Deerhunter/Best Coast

Dear Cam: I have so little interest in and knowledge of music blogs that I have no idea what your strategic analysis even means. Goosing? Gain? What? I was given the opportunity to make a little money keeping up with music I want to keep up with in this frequent-post format and figured out how to make it make sense to me. Had no idea the comments would be this extensive or intelligent. But for me writing is work and, as I expect to explain on my NAJP blog soon too, a professional writer has a lot more to lose making a quick comment that doesn't hold water or makes some factual gaffe than the typical blog commenter. So how long or how much I comment here remains to be seen. My NYU class starts in another week, which generally means three-and-a-half months of 80-hour weeks. Expect to hear less for me, and hope the records hold out, which is not statistically likely--although I do seem to find more doing it this way, where I change the parameters a little more readily and have more time to go for broke and also get the occasional tip from you guys.

Duke-- I gotcha. Who would have ever thought this would happen? I subscribed to the Village Voice from 1982 until they cancelled Xgau, for the sole reason of keeping up with him. Maybe he lost his meter in that environment, that's certainly what the creeps who own the paper think. But that also allows us to look at this new environment in a fresh way.

London Sessions is actually a pretty solid place to go.  Sound Of Silver is the great work, but if you're looking to find the groove, it's front and center there.

You know what I mean. Yes, 'project-wannabe' - I assure you there are people dumb enough to want to live in the projects. You'll find half of them in, the comments of, any one Tupac Youtube video. You're just pissed I said you were wrong about Courtney Love, now, admit it! ;p

Joe - the things you mentioned you would not like to be 'sincere' - are they not sincere in the fact that they are all saying '**** you' (yeah, I know that's a stretch!)?! I feel that he is still too involved in the (at least, nowadays) childish 'scene' to really comment on it in any smart way - otherwise it wouldn't be every song? The Dolls wrote songs about the scene but they didn't hang on to it like James Murphy does.

Duke - just wait till some hipster ****-heads/project-w​annabes (who can afford a computer in the projects, let alone pay for internet - zing!) Google 'Christgau sucks' and find this..! :/ :p

Walter:  The "96 Tears" reference is too much to ignore.  Because for me, it went from exactly that to "Gloria" to "Brown Eyed Girl" (with "Here Comes The Night" in there also) to Astral Weeks.  At which point the visceral kick was multiplied by an emotional connection that a) expanded the visceral kick into previously uncharted territory, and b) has never left.  Moondance cinched it and life was never the same.

 

GM

 I have a hard time with LCD Soundsystem too. I find Murphy not so much insincere but detached and a bit arch. But I do admit that I enjoy his best stuff quite a bit as both background and foreground. I do think he's a smart guy. I do enjoy the coldness and do hear very much a "German period" Bowie influence as well as Talking Heads circa the Eno years. Hmm..maybe Eno is the real influence here.  I think I should catch a live show. That might humanize things a bit. That new "live" disc "London Sessions" hints that there is probably a very good live band in there. Definitely a groove band in that minimalist way. Track one "Us v Them" is killer. Oh..I find that I play Bowie's "Low" much more than "Station To Station" as I get older. It's my Bowie of choice.

4 stars for Station to Station. Admired for quality yet stays untouched on the shelf for long periods of time.

 

Joey -- Thanks for the effort.  I'll keep trying as well.

 

GM

Joey - sign into your hotmail and make a profile and you will be able to edit your posts! ;p

Gmort - I agree, I am not much of a Bowie fan - the albums I do like tend to be very spacey so not easy listening, for me (and, thanks for the thumbs up! ;p).

Joey, again - I don't think that people find him insincere - it's more that he's not, actually, as smart as he thinks he is - nor is he as smart as so many faux-listening music critics and art teachers think he is! It's like people liking Radiohead because they are 'deep' *shudder. Of course, 'North American Scum' is a superb song - I think Hot Chip are better though - just for song-writing skill (not by much, though).

Tom Walker - for me, it's nothing to do with image association with Kanye and, almost, everything to do with GaGa. With Kanye his personality saturates the music, with GaGa, to much extent, does not. I like both albums - Kanye's more, obviously, but they both still weren't really my kinds of albums. For me, great albums are either warm (think Al Green's 'Call Me', even Rolling Stone's 'Exile on Main Street' - although, only just) or (this is annoying - I can't think of the word!), for lack of a better word, bright (think Television's 'Marquee Moon', 'Layla', Sugar's 'File Under: Easy Listening'). Yes, I get the association with the use of guitars! Although, I think I could find some guitar heavy albums which I would consider warm ('Too Much Too Soon' is quite warm? How about, 'Pretzel Logic'?)! Both Kanye's and GaGa's albums don't seem to fall into either - 'Maya' is a warm album - they both, especially Kanye's, tend to feel a little dudish - if it wasn't for the brilliant music! Lol - I'm not really explaining myself here, am I?! Let's leave it at, for Kanye, no image association and with GaGa more than some!

Oh, and thanks Someone for the words of encouragement - after receiving 12 thumbs down on an earlier post I was starting to think some people in here were douche-bags, at the least, if not idiots.

Insincere?  There's your problem.  That definitely shows up on a lot of the songs, but focus on the core: "Someone Great" and, one of my five favorite songs ever, "All My Friends."