Comments

I wouldn’t put Don’t Look Up in that company. At least the sensibility is a complete 180 - vicious satire instead of heartwarming whatever the fuck. Not saying it’s Great Cinema but I appreciate what they were doing with it.
At this point, I think the safest course of action is simply to cancel all podcasts. There are too many podcasts. Shut them all down until we can get to the bottom of this.
Okay so you're just intentionally missing the point, got it.
Everyone knows that’s true. No one is asking Spotify to provide a UBI. They’re asking for fair compensation and even the barest recognition that the musicians whose work they built their business on are anything more than an indistinguishable mass of audio content to be fed into algorithms.
“For most of our lives, it was acceptable to say if not used as a racial epithet.” Um… how old are you?
I would like to see Kate Bush inducted by Big Boi. Also has Outkast even been nominated? They've been eligible for a couple years now. Joint Kate Bush / Outkast induction, please.
I wonder if MC5 ever makes it? Undoubtedly deserving, but without one of those hit songs that everyone knows, and with the two best-known members being dead since the early 90s, its hard to see what would get them over the hump. The 80s synth and 90s rap acts also cast a much longer shadow on the contemporary music scene, so even the ones that haven't stuck around stand a better chance of being rediscovered.
Wow, that last sentence. "The exact same." That's the worst take. We did it, guys. Rock bottom. We made it all the way down.
How about "Spotify is joining Facebook and other media platforms in profiting from dangerous 'choose-your-own-reality' content and pressuring them to make some concessions to the public interest is actually good"? The idea that our only options are total information anarchy and totalitarian censorship if a false one. It's also one that Spotify and the rest would love for people to believe. No need to do their PR for them.
Why would that be necessary? I'm talking about what media companies host on their own platforms. They can make the choice not to host false, harmful content. You're acting like I'm arguing for some kind of centralized board of censors who make these decisions categorically. I'm not. I'm saying I would like Spotify to take responsibility for curation that goes beyond "this brings in subscribers so we're keeping it up." I also realize that there will inevitably be controversies about what is harmful and even what is false. Just like there's controversy over how they're drawing the line now. But just because shit can get complicated doesn't justify Spotify or Facebook or whoever else washing their hands of the problem.
I'm in favor of media companies choosing not to promote bullshit. That isn't censorship by any meaningful definition of the term.
Exactly. It's weird to see arguments that are couched in anti-corporate sentiments work all the way around to defending exactly what these corporations want, which is to have as much content and as many users engaging as much as as possible without having to do make any decisions that would hurt their metrics and make them less valuable to advertisers.
Yep, every time something like this comes up I realize that 90% of Stereogum commenters have no idea what the first amendment does. Assuming Spotify canceled Rogan's contract and stopped airing his show, which they've made clear they are not going to do, that would not be a free speech issue (though depending on the terms of the contract Rogan could probably sue them for any other reasons). They don't have to host anything they don't want to. Rogan's right to free speech is not a right to have his speech promoted by a major media conglomerate.
Spotify already has rules about what people can and cannot say on podcasts and talk shows. This isn't a free speech or first amendment issue. Joe Rogan has a show that they paid him to make specifically for their platform. The question is whether they should be producing and promoting a show where someone spreads this kind of bullshit.
Yes, you have typed each of these points like a dozen times up and down this page now, they are still irrelevant. It doesn't matter if there are some people who use their platform in worse ways than Rogan. It doesn't matter if he sometimes uses his platform in good ways or ways you like. It also doesn't matter how many times you call him a comedian. He is at the center of this controversy because Spotify has gone all in on his show & yet they want to pretend like what he says on the show that they contracted & promote & exclusively host is none of their businesses, or now, like they can balance it out by putting up a sticker. If Tucker Carlson had an exclusive deal with Spotify we would be talking about that. Also why are you putting libertarian in quotes? He voted libertarian in the last three elections. If anything should be in quotes it should be comedian.
Yang is also a complete hack, that doesn't get Joe Rogan any points. And not that it would really matter in this context but Rogan isn't a leftist, he's a libertarian, his politics suck ass and the fact that he had a half-assed Bernie Bro phase during one election cycle does not change that. Btw you were the one who brought up Carlson in the first place, so how are you going to jump down someone's throat for 'defending' Carlson when all they did was respond to your comparison. The whole point about personal responsibility is irrelevant (also I had no idea Joe identified as a comedian... has he ever been funny? Is his podcast billed as comedy?) At the end of the day misinformation means less people getting vaccinated, more people in ICUs and emergency rooms, more trauma for overworked nurses and doctors, more strain on our healthcare system. Misinformation doesn't just harm the people who believe it or act on it.
So maybe the problem is Facebook? Just join us in the comments here. It's good shit. Mostly.
Haha I definitely remember people flipping out when the Lizzy Grant EP came to light like it was this smoking gun that proved… something?
Some acts arrive fully-formed on the debuts, some... are Lana Del Rey. It's amazing that "Video Games" is on the same album as all of these other songs. BTD has its moments, but taken as a whole, it feels like a moodboard more than an album, all of the Americana and Old Hollywood and "gangster Nancy Sinatra" stuff is just kind of pinned on, like James said the beats and string arrangements and are demo-tape tacky in a lot of places. It's really hard to process something like "The National Anthem" or "Off to the Races" as anything other than camp, like who was asking for Betty Boop trip hop about gold-digging in the long tail of the Great Recession? But what's impressive to me in hindsight is how Lana basically didn't back down on a single one of the affectations or aesthetics here, she just kept revising this ROUGH rough draft and by the end of the decade it got somewhere kind of great.
It was a weird time. Some kind of critical infrastructure test for the indie-to-mainstream pipeline. Part of what makes her early career awkward was that the blogosphere that defined 00s indie and intermittently succeeded at minting new crossover acts was on its way out, but social media was still in its infancy (like you said, the hype behind her was coming from actual publications, both online and print, as opposed to Twitter or something like that, though "Video Games" did blow up on YouTube). The whole idea where indiedom finds a "Next Big Thing" and if that Thing is Big enough it goes Mainstream, possibly via SNL (which has basically given up on indie since about 2014), all of that seems so anachronistic. Like now a new act, to really hit the pop world, has to supernova really fast, and those metrics are easily quantifiable thanks to Spotify, TikTok, YouTube, etc., and so out-of-nowhere hits still happen but music critics just comment on it after the fact as opposed to facilitating it. I know there was a lot of discussion back then about whether she was a plant or whatever, but in hindsight the way it happened seems kind of ... pure? to me in a way that I don't really believe can happen anymore. I feel like the age of the indie-to-mainstream crossover is basically over.
I’m not really a Broadway gay but I was excited to see Hadestown with my folks over the holidays and of course Omicron shut that down. And since we had those tix I didn’t bother going when it toured through Boston the month before. Hoping I’ll get a a chance to see it this year.
“Whatever It Is We Are Today”
If we're judging by when she wrote the most than Taylor was at peak artistic seriousness in 2010 with Speak Now, which is all her, every track. Also 2015 was the 1989 era and she really did recruit Max Martin / Shellback and work closely with them on pretty much every song so that the album would express a coherent vision. But it says a lot about how you and a lot of people process music that you would assume she was a "factory pop star" when she made those records while she was "talented and passionate" when she worked with Dessner (and saying he 'fostered her growth' into a more serious artist is beyond patronizing). I think the problem you see in this comment is the same with Damon's original statement, which is this weird conflation of authorship with quality and integrity. Is it really so hard to admit that someone can be a talented and capable songwriter whose songs you just don't happen to like?
While we're on the subject of taste, I think its pretty cringe that all the 90s rock dads gush over Billie when she isn't any more of an auteur than Taylor and I think, as much as you can make an objective comparison, a significantly less talented lyricist and melodicist, basically just because she has kind of a dark vibe and that suits their sense of what a serious artists' aesthetic should be like. These are guys who think they have some really deep insight into the music industry and they are fully taken by some goth make-up and a trap beat.
IMO this justifies the whole saga and I'm shipping them https://twitter.com/gabrielboric/status/1485779475358834691
It's good but not even the best I read today thanks to this Pulitzer contender: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/green-mm-mars-wrigley-rebrand-sneakers-slut-1287965/
Can confirm Two Princes still getting plenty of radio play. Heard it at the barbershop today. "Driver's License" into "Two Princes." But will we be hearing Olivia Rodrigo jams in 2050?
oxy nightmares and writhing in pain seems oddly appropriate for twigs, though maybe less for this release than the last couple. glad you're on the mend, friend!
And it makes two back-to-back #1s for Spoon. Lucifer is gonna be lit.
Sometimes you just need one listen to know. I have had Wild on repeat all week. What an amazing song. And what an honor to be quoted in the blurb! Thanks, Ryan!
oh I love this... this is like when Do You came out and it was such a perfect and perfectly Spoon-y song I almost couldn't believe they hadn't made it already
After discussing Blonde, Hurry Up We're Dreaming, and now this, I'm realizing that my boldest Stereogum take is that I actually generally like interludes.
I think they're both just ripping off Moroder (via Daft Punk). It's a proud tradition. But Justice didn't invent synth bass or arpeggios.
I Heard You're Married is no Hot Wind Blows but as someone who came up in the peak Weezy era I just like that Lil Wayne features are a hot item again. I do agree about the lag, the first act up through Quincy story is just so good that the album was probably bound to feel front-loaded regardless, but IDK, maybe there are some growers in the back half. I was worried about bloat when I saw the tracklist, but I at least found it more engaging than After Hours.
Rachel era already slaps, can't wait to read more.
Would be even happier if we didn't have to wait til April for this but still what an excellent way to kick off 2022
I agree with everything thiscity said, the problems with Seph's comments have been explained by multiple people, & I'm not here to coddle people who bring in Bill O'Reilly-ass talking points about "rap culture." Also you are weirdly obsessed with me & how I comment, get a fucking life dude.
This is the silver lining in the situation: in areas with high vaccination rates, even a large surge in infections should result in many fewer hospitalizations and deaths than previous surges. That said, I don't see how this is a response to anything ShadowMorpheus said.
People aren’t afraid to have this conversation it’s just that blaming “rap culture” is the stupidest possible way to start the conversation. No shit the indie rock trust fund brigade is not living or dying the same way now use both of your brain cells and think about what’s actually deeply wrong with this country
I don’t understand this or why people are upvoting it. There have been studies showing that asymptomatic people spread the virus and more to the tune of causing 40-50% of all infections, not just freak outliers. There’s also evidence that vaccinated people who get infected spread the virus, seemingly at similar rates to unvaccinated people. If both of those things are true, then there’s a pretty obvious case for testing.