Tag Archives: music

Favorite Music Reviews: A New Series (hopefully the City Paper won’t steal my idea this time)

Earlier today, I tried starting a blog post series of my favorite–note, not best–songs. The first one was going to be Reverend Gary Davis’ I am the Light of this World (which would have been followed by about eight other Davis songs; I sweat him hard), but the limits of blog software led me to a cup of coffee instead. In this spirit, I launch a new series of Favorite Music Reviews, of which this post is the first.

For the record, most music reviews make me sick. (seriously; I’ve had a near panic attack over one in particular; ask SF). In fact, my own album ratings is an ironic and functional spin on the review process, where thoughtless albums receive a tremendous amount of column space and incredible albums register only a few gazillion hits on Google. Furthermore, the only music critic who does not make me want to throw my Internet out the window is Sasha Frere-Jones, and even he decides to write about inconsequentials such as Neko Case.

Nonetheless, about once every decade, there is a music review that I find so absurdly great that I put it on my fridge, mental or physical. To these reviews, I dedicate this series. Typically, my favorite reviews are those that are ruthless (in either a positive or negative manner), to the point, and demonstrate a wide knowledge of music without coming off as clever. People who know me, know that I feel CMJ reviews are the antithesis of this.

The first is Richard Gott’s Liberation Music, which appeared in the March 12, 2009, issue of London Review of Books. Now, Gott’s article is great, but it’s not his work that ranks him in my favorite music reviews. No, it is who he quotes. Specifically, I am keen on a Rodney Bennett review of a January 1960 performance:

It took time, though, for the new experimental music to be widely accepted in London. Cardew and Tilbury had played pieces by Feldman and Cage at a concert at the Conway Hall in January 1960, and Rodney Bennett, who was present, recalled that the audience of 70 sat ‘transfixed with gloom’ while the two pianists produced, slowly and laboriously, ‘a series of small tired noises, not violent, not beautiful, not exciting, not even remotely interesting: the whole effect as soporific as an evening spent listening to the complete Methodist Hymnal’.

The entire article is filled with these sorts of gem, and I encourage some of you to read the entire piece.

Album Reviews

1—->3—–>5
Terrible—>Fantastic

5

4
Alias – Resurgam
Baptista, Cyro – Banquet of the Spirits
Bembeya Jazz National – Syliphone Years, The
Budos Band, The – Budos Band II, The
Budos Band, The – Budos Band, The
Buraka Som Sistema – Black Diamond
Buraka Som Sistema – From Buraka to the World EP
Collins, Bootsy – Back in the Day The Best of Bootsy
Cranes – Cranes
Franz Ferdinand – Tonight

3
A Mountain of One – Collected Works
Adams, John – Road Movies
Astatke, Mulatu – Mulatu of Ethiopia
Atlas Sound – Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
Battles – Mirrored
Beans – Thorns
Cheveu – Cheveu
Durrty Goodz – Ultrasound
Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna

2
Awesome Color – Electric Aborigines
Black Francis – Bluefinger
DJ Babu – Duck Season, Volume 03
Ipso Facto – Mannequin 7″
J Rawls and Middle Child – Rawls and Middle

1
Adele – 19
Against Me – tons
Glasvegas – Glasvegas
Jones, Grace – Hurricane

Pitchfork Sucks (for real this time)

When pressed to comment about Pitchfork, I usually dismiss it as the stuff of hipsters everywhere. But if asked privately for general outstanding sources of music news, I always include it. Now, however, I am dropping it from my recommendation list, because the writing has sunk from elitist erudite dissections to snarky editorialized drivel. Although the past month or so has been filled with news posts along these lines, this dis on Miley Cyrus is the straw that broke my two-humped camel back.

First, Cyrus criticizing Radiohead is not news. Second, slamming Cyrus at every opportunity is child’s play. Third, making her out to be an idiot is a bit odd when taking into account that she’s got gajillions of dollars over anyone associated with Pitchfork; this is essentially my Paris Hilton defense: Who’s the stupid one if she’s raking in the bucks and you’re sitting pinching pennies so you can buy another Miller Lite?

My last problem with the post is the assumption she is incapable of holding a worthwhile conversation about music just because she is involved in the pop machine. The decision to make that type of music does not mean she is clueless about music (or anything else for that matter). And if you work the logic backwards, does Pitchfork assume that everyone who listens to “sophisticated” or “good” music is a musical genius worth reading? If we were to simply dismiss anyone based on their musical tastes, I would be the first to dismiss Pitchfork for their schoolgirl obsession with Kanye, whose one-trick-pony production style and crybaby antics put him in the pantheon of spoiled overrated undertalented noisemakers.