Supreme Balloon
[Matador; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.5.
These guys made a name for themselves in the glitch era by recording sounds and then, through sampling and sequencing, making those sounds into IDM, or "Inetelligent Dance Music." Everybody agreed that it was a super clever trick. I remember we all stood around in a dark room, wearing our army-issue nerd glasses and corduroys and drinking our second and final Belgian-style microbrew of the evening, and we sporadically interrupted the conversation we were having about our still-incomplete urban planning doctorate thesis in order to clap politely at Matmos, because that's how intelligent people used to dance. We did this all night long until the break of 11:30pm. I know that sounds impossible, but we couldn't help but get carried away. It was all just so impressive, the way they put together music which pushed technology to the height of its capacity using software design and operational specs that were not yet readily available to anyone unless they really really wanted to do such a thing. And Matmos were the best at it because we all agreed that their tricks were the cleverest, and we were all super smart and clever ourselves, so the stuff they were doing was, like, double extra clever.
The clever trick on this album is "no for real, we're still doing this."
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
My Bloody Underground
[A [Records]; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 2.6.
The above review makes me furious. Not because I think this is necessarily the best thing I've ever heard, or because I care enough to take a side in the ridiculous firestorm of pro- and anti- Brian Jonestown Massacre (really it's just the one guy, Anton Newcombe) publicity. I'm pissed because anybody who purports to care about music, even in 2008, should be EXCITED when something "sounds more like a poorly recorded group of proficient amateurs giving it a go on fourth-hand guitars and some empty paint buckets, with the singer warbling through a pillow for good measure."
HEL-LO... buddy? You're in year 8 of the shittiest decade ever. Shouldn't you be happy when something doesn't sound like Kelly Clarkson? I know you don't want it to be some "overhyped" (memo to Pitchfork: you guys ARE hype)(joke: Interpol, Arcade Fire, and a million other shitty bands called, and they want their last remaining visible ballsack skin back) delusional junkie, but come on. This is better than you're giving it credit for and you know it. Not that anybody should take those ratings seriously, but this is the worst thing you fuckers have listened to in a month? You're not joking? This is better (as in I prefer it, I don't have a handy ratings scale) than at least three and probably five out of your five top best albums of the year for 2008.
Why do I think this about My Bloody Underground? I admit that it's simultaneously amateurish, offensive, sophomoric, druggy, repetitive, muddy, pretentious, needy, interminable, derivative, unnecessary, too-casual, and desperate. All of those things willfully and almost gleefully, with a covert-to-the-point-of-apology (rather than a "this is our whole fucking thing") flittering of tongue into cheek for good measure.
Luckily, as far as "art" is concerned, no one quality is inherently good or bad. You can't build backwards from scratch with a list of good things to do and bad things to avoid and be sure you'll end up with something that's good. If something is good, it's probably a natural result of somebody doing whatever they're doing on purpose, all the way, for no better reason than because that's who they are and that's what they're doing. The result just happens to have whatever qualities it has, and it's "good" or "bad" not because of the qualities that define what it is, but because it either welled up unforced from an uncalculated honesty within the creative process or else was some form of unintentionally obligatory rush job.
(Working example: you can be a dishonest person and therefore make something that's honestly dishonest. Provided you really are an unscrupulous huckster down to the marrow, whatever dishonest thing you do will work out pretty great. Just ask Bob Dylan or David Bowie or Marc Bolan or etc. etc. etc.)
And the rest, the whether-or-not-people-like-it part is just timing and prevailing sentiment and historical cultural context and "talent" and "what did Pitchfork rate it" and all the rest, which combines to make it impossible to tell, without the benefit of time, if something is good/bad or just liked/not, and on a long enough timeline it won't even matter. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try our damndest to encourage truth as we define it and champion it when it comes up. And, since everything's crazy all the time, sometimes a look in the rearview mirror is a good idea, lest we accidentally overlook a Velvet Underground. Remember: those guys were not a foregone conclusion in any way until enough people formed a "we like this" community for them to eventually, posthumously, be rightly considered one of the greatest rock bands ever.
I firmly believe all of this theory garbage. I've thought about it a lot. Do not buy me drinks at the bar unless you want me to talk your whole fucking ear off.
To the subject at hand: regardless of where you might stand, judgment-wise, as a rubbernecking witness to the Continuing Story of Anton Newcombe, you'd have to agree that he does seem to honestly be amateurish, offensive, sophomoric, druggy, repetitive, muddy, pretentious, needy, interminable, derivative, unnecessary, too-casual, and desperate. So his music is who he is.
Which means that everything David Raposa says is wrong with My Bloody Underground is actually something that's right with it. And the one thing everybody agrees it's not, cute (read: dishonest), is the one thing that's been ruining music since forever. If it takes an army of "overhyped" delusional junkies to continually disappoint Pitchfork staffers with their "overhyped" delusional junkie honesty in order to make music good again, I'm all for it.
I don't know much about the Brian Jonestown Massacre saga. I haven't seen the movie. I'm not overly familiar with the music. For all I know this guy is some kind of a horrible child-rapist monster and deserves to be torn to shreds whenever possible. But from what second hand stuff I've heard, I think he's probably just a too-sensitive guy who's all the way up his own ass about wanting to be a genius, and he sometimes acts like a bitchy little jerk. I don't know.
I do know that if the clubhouse over at Pitchfork heard this exact album on a good day in 2010 without knowing what it was, or rather if it came packaged with some press release which included a cutesy backstory about how this is the work of 15 year old kids in a church basement in Lawrence, Kansas, and if a couple of planted sources in Kansas verified the easy-to-write-about weirdo underdog story, they'd think it was the greatest fucking thing ever done. With not a note different. Anton Newcombe's greatest fault as an artist might come down to a lack of creativity with his press releases.
As for me, I think this is good. I give it a "like point yes." But of course hindsight is 20-20, and that might just be a trendy "like point yes" that will look as stupid in 2 years as the above-linked review looks now. If that's the case I'll throw out a bet-hedging reminder that I never said that this is fantastic, per se.
Chuck Berry
Johnny B. Goode: His Complete '50s Chess Recordings
[Universal / Hip-O Select; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 9.5.
You know what? I'm not going to bitch and moan about Pitchfork anymore. They're right. Chuck Berry's complete 50's Chess recordings are a 9.5.
Good work on those Complete 50's Chess Recordings, Chuck Berry, you get a 9.5 out of a possible ten!
Quinn Walker
Laughter's An Asshole/Lion Land
[Voodoo-EROS; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 7.3.
This is long and all over the place in a ha-ha-ha-look-at-me way. It's like a white guy Cody Chestnutt. Which is to say: has its readily apparent charms, but I'm not gonna listen to the whole thing if you don't mind.
Sonic Sum
Films
[Definitive Jux; 2008]
Pitchfork gave it a 3.9.
Let me try this with a straight face:
"I watch bad movies on purpose fairly often, so I know the conventions.
"In the case of this excuse me release of "underground" hip hop, the title Films points as a clue to how best to understand what's going on here. These tracks are like little rapsploitation films. At their best they're evocative of something else (in real life, this emcee would be a BAD DUDE), at worst they're overtly manipulative, the listener's suspension of disbelief strained past its breaking point.
"Picture "gritty" urban alleyway as portrayed by the beat, full of clean, crisp, empty cardboard boxes, all but untouched by the lazy/incompetent set decorator, there for no other reason than to be plowed over by the MC's those-tires-should-be-flat-by-now getaway car. You either mind, notice and laugh at it, or don't really pay attention, depending on whether or not you can bring yourself to care about the poorly-developed characters or if you find some entertainment value in the vague, by-rote dialogue about individualism and empowerment.
"But they are, at least, films. A seamless blending of MC and producer to create one larger thing which is, depending on whether the involved parties concentrate on the detailed portrayal of an asskicking dude or alternatively indulge in some incompetently-rendered broad stroke message-making, either more or less than just phrases over beats."
Ha ha ha. Nope, sorry. Couldn't pull it off.
This sounds like it's from 1996, but every once in a while it's medium good if you don't take it too seriously.
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