" Maya will be dismissed as “noisy” for people without a capacity to understand its message about our extreme digital consumption. etc etc etc"
See, my thing about all this is, I get it. I get why the album sounds the way it does and the message it's trying to convey. But it still *sounds* bad. It's aurally ugly. I don't care if you can or can't conceptually make a good album about the internet or the technological zeitgeist. I just care about how it's lame sauce for my ear sauce.
Heh, at this point I really can't tell if you're serious or not, but I'll respond anyway.
"Maya is only a big miss for people with small minds"
Bullshit. You've mainly talked about how this album challenges the listeners expectations, or how it angrily jumps out at them. I feel like such qualities evaporate when you take away the current context of the album. Which is to say, in ten years, when it's just another random album from 2010, it won't sound "challenging" or in your face or whatever. It will simply sound noisy. There's nothing inherently wrong with music having a message. But distorted, messy shit *being* a message is basically worthless.
Born Free and XXXO are undeniably poppy (though I think XXXO is a little thin), but it's pretty absurd to say the album as a whole is pop focused, but just with a weird industrial feel to it. It's like saying you're eating Mexican food, but it's slathered in marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese, so it's got an Italian feel to it. It just doesn't work like that.
We aren't hating just to be hating or hear ourselves type. And we're not putting our opinions over anyone else's. But when there's an article telling us why this particular album is actually better than we thought it was, featuring a bunch of weak ass points, I think people like Rob and I have a right to speak up.
Ok, for me, the music was forgettable because *everything* was try so desperately to be immediate and combustive. It was noisy and cluttered, and I forgot about it quickly like lots of other similarly noisy and cluttered things. But more crazily...
"Whether you enjoy the remainder of the album is beside the fact."
Come on, that's just ridiculous. You're saying that this album is, I don't know, important or relevant or something because it's so challenging and up front, and really makes the listener take a stance. You're straight up saying as long as something is intense and draws the listener's attention is doesn't have to be good - it's already got your attention.
MAYA is the girl at the party wearing gold American Apparel spandex, fire engine red lipstick, and Mary Kate Olsen accessories. She isn't pretty, everyone's just starting at her.
Well, to be fair, you're right. It's a memorable album. But I think what he was saying, and what I agree with, is that the *music* is forgettable. The fact that it generated some mixed reviews and definitely wasn't the album that people expected made it memorable. For some people that's not a good thing.
I can't get behind your biggest talking point being "the listeners ears were tainted by the bad press". It's 2010, tons of people (especially us internet dwellers) listen to an album before the reviews come out. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I wasn't a fan, and my mind was untainted.
You kind of lost me at the end there. I feel like one of your of's should have been an or, and it got me a little confused.
Are you saying it would be ridiculous to include any other the other albums by older artists (Spoon/Belle and Sebastian/Of Montreal/etc.) in the top 10/20? I fully get what your saying. Obviously there's no universal way for people to compare or rate music. Cake's been putting out consistently fantastic music for years that pretty much all sounds the same. For some people, that's great. For others, they would rather hear something new and different, even if it means that album is little rougher around the edges. And I understand (and respect) Stereogum's goal of bringing us the best new music there is. Which is probably why this list reads more like the Top 50 Albums by New/Up and Coming Acts.
That's not a bad thing. Overall it's a baller thing. But you still have old acts, like Vampire Weekend, who did little to nothing different on their second album, other than make it slightly less good. And if that's gonna fly as the #7 album of the year, I think Gorillaz/No Age did enough different on their albums, and merit inclusion in the top of the list for that and overall album quality.
Wow, and I was just starting to get into last year's The Life of the World to Come. And he just put out that Extra Lens album a couple months ago!
Dude rules.
It's not just a love of the bands. I love Spoon, but can see why Transference was left off this list.
Another way to look at it is maybe these albums were left the list because they didn't live up to the standards set by those bands in the past, which would be as unfair as complaining about a lack of a band because you liked their old stuff. False Priest was no Hissing Fauna, but I would still place it above Small Black's album (which I enjoyed quite a bit).
I don't know about MIA. I know the hate for MAYA was extra harsh because people were expecting something like her past two albums, and that in time those people will chill out a little, look back, and give the album less of a knee jerk evaluation. And I'm sure some of them will end up actually liking it.
I just think most of those people will still think it's bad.
At first I was actually pleased at how current the nominees were. Then I realized that they consider those to be the 5 best albums of the year. Even by mainstream media standards, Teenage Dream got shitty reviews. And having never heard of Lady Antebellum, I had to wikipedia them. Country band whose album got a 2 star review from Rolling Stone and went 3X platinum. They will win.
Picking apart lists and throwing up your own top 10 is always a fun little distraction, but if I can be serious for a moment...
The new Interpol is on this list and the Black Keys and Broken Bells aren't.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5BMQ-xpTog
I felt the same way when I saw Vampire Weekend and Beach House up there. I guess that's the trade off with all this immediate access to new music... we hear more, but don't always give some albums the long term love they deserve.
Gonna listen to that Beach House album right now because I haven't in a while and because I'm super pumped to see it at #3 on one of these lists.
Weird. It's an interesting story, about the musical and all. But I was always under the impression that no one under 35 really cared about U2, and that no one over 35 cared about Spiderman. I'm sure there's bound to be some overlap but... a strange idea nonetheless.
"Just as Taylor never came to my defense in any interview"
Holy Jesus. Didn't she say she wasn't mad at him? Seems like that should be more than enough
Have you seen Slow Century? Sure, it's reasonable to assume Malkmus and Spiral Stairs aren't in love with each other, but Malk and Nastanovich? Or for that matter the rest of the band? They're downright chummy. And that was recorded long after the band broke up.
I'm sure the reunion was for cash. And that's cool. The fans were as eager to pay to see the band as the band was to receive their money. And their shows are heartfelt and fun, so it's fine. And literally all of the band members have quality outside musical work, so it's not like they're desperate to get back into the game. Seriously, Pig Lib and Face the Truth didn't do it for you? Bummer.
You don't have utter contempt for Pavement. How could you, you listened to one half of one of their albums.
So you've heard, what, less than 10% of Pavement's catalog, and yet you label them as fake and shallow. If I had to guess, you just seem to had a bug up your butt about Pavement being "cool", while Smashing Pumpkins catch nothing but flack these days. You think that because they're perceived as hip, they can't have any soul to them. That they're simply the "phony calling card of indie hipsters to demonstrate a certain pseudo-cool".
This leads us to an interesting conclusion. You seem to hate Pavement fans for being in some way disingenuous, y'know, only liking the music because it's cool to be liked. You view their fandom and popularity as something totally superficial, which is hilarious, because that's exactly what you're doing in hating the band. You've hardly listened to them, but you hate them, mainly because of what other people think .
"Pitchfork seems to favor indie savvy and hipster-consciousness more then heartfelt and emotive art"
Actually listen to Gold Soundz, and tell me it isn't more heartfelt and emotive Loser or Buddy Holly, and if it really sounds like they don't know how to play their instruments.
full disclosure: I was a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan before I was a Pavement fan, and I still am. To this day I'll still take Machina over Terror Twilight.
That said, it's pretty ridiculous to say Pavement doesn't write emotional, personal songs. The two bands just take different approaches. The Pumpkins are more straightforward, because Billy Corgan is and always has been incredibly open, and that's fine. But not every musician needs to be so very open about their nihilism, upbringing, then eventual reconnection with God to have personal music.
I'll be damned if 1979 and Range Life don't convey the same kind of nostalgic yearning. Hell, pretty much every lyric in 33 or 1979 could be a non sequitur, boring ass Malkmus musing. Cut You Hair is kinda the same song as Cherub Rock. And if Fin, Here, We Dance, Stop Breathin', and Fillmore Jive don't touch on some sort human experience pulse, then you're probably missing something big. I mean, do you think Dylan's slurred one liners are impersonal just because they aren't as one dimensionally, heart on your sleeve as "Who wouldn't stand inside your love?"
I remember accidentally catching them on SNL the last time they played the show, like four years ago. We watched it in the common area at a friend's dorm. People who hadn't heard the album were generally turned off by the performance. Kinda a bummer, because they sound oddly weak again here when they're so solid on record.
It's kind of funny, seeing Corgan boasting that the Smashing Pumpkins will be playing new songs. It's Corgan's new band playing new material, and throwing in some old Pumpkins hits to please the crowd. Both Pavement and the SP's broke it off, and their members all went on to do other work. Malkmus put out 4 solid solo albums in the decade, whereas Corgan put out a solid album with Zwan, a terrible solo album, then went back to playing the big shows under the Pumpkins moniker. Zeitgeist and the Future Embrace were both bad, but one sold ten times as many copies as the other.
I'd love a new Pavement album, but I also love all the stuff the band members are doing on their own. They don't need to brand any of it Pavement, it stands up on quality alone.
And even though reunion tours are pretty universally money grabs, Pavement are playing solid shows with passion and love for their fans, and it's all good.
This is solid, but not magnificent. I've always liked Kanye to an extent, mostly for his production and ambition. On the other hand, I've always found his lyrics and flow to be lacking. I know a lot of hip hop is rapping about one's self, and your greatness/haters etc., but at some point I'd like you to extend your general focus. My hands down favorite track here is Runaway. I love it. I love the simplicity of the arrangement. The minimalist piano backed up with a simple beat and droning synths, all topped off by a crazy auto tuned vocalized guitar solo and all that. But when you throw in "I sent this bitch a picture of my dick", it's just tacky and tasteless. There are better subjects.
I don't doubt the guy throws himself into his work whole heartedly, but I don't think he understands that that doesn't make it *good* work. Can't Tell Me Nothing. Clean production, memorable chorus, but the first lyric is "I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven / When I awoke I spent that on a necklace" Straight up bad rap. Dude's convinced he's the hardest working, most committed artist in the biz. Truth of the matter is he just talks about it the most. He says he sunk 5000 man hours into Power. Sweet, St. Anger took years to make and it's still a solid turd.
This album is solid. There's some stuff on it I don't care for, namely the non-Runaway long tracks. But yeah, overall it's good. Still, I'm in the minority on Kanye. Lots of people consider his stuff classic, and probably rightfully so. Yet he still goes on radio shows (recently) and gets pissed over how he'll never get the classic or 5 star ratings. Dude's chilled out a lot in the past couple of years but still has a waaays to go.
The worst part about this is her shitty singing. The whole hardcore 'Gum hate on Gwyneth is seriously tired, but this seriously does suck because her singing sucks. That's all.
Just to be clear, Kanye was the first to make the parallel between Bush and himself both being accused of racism. Here's the first thing I could find
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjTLUxaWtlM&feature=player_embedded#!
I'm pretty sure the only reason he's responding so calmly and positively to this recent Bush interview is because he feels like he and W are now one in the same, wrongly accused of something nasty, and now he gets it and feels kinda bad.
Anyway, except for Kanye having a minor flip out at the Taylor Swift clip, I thought both parties kept it pretty reasonable. I'm just bummed he broke down there at the end. Sounded like we were about to hear a calm, collected explanation for the VMA incident.
I think the whole mix up might stem from the fact that Kanye didn't mean (or should't have implied) that Bush hated all black people. He was just understandably irked at Bush/FEMA/etc. for not doing enough to help out the underprivileged, many of whom were black, who were really getting boned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF_vTm35SEA
I think the whole mix up might stem from the fact that Kanye didn't mean (or should't have implied) that Bush hated all black people. He was just understandably irked at Bush/FEMA/etc. for not doing enough to help out the underprivileged, many of whom were black, who were really getting boned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF_vTm35SEA
As four, or five, or however many music videos, this is really slick. But all the film bits inbetween are really just lamesauce. That, and Kayne's apparently very into this idea of a phoenix riding him.
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