Getting mega mom vibes from Nina Gordon, like she ransacked her daughter's closet for an outfit and just surprisingly revealed to her that she used to have a cool alt rock band back in the day. It reminds me of that skit on SNL where the dad's old hardcore band reunites at his daughter's wedding.
"There should be a field that requires readers to offer a logical explanation as to why they downvoted another user to decrease revenge downvoting." - Me making an irrational request
I'm pretty sure the talk about her not continuing on the pop path was directed at her direction on her next album and not the in-between non-album singles she's been releasing the last few months to keep her cred intact with rhyme purists. This sounds like she caved to label pressures with people who still insist she make watered-down, radio-friendly hits rather than rap.
Obligatory "Ryan Leas with another impressive long read" kudos. I'm admittedly not well-versed on the Etten catalog, but I did find the backstory on her career discipline and personal relationships to be something quite pure and earnest. In my short-lasting by painfully-long-in-misery life, I think a lot of people aren't as honest with themselves with their desires and often crumble when positioned before risk, and she comes off as daring and fair.
And not for nothing and I hope by saying this I don't get accused of saying something misogynistic, but what an absolutely beautiful portrait of a person she is.
I'm thinking she will go the Christina Aguilera post-hypersexualized Stripped route with her image and music by trying out different "artsier" directions on her next album (instead of Sia and members of Le Tigre, it'll be Wayne Coyne) and it'll fall flat. She'll have a rushed marriage, appear to "settle down" from her wild child character, divorce after two or three years when she realizes she wants to be relevant again and end up judging a TV singing competition (or whatever the equivalent to a safe payout with ample media exposure is by then.)
Weren't Drake and all her people saying she was going to put her post-Gaga days behind her and get back to rhyming hard and putting everyone to shame with her skills? This introspective sap rap-pop sounds as safe as a Macklemore single. Without the nursery rhymes, it could have been a Rihanna song. It could been a Katy Perry song. It could been a new Sia song. Which is to say it has no identity to it, which is to say it probably will be a radio hit, which is to say Corban over at Pitchfork is probably writing its Best New Track writeup right now.
While visiting home for Christmas one year, my friends and I went to the local townie karaoke bar which was (is still?) traditionally where all of the young townies and home-for-the-holiday types reconvene on Christmas night. There was this one disaster of a chick in her mid-20s who was sitting the corner of the room with her much older skeeze-ball-looking boyfriend / father figure, and she was kind of pretty, but kind of worn out-looking in a disheveled mess sort of way. She would get up religiously to sing a song, each time more drunker than the last. The highlight was when she did Creed's "With Arms Wide Open," to which she changed the lyrics "arms" to "legs" and mumbled through the song flat without shame. I think that girl was actually Miley after watching this.
I very much like Amoeba. It's an obligatory stop when I'm on the west coast. I also try to shop their online for vinyl because they ship for free and quickly at that.
I don't like this idea. Urban Outfitters sells shitty, overpriced hipster costumes that are never sized right or made poorly, and there's that thing where the CEO's political allegiance leans to the right. Amoeba doesn't need Urban Outfitters, but as stated, Urban Outfitters needs Amoeba.
It felt it like last night, but after reading this interview with Jordan Billie, I think the reunion is going to be special event specific right now. They'll probably hit up a few punk-minded fests, do a few nights in NYC and ignore everyone in between: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/blood-brothers-reunion-interview
It sucks because I really want to see them, but I don't want to splurge on the trip to do so.
I'm not one to post personal e-mail exchanges, but I can 100% confirm that such an apologetic e-mail exchange occurred a few weeks ago with [REDACTED] to which he kindly responded and accepted.
It's that easy these days? Well, then...
Sorry to Tom if you were offended that I made fun of dad marijuana use even though I'm not a dad and haven't smoked a tree in my life.
Sorry to Damian from Fucked Up if you were offended for the same reason above.
Sorry to Chris Deville if you were offended that I made fun of your pop column because the Ariana Grande song isn't as good as people say it is but that's just my opinion.
Sorry to the guy who wrote the SDRE Diary anniversary piece if you were offended that I hadn't bothered to Google your by-line beforehand because that would be too easy.
Sorry to the chick who writes the "TV Party" column if you were offended that I never visited Videogum when it was alive to see your writing there just like people have no idea I write.
Sorry to raptorjesus if you were offended when I made fun of your excitement the night the My Bloody Valentine album dropped even though I'm a sad sap.
Sorry to all the people who comment using their facebook posts if you were offended when I posted pics of you and your (now ex-)girlfriends even though I'm perpetually single and haven't even gotten hugged by a woman in 5 years.
Sorry to ferns, Michael Hanna and cerebrus if you were offended because I exist.
Sorry to Dylan from Cloud Nothings if you were offended because I lose my filter when I'm in a bad mood and that has nothing to do with you.
Sorry to the guy from Greys if you were offended when I bandwagoned someone else's comment for calling you pretentious even though I've never met you.
Sorry to the chick from Speedy Ortiz if you were offended when I bandwagoned someone else's comment for calling the guy in Greys pretentious and mentioning you are labelmates even though I've never met you.
Sorry to Scott at Stereogum if you were offended that I overly criticized your site's business goals even though my career is stagnant.
Sorry to everyone else reading if you were offended by this comment and are going to downvote it
Seeing that the Blood Brothers are playing Fun Fun Fun Fest makes me wonder if I should make the trip out to FYF now, since it kinda indicates they'll be touring in some form, right?
All of these DFA1979 bookings on lineups lately -- Here's hoping this is indicative of a new album this year!
Nice to see Knapsack's reunion jaunt still has some more juice in it, too.
Ads before streams would be terrible. I also wonder how that would affect streams being aggregated on sites like HypeMachine. As always, everything that is a good idea eventually becomes comprised by terribleness.
It sounds like she was going for one of those 'Ye / Drake-type whack lyrics with the soup line, but it didn't quite pan out the way she intended. I'll reserve my final judgement though, because if there is an opportunity not be missed here, it's putting BANKS in a bowl of uneaten soup, drowning.
The production is really what's fixating about her music, and I've yet to encounter a weak spot in here.
Upon news of their reunion happening, there was some curiosity as to whether or not present-day folk-era Halstead's voice would be able to turn into its former shoegazing form. Aside from the Galifianakis look he's sporting, I'd say it has.
It's better than the alternative, which was -- when I saw him about a year ago -- using real slaughterhouse film of animals getting all chopped up, intestines pouring out, beaks thrown into the grinder, etc.
"I’m inclined to take the guy at his word here, if only because it’s impossible to imagine anyone — especially a mainstream entertainer — could be so blatantly insensitive on purpose."
#takebackthenight
It looks like Braff took all that pent-up corny end-scene monologue from Scrubs since it went off the air and just blew a nut with it into a feature length film. Good thing sensitive guy indie rock music has been replaced by sensitive rap guy and emo revival music in the time since, ensuring this thing will look like an outdated joke upon arrival.
"...it means that the 70-year-old Rolling Stones frontman has now lived long enough to see his kids’ kids have kids."
70 isn't actually that old. Most people's parents are lucky if they become grandparents by the time they're his age. It just means that like their father / grandfather, Jagger's lineage like to get it on early and reproduce.
Man, this reminds me that I need to revisit Tomboy. This sounds much more colorful than that album, though.
"...pierogis, kielbasa and Zywiec for sale as elderly Polish women oversee the proceedings."
That sounds amazing right there in itself. Can you actually eat the pierogies while watching the show, and what varieties do they offer? Boiled? Fried?
Well, I guess people giving a standing ovation to a fucking hologram seems about right in a day in age where that post-Pink Sia song gets named Best New Track on Pitchfork...
I don't get what the huge deal is to dislike music or to be critical of its orbiting talking points as much as it is to like it. When did we become such a soft, oversensitive Internet society where everything has to be a unanimously agreeing utopia of positive statements and excitement? That sounds to me like it would defeat the purpose of a comment section altogether.
For what it's worth, I actually do contribute a lot of positive statements about music / the artists covered here on this site / what's being written / who is writing it. The problem? They're often comments in stories that only garner one comment (mine) and maybe another. Ever think that maybe the stuff I get incredibly excited for is the stuff you don't even bother to click on?
Looking at the downvotes thus far, I want to clarify that I don't say this to be condescending. Try to relate it to getting into a stupid argument with someone, offering your apology (even though you don't think you should have to apologize) but instead of the person being the equal "big" person in accepting it and moving on smoothly, they don't, there's radio silence and then they hold a grudge against you. That appears to be the vicious cycle between myself and others around here, and instead of bending over backwards to play nice with people, I'm choosing to filter out those who comment and writer here who are selective readers and hang on my every comment waiting for the ones where I say something negative so they can jump on me 100 times harder for it when people like Michael Hanna, Nathan Christensen or "pickpocket" do just the exact same to acknowledgement of nobody.
Again, the Blood Brothers are reuniting.
The Blood Brothers are reuniting and I couldn't give two shits about how many times I end up in or sweep the bottom five anymore. Take me for who I am, both the good and that which you have a different and wrong opinion about.
By that definition, I'm still safely tucked into the millennial category, but I mostly relate it to people who are still in their teens / college age. The person who was clueless to them was a 22 year old college student, which means he was only about 12 years old when the Blood Brothers were peaking a decade ago. It makes sense that there's a large group of young writers out there who know very little about them. I recently eavesdropped on a string of tweets a few weeks back by some press industry kids in which they were discussing having just discovered At the Drive-In, if that adds to the upcoming generation's current perspective.
They do sell single day tickets but very, very few of them and those have always sold out very quickly. I agree about the Stokes day.
I'm really conflicted about attending this year. I didn't want to go to Coachella because I knew without a shadow of the doubt that FYF's lineup would cater to my tastes better, but I was basically Christmas/birthday gifted a ticket to it and therefore obligated to attend. The Blood Brothers is one of my favorite all-time bands, and even though there's other names I enjoy, the rest isn't something I would regret missing. I don't feel like taking at another festival-driven vacation basically and I wish the one I did take was FYF.
But that Blood Brothers reunion... Does anyone think they'll tour after this? My fear is that like Hot Snakes, Quicksand and American Nightmare, they'll be playing FYF because they have a good relationship with the promoter but won't be traveling afterward.
I agree that this week's music video selection was on overload, so much that I missed the new Pictureplane song.
Awhile back, I remember there were plans to have this list represent both proper music videos and also important / talk-worthy video releases of the week (i.e. debuts of live songs, late night TV performances.) I'm just curious to know if that's still true, and if not, where would a certain elevator video have placed this week?
This thing hasn't sold out once in the past four years that I've gone, and even though the headliners have a bit more mass appeal, I still can't see ticket sales skyrocketing in pace.
The original Pitchfork write-up didn't even make note of it. 20 minutes past and they sent out another tweet making mention of it with a line updated about that news. All I could do was picture Brandon Stosuy nudging the young writer who put the story up and being like, "Ummm, hey, this is kind of a big deal..." I just had to explain to a millennial who they are.
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