Wow, I was literally just wondering what the hell has become of Abe Vigoda, spinning Skeleton and Kid City all week. They were one of my favorite bands of the past decade. I'm wrecked to hear that they're apparently no more, and this is very very nice to have at least... but I'll miss Abe Vigoda.
"A few short years ago, Riot Fest was nobody’s idea of a big deal."
Okay, so it's not just me. This thing has been around for a decade, and it doesn't feel like I've heard much about until the past two years or so.
FYF Fest's lineup drops later today, and given that the National stand a good chance of headlining it as well, and because it's also very punk / hardcore-crossover-minded, I can't help but think this is will be the first year where they had their thunder stolen in a festival of a similar category.
This is the natural comedown of Mylo Xyloto where the glowsticks and light-up bracelets that illuminated the arena begin to dim on the night drive home or when you sink back into your lonely apartment, tuning out the world with your headphones. Given the context of the celebrity break-up angle between Goopy and Martin, songs like "True Love" sound like a better version of Silverchair attempted to do on their final album / Daniel Johns' post-Imbruglia breakup.
Thumbs up to Chris pouring out the honest juice on that.
Also, "...and seriously, that photo creeps me out."
It definitely speaks to my earlier concern that he's gotten into a pattern of preying on young, impressionable pop stars who are enamored by his talents and can't pick up on his creep factor. Things are looking like the early stages of an SVU script in Wayne's world these days.
(Aside from quitting, which isn't an option and looking for a new job, which I have been frustratingly trying to do literally since the day I took this one a few years ago.)
I have to be more mindful of not indirectly insulting anyone or "hijacking" comment sections, though.
If anyone has any novel advice on how to bare my unhealthy work life without it causing me to continuously self-destruct before your eyes, that would be great. I guess not commenting during work hours might be a good start...
I better enjoy this mind-boggling number #1 comment this week (I had no idea that was so well-received?), because I think it's a foregone conclusion that I've already swept next week's bottom five.
Sidenote: I know you all of you don't want / need to hear the personal life element behind the nature of my comments, but the end of this week was really effing toxic and beyond irritating in a way I never thought could be imaginable due to work, and since I mostly comment when I am at work, I become a dick on here. I've been warned a few times about it and am literally am on my last warning I think, so I should know better, and I really don't mean to be such a negative force in the comments or insult anyone in particular like the writers themselves, so it very much sucks that I both can't get out of my own way and rely on Stereogum comments to provide some version of a normal interaction with the outside world during my daytime Monday through Friday.
Sorry for crashing your debut. I had a REALLY bad / disturbing / stressful day at the office when I wrote the above and it demolished my filter. It's too complex to get into, I don't think anyone here understands / cares / knows exactly how to empathize with it other than to assume I am being a sniveling heartless jerk making up excuses at this point, but in short, the day to day environment of my work life is very toxic right now to a mentally unhealthy level and I'm losing whatever is left of my marbles because of it.
Great read and it's very interesting to me how even though Diary came out the same day as Weezer, I would say that I discovered them a decade apart (Weezer when I was 10, SDRE when I was 20 and my emo was "matured.")
And I say that not because I think it should be that way (it shouldn't at all,) but rather to show how social media connections play too big of a role these days in whether someone gets a job at a big site and taken seriously. It doesn't make sense, which was actually my sarcastic joke in the first comment about dismissing the post because I misread that he had 100 followers.
Not great, especially on days like today where one of my co-workers at my IRL job had an embarrassing mental breakdown in front of the entire office and it was pretty unprofessional / distracting / unnecessary / bullshit I shouldn't have to endure on a daily basis, and a paid freelance music writing job (my first ever!) I was offered earlier this week has seemingly fallen through.
If you can make a career out of writing about or running a blog on pop culture, more power to you, but I often wonder how inadequate one must feel upon meeting someone who has a real job that actually provides something of value to this world where as yours is to provide a momentary distraction from it.
Whoops, 951 lol.
Where the hell is Stereogum getting these people, though? I don't recognize 90% of the by-lines on this site anymore and never see them again.
I try my best to ignore these reads and not comment -- I swear, I do -- but it really busts my heart whenever I see some new form of content-baiting article arise where someone gets paid to "write" a post anyone in their basement could do just the same if they bothered to rip the chat conversations or Twitter DMs they had between their friends and air them out to the world. The only difference is that the writer has "cred" because it's on a "proper" music site and the other person on the end of their virtual telephone is some pseudo-famous person, and we're supposed to care what they think about some TV show for those reasons. I'm sure for the musician, it's a fun time and nice change of pace as opposed to being asked the same band, tour and recording-related questions, but as a reader, this is news I can't use.
I don't have an audience actually. I'm writing my thoughts out loud to myself for self-entertainment 99% of the time whenever I comment, and everyone else just gets mixed up in them.
Good to know that all it takes to get a paid gig writing job these days is a GChat account, an every day conversation topic, throw in a contact to an indie rock musician and know how to copy and paste your conversation into a post, and voila! Easy money.
In the end, no artist should be asking another to cancel their show, but looking at it from the angle of the venue / promoter, if they had more money invested in Morrissey, stood to make more money off his concert and all of that was being put in jeopardy by a show involving two smaller indie rock bands that might have possibly not been such a hot ticket or made them that much even if it was, I can at least see why the venue would entertain Morrissey's absurd request because in the end, the bottom line comes down to money.
Anything will be an improvement over the Apple earbuds that fall out of your ear canal upon yawning or anything involving body movement for that matter.
Very dickish and disturbing of Moz, as I think he is just getting unhealthily outlandish with age to a point where it's become hard to turn the other way even as a longtime fan, but I guess I would like to know how many tickets to this We Are Scientists / PAWS show were sold in advance, because if nobody was showing up anyway, maybe it was slightly more justifiable?
I think I may have given the perception off that I am completely against mainstream pop music, when that is not the case. I just have really particular expectations for it, and I can honestly say that I probably championed poptimism before it became a regular discussion point and I've always been ahead of the curb when it comes to recognizing star power and liking a single well before the Pitchforks out there make it hip. If I had to make a list right now of what the best favorite songs of the past decade+ have been:
Gwen Stefani - "What You Waiting For?"
Kelly Clarkson - "Since U Been Gone" (and I own her greatest hits collection)
Paris Hilton - "Nothing In This World"
Ashlee Simpson - "Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)" (which is basically a Gwen "What You Waiting For?" knockoff)
Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe"
Sky Ferreira - "One" (which I named to my Top 25 Songs of 2010 list on my old blog -- Well before she was on the tastemaker radar)
Katy Perry - "Teenage Dream"
Rihanna feat. Drake - "What's My Name?"
Taylor Swift - "We Are Never Getting Back Together"
"Lana-Del-Rey-goes-witch-house monstrosity" vs. "faceless garbage," I can't decide which one I like better this week, but I think by actually reading Chris' words, I now have reason to like this column now.
Sidenote: Pitchfork's poptimism is getting out of hand. Giving that Sia "Chandeliers" track a BNT? If there was a genre for that stuff, I'd have to call it "Post-P!nk" or "Rihanna reverb." Either way, it's not an interesting song at all, even from a production standpoint.
I don't mean they literally fall apart, but more so that even after you wash them using the most careful precautions to prevent the colors wearing out and / or shrinkage, it still looks like absolute crap afterward and needs to be relegated to your junk clothes collection.
"Cruel," "Cool," "Brooklyn," "Sad," "Pretty," "Power," "Fucked," "Money," "Beauty," "Kilos"
Yep, I think she managed to hit all possible Tumblr-worthy buzz words in one tracklist.
I'm really excited about this one as it somehow miraculously lifts off from the said-'99 post-hardcore bent shapes breakup era, but that return EP in 2011 wasn't so bad either with its pop motions. I kind of wonder if it'd get the same 2.8 review and harsh words it did just three years ago if it were reviewed today during the thick of this #emorevival.
I don't know, man -- I come from the school of fashion that if it fits right, is what you like and you aren't buying it because of the label attached to it, then you're good to go. What people are willing to spend on it is their prerogative, but I think the voice of reason comes into play when that $50+ shirt falls apart after one or two washes.
I don't think I know any dudes who still shop at GAP other than yupster ones who have girlfriends that think nothing of spending MSRP $49.50 on some cheaply-made button down shirt that will be on clearance for $12.50 in a month as part of his birthday gift.
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