This is good marketing.

nope

I honestly love it. This track really breathes. Yeah it’s a bit electro, but that’s that. Yeah, it relies heavily on production, but it’s not slick.. I think the production is really smart and musical. This song has a great hook, a strong melody, and some really interesting chord movements.

elevator music.

When I was very young I remember crying to the image of a man losing himself in space, drifting away from his family. So +1 for Space Oddity.

The good news is, all these artists have perpetual music-project ADD, so precious few of these bands are sustainable. Bad news is, the media-marketing “airtime” of (gasp) established bands, who’ve had their mettle tested and passed, is getting jacked by these immutably indistinguishable “music projects,” pushing adjectives like “dreamy, ephemerally atmospheric, ear-warming, pulsing, “whisper-close hazed-out,” chilly, psychedelic, fuzzy, . If I NEVER heard a band described as “breezy island sounds” again it would be too soon. I mean seriously. What the hell is going on here.

Absolutely great. I love how it’s such massive style shift, but I don’t feel like he’s turned his back on his earlier work. It still feels like Sufjan, because only he can write songs this good, and arrange them so tastefully. Production is A+ too.

Oh wait, I see. Because the writer (s?) at Stereogum are in some kind of secret handshake club with Beach House. Giving these guys press is like greedy movie producers funding another scriptless Adam Sandler summer money-grab. It’s just flat insulting.

I had dinner with Sufjan once, and he is one of the most humble, non-presumptuous people I’ve ever met. He’s just one of those blessed artists who is constantly bombarded with ideas, fed by genuine feeling, a harsh and confusing childhood, and the need to express his wonder of the sprawling American landscape. A truly precious American composer. This stuff is shockingly beautiful, and I cherish his entire catalog.

Ok, so let me get this counterpoint rant outta the way and then I’m going to agree with you at the end: This concert didn’t happen on the web. It happened at a Madison Square Garden, and cost millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to put on. Unless the world suddenly becomes a utopian communist society, if there’s large-scale demand for something, someone is going to own it and make people pay for it. That’s the American way. I’ve been lead sound engineer for several large-scale live concerts and theater productions, and I can tell you right now, if no one showed up and actually paid to see it, instead just streaming it on the web for free, I would never dedicate my time, sweat, and expertise to something like that again, cause it’s hard work.

That said, the internet has a real shot at completely re-defining what ownership means and how it’s monetized. VEVO is trying to force an old model over a new archetype, and it doesn’t work. Everyone hates VEVO, and a business that’s hated dies. The whole problem is, we’re in limbo right now. Intellectual property has to be protected, even in the ether of the internet, but information can’t be restricted like this.

This was actually their dress rehearsal for an off-broadway performance of “Jenny, Eat Something.”

The songs on Pablo Honey weren’t altogether as bad as people tend to believe.. but do you honestly think that the writing in PH can stand up to OK Computer? If you do I won’t argue with your taste, but I will have to respectfully but strongly disagree.

Yeah, and RH’s album quality has been slowly sinking ever since OK Computer (controversial). But if it weren’t for Creep, and how the mass-media marketing engine portrayed them, nobody would know who this band is, and it’s likely nobody would have bought The Bends. That’s why bands that exist now, which are just as talented and driven, never make it out of obscurity. That’s why selling 500,000 copies of a record just doesn’t really happen any more. But saying that the demise of major labels is good for the music industry is a lot like saying “the demise of car advertisements is good for selling cars.”