Year-End Roundup of the Worst Year-End Roundups

At least in the sixties, when "serious" people did their overviews, they had an excuse: why expend any enthusiasm over some dumb thing that's probably gonna fade away in a couple years? But it's almost 2003. What the fuck is going on? What's Sweeney's excuse?

I can't imagine it's worse this time; I don't have Salon premium, either (and articles like this are why).

First, from a dumb old hippie:
http://www.counterpunch.com/jacobs1214.html

Second, from a dishonest young sharpie:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2075852/

Per most reviews, rock seems to cycle in and out of relevance every two weeks or so. Where's it at now?

If you buy that argument in the first place, Matos, then maybe you could carry it that far (does "using" or "promoting" = "stealing?"). But, aside a few cut and dry cases (Freed & Chuck Berry, for one), I'm a bit of a skeptic with the whole whites thieving from blacks argument. It's a dialogue more than anything, particularly early in the 20th century when the blues, mountain music, R&B and country blended together so many times with so many artists... It's a reductionist argument that fails to acknowledge that dialogues between like-minded cultures do and will exist. I mean, while implying that blacks make the best music (thus it's worthy of stealing), doesn't it imply a superiority by whites for stealing it? Why can't it work the other way as well? It's just become a lazy critical shorthand meant to paint some artists as underdogs, others as bullies, which, on an artistic level, is pretty silly.

Sorry, wrong argument.

esp considering these Sweeney gems:

"I should warn you now: This is also the part that people who have trouble with the collision of indie and mass culture each producing equally great and awful artifacts better leave." (pot, meet kettle. kettle, pot.)

and "And not that kind of forced-fun that the Hives were promoting, either, by dressing up garage rock and acting like there's something new under the sun with that." (the Hives are "forced-fun"? this from a Weezer fan!)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200_web/drp100/p145/p14590oax26.jpg

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200_web/drp100/p183/p18370rw4sp.jpg

(a) last year's electro was pretty good!
(b) if Kylie weren't slightly creepy-looking she wouldn't be so lovely
(c) what would happen if Max Tundra and Schneider TM joined forces?
(d) apparently I liked post-punk for completely different reasons than the Liars did
(e) after about half a decade I am officially done with David Fridman type orchestral M.O.R.-indie records
(f) I like Big Tymers more than Cam'Ron
(g) that Cody ChestnuTT record would have been the greatest thing ever if only it weren't made entirely by a person who thinks it's aesthetically appealling to capitalize those last two letters in his name
(h) that Saint Etienne keeps growing on me, actually
(i) post-Strokes and post-Fischerspooner I really hate "hype" that consists of a bunch of magazines reviewing something pretending they're disinterested parties and the actual "hype" and overexposure comes from the other million magazines writing the same ostensibly disinterested review
(j) especially because both of those were good pop records
(k) both of those were last year, though
(l) happy 2003

(m) I really hope Swizz Beats understood from the beginning that those vocal samples have a shelf-life of like 10 hits at the absolute most
(n) although that Styles track is great -- even if the ideas he's wrestling over are straight off of Illmatic at least he's doing some wrestling

plus he misspelled "herre"!! he spelled it "herrre"!! what kind of pop music fan is he argh gack argh er

also yeah the nyt piece was dire

1. You cannot say that (a) someone "saved" or "revitalized" rock in 1998 and then (b) someone else did it in 2000 and then (c) "rock is back" in 2002 unless (d) you published articles inbetween explicitly arguing that rock had spontaneously died.

2. You cannot make a big deal out of teeny-style pop sales dropping unless ... actually no, no one should make this point outside of industry magazines. Not only because it requires you to demonstrate some significant difference between teeny-style pop and whatever's replacing it on the charts but because it's just boring: what kind of "music criticism" is it to talk blankly and without much relevant commentary about sales trends?

(Granted, I know why people are always keen to talk about things like boy-bands' disappointing sales: because when said boy-bands were selling well these guys were saying "they'll be gone in two years." Which is a pretty good way to talk about the music people are listening to without ever having to actually talk about the music: all you wind up saying is "they won't be here forever" and then later "see?" as if anyone anywhere ever claimed the middle-aged of the future would be buying Thirty Years of Backstreet: The Hits.)

shit...many of you really champion honest pop music analysis (and maybe you say this is based on objective music standards…but nothing is objective, really)...so why should you limit yourselves to just one, small aspect of it (i.e., the music)? Maybe this blurs the lines between certain disciplines...but so do your subjects (certainly more so than any other genre of music). i don't mean this to sound as cynical as it may, but some of the more interesting pieces of music analysis I've read over the past year have been dissections of the machinery of the industry and how it manages to tap into a certain marketing zeitgeist.

Really since when?

V

Of course people should talk how teen-pop is marketed. (Whatever gave you the idea that music is the only thing we've discussed about teen-pop on ILM?) But it's not the only kind of music that's marketed. And yes, teen-pop CDs are commodities, but they are not commodities the same way that, say, pig iron, trash bags and antibiotics are -- and this difference demands a different critical approach.

but what really gets me is the tone these articles are written in, the Salon one esp. It's one thing to sound confident about the subject you are writing about, but it's another to sound like a haughty, condescending (towards pop music & towards the reader!) seen-it-all know-it-all. It annoys and exhausts me just as a casual reader; there isn't a spark of genuine enthusiasm for music inside the entire piece.

Oh yeah, and Nabisco's year-end wrap-up on this thread is the best I've seen yet.

Yes, and adults are just as susceptible as teenagers (maybe even more so in some cases) when it comes to being persuaded by marketing and packaging. The NPR/Salon/NYT/New Yorker crowd especially.

(OT: In the Utne Arts Extra 2003, there's a list of "40 Overlooked Masters Who Still Stir Our Souls." Along with Joseph Beuys, Maya Deren, Jack Smith, Goethe, Tagore, Dos Passos, Villon and Mary Wollstonecraft, they list Arrested Development! Jesus God they're STILL carrying a torch for them! It's so sick!)

These people are overlooked? Jeez, what planet are these Utne assholes living on?

Also: stop making DJ Shadow fans look bad by dissing the Neptunes, you ninnyhammer.

Finally: YOU DARE CALL AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE "WEAK"? FIE ON YOU!

On the article: It wasn't bad. Wasn't good either. Painfully obvious maybe, and nothing new, but at least he didn't go on and on about the Strokes saving Rock N Roll (from what? alt-metal? Like alt-metal could kill rock.)

I really dont see the problem you pointed it out with his tone... all writters in in music-related press seem to talk like this. Its hard not to realize how absurd pop music is.

Not to be a wet blanket, but, um, so if they like Arrested Development they're supposed to just keep their mouths shut for fear of looking unhip? Or what?

Of the whole two (not including the unplugged one) albums Arrested Developement released only one could conceivably be considered "good" and even that is debatable. So calling them forth in 2002 as "overlooked masters" is a bit much, even if they were Utne Reader types' wet dream of what hip-hop should have been.

It's not that, really. For the record, "Tennessee" and "People Everyday" = classic. (The song where they refer to Miss Jane Pittman as an actual person = dud.) What bugs me is that AD are still being praised much the same way they were back in '92 -- as a corrective, as broccoli-for-the-hip-hop-soul. Utne even starts the blurbette with "At the height of the gangsta-rap craze...", setting up a bad-cop/good-cop siutation, in effect saying that if we all paid a little more attention to AD's message maybe we wouldn't have all that nasty gangsta rap to deal with.

Actually, *I* added that, John.

As for "those people can have all sorts of thoughts attributed to them glibly & without fear of reprisal," it's worth asking how we can presume we know what "those people" might be thinking. We bring into play the stuff they read, the stuff they consume, we may know such people from our own personal experiences, why, we may even BE those people to a point (much the same way I can only curse certain aspects of the liberal mindset even though and BECAUSE I am a liberal).

That's exactly what I meant. That said, I have a certain loathing for the type of person who needs to be reassured that something is highbrow or highbrow-acceptable before he can dive in. And these people often look to Salon/Utne/NPR/NYT/PBS/The New Yorker for that reassurance. And those outlets are happy to provide it.

It's not just weak, it's really awful! It saddens me that Space Ghost is gone and all that's left are a bunch of lesser imitations; Hunger Force having the least of the original's charm. Sea Lab is pretty ok, I guess.

Who are these people? Aren't they the same people who listened to 'alternative' radio stations a few years back?

I'm thinking of the type of people who, five years ago, swore up and down that they hated "all that twangy country music" -- until Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? came out, and the highbrow media outlets gave the soundtrack great reviews. All of a sudden, oh my god wow, this country music, it's so real! I never knew! (Who are these people? I've known quite a few who had this "revelation" at the time, some of whom shrugged their shoulders with disinterest when I'd tried to introduce them to similar music earlier on.)

Aren't they the same people who listened to 'alternative' radio stations a few years back?

Well gee, I don't know. Who's generalizing now?

particularly since 2001 was the year they tied George Martin for second-most no. 1 pop hits and 2002 was the year they beat him. (only person ahead of them is Steve Sholes, Elvis Presely's producer)

They will go out of business by the end of 2003.

Also, the condemning moment in PopMatters list was when that fucktard gave props to a dishonest simpleton like Michael Moore. Not only was that movie boring, it was full of shit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/arts/music/29PARE.html

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2002/12/29/arts/artsspecial/index.html

Alan N, you do realize that We must now spank you with moonrocks!

LIVING WITH YOU IS LIKE LIVING IN A LIVING NIGHTMARE!

(I'd forgotten about this thread...)