Anonymous Outsider

What Will Happen To The Likely Lads?

What ever you think about the Libertines and their music; great driving rock & roll, or slick A&R con job, they make a great a soap opera. And this is the best version of it, we've read so far. We just hope Pete Doherty is more Shaun Ryder -- who's at least a survivor -- than Sid Vicious, because we really can't help liking the guy. (Rolling Stone)

November 04, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Jesus, Where To Start?

I found so much to fault with Kalefa Sanneh’s lede Arts piece, that I find myself wanting to refute it almost line for line. I won't though. She starts off by advancing the rather reasonable argument that there was no small amount of bathos and hand-wringing around last week’s Ashlee Simpson’s SNL snafu, since all it did was make Miss Simpson look like a dusted fucktard for a moment; no harm, no foul. That Simpson was lip syncing (as so many Pop stars do) is no problem to Sanneh, in fact, to her, it and programs like American Idol are a sign of a healthy, multicultural zeitgeist that should be embraced rather than pilloried by stodgy old white critics who only admire loud, raucous, scruffy singer song-writers. She even suggests a purge of some music criticism's old guard, but, politely begs off from naming them because, as she writes “(now doesn’t seem the right time… ((maybe next week, when her schedule’s more flexible?)).” God, those annoying gadflys, making it hard for poor multi-billion dollar Sony to rake in even more money off hyped karaoke singers; and yet, I doubt Sanneh is a corporate tout – she’s too thoughtful for that role. What else but deep semiotic analysis could come up with a sentence like:

“You can argue that the shape-shifting feminist hip-pop of Ms. Aguilera is every bit as radical as the punk rock of the 1970's (and it is),”

Music criticism never made me want to scream before. How could Times cultural editors allow such unadulterated bullshit on their watch? Subjectivism run amok. Take that shit to the NY Press. Punk Rock was a real insurgency, a (failed) revolution really, borne in the UK of stultifying classism, joblessness and despair created by failed Labour government policies; the very policies that were set to address those same ills. Aguilera was a fucking a Mouseketeer for God’s sake! And now she's a skank. That's radical?

In any case, it’s clear that the writer hates, and has no concept of Rock music. Her misunderstanding of the subject is so vast that she mistakenly uses the word “Pop” when she means “top forty.” White “rockists” don’t like Pop, Sanneh argues. Oh, they don't? What about The Pixies, U2, Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene and the fucking Beach Boys for that matter.

But, what is strangest about Sanneh’s piece to me is that she misses the best chance to persuade her case: mainly, that corporate control of artists can make music that sounds really groovy: Motown, baby. Berry Gordy and his minions manufactured achingly, beautiful Pop music needing little authenticity – the singers didn’t write their own music and one of his his acts, Little Anthony, was lip syncing "Tears on my Pillow" on American Bandstand thirty-five years ago. Instead, she compares Mariah Carey favorably with Nirvana. “…When did we all agree that Nirvana's neo-punk was more respectable than Ms. Carey's neo-disco?” We didn’t have to agree, it was just a given.

October 31, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

And Dylan Thomas Want's His Name Back Too

"Later, the damage done by Huntington's snagged and slurred (Guthrie's) voice. Guthrie's daughter Nora believes that Dylan mimicked this clinical symptom, and hi-jacked it as his trademark drawl." (Independent)

October 31, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

'Tim Says Not To Pack Anything...'

polyphonicme1
'since everything we need will be in Guyana.'
(Pictured left -- Polyphonic Spree fan in his new robe.)

July 23, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Blah-Blah-Blahs

macy
Because it’s in one of my favorite papers, I wish I could believe this rather gushing review (four stars!) of Macy Gray’s latest Brit tour date. But I can’t -- because I saw her last month, and she absolutely sucked, as indeed she has always sucked (now she’s just sucking high {“Gray staggers onto the stage”) -- and I think the problem with this review is exactly the thing that has destroyed pop music criticism. Lester Bangs had it right when he smashed Dylan for being a honky fraud. But that’s the flip side of the coin, and it’s not the question of whether Dylan was (is) or not a fraud; it’s being willing and capable of adequately defining the total experience a listener of a certain record should expect from it. We’re talking about an unwillingness (for whatever reasons, and they vary, from publication to publication -- let’s not get into the pervasiveness of PR here) to dis anything but the most saccharine and manufactured pop: Instead, critics dissect an album relentlessly, to find some goodness within. Basically, if you’re not Avril Lavigne (and sometimes even then…), you get a pass from the critics. Dear Mr. Klosterman, how many albums do I need to buy to consider myself hip?

Enter Filter mag – a slickly produced, and decently written monthly, that has obviously taken its name from MoJo’s “Filter” feature. Implicit in the title is a promise to weed the wheat from the shaft (or filter out the background noise, as it were), but in the last two issues – with some sixty records reviewed – not one has received a “failing” grade. Some album somewhere must be really sucky enough to trounce on. Why can’t Filter find it?

July 12, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Noble Surfer

In my mind, "God Only Knows," is the most beautiful pop song of the Sixties, if not ever. It avoids the pretense, bombast and banality that lessen the impact of so many other Rock melodies. It is an infectious song, one of those that can be put on repeat mode and played over and over again, until you need to pry yourself away from its clutches. So the Brian Wilson interview in today's London Independent saddens me:

"But in all the interviews I've done, I've never met anyone so bewildered, so fragile, so clearly close to the edge. Even the simplest things seem to elude him. Over the course of an hour, he asks me my name four times - in one instance he gets me to spell it - but he calls me Winona anyway. It seems easier not to argue." (Independent)

Of course, Wilson's suffering is not news, but to see him so baldly used for the ends of others (does he really care if Smile is released, I wonder?) is disheartening. Doesn't the man deserve a nice quiet corner somewhere?

June 21, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Where Will You Go, Little Phishies?

tanastasio
Rumors are flying among Phish fans faster than dollar bills around a nitrous tank that the real reason why the band has called it quits is the result of contention caused by lead singer Trey Anastasio's Oxycontin addiction. Anastasio was dogged by opiate addiction rumors in the late nineties, but was able to put them past him, in large part because of his consummate professionalism. The band claims that the reason that they have retired has to do with a desire not to play past their prime. The suddenness of the move, however, has caused some “Phans,” as devotees of the jam-band call themselves, to hold this reasoning suspect.

So, in any case, Phish is gone. I haven't seen them since the mid-nineties and their music increasingly leaves me cold, yet, it's a little like I remember people saying how they felt when Johnny Carson retired: even if they never tuned in anymore, they would miss just having him around. That's how I feel about Phish. A related question: How come no one ever admits to liking them?

June 01, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (1)

Madonna Show Gets Mixed Reactions

Madonna
Madonna was forced to cancel the Israeli leg of her Re-invention world tour after terrorists threatened the lives of herself and her children. Letters, which contained the threats, were taken seriously because they "'displayed in-depth knowledge' about Madonna's close aides." A source, speaking to the London Sun, said Madonna wanted to push on, "but she was not ready to take chances with her kids, they are her whole world." How does that make Guy Ritchie feel, huh?
Meanwhile, some fans in LA, where her tour kicked off, didn't get the message that Re-invention would be Madonna's most shocking tour yet: "I mean come on dude, get out there, start dancing (Ed.--dance? she's 102 yrs old)... It's like the Pope starting a rock band." I guess the poor, uninformed dear doesn't read Liz Smith. At least one fan didn't go away mad, though. The happy camper "was boasting that he had managed to catch a sweaty T-shirt." "'We'll be on eBay tomorrow,'" "we" meaning the guy and his t-shirt, perhaps? (iafrica) (BBC)

May 25, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Pete Doherty Enters Rehab

babyshambles_petedoherty_290404_M
"Come away, won't you come away, we'll go to.. hosptial?" Pete Doherty of the Libertines announcing to his fans on his website, that he has headed off to detox to kick "heroin and crack." Luckily, for his massive habit, the medicos over at the Priory, a hospital in South West London, "whacked (him) on loads of medication. 16 different colours pillslike hundreds of thousands or bassets jelly babies." Huh? Oh right, all those pills. (NME)

May 18, 2004 in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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