Re: capsule reviews

Of course I would rather read a scholarly TP essay on an artist any day of the week, and the intellectual level of this guy's site is dismal, but nonetheless I find this page incredibly useful:

MICRO-REVIEWS OF HIP NEW BANDS THAT THE KIDS DIG

That is a fun read, although after a while you start to wonder why the guy bothers listening to music since he seems to hate most of it.

Has anyone on this board ever heard of a musical subgenre called "shitgaze"? (Until they read it on that guy's page.)

Ahhh, he makes a reference to "Blur's 'whoo-hoo' song." That tells me all I need to know.

I find this page incredibly useless. But Nose has done us a service by bringing its uselessness to our attention. Thanks, Nose.

If you're not already familiar with Mark Prindle, that's disappointing, because he's one of the funniest music writers around. And I don't know if he hates most of the music he listens to, but he's done a lot of reviews and interviews if you check out the main page, so he's put a lot of time into it. Music reviews have to be serious literary compositions?

Sorry, Delvin. I thought I put proper caveats on my reference to Prindle's site, but apparently not enough for you so I will add some more. His humor is spectacularly crude, infantile, and irreverent. His writing style is pure trash. Even his aesthetic beliefs are generally ridiculous. But I have actually learned about some great hardcore and punk bands from his site and read him regularly in hopes of finding more new discoveries. I find this single-page summary of all the current hipster bands a proper antidote to the indie-rock hype machine in some respects. For example, I find this response to Bloc Party...

"British dance-rock. Reminiscent of dance-era Gang Of Four. Awful!"

...a more useful analysis than this one:

"His prayer was answered, all to the good, as A Weekend in the City established Bloc Party as one of the most important rock bands to emerge in this decade."

As someone who still buys CDs and generally stays away from music downloads and MySpace I bought this CD and think it is pretty "awful". I understand Prindle's aesthetic enough that I find these little capsules handy as a consumer tool. That's all. If you think they are crap, so be it. So far, they have lead me to buy a couple good CDs (Blitzen Trapper, Gutter Twins, Juana Molina, etc) and avoid a few other hyped bands I would probably have regretted investing in.

And the meaning of "shitgaze" should be self-evident. Anyone who takes the orignal word "shoegaze' seriously, could use some Beavis-and-Butthead-style perspective.

Nose, you put plenty of proper caveats on your initial post. "The intellectual level of the guy's site is dismal." What more is needed?

No, music reviews don't have to be serious literary works, but capsule reviews just never have done much for me, from any source.

I didn't check out the main page. I'll have to do that. Thanks.

Ask anyone who knows me in real life: I have plenty of Beavis-and-Butthead perspective. I just prefer to leave it out of my writing on this site ... partly because I haven't spotted many B&B types around here. Well, a couple, but they didn't stick around for long.

P.S. I still do my best to stick to the physical music formats, too, so I understand where you're coming from there, too.

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No, music reviews don't have to be serious literary works, but capsule reviews just never have done much for me, from any source.

Any source? Aw c'mon. I thought Robert Christgaus's one-liner assessment of Portishead ("Sade for androids") was dead-center on the sweet spot and out of the park! It was accurate and merited. Didn't stop me from digging that band one iota. It still makes me laugh!

Sometimes brevity is just the thing. Wish I could master it.

I don't agree with this particular assessment, but it caused me to laugh until Diet Coke came out my nose:

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Drive-By Truckers - They still make music like this!? It sounds like Bryan Adams singing for .38-Special!

I had the same reaction to this one:

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Kathleen Edwards - Tori Amos and John Mellencamp living together in the body of a Canadian woman.

I like Edwards very much, but that is fairly apt. Of course, I like Amos and Mellencamp, also, so I'm probably not the audience for that particular barb anyway.

Ha! Pretty fun. That Clod, er,Coldplay review is classic.

jeez, do i need to start writing again????

Well, I for one would love to see the Sparks entry brought up to date.

I guess that's what I was trying to say, Ira

Well, I for one certainly wouldn't complain.

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Author: ira
Date: 02-07-09 14:56

jeez, do i need to start writing again????

Apparently



[buddylove.us]

Post Edited (02-15-10 20:07)

Sure, it's funny. But I'm neither an android nor a Sade fan, so it doesn't provide much worthwhile information. But then, that's what this site is for.

I like the 'skinny guy next door' description of The New Year's singer.