what piece of music writing has pissed you off?

This piece for Pitchfork this thread was centered around. Sorry, Chris.

An otherwise even-handed and even accurate review descends pointlessly into a tirade about whiny, premenstrual Fiona Apple fans, or how all women are stupid or something. WTF?! I still don't get this one.

Grr.

"But it's all a put-on, I guess. I mean, isn't that the point? These are urbanized latte-sipping children of privilege playing music better left to toothless, inbred mountain folk who can barely read or speak. I think these cosmopolitan boys and girls, if they want real authenticity, oughta have the courage to live like the masters: maybe commit armed robbery and spend some time in the Big House or try to grow crops in some god-forsaken dustbowl desert community. Or hell, if nothing else, get the hell outta Chicago café culture and spend a little time milking a cow on some rural Midwestern farm. Slop a hog or two for chrissakes. Then pick up the guitar and Big Chief notepad and write some real country songs."

Fucking idiot.

I thought this was unfair, I mean I'm not all frothing at the mouth...but it seems unfair to take a song of a BOOTLEG that 1) the band didn't know was being recorded 2) Didn't approve 3) Had no say in the recording quality, editing, whatever.....and then use it as something you can make some sort of sweeping judgments about the band's quality....he even rips the sound quality saying "there's no low end"...it's like shit it's a frickin' bootleg fer chrissakes....Basically, it's just like he wanted to say the strokes are overrated, suck whatever and used some mp3 boot as an excuse to do it..

-- Ben Boyer (fiestasandsiesta...), January 26th, 2004.

Do you know any way to link to that story that still works?

really there are too many to name on this thread, but one that did it for me recently was the boring hack in the Guardian Guide saying that British people wouldn't take Kelis' "Milkshake" as seriously as Americans would because they'd recognise the "ting" sound from Are You Being Served? or the like. classic cultural compartmentalist halfwittery; that we will recognise that sound IS THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT for many of us, it redeems, recovers, reanimates the dead wood of the soundtrack to British life in the post-war "tea urns and tandems" era. the Beach Boys' "You Still Believe In Me" did the same thing, for fuck's sake, and that was when Norman Wisdom films were still just about being made!

Also, if the Neptunes were intentionally crafting tracks with the purpose of reminding it's British audience of Are You Being Served I'd be surprised.

I wasn't implying that it was the Neptunes' *intent*!!!! I mean, Mary Anne Hobbs calling Ginuwine's "Pony" a "tribute to Thelwell" was the moment of 1997 for me, with all its "no-one is immune now" inferences, and I shouldn't imagine he or Timbaland would get THAT reference ...

"Do I make you trackback my blog baby? Yeah!"

like i say in the continuum thread, though, it's all about the fact that you liked Oasis in the mid-90s. at the time i had a terrible inverted snobbery about most of my family and white working-class contemporaries, mainly based around the dominance of the Oasis subculture. we're from very similar backgrounds, you know - both working-class, both with families from more traditional Labour areas (Sheffield for you, south London for me), both living on the south-west coastline. maybe we have a deeper antipathy to each other for that reason - we subconsciously think we should get on better. doubtless at that time you'd have called me a class traitor or crypto-Tory, i'd have called you someone who just wanted to drown in anti-intellectualism and lazy boorishness. i thought then that the Oasis / lad-culture tendency was far more literal-conservative than Blairism. your "own class heritage" comments made me realise why that was ...

and, incidentally, i do not believe in the concepts of "plebs", "beautiful people" or "inferior cultural values". they are all in a totally foreign language to me because i am a relativist by nature. that may be hard for you to realise, Dom, but it is the truth.

Heeey! I resent that!

Xpost

The hatchet job on the excellent new Oneida album in the Grauniad last Friday was mindbogglingly wrong.

Of (British) journalists over the recentish years, Mark Beaumont, Daniel Booth, Andy Richardson (I think that was his name) and a few others wrote very little I agreed with.

Robin, were your tastes internally consistent at this time (ie yr mid-teens) -- or indeed was anything about you (or me, or Nick, or anyone else here) internally consistent to this extent?

I mean, I liked Oasis up to the autumn of '95; but I was also listening to St Etienne, Tricky, the Manics (especially) (and yes more or less whatever the music press told me to listen to). Isn't pop music all about the mis-recognition? The 'relevance' of grime doesn't interest me half as much as whether, on sonic terms, I'd want to listen to it; especially if 'relevance' is marked out along grim socialist-realist lines. Erm, where am I going with this... oh yeah, the bell in 'Milkshake' -- like in hotels in movies, or 'Barton Fink' especially...

'The bong in this reggae song'

robin will you fuck off. you don't know me, i agree with nick about very little musically or aesthetically (doiesn't stop me thinking he's a nice fella, though). read what i'm saying instead of what you *want* it to say, for heaven's sake man.

Jagger has poured his heart into this album. The strongest songs - "Don't Call Me Up," "Brand New Set of Rules," "Hide Away" and "Everybody Getting High" - are also the most candidly personal. In the past, he has slipped into personae - the Street Fighting Man, Jumpin' Jack Flash, the Man of Wealth and Taste - but he lets his guard down to an unprecedented degree on Goddess; the beautiful ballads draw on feelings of loneliness, vulnerability, spiritual yearning and, as always, life with the ladies.

These gains in maturity have taken no toll on Jagger's inner rock & roller. The Street Fighting Man can still swagger at the top of his - or anybody else's - game. Goddess in the Doorway resembles the Stones' best albums in that it's a varied yet cohesive collection of ballads, hard rockers and one country song. But on his own, he is free to cast off the blues-rock anchor that both defines and (at times) confines the Stones. Jagger heads into edgy, danceable modern-rock territory with the throbbing electronic groove of "Gun" and the snarling, whip-crack assault of "Everybody Getting High."

Making the most of this opportunity to stretch himself, Jagger has recruited some outstanding guests, many of them younger artists whom he directly influenced. Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty collaborates on the pop-y, melodic opening track, "Visions of Paradise," which boasts a soaring chorus. Lenny Kravitz produces and co-writes "God Gave Me Everything," a driving, riff-propelled rocker that evokes the punkish stomp of the early Stones.

On "Hide Away," one of my favorite tracks, Wyclef Jean helps burnish a subtle reggae- and hip-hop-inflected groove. Employing some of his most moving and nuanced vocal phrasing, he confides, "I'm gonna fly away/And no one's gonna find me." The lyrics portray a guy who's got it all - fame, fortune and the means to indulge any materialistic and hedonistic impulse he might divine - but is wise enough in his late middle age to know there's something more out there.

"Joy," a rocking, gospel-tinged collaboration with Bono of U2 - and featuring an indelible guitar hook from Pete Townshend - offers a revealing glimpse of what Jagger is seeking: "I looked up to the heavens/And a light is on my face/I never never never/Thought I'd find a state of grace." The mark of U2 is overt on "Joy," but the band's influence subtly courses through the rest of the album; like Bono and company in the last decade, Jagger (along with producers Marti Frederiksen and Matt Clifford) has adapted modern rhythms and contemporary production techniques to his own naturalistic rock & roll ends.

"Everybody Getting High," featuring Aerosmith's Joe Perry, and "Lucky Day" are fierce, biting rockers. No one struts or wags a tongue as sharply as Jagger, and "Everybody Getting High," in particular, stands out as a blistering, arena-ready, hard-rock singalong. The absurdist lyrics find Jagger poking fun at scenes from his celebrity life: "My dress designers, they wanna doll me up in blue/Mmm-hmm pretty/Next fall collection, they're gonna show it in the zoo." The tight blues shuffle "Lucky Day" is highlighted by some brief but fiery harmonica playing from Jagger. Like a good blues workout, it leaves you hungry for more, and this masterful use of tension and restraint is part of what makes Goddess in the Doorway so beguiling.

It may seem a truism, but it's worth noting that he is - along with John Lennon, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Bono - one of the great male rock voices of this age. And he is in exceptional form on Goddess in the Doorway. If anything, Jagger's voice is rounder and warmer than ever, and he brings a new richness of phrasing to the heartbroken, confessional "Don't Call Me Up" and the extraordinary closing tracks, "Too Far Gone" and "Brand New Set of Rules."

After all of the excursions undertaken on Goddess in the Doorway, Jagger brings it all back home with these last two numbers, which are musically rich and lyrically reflective ballads in the grand tradition of such Stones pillars as "Wild Horses" and "Moonlight Mile." Jagger offers unabashedly human, vulnerable sentiments on "Brand New Set of Rules" (which features daughters Elizabeth and Georgia May on background vocals): "I will be kind, won't be so cruel/I will be sweet, I will be true/. . . I got a brand-new set of rules I got to learn."

It is a clear-eyed and inspired Mick Jagger who crafted Goddess in the Doorway, an insuperably strong record that in time may well reveal itself to be a classic. World, meet Mick Jagger, solo artist.

JANN S. WENNER
(RS 883/884 - December 6, 2001)

WE AMERICANS HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO PUT UP WITH THIS SHITHEAD 'CAUSE THAT'S ALL THERE IS!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe someone actually wrote this sentence.

that woulda been rad.

Too bad he didn't remember that when he sat down to write this.

I'd never read it before. "Biting"? "Fiery?" C'mon.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/listoftheday/55358/the-25-best-alternative-rock-bands-of-the-1990s

i know. easy target. but jesus christ, it's just WRONG. nick cave and tom waits? fugazi made dull records? someone put this guy on VH1, because he's obviously clueless.

This is the same dude that did they "25 rappers I hate" list, right?

Good grief this thread has some utterly nutso content..

Also that dude says every band had to "have started in the early 90s" and then includes Sonic Youth and Dino Jr and and and wtf?

I like the fact that Carmody assumes that EVERYONE who liked Oasis EVER was a troglodyte piss-throwing rapist.

seems fair

Any piece of music writing that says something that would normally be considered really great praise about a band or album, but then pisses all over it with the writer's own jaded attitude and confused livelihood.

what happeend to robin anyway?

Returned recently as Valentine Colander then disappeared again.

1683 Comments

!!!

These gains in maturity have taken no toll on Jagger's inner rick roller

13) Elliott Smith: Weird to think this guy was ever alive.

I can hardly get past that picture of him to even read the article...

I'm surprised he left out Primus.

Perhaps Southall would like to pinpoint where he says "started in the '90s" as opposed to "EXISTED in the '90s."

I had over 75 bands on this initial list and everyone included had to start in the first half of the 1990s to qualify.

"workaholic ways" for the lips? i can't even confirm that this isn't true. it's just an odd way to describe a band who i always imagined mostly just took a shitload of drugs (this is pre-'soft bulletin' i'm referring to...)

Was gonna C&P the offending para but kingkongvsgodzilla beat me to it.

There was an Interpol article that...wait, it was in NME and it was supposed to be about The Editors new album but somehow the adjective crazy hacks turned it into some weird foaming rant about Nazis, Interpol and various torturous deaths. Completely irrelevant and contradictory and stupid and...well classic NME.
I never read Pitchfork, I burst a blood vessel last time.

Maybe he meant to say "had to start a song."

Maybe he did, but he didn't. I think the guy's just an idiot.

more like had to start sucking

wait I think I just mean sonic youth there

Possibly it's meant to be "ironic."

Guys, stop clicking on Yahoo lists.

Everytime you click on them, even in anger, they get hit counts and therefore win.

it's like speaking the words "ni**er", or "m0mus", you only give them more strength.

You don't think Yahoo believes in this guy's batshit opinions? It's not real rock writing. It's writing about rock to appeal to people that don't actually read rock writing, and get the comments boxes full for people that actually have some emotions invested in it.

It's like multi-millionaire trolling. Stop making threads about it.

Speaking of rock writing, I would like a do-over on that run-on sentence.

You don't think Yahoo actually believes this guy's batshit opinions? It's not real rock writing. It's writing-about-rock made to have a 30-second click appeal to people that don't actually read rock writing. Plus it's just "wrong" enough to set the comments boxes on fire, by people who actually have some emotions invested in their opinions about music.

^somewhat better

Listen to Whiney, people.

I am pissed off whenever somebody is writing off traditional music styles are "of the past". NME pisses me off a lot all the time.

I don't remember seeing geir missed off before.

Pissed off, even

6) Devendra Banhart / Tiny Tim: I'm not convinced they're not the same person. Tiny Tim was a novelty item singing with that stupid ukulele something about tiptoeing through the tulips. Anyone with any half sense would know it was novelty item that shouldn't be used as the basis for an entire recording career. And for thirty years, it wasn't, until freaky-folk dude Devendra Banhart showed up and started warbling in that unlistenable, untrained vibrato the kind of nonsensical lyrics that didn't sound all that great back when people were taking the kinds of drugs you're supposed to be on in order to enjoy it.

Haw!

from the opening sentence of the Yahoo! article i'm out:

With Weezer out with a new album, it reminded us here at List Of the Day (actually it's just me, but I talk to myself enough to engage the plural) that there were other bands that also existed in the 1990s.

i like how he leaves Yo La Tengo off the list for being dull and sleepy (which they were mainly from 2000-03, not in the '90s) and in the next sentence he's extolling the virtues of fucking Sebadoh.

i actually sort of like his Sonic Youth assessment:

23) Sonic Youth: The band that wouldn't die. No one can kill these guys. They will be making albums long after the rest of us are locked up in retirement communities or buried in landfills. And they will continue to do so without ever properly tuning their guitars. They will continue to spout abstract poetry and fans will argue over what moves were "too rock," "too commercial," "too experimental" and "too over with." Each new generation will like them for three to five albums and eventually move on to breed children and attend soccer games much to their inner horror.

this was sorta lame but the last two sentences are just AWESOME:

13) Elliott Smith: Weird to think this guy was ever alive. Listening to his albums today, especially the self-tilted one and Either/Or--it's like hearing a ghost. His elegant quiet, his compulsive misery, his inability to sound happy even when he's imagining himself singing a Beatles tune indicates the sound of a man not long for the earth. Sad but not surprising. What were his options? Join Sigur Ros?

Sadly, music writing doesn't seem to piss me off much anymore. Rock critics be going soft in their old age. Why'd Pitchfork get rid of that nutball that wrote 5,000 words about chicken instead of talking about the White Stripes' Elephant? I miss him.

Even this Yahoo article just makes me yawn and shrug.

WHY WOULD YOU EVEN DISCUSS SOMETHING CALLED LIST OF THE DAY STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT

every review of Third sort of pisses me off. doesn't matter if it is a positive or negative review really, everyone seems to have decided what their opinion should be about a possible new Portishead album sometime in 2001. but i suppose this isn't unique for dear old Portishead.