, because I'm not affiliated with this site, but it goes into far greater depth than I ever could: http://www.savethepostoffice.com/
Evil Dead II is almost the exact same movie as The Evil Dead, plus some comedy. Everyone acknowledges this, even the director. It's the same lead actor, same general plot, but given a slightly new purpose. Artists tend to rewrite or rework their greatest successes. Sometimes the rewrite/rework is better than the original because they've matured and can refine the original ideas. Room On Fire was written by a young band that didn't know where it wanted to go musically so it decided to work within the framework of what they had already constructed. That isn't a criticism. I like the album more than Is This It because they refined and elaborated on some of their earlier ideas. So I'm not sure why you're so angry. I'm not arguing that they're lacking in originality or anything like that. That argument is pretty much irrelevant today. I'm arguing, they said what they wanted to say in that area, now they're saying something else. I like it. That's all.
They basically wrote Is This It twice. There was the original version, and then the much better reboot with Room On Fire. Why would you want them to do early '00s garage rock? Seriously though, this song is great. I thought the last album was underrated and deserved more attention. Glad they're going even further out there.
I mean, they've won multiple Juno awards, consistently topped Canadian sales charts, and they were chosen to perform at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, so clearly a large part of your country disagrees with you.
Guys, to people somewhere in the world Nickelback is considered fun (probably Canada); somewhere else, Kid Rock is considered fun (the South?); and somewhere else yet still, Ke$ha is considered fun (I really don't know where, god help me). The point is, fun music still sucks. Calling a band fun doesn't automatically shield them from sucking. This is also why fun. sucks, although, I give them credit for trying.
This album sucks. That's my personal opinion. I'm not commenting on the lack of originality, because I listen to dozens of bands that also lack that quality. I'm also not attacking it because it's self-consciously uncool, because, fuck, I occasionally like Phil Collins and couldn't reconcile that sort of criticism with my taste in music. But, I still think the album sucks. If you like it, then more power to you. You'll probably still like it, as you should. Stop giving knee-jerk defenses for bands when they get bad reviews. It happens. Lou Reed made a career out of it. Buy the album, support the artist, and they'll be fine.
I feel like music criticism over the past five years has devolved into a sort of anti-intellectualism where acts that were previously established as "talented" or "challenging" or whatever are now ridiculed in favor of easily digested, non-confrontational pop like No Doubt. Instead of trying to make an argument for why we should pull those pop artists up to that higher level, critics make cynical swipes at the elevated artists to pull them down to the level of the pop acts.
I find people who make the obvious Cookie Monster joke at Waits' expense haven't listened to anything beyond his post '00s work, if they've even listened to that. Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, and Bone Machine are all amazing works, and each is extremely diverse beyond the typical Cookie Monster caterwauling criticism. Try "Cold, Cold Ground" or "Hang Down Your Head" if you need an entry point. The former leans more towards a bluesy ballad, while the latter is something that's more accessible for an alt-rock/indie audience.
Also, you should probably, at the very least, give The Songs of Leonard Cohen a listen. I can't say it's the best thing he ever did, because people seem to be in love with his later work more, but it's my personal favorite.
Completely agree. Haven't gotten too into Baroness, but Pallbearer's album is one of the most beautiful records I've ever heard, across any genre. The fact that everyone is raving about it but can't be bothered to put it on any Best Of list besides Best Metal albums bothers me. The new Swans record comes from a vary similar place, and it's cleaning up on critical lists because "it's not metal." Sadly, I think metal still has the neanderthal association stuck to it.
But what was more interesting about a post-punk revival act like The Strokes than say D'Angelo at the turn of the decade, to such an extent that they focused squarely on the former and completely neglected the latter? They're all over his dick now, and I don't have a problem with that, but why weren't they there the first time? The Strokes were/are great, but their music wasn't revolutionary. In their recent review of the Voodoo reissue P4k argues that D'Angelo was.
Conversely, why are those genres more interesting? There were a number of great to amazing rock and metal albums that came out in the past year. Does the guitar-drums-bass-vocals set up immediately disqualify it from being interesting?
Anyone else catching a weird Pitchfork is the new MTV vibe? They've followed eerily strange trajectories. Granted, P4K started in the late '90s, but it only started gaining real traction in the early '00s in comparison to MTV's rise in the early '80s. Both focused almost exclusively on rock-oriented music and gave voice to underground artists and scenes a lot of people wouldn't have heard otherwise (hardcore, thrash, college rock, etc.). Both started receiving criticism for a lack of diversity in their focus towards the middle of their first decade; by '92 MTV was still featuring rock artists but grunge was really the last gasp of rock music as the main focus of that station, as was lo-fi in the late '00s for Pitchfork. Popular focus eventually turned to new jack swing, gangsta rap, and dance music for MTV, while Pitchfork's focus has shifted towards neu R&B (a spiritual successor to new jack swing), blog rap, and...dance music.
It's just a really bizarre correlation I noticed.
Everything works in cycles. Sincerity is hot now but there will be a backlash against the idea of top 40 artists being given positive critical attention in a few years, and people will start mocking the past few years for the type of stuff we've been praising. But I obviously agree with your point. I think what it comes down to is that it's much easier to manipulate music journalists today. The top-40-pop-as-legitimate argument has as much to do with record labels' marketing machine as it does any writers legitimately thinking Taylor Swift or Carly Rae Jepsen is good. Marketing and journalism are interchangeable today, so a Pitchfork can slip in some copy for a new Rhianna single without anyone knowing. But there's a very clear difference between what Rhianna does as a pop star and what someone like Kate Bush did as a pop star. I would argue that none of what Rhianna does has ever really been musically adventurous as she's more the type of person to co-opt R&B and underground EDM trends just as (or just before) they're taking off.
No, I'm saying they want to expand her audience in every way possible. Marketing isn't just about putting someone famous on TV. It's about finding ways to convince as many people as possible to buy things they don't need, even if they don't like the thing being sold to begin with. Repeated exposure to something negative has an effect on many people where over time they'll start to accept it. Indie music has been co-opted over the past decade by marketing to accept artists like Taylor Swift or Carly Rae Jepsen because "they're fun." More than many groups, indie fans have an attraction to a hivemind mentality which allows sites like Stereogum or Pitchfork to disseminate trends, real or created (hey, chillwave!), to their audiences.
I certainly believe a lot of people listen to Taylor Swift. I just don't think her audience would be Stereogum's without the little nod being given by the writers of this site. I also don't think she'd place on a list like this under normal circumstances. How many of her previous albums placed on Stereogum lists?
I'm curious about something. Would the people arguing FOR Carly Rae Jepson's inclusion on a list like this also be arguing for C&C Music Factory's inclusion on a list in 1990 alongside something like Stone Roses' self-titled debut, or Debbie Gibson in the 1988 alongside Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation of Millions? Because that's what Carly Rae is in comparison to some of the artists on this list.
Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't like fluff pop. I'm saying that it doesn't warrant critical attention because it's a now fad that isn't going to be remembered beyond kitsch '12 nostalgia. In fact, I suspect that was it's intended purpose -- kitsch. Probably marketing, more likely, but no one seems to care when a song that would be a radio jingle a decade ago is now considered a pop song anymore.
Guys, sometimes earworms are just earworms and shouldn't be looked at as anything beyond that.
I mean, guys, this site is a business. It's owned and staffed by a media company. It's a trendsetter music site which targets a specific demographic for advertising dollars. Payola on the radio clearly isn't the way to reach new audiences. There's been a push over the past decade, for better or worse, to reevaluate pop music as a legitimate form of expression, but that's partially from keen PR reps with labels and advertisers who rely on those artists for sales and realize the power of taste-maker sites like Stereogum and Pitchfork. Blog hype is the brave new world of advertising, which can either build mainstream pop stars out of nothing as in Lana Del Ray or tear them down as in Lana Del Ray. These aren't really sites that explore new music; they're content farms collecting what's currently hot (or what could be) while subversively slipping in artists that this audience wouldn't normally touch, which has the effect of wearing down that audience after repeated exposure on sites such as this.
I'd like to see a valid argument for Taylor's inclusion that didn't leave thinking it was a cynical swipe for money because 'gum has had a series of fairly obvious attempts at product placement in articles they've written over the years, for example hyping Doritos every other paragraph in one of their SXSW write-ups a year or two back. Which is fine if that's what it is. I just don't want to then see someone defending Taylor Swift's craft when she's a product that's been market-tested to success.
Guys, there isn't really any reason to hate this. They're not terrible, but they're certainly not good. In fact, they're The Eagles. You guys remember The Eagles? Joe Walsh and Don Henley and some other guys no one knows. They were cocaine cowboys before that was a thing, or they started it; or, whatever. Basically The Eagles took what much better acts like Graham Parsons and The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers had done for country rock, culled all the interesting aspects out of the music, and turned it into yacht music yuppies could have awkward sex to.
Mumford is exactly like that. They subtracted all the confrontational stances of folkies like Woody and Arlo Guthrie and the philosophical quandaries of a Dylan or even the more recent ham-fisted (but still appreciated) attempts by Fleet Foxes, so they could sing about hearts. They aren't about anything, except maybe fashion. That in and of itself isn't a bad thing. Disco wasn't about anything. But disco can be fun. Mumford isn't not fun, but they're most certainly not fun. If I had to sum up Mumford in a phrase to put on a CD jacket or vinyl sleeve for their next album, it would be: the suburban malaise of cruising bars in suspenders.
I don't think the Graves era stuff is as bad as people let on. "Dig Up Her Bones" is actually one of the best songs The Misfits ever wrote in my opinion. Granted, the band was mostly a cheap cash-grab by Only, but it at least produced a few decent songs.
I don't think you were being disrespectful. As a left-leaning individual, I do believe in principles like self reliance and and responsibility, but I also acknowledge that when left unfettered industry/business/whatever your prefer has a habit of abusing its work force. So I believe that responsibility also entails protection of that work force; a responsibility not just to one's self, but also those around him. That said, I don't disagree on some Libertarian economic principles like across the board spending cuts. I just disagree that taxation is inherently evil and that we should dismantle most social welfare programs.
I do agree that conservatives and liberals do have common ground, especially on social issues. Like I said, my problem with Libertarians is only with (most of) their economic ideas. I fully agree with and support their social policies. That doesn't mean I think they're stupid, I simply disagree.
I also think your problem with Occupy is that you're judging the entire group as one. One of the main things I took away from reading and listening to Occupy protestors is that it was a diverse group of people with varying, and sometimes conflicting, beliefs. There were Libertarians worked in there every now and then, but their voices tended to get drowned out by the mic checks and radical left provocateurs.
This is why I wish more bands were like Titus, and why I'm thankful for this article. Indie rock tends to promote a very insulated world view. People tend to see it as over privileged, white liberals; and, rightly so. A lot of it is that. But I'm glad bands exist that at least challenge that idea, or bring in an audience that challenges that idea. Anything that challenges any status quo, whether I'm comfortable with that status quo or not, is a good thing.
"Judging by the comments most Stereogum readers and writers live in a leftist bubble, rarely if ever coming into contact with living breathing conservatives."
Thanks, but wrong. I grew up in, went to college in, and continue to work in areas where leftists are scarce. I won't say that are there aren't "liberal enclaves" in places like New York or LA or other urban areas, but I think you're mischaracterizing this audience. There have been as many people here espousing the Libertarian concepts you seem to agree with as have been throwing around leftist ideas.
I also suggest you read up a little more on Stickles. He was an ardent supporter of the Occupy movement and he's been vocal in his support of leftist causes. I think your interpretation of the Constitution, and his, might not be the same. You're both finding different kinds of beauty in the same thing, which I think is a good cause to see the value in an opposing view point.
I should amend that to say, vote local. That's where you can affect real change. It's also where third parties can legitimately win elections, even at the Congressional and Senatorial levels. Bernie Sanders is a prime example of that. I'm not necessarily trying to be contrarian, but the Presidential election is a farce. Get involved in local politics at every level even if that means your local school board. Because those are the decisions that are going to influence your life. You can't pick the President, but you can pick your local representatives. And they're the ones who you can hold responsible for wars, debts, and shitty politics. The President will never be held accountable for the terrible things he signs off on. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush all confirmed that.
What are you solving by voting? You didn't decide the 2000 election, a court did. It's so close this year that it could happen again. That's not even getting into the issue of voter fraud during the last 3 elections, something that still isn't being addressed.
And even if you could decide the vote, you still wouldn't be able to. The Electoral College was founded on the principle that the public is too easily swayed by partisan politics that they can't be trusted to decide the Presidency. And while that is probably truer than most would like to admit, it still means that ultimately we have little control over who actually wins. Why do you think certain states end up going uncontested even though large portions of those states vote against the guy their delegates end up giving their electoral votes to? Because candidates know that in New York, or Mississippi, it's pointless to run depending on what party you belong to. How is it fair to the voters in those states whose votes have effectively been made to disappear?
Voting for a third party is almost completely useless because they won't receive any delegates ever. Which is why third parties have shifted from legitimate parties to platform parties whose main purpose isn't to win but to make the larger two parties adopt their policies. How shitty is it that you know the candidate your voting for isn't there to legitimately change anything, but to maybe force the Democrats to adopt a watered down policy on restorative justice, or the Republicans a screwed interpretation of free market economics?
Look, I like the idea of a Jill Stein, but she's never going to be seen as a serious candidate running a shock campaign like she has. As much as I dislike Libertarian economic policies, I think Gary Johnson has run the best campaign of all the independent candidates. I wouldn't vote for the guy, but he at least comes across as a serious candidate. Stein's campaign seemed like a relic of the theatricality of the Yippie movement, which is great for mobilizing young radical minds, but does little to sway or educate people outside that small sphere. Meanwhile, Johnson at least made some attempt to educate voters, embraced social media in meaningful way, and probably did more to legitimize his party with this one campaign than the last fifteen or so candidates. Stein, although a step above the shameful capitulations of Cobb and McKinney, still seems like a step backward from a Nader.
Not meant as a personal attack, but I find it interesting you associated patriotism with purchasing an item. It doesn't matter if it it was second-hand, just the very idea. This generation especially is probably the first to really become entwined in the messy idea of marketing defining the individual. The country once had a very specific brand image that I think people miss, which is why so many gravitate towards it now.
The new embrace towards nationalism by punk and like-minded folks isn't terribly hard to fathom. We're in an era where the idea of the nation-state is nostalgic. Today countries go broke while the companies in them siphon off most of the money. America died as a concept somewhere in the last half of the last century, although, I don't think I could give you a defining moment or a specific date because it was an intentionally slow death. It was intended to go unnoticed. But please don't think I'm saying that another country "took our power"; they couldn't, because that kind of power doesn't exist anymore.
People still think in terms of nations and much smaller states, provinces, etc. in them, so it easier to keep things in those terms. But countries exist today as spheres of economic power controlled and manipulated by their economic interests. Which means, the American Empire will never die, China won't fall like Russia, India will stay relatively strong, and so on. Why? Because it's easy to manipulate people in those prosperous places. People in those places will never truly "fight back", as was the case with the Arab Spring. You'll never see a full scale revolt in America or China. China can quash any political dissent by simply throwing people in prison. In America it's a little trickier because there are a number of different things at play but, its people have become lazy and complacent with politics, and they've become accustomed to prosperity and privilege. They've been lulled in to the idea of a two-idea system where the two-ideas are slight variations on the same damaged economic policies. If you dropped the social issues from both parties' platforms, there really isn't much of a difference in the economic policies they're advocating. But the social flashpoints, like gay marriage and gun ownership, are used as wedge issues to give the illusion of a divide between the parties. And Americans have been conditioned over the last thirty years to believe in an American Exceptionalism, the idea that somehow America is better.
A country being better isn't really something you can quantify. You can use things like the Infant Mortality Index, Literacy Rates, and things like that, but if so, then how is America exceptional? It lags behind in most of these categories. But this very idea has allowed America to be reshaped from a legitimate nation to simply an economic brand being sold by the companies that shape its economic policies. That's why so many people today have clumsily lurched back towards the idea of patriotism. We're finally buying it because it's finally something that can be sold.
Let me make a correction, the tape traders would only sell it to you if you didn't have something to trade for. Most of the time it was a bunch of weirdos looking to trade for obscure horror films, porn, or professional wrestling. It's funny, I don't recall there ever being a big market for art films or dramas or comedies unless it was something like El Topo or Holy Mountain or maybe John Waters.
I think I'm coming at this from a slightly different perspective since I was never into alternative methods of obtaining music when I was younger, but I was certainly into those methods when it came to movies. I think one thing people are overlooking is that piracy has made things better in some respects.
Does anyone remember what it was like dealing with tape traders and video bootleggers? I grew up in a small, conservative town. If you wanted to see Cannibal Holocaust (and I wanted to SEE Cannibal Holocaust) you had one of only a few options: digging through the crates of some pedo-looking fucker at a flea market or finding your way onto mailing lists for tape traders who would dub copies and then sell it to you for a ridiculously high price (usually only found by sifting through the back pages of specialty magazines or by word of mouth). THAT was legitimate piracy, and some scary stuff at that. You never knew what you were getting. Because they were often dubbing off second or third generation copies of a master, you'd often get ripped off because the picture quality was unwatchable; and even worse, there were times when you ended up with entirely different movies, or god knows what other strange and depraved shit they were copying for people.
That was the real wild west of piracy. This is just the industrial revolution.
Not liking how the Resistance Pro belt is biting on the old NWA big gold belt design. Gaudy belt designs are cool and stuff, but that belt has been copied so many times it's kind of ho-hum now.
Let's be fair here. VH1 is never evil under any circumstances. A waste of time, maybe, but it is the most gleefully shallow network on television, outside of maybe Bravo. And for that, I'll always be mildly enthusiastic about it.
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