So many memories! It made me laugh so hard! I remember myself being so sad watching all these scenes when I was a young and beautiful boy...
Great compilaton man! Chapeau!
The idea behind this is very interesting. Reminds me of Benjamin's idea of a book composed entirely of quotations sans quotations marks.
I expect great -or at least interesting- things coming from this guy.
Kick-ass remix by Korallreven, those are some serious drum sounds!
I also like the diminishing of the obnoxious part of the song: the "wo-o-o-o-o-o-o-a-o" (which, for some reason, sounds a lot better in SALEM´s remix)
I love Björk, etc.
Just let me add that there's absolutely nothing avant-garde about her music. Today avant-garde is just a brand name for popular music that just ever so slightly pushes the boundaries of popular music, i.e. not pushing any musical boundary. After all the sonic experimentation of people that were old when our grandparents were young, of people who actually pushed music's limits, calling Björk's music avant-garde is just too much. How is completely tonal music considered avant-garde?
Even the tamest composers of the 20th century (minus Philip Glass and other "selected group" of composers) sound extremely risky and fierce put beside of what passes today for avant-garde in pop culture.
This is not a belittling of popular music; I'm not falling in that academical, formalist trap. What bothers me is that -and maybe that's just my impression- it seems that some people (artists and journalists included) use this supposed avant-garde as a branding device, a quality grading, a way of saying "oh we're so ahead of everyone" when as a matter of fact their music is as common as anyone's (which is not necessarily bad). Without knowing they're repeating the same mistakes older generations made: innovation for innovation's sake. Ironically this makes them derriere-garde... the product of ideology.
Anyway, one of the great things about Björk is her ability to utilize some of the tools previously explored by avant-garde musicians and implementing them in less alienating manners that a lot of people will be able to relate to. No easy feat.
Ditto on the mix. That ruined it big time, took out all the energy of the song.
On the more frivolous side: I like the way she moves but I hate her hair.
The fact that the lowest rated comment is a clear exposition of the poster's appreciation of the album and not a verbose invective, a facile opinion ("this album SUUCKKKKSSSS!! XD") or a mean spirited comment against someone, goes to show the inconvenience of such democratic dispositives.
Even if her opinion had some (or all) weak points, she's taking the time to expose her case in a clear way. Democracy should inspire dialogue not just some vulgar negation of the others opinion. It's very telling that the only reply she got came in the form of down-votes; not even a single point of discussion, just the click of a button.
What a nice interview. It's great to see that the interviewer didn't fall in the trap of trying hard to impress him. What came out was such a pleasant conversation with absolutely no pretentious bullshit. That's strange, given that Lynch seems to be the hero of almost every young film lover (you know, because he's "weird and always thinking out of the box, man") and almost every time someone interviews him they try so hard to impress him.
I don't like the idea. One of the things that I hate about internet -and the world- is that everything is turned into a competition, most often with dire results. There are some very interesting comments in the community as is and I don't see that fostering competition will bring a positive change (just look at youtube). What I think will happen is that we'll start seeing a lot more "try hard", forced comments...
But, who knows? maybe it's a good idea. Why not trying it out and later ponder on the harm or utility of keeping it?
I really her. Did you guys, by any chance, have a recording of the DJ mix? I'm wondering what she might have played (some interesting choices, I'm sure).
Thanks!
I've already stated my own -uninteresting and long- opinion about this in Brandon's MAYA article.
I thought it was an OK album, but I can tell you my grandma -God bless her- loved it. Who knew pussy and religion was all she needed?
Which also allows me to make another point (which will probably get me flamed): Kanye.
Yes, I do believe that the very thing that ruined MAYA's reception, helped to build Kanye's MBDTF. Obviously, Kanye's record is amazing, I'm not saying it isn't. But I think that the thing that brought it to such incredible acceptance (a lot of people, literally, couldn't believe it) was Kanye as a mediatic phenomenon. All this talk about his life, his frustrations, etc. and the way it "actually" corresponded (or, for the critics, seemed to correspond) with his artistic product, was a point in which almost all the reviews were anchored.
Someone pointed out the absolute lack of arguments that should have justified his top spot in p4k's album countdown (read it please). I think that, right there in those lines, ALMOST lie's the justification for his appraisal. I would only change two simple words for one; instead of saying "Through all that noise, we obsessed first and most deeply over the eye of the storm: THE ALBUM", it should say: Through all that noise, we obsessed first and most deeply over the eye of the storm: KANYE.
I agree wholeheartedly with what DS3M said. I heard the album and liked the super-aggressive content and form. From the "non-pretty" cover (man, you're not going to find something similar on Etsy), to the texture of the sounds used -heavy emphasis on distorted mid-frequencies- in songs like "Illygirl" and "The message". By it's own standards and expectations, it's an amazing album.
Then I read all the heavy criticism of the album, but dismissed it as it fell in the "tries to extract meaning from the author" category (which was basically annihilated by Barthes et al. 40 years ago). For me, that's facile criticism, and it floods the internet's most and least respected sites. I've sometimes read this critics and cannot help but thinking that what they're doing is analyzing artist's psyches with an almost total independence of the artist's making (or "product" if you prefer). You only need to read M.I.A.'s premature evaluation last line to understand what I'm saying. Other examples abound.
So, to produce a valuable artistic product not only does this product has to correspond to the artist's intentions, life and psyche but to what WE, the public, THINK are the artist's intentions, life and psyche. In adding the artist to the appreciation of it's product, we only have to take a step to judge art by the idea we have of the artist. So, if M.I.A.is a fake it follows that her art is bad. And if one disagrees with her moral or political status, in all probability, it will negatively affect the aesthetic judgment.
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