Comments

All fair. I'll do what I can to get myself out of this knot. Yeah, I'm definitely speculating about "22," and my shout to Max wasn't just for laughs -- I've been closely following his career for almost 20 years now, and the one thing that EVERYBODY says is, he's a ruthless editor with a scientific approach to songcraft. (It's called "melodic math" if you're not familiar, and it's an actual teachable/repeatable formula.) So it's totally possible that they nixed that bridge just because it didn't conform to his standard. It's interesting to see that Swift underlines the word "those" in the updated draft, indicating to me that the repetition of "those" is more math-based than it is, like, a meaningful word. But I'm speculating there, too. The truth is, I don't know what she intended for that song to convey, but it has always felt to me very much like she wrote the song to strike a chord with the broadest possible audience, and her own explanations haven't done much to dispel me of that notion. Here's an example: "I wrote that about my friends, like finally I’ve got this amazing group of girlfriends and we tell each other everything, we’re together all the time. And I think that was kind of the marker of me being 22, like having all these friends and there’s all these question marks in your life, but the one thing that you have is that you have each other." I admire that sentiment, I just don't hear it in the song. It's kinda fitting that one of the top comments on that Genius page is simply "I can't wait to be 22." THAT is what I hear in the song. And that is an AWESOME feeling to evoke in a listener. I suspect that was the author's intention, but you're right, it's just a suspicion. To your broader point: I'm not calling her out for being calculating or disingenuous at all. Absolutely the opposite. To call someone "disingenuous" implies a question or criticism of their sincerity, but w/r/t Taylor Swift, we have no point of reference against which base such a claim. We don't know if she is a sincere person, we know only about the sincerity of the character she has written for herself and even THAT is clouded by our own projections. She's an artist. We know her art. Is her ART disingenuous? I'm not gonna get all metaphysical on you here, but I don't believe art can be fundamentally disingenuous. Is Taylor Swift a "calculating" person? No idea. Is her art "calculated"? Well yeah but so was fucking Raymond Carver's or Stanley Kubrick's or whoever, forever. I mean, besides like a 1-year-old's finger paintings, all art is to some degree "calculated." The thing I'm criticizing is this reaction to her music, right now, that seems to be a referendum on her intent or motives. WE DON'T KNOW HER INTENT OR MOTIVES. But historically, we can see a pattern that SUGGESTS a consistent artistic identity, and suddenly, people are forgetting about all that and acting like she's always been something else.

Doug you are fucking nuts if you don't put a sticker on the CD case that says "An extreme metal Autechre." That's the coolest praise I've ever heard about anything.

Thanks man, I know about that fact-check, I just said "Tennessee-bred" as a way of shortening "Pennsylvania-born, Tennessee-bred" to make it read snappier. I did not know the other stuff. I remember somebody telling me she grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, and I was like, "Yeah but it was a Christmas-tree farm owned by her dad who works in finance." I'm not even sure it was an operational Christmas-tree farm or just basically a literal evergreen forest owned by the Swift family.

Here are the aforementioned accounts, if yr curious. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-muse-behind-joni-mitchells-carey-1415721658 https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-joni-mitchell-met-cary-raditz-her-mean-old-daddy-1415721367

Well she's a total fucking badass so I expect her to only say badass stuff, but I gotta be honest (and I recognize the irony in me saying this but) a couple years ago I was reading accounts of the song "Carey," first from Joni's perspective and then from Carey's (or whatever his real name was), and it was honestly absolutely riveting. It deepened my appreciation for her music like tenfold, and that's saying something. That said, I loved "Carey" for a VERY LONG time before I even knew it was based on a real relationship. Her writing absolutely blows my goddamn mind and needs no context to do so.

Incidentally, that whole Arcade Fire album basically just repackages a bunch of Eastern philosophy underneath all its snark, so I think Win Butler might feel a little conflicted about your defense of him here.

"Foreign word" - I can tell already that you're a pretty cool guy. "5 paragraphs of bullshit" - so you liked the other 250 paragraphs, but took issue with five of 'em? Was it just the ones with the "foreign word"?

It's been awhile!

No obvious skips? That's one way of putting it. Here's another: There's not a single song on there that isn't a solid contender for Best Song On The Album, and the only reason any of those songs wouldn't be a slam dunk for Best Song Of The Year is because it's impossible to even figure out which is the Best Song On The Album. We agree 100% on the sound, though. It's like a forest bath for your auditory system.

Just wanna say I'm proud that my War On Drugs review inspired both "Wow. That was long" in top comments, AND "Sorry, I can't read this bible" in bottom comments. It's like, whether or not we LIKE it, we all recognize that, yes, this piece of writing was excessive. It's my brand!

You and me both. He coulda gone full "Pecan Tree" on that one and I woulda been frozen there in bliss the whole time. I don't have many criticisms of the album, and "could stand to be much longer" is not a reasonable criticism for THIS album in particular, but that's what I'd ask for anyway. Gimme another 20 minutes total on "Knocked Down," "Nothing To Find," and "You Don't Have To Go" and this thing is PERFECT. Eh, and maybe "Strangest Thing," too, now that I think about it. So... 25 more minutes. But that's all it needs!

I sure do! She shoulda worked with this designer tbh. Way better than the actual album cover.

You are a masochist. But I'm happy to accept your flattery just the same! Thank you!

Dan, just because you said that, I will share part of the "shitty name" subsection I wrote (and then removed) from my review. It actually could have been way longer! You're welcome.

Can I say here that I think "The War On Drugs" is a really bad name? Almost offensively so? First off, The Actual War On Drugs was one of the most wrongheaded and corrosive policy initiatives ever foisted upon us by our federal government. It has systemically crippled and criminalized our inner cities and directly led to the militarization of our police force, among a litany of other offenses. The architects of The Actual War On Drugs have, over time, spoken out against it. Unless you run a for-profit prison or a criminal-defense law firm, you have almost certainly seen your quality of life decline as a result of The Actual War On Drugs. Would you call your band, like, "Trickle-Down Economics"? I hope not. That's an even worse name. Maybe you should just focus on the music and leave the names to someone else in the band. More to the point, that name does nothing to capture the spirit of THIS band. THIS band deserves a name with as much mystery, charisma, and raw force as is expressed in its music. Like, "The Hells Angels." Or "The Detroit Red Wings." Or "The Millennium Falcon." Yes, I understand, all those names have been claimed, but SO WAS THE WAR ON DRUGS.

I originally had a whole section of my review dedicated to how much I bristle at the band's name, and I scrubbed it when I saw that Granduciel doesn't really like the name either: https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/6w7ew6/the-political-rantings-of-war-on-drugs

Yeah I'm sorry if that was unclear, and I dunno if this will make it clearer but this is all I got in me: Not code for "racism" in so many words, but code for, like, a tribal notion of America as a white homeland, as personified by its cultural icons and hierarchy -- and an almost subconscious urge to return to a time when the country's demographics, social mores, and media supported, enforced, protected, and ENCOURAGED that notion. Same thing people in C-Ville were saying when they said they wanted to "preserve their heritage." Same thing Trump was saying when he said we need to "make America great again." Again I don't think those critics are intentionally blowing dog whistles, but I have a pretty good ear for that stuff, and that's what it sounds like to me.

I actually have a soft spot for Songs Of Innocence just because Scott & Scott loved it SO MUCH and discussed it with such insane enthusiasm. Didn't Aukerman rank it at like #3 or #4 in their catalog in the first Songs Of Innocence ep?

It's been awhile!

I'm pretty sure there's a track on an early Waltham song that samples some Mike Damone dialogue from Fast Times, actually.

That was Kozelek's other sick burn, right? You should at least credit the dude for giving you this great material.

... but you were a member of the graphic-design agency that created it?

Ah, I think that was actually an error I made during the editorial process, but I've now amended it in the text above. Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks for the shouts, guys! I just added a little update to the bottom of Tom's post above explaining what happened (via Billboard). It's pretty much identical to the arrangement Jay worked out with Samsung to artificially push Rihanna's ANTI to platinum status, which I wrote about (at length!) last year if yr curious how this stuff works: http://www.stereogum.com/1856262/if-rihanna-can-go-platinum-giving-anti-away-for-free-what-does-platinum-even-mean/franchises/sounding-board/

That is the reason I personally stopped listening to her -- Islamophobia is repugnant to me in any context, but especially so in black metal, where it's traditionally been fairly pervasive and tacitly accepted. But nah, the site's coverage choices aren't dictated by my values. I think I was just the only person here who ever liked her in the first place.

She was talking about that nightmare stuff a year ago. That's when I stopped listening to her, so I don't know if she's walked any of this back since then, but here's what she said in context, according to the person who interviewed her: https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackMetal/comments/4lvj2i/interview_myrkur_on_transitioning_from_indie/

Oh man Abbath. Well he's definitely DISTINCTIVE, I'll give you that.

This is maybe my favorite Cosmo post of all time (although the same could be said of a hundred Cosmo posts) and also one of the funniest and greatest things ever published on the internet.

I'm not arguing one side or the other, because I have NO FUCKING IDEA, but just to play devil's advocate here: Have you ever looked at the body of work produced by Mr. Brainwash in the many years since the release of that movie? There's a lot of it, and often in big public spaces (as well of tons of smaller pieces in gallery shows). So not only did they create the character, the documentary, the actual human being playing the part of Thierry Guetta, but they have also actively kept the prank going, creating and displaying tons of new art, for the last SEVEN YEARS, during which time Banksy and Shepherd have also been active? AND he's 3D too?! AND NONE OF THEM HAVE EVER BEEN WITNESSED OR REVEALED AS TAKING PART IN THIS INSANELY ELABORATE CONSPIRACY??? Again, devil's advocate. I don't even know how you apply Occam's Razor to this one.

Honestly based on this comment I think there's like a 20% chance cokeparty is Banksy, compared to like a 7% chance 3D is Banksy.

Seriously. Look at this excerpt from the NYT review. How the fuck is this real life? (Is it?)

Glad somebody else caught this. I was gonna respond too but I felt like just randomly embedding "Sorted" into the comments would have been super obscure and confusing for everyone else.

To say nothing of the fact that this is EXACTLY the type of Pynchon-esque mindfuck that Banksy himself would initiate. It's been seven years since Exit Through The Gift Shop and I'm still not sure if Banksy is Mr. Brainwash or what.

Thanks for saying this. I think about this kinda stuff a lot, and I'll spare you the details of my own ongoing existential calculus except to say that I agree with your conclusion and I appreciate you sharing it here.

http://www.thegauntlet.com/article/33016/THOMAS-ANDREW-DOYLE-TAD-Issues-Making-Of-Incineration-Ceremony-Video-

There's this one exchange between Harris and PFT in the "Blue Turtlin'" side podcast that is like absolute genius-level comedy. Nobody would ever try to write that shit because it's too intricate and insane to actually pull off or even follow, but those dudes are just so in the zone that it comes off like it's nothing.

That's the best way, I just wanted to warn you that the first two eps aren't a great indicator of where it goes afterward. There are a bunch of CBB regulars who appear in different eps later on: Harris, Jimmy Pardo, Todd Glass, PFT (of course), Doug Benson. Those eps literally leave me in tears. Then there's one where a bunch of those guys do a DVD-style commentary track over an earlier ep and it's the funniest fucking shit in history. I know I'm building it up a lot, but it really is one of my favorite things on this Earth. And if you already like CBB, I think it's gonna be a revelation for you, because it's kinda like the most perfect distillation of the CBB format/universe. Enjoy!

I love CBB too but I think U Talkin' U2 To Me is even better. FWIW, for the first ep or two, they really do seem to be semi-focused on talking about the music of U2, so you might want to start with ep. 3, "The Joshua Tree" with special guest Harris Wittels (RIP), because that's where things really go off the rails and it only gets weirder and funnier from there. It is a total delight, and if you like CBB, you'll love it.

Dude's an absolutely unreal guitarist and his interplay with Baizley is genuinely some of the best musical chemistry I've heard in the last 10 years. I hope he does more stuff with Valkyrie, because that project is rad as hell, too. http://www.stereogum.com/1796992/valkyrie-wintry-plains-stereogum-premiere/mp3s/

http://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2017/06/1975af-1496349123.png

That's one way of putting it.