October 2009
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-25) →
The Rolling Stones (7)
David Bowie (7)
Dam-Funk (5)
The Beatles (2)
John Cale (2)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
I am off to CHICAGO today, until Friday. Here is a...
“I feel like that Fisher-Price record player was the defining thing of my life.”
– Pitchfork: Guest Lists: Memory Tapes
So jealous he had that and all I had was the lously Fisher-Price cassette player. On the other hand, I could make my own a cappella songs. I was really into MC Hammer and r&b.
(via desnoise)
Oh wow, he likes The Book Of The New Sun - good for him! (There...
brokenbottleboy:
Don’t Think Twice (Messengers...
To those of you who work with music on
What music improves your productivity the most?
Pandora And Authentic Taste →
I was still contriving a narrative about my tastes, even if I didn’t necessarily share it with anyone. Still it is a very seductive idea, that our taste is like a fingerprint, a snowflake, and that when we find out fully what it really is, we see at last, concretely, how ineffable our soul is. We listen to Pandora, click the thumbs up or down to approve songs, let the formulas work their magic,...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-18) →
Duran Duran (40)
Ross Diana (1)
Wu-Tang Clan (1)
Jerry Butler (1)
Norihiko Hibino & Cynthia Harell (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
EDIT: This is my Pitchfork review doing a number on my last.fm stats :) Not that DD don’t deserve a 40-play session every once in a while.
abbyjean:
and ding! already been called humorless and over-analytical. i may need to pull out a bingo card for this.
It’s the stuff that “doesn’t need to be analysed” that’s ALWAYS the most interesting anyway!
Slender Plenty - “Silver Treetop School For...
Police Target Hip-Hop Nightclubs →
But the Musicians’ Union, which also called for [Form 696] to be scrapped, has now softened its position.
“When the form was first introduced, it suggested it was for all live music events,” said assistant general secretary Horace Trubridge.
“That was something we were opposed to. We believe now that the form is much more focused and that the vast majority of our...
I will paraphrase a Nicholson Baker book to help...
agrammar:
But if you don’t feel like picking it up, and like pop music, and just want a good Friday moment of feeling like your old poetry professor was weird and wrong, about everything, maybe especially that poem you wrote about Boston that she hated, and if she’d ever just listened to a pop song she’d have known all of that, well, you can just look at a limerick—which, being “pop” poetry,...
The Death Of A & R →
A&R is tougher than ever, sez the Guardian. The man who brought us the Ordinary Boys and Kaiser Chiefs explains his secrets:
But with the scramble for hits becoming ever more cutthroat, an A&R’s ability to spot a hit becomes ever more important. All agree there’s no surefire formula for a smash. “Bands have approached me saying, ‘My song scored 98% on [the...
A-Ha - “Touchy!”: I guess sometimes...
The best ever run* of UK #1 singles?
This is currently my one to beat, according to my marks on Popular anyway (I spent a happy and geeky 30 mins rejigging my keeping-track spreadsheet today)
BONEY M – “Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord”
VILLAGE PEOPLE – “Y.M.C.A.”
IAN DURY AND THE BLOCKHEADS – “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”
BLONDIE – “Heart Of Glass”
THE BEE GEES – “Tragedy”
GLORIA GAYNOR – “I Will Survive”
ART GARFUNKEL –...
Restaurants - Daniel Boulud Doesn’t Miss a Beat... →
dyfl:
Mark your calendars. Every year for my birthday (March 23), I celebrate with Meat and Singing (i.e. karaoke). This year, the meat will be served here. I am literally going to have a sausage party.
Hello birthday sharer!
I will be celebrating by, er, going to a market research conference. But at least my birthday drinks will be free.
“Oddly, what’s made this music last are the same things that made the Beatles and...”
– One nation under a Moog | Music | The Guardian
Oddly, these are the very things that music critics usually seem to have the hardest time discussing. “Oh, I dig that new x because it’s catchy and it makes me feel y!” How often do you read a review and have a sense of how the music makes the reviewer...
why snark works
barthel:
agrammar:
Because it’s a subliminal argument. Or an aspirational one. Or at least flippancy is. Or, well, wait:
Imagine a spectrum lying across the ways we communicate. One end represents being flippant, funny, referential, snarky, and concise—zingers and one-liners and sarcasm. The other end represents being earnest, thorough, measured, charitable, and serious. The difference...
"Book reviews tend to be conversation enders" →
Amy Hertz in the Huffington Post:
Huffington Post Books is not a review — there’s a reason those sections in newspapers are dropping like flies. Book reviews tend to be conversation enders, and when you’re living in the age of engagement, a time when people are looking for conversation starters, that stance gets you nowhere.
It’s worth reading the rest of the piece -...
Why so coy? →
aceterrier:
tomewing:
This Ad Age piece on “the death of Joe Consumer” wasn’t particularly startling but this bit amused me:
During the still-nameless decade from 2000 to 2010,” he writes, “a total of about 3 million people have moved out of the Northeast, and another 2 million have left the Midwest”
Emphasis mine. Dude, it’s the noughties, live with it!
No it’s not. Nought doesn’t mean...
Dinosaur Swindle! →
A new ten-year study by US paleontologists suggests that up to a third of dinosaur fossils may have been incorrectly identified as new species
This does not surprise me AT ALL. The actual canonical list of dinosaurs is as follows - all so-called “other species” are basically rip-offs of these by GREEDY MARKETERS.
1. T Rex
2. Brontosaurus
3. Triceratops
4. Stegosaurus
4A....
Why so coy? →
This Ad Age piece on “the death of Joe Consumer” wasn’t particularly startling but this bit amused me:
During the still-nameless decade from 2000 to 2010,” he writes, “a total of about 3 million people have moved out of the Northeast, and another 2 million have left the Midwest”
Emphasis mine. Dude, it’s the noughties, live with it!
"Volumes are down" →
In the past, the volume of mail was estimated by weighing the boxes. These days it is done by averages. There is an estimate for the number of letters that each box contains, decided on by national agreement between the management and the union. That number is 208. This is how the volume of mail passing through each office is worked out: 208 letters per box times the number of boxes. However,...
“Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories...”
– Essay - The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate - NYTimes.com
Uh?
(via treblekicker)
The work I am not doing this morning would also be abhorrent to nature, hence a ripple effect backwards through time is making me faff about on the interwebs.
“Ordinary men will always be sentimentalists: for a sentimentalist is simply a...”
– GK Chesterton, In Defense Of Penny Dreadfuls
Rousseau, Readers, Fans →
it did get me thinking about all the ‘lost fandoms’ that must have existed in the past. Before The Man From U.N.C.L.E., before the letters section of Amazing Stories, what have we lost? What proto-APAs, what further games of roleplay?
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-11) →
Broadcast and The Focus Group (22)
Bad Lieutenant (17)
Duran Duran (10)
Mungolian Jet Set (8)
David Bowie (3)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
The Birth Of Management Consultancy →
How did Taylor arrive at forty-seven and a half tons for Bethlehem Steel? He chose twelve “large, powerful Hungarians,” observed them for an hour, and calculated that, at the rate they were working, they were loading twenty-four tons of pig iron per man per day. Then he handpicked ten men and dared them to load sixteen and a half tons as fast as they could. They managed to do it in fourteen...
Taste and 'Preference'
“I don’t think you can compare sexuality and musical taste as like with like, because it’s like saying Radiohead = a gender. It’s empirically true that people’s taste in music changes much more rapidly and more substantially than their sexual preference. It’s easy to become a Radiohead fan overnight: you buy their albums, listen and pass judgment.
Becoming a...
Bad Lieutenant (band) →
I wish this record was better, but it’s not. Review by me in Pitchfork today.
1 tag
Aaliyah - “Are You Feelin’ Me”:...
1 tag
Imperfect Angle
Listening to the new Mariah Carey album - nice, but a little monolithically introspective for me. I’ll cherrypick it rather than go back to it as a whole, certainly.
One thing I do really like though is how comfortable she is with quoting other records where they seem appropriate to what she’s singing about - on “Inseparable” for instance she breaks for a couple of bars...
Things I've Got Done While Twitter Was Down
- Cleared my desk of old piled-up Guardians for the first time in 11 months!
- Phoned a man about repairing a roof!
- Sent some emails!
It’s almost as productive as when ILX used to go down. Oh which reminds me
- Read a whole ILX thread about whether Pitchfork’s coverage is wide enough!!
I’m now going to have to do some actual work though so it better hurry back is all...
Watchyvynyl:
naturalismo sez: “This video and song nearly seem staged in the present trying to appear as though it were shot in late 50’s. But the truth of the matter is that this clip of Pete Drake playing the song, “Forever” off his 1959 self-titled album, is so far ahead of its time it still sounds extremely fresh and futuristic today. Guy basically invented the vocoder for chrissakes…and applied...
On Projects / On Communities →
Self-linking here: a couple of longish pieces with advice on how to approach a long-term blogging project (like my Popular one) and what to do if you want a community to form around it.
The second part might be of more interest to the music critics here, in that in talking about community formation I’m arguing for a kind of “social criticism”, where what you leave out (in order...
The Eternal Triangle Of The Comments Box
A thread that is long and friendly is rarely interesting.
A thread that is interesting and friendly is rarely long.
A thread that is long and interesting is rarely friendly.
The End Of The Affair →
A hint of (perhaps justified) schadenfreude here but this point is a good one:
Never mind the fact that many people read blogs with different motivations than the person(s) who plunked down on the couch in 1994 to watch a 30-minute sitcom. People generally enjoyed whatever TV they watched. It is possible to despise a blog and yet check it compulsively. Enjoyment just isn’t the word for what’s...
Can Device Integration Save Music Journalism? →
Really interesting post.
Say you like to read Pitchfork’s new music coverage. Imagine a “Pitchfork Player” app for Windows, Mac, and cellphones that would present relevant reviews for each artist, album, and or track you’re listening to from your own library, or even from a streaming service such as Pandora. Such applications would have to analyze your entire music library or identify streaming...
1 tag
Natasha - “Hey Hey Hey”: Teen-n-B so...
“The obvious comparison is “Under Pressure”, but that was a battle of styles,...”
– DAVID BOWIE AND MICK JAGGER – “Dancing In The Street” | FreakyTrigger
feel weird quoting someone who I know reads this Tumblr (and I his) but there you go.
(via desnoise)
Just imagine how lame reblogging it feels ;)
1 tag
Dizzee Rascal - “I Luv U (Remix)”:...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-4) →
Duran Duran (3)
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions (3)
John Cale (2)
Beenie Man (2)
Pet Shop Boys (2)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Side-Project and Follow-Up Bands
Listening to Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris’ post-New Order Bad Lieutenant album, which is rubbish, though possibly not as bad as Revenge.
Do any “[x] has a new band” projects live up to expectations (I can answer my own question with “the first Electronic album” of coursE)? Worst and best examples?
Pet Shop Boys - “Can You Forgive...
Why Kid A? →
Scott Plagenhoef gives an eloquent defence of Kid A’s #1 placing on the Pitchfork list.
(Obviously, I’m biased two ways - contributed to the list, probably like Kid A least of anyone who did. Good work here from SP though.)
Disco? Very. →
I guessed #2 - I underestimated the power of Dave Moore! - but I’m pleased with #3. I’m also pleased my string theory reference stayed in!
Here’s a thing, though: Daft Punk’s album has, buried in it, all the texture and fear and doubt and rock-meets-electronixness of Kid A, but it’s got a whole architecture of pleasure and excitement and sociability built on top of...
Hail Hail Rock N Roll →
The Guardian’s regular column about personal response to music - usually written by Laura Barton - is this week written by… me! So of course it’s about the Pet Shop Boys.
The song is pop’s great, diffident hymn to solipsism, the sense that the world is as you arrange it. Its protagonist drinks tea and hears snippets of news but he’s opted out – of what? Of...
