The order in which I heard their albums throughout high school is the exact reverse order of this list,.No shit.I feel extremely lucky that my introduction to Pavement was Brighten the Corners, which is probably why I like it more than most. I then found a cassette copy of Terror Twilight in a friend's glove box with a few older tracks on the end and so on. The joy of getting into a band long after the fact.
Also please disregard all whining about these Worst to Best or anniversary posts. I'll gladly take reading about how awesome Pavement is over reading about small time music biz gossip and pissing matches.
So much of the opinioneering and critique of acts is based on presentation and image, but with Santigold, this just seems secondary to, who guessed it, good tunes. No matter what her image, or role-model qualifications are, she just makes solid music. And her fusion of genres seems seamless compared to the car-wrecks we often hear.
"As a person with little knowledge of her growing fame, I found little connection to this article and what I’ve perceived and continue to perceive about Grimes as an individual, an artist, or the intentions of this individual/artist."
As someone who uses this site frequently, but not thoroughly or religously, and does not read many other blogs, I have said some variation of this same thing to myself a lot of times. There is a lot to say about music and the blogosphere hidden in the line from your comment quoted above. Music has always been beholden to its context and the personalities of those who make it, but now this seems completely out of hand. I try to be strong-minded, but its damn near impossible to separate yourself from the shit load of hype and commentary and bickering about music (especially music that has been around for less than a year), before you give it a full listen. If I could labotomize myself to remove the "knowledge of her growing fame" before hearing a new artist, I'd seriously consider it. Picture me with headphones and a power drill in an homage to the closing scenes of Pi.
P.S. - I still love music criticism (I'm here arent I), I think I'm just fucking overwhelmed.
btw, enjoyed your comment (article?)
Boy she really stuck it to everyone. After this bold, anti-establishment statement, I wonder how long she took to cash her massive check from the corporate sponsers of the Super Bowl. Also does she know that in America we will allow gruesome violence and borderline profanity on primetime TV, but people (and the Supreme Court) think their children will turn into nymphomaniac anarchists if they see a boob of half an ass on TV. By this measure, the "wardrobe malfunction" was way more subversive.
I think a lot this hype-boom-let down cycle with LDR and lot of other artists is due to a clash between a singles-driven pop world and an album driven indie-world that are constantly becoming more intertwined. If people who like original, challenging music are also going to like pop stars and if bands who make solid critically-acclaimed albums are also going to have singles that appear on the radio, we need recalibrate some shit. I think the expectations for a great LP from a pop artist with a few good singles (both to make one and for it to be any good) needs to be lower or , here's a thought, don't make an album's worth of material if you only have a few good songs. Who says you need LPs anyways. I think a lot of artists would be better off just releasing singles and having their LPs be ignored like so many Top 40 artists. If LDR had done this, many of the people on this blog would still be happily listening to Video Games and not switching off this album after 5 tracks. In the meantime, she could be polishing up the best material on said album for an EP release later this year just as the first wave of hype wears off and everyone has forgotten about her SNL performance.
And now Miracles of Modern Science get a massive publicity boost (rightfully so, they're pretty good and this video is perfect). Is making a one minute parody of a critic-worshiped band a new formula for success? Hey, it beats building a whole career on a music video with treadmills in it.
My first step into the wider world of good music started with the blues when I was about 12 (incidently,I didn't discover this whole "punk" or "indie" business until took off my birkenstocks and Hendrix shirts and went to college). I had always preferred older, gritty, southern, country blues and turned my nose up at blues music with big bands or the slick Chicago sound that arose with Muddy Waters and the rest in the 50s. Then I heard Etta James, specifically the song "Tell Mama". Everything that I loved about the blues and everything I loved about motown and soul pouring out of one incredible voice. My tastes have expanded a lot since then, but Etta helped me accept that the blues did not have to be about finger-pickin on a porch in the Delta. She will be missed
I'm amazed at how this phenomenon spans from great bands to really shitty bands.
A related topic would be "Bands who reference their own band name frequently." The Hold Steady comes to mind. Possibly Metalica as well since James Hetfield wore Metallica shirts on stage, which is so lame that it circles back on itself and is awesome?
Pulp, Refused, Jimmy Cliff, Pulp, Girls, Refused, Yuck, Black Angels, Pulp, EMA! Holy shit that's only day 1.
This has to got be some of the best small print I've ever seen on a line up poster. Now I have to decided between this and N.O. Jazz Fest (which is only 2.5 hours away instead of the other side of the country).
Let's just move Coachella to the deep south, where all great culture resides.
Animals definitely fits. My favorite Floyd album. I actually heard my local, usually crappy, classic rock station play all 17 min. of "Dogs" the other day and I couldn't believe it. I assume the DJ was fired the next day.
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