I really haven't paid close enough attention for my opinion to matter, but I always figured Ben Folds devolved into Jason Mraz who further devolved into Ed Sheeran.
Whenever people get pissed at Pitchfork, I think about how the Ben Folds Five debut was the first album Pitchfork gave a score higher than 9 to, and it really just warms my heart.
Artists responding immaturely to critics isn't new and it isn't restricted to pop. And although these recent examples have seemed pretty lame, they are hardly the most petulant.
Michael Crowley once criticized the writer Michael Crichton in the New Republic. In his next novel, Crichton included a character named Mick Crowley, who like the real Crowley, was a political writer who went to Yale. Crichton's Crowley, however was also described in the novel as having a small penis, and was on trial for raping his sister’s two-year-old son after “experiencing an overwhelming urge to have anal sex” with him. The fictional Crowley was also described as a “dickhead”, a “weasel” as well as “that political reporter who likes little boys”.
I don't actually dislike Billie Eilish. But any person who puts Eilish and Björk in the same sentence only knows Björk as the lady who wore the swan dress to the Oscars in 2001.
I took a nap during a Black Keys show at Bonnaroo once, so I'm not one to talk you out of putting on White Blood Cells again.
But that being said, there's stuff I like on the first few Keys releases and their Junior Kimbrough tribute EP Chulahoma is genuinely great. Try "Have Love, Will Travel" and the title track off thickfreakness and maybe the "No Fun" cover off the No Fun EP. But besides Chulahoma, the Keys were never able to sustain my interest and I checked out completely with Attack and Release.
Actually, I downvoted you because the prices at the merch tent at the local AME church on Sunday were much more reasonable.
Also, because I've Aretha's Amazing Grace album, so I know the difference between an idea that triumphs the African American religious experience, and a cynical, poorly thought out, exercise in self-obsession.
I mean, being dated and completely out of step with the current state of the genre didn't hurt Is This It back in 2009. If anything, people gave it extra credit for how much it meant to them at the time.
"The vocals start back up, and the singer hits us with some of his patented idiocy: “the kiosk in my temporal lobe is shaped like Rosalynn Carter.” Hey, great idea, say some opaque bullshit, everyone will think you’re some kind of tormented genius. You’re not fooling anyone, Cedric (or Omar, who the fuck cares at this point). The kiosk in your temporal lobe is a fucking Sunglasses Hut, you pretentious little bitch."
OK, this might slightly disprove my point... but it's still fucking great.
Well, I was gonna vote for Beto, but the dude who does a poor job (still haven't figured out how to post a gif? that's basically all that you do!) doing the world's laziest dog impersonation on my favorite mp3 blog convinced me not to.
I don't remember this at all. In fact, considering what troll culture was back then, I think it's a little disingenuous to lump any criticism Mars Volta got as early-onset MAGA culture. I mean, unless you were surfing 4chan threads, that kind of troll culture didn't exist yet.
And Speaking personally, the people who pushed Mars Volta on me were giant Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters fans. The same dudes who were still obsessed with Sublime five years after Bradley Nowell died. I didn't dislike the Mars Volta because they were pretentious. I disliked them because I thought they were terrible.
The Mars Volta were for kids who were worried that hanging their Tarkus poster in their dorm would make them look like dorks. It's a more accepting community nowadays. I'm not sure if they would get as big as they did in the present environment, now that 20 year olds can quit lying to themselves and just admit they like Rush.
I much less Ezra's recent dalliance with Collins-core than a lot of people around here. But even I agree that "Harmony Hall" is much better than "FloriDaDa."
"adopt some jam band tendencies without going full-on jam band"
I mean, that's pretty much what "What Would I Want? Sky" is. And that's one of my favorite Animal Collective songs.
Trouble is, it's also kinda what Painting With is, and that album was fucking unlistenable.
Lazarus was dead for only a few days. The part of me that had any interest in Ben Gibbard songs has been dead for well over a decade.
The Beths are better than Jesus.
New Music day was Tuesday, not Monday. But I know what you mean. New Music Friday is easily the worst thing that can blamed on Taylor Swift.
Well, except for the Trump administration.
Also, saw this on the other site
https://media.pitchfork.com/photos/5c911c4382c70a5c60a01f24/2:1/w_320/J-Cole.jpeg
and realized J Cole = rap game Adam Duritz
On Friday, this song "545" by Franky Flowers showed up as the second song on my Weekly Radar and I haven't been able to stop listening to it. I was a bit puzzled because I wasn't really sure who Franky Flowers were. Turns out, "545" is the third single they've released, and I had heard their other two singles one time each in May of 2016.
Yet Spotify knew enough to put them second on my personalized Released Radar and I've listened to the song around 10 times since then. This pleases me, but at the same time we're that much closer to SkyNet becoming self-aware.
Anyway, you guys should check out the song.
I mean, even at the time I remember thinking "yeah, To Pimp a Butterfly/DAMN is really good and might be one of the best albums of the year, but it's not as good as good kid mad city/To Pimp a Butterfly. Some of that may be nostalgia, but I think it's a pretty fair assessment. In fact, I'd be pretty surprised to see DAMN. in top 20s.
Ok, dude. I'm hesitant to take online etiquette advice from someone who repeatedly uses straw man arguments to justify calling a stranger a dick. But I'm equally hesitant to take any sort of advice from someone who uses a mediocre pun for a username. Maybe those two equal hesitations can cancel each other out.
Done! Now I hope you'll excuse my newly acquired exemplary manners, but you're being a bit of an asshole. (Isn't it so poignant when the student becomes the teacher?)
But we were talking about a musical genre. Musical genres typically don't have exemplary manners. Punk rock isn't a Jane Austen heroine.
I gotta admit. I'm pretty impressed that you're able to self-righteously virtue signal about good manners while calling me a dick in the same sentence. However, by your own definition, that's not very punk rock of you.
I mean, I'm sure you can go to a death metal shows and be greeted with open arms and treated with respect. And I'm sure you can go to pop shows and have to deal with a bunch of assholes. But that doesn't make death metal an inclusive musical genre or pop an exclusive one.
I'm the "punk isn't a genre, it's an aesthetic guy" guy, but whatever Hallmark card told you that "inclusivity is punk rock" fucking lied to you.
I question punk's usefulness as a genre descriptor because punk is constantly reactive. It doesn't confine itself around a set of principles as much as it defines itself against things that are not sufficiently "punk."
Questioning whether other things are punk or not is the only thing that gives punk any sense of coherence.
[just realized that the end of this comment got clipped off for some reason. Here's the director's cut:]
And judging solely from those expectations, Sky Blue Sky was a pretty massive disappointment. On its own terms, it's a pretty fantastic record, but I think it took people a while to grant the album those terms.
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