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Showing posts with label criticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label criticism. Show all posts
Friday, 9 January 2009
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Compelling Music Writing
With the cricket burbling away in the background, I'm devouring some quite fine music writing. The first article, by Ben Gook, is entitled "Teh Interwebs: Best Mixtape Ever?" on newmatilda.com:
"People have been fretfully holding a stethoscope to the chest of the Australian music industry ever since its birth. But the prognosis has been fundamentally altered in recent years, as technology-led changes to the consumption of music on the internet have ripped the heart out of the CD market and opened up many different paths to hearing music. One provisional — or should that be provincial? — result of this is that Australian artists can navigate the music industry more easily: DIY production has been supplanted by online tools. Another immediate result is that local musicians are less isolated." LINK
And I've also been bashing my way through an excellent article by a guy called Nick Sylvester, dissecting the "artist" known as Girltalk. From "GIRL TALK, THE MASHUP DETONATOR":
"If Girl Talk has done anything, his dead-end project is a reminder of how fiercely dominant Western pop music has become. This is a capitulation, an audio essay even, of the last 25 years of American pop music: loop-based, interchangeable parts that, turns out, are more similar than maybe we'd like to admit. The "isn't it funny how 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' sounds like that Boston song" moment is taken to its darkest, veil-lifted extreme. That we're back in the Tin Pan Alley, and all pop music might actually be the same after all. That the difference is truly manufactured, that the concerns of each song are not interesting. Taking cues from the Grand Wizard Theodor: pop music is not art, but sound design." LINK
Girl Talk is coming to Australia at the end of the month, playing the Laneway Festivals.
Thanks to Tim Shiel (Triple R announcer and the artist known as Faux Pas) for the tip off about the article above. Funnily enough he's also quoted in the top article too!
"People have been fretfully holding a stethoscope to the chest of the Australian music industry ever since its birth. But the prognosis has been fundamentally altered in recent years, as technology-led changes to the consumption of music on the internet have ripped the heart out of the CD market and opened up many different paths to hearing music. One provisional — or should that be provincial? — result of this is that Australian artists can navigate the music industry more easily: DIY production has been supplanted by online tools. Another immediate result is that local musicians are less isolated." LINK
And I've also been bashing my way through an excellent article by a guy called Nick Sylvester, dissecting the "artist" known as Girltalk. From "GIRL TALK, THE MASHUP DETONATOR":
"If Girl Talk has done anything, his dead-end project is a reminder of how fiercely dominant Western pop music has become. This is a capitulation, an audio essay even, of the last 25 years of American pop music: loop-based, interchangeable parts that, turns out, are more similar than maybe we'd like to admit. The "isn't it funny how 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' sounds like that Boston song" moment is taken to its darkest, veil-lifted extreme. That we're back in the Tin Pan Alley, and all pop music might actually be the same after all. That the difference is truly manufactured, that the concerns of each song are not interesting. Taking cues from the Grand Wizard Theodor: pop music is not art, but sound design." LINK
Girl Talk is coming to Australia at the end of the month, playing the Laneway Festivals.
Thanks to Tim Shiel (Triple R announcer and the artist known as Faux Pas) for the tip off about the article above. Funnily enough he's also quoted in the top article too!
Monday, 1 September 2008
Best Australian Albums Ever
The results are in from a poll on Mess And Noise to find the Top 50 Australian albums of all time. The top ten ended up being:
01 The Saints - I'm Stranded
02 You Am I - Hourly Daily
03 You Am I - Hi-Fi Way
04 Triffids - Born Sandy Devotional
05 Radio Birdman - Radios Appear
06 Avalanches - Since I Left You
07 The Saints - Eternally Yours
08 Augie March - Sunset Studies
09 The Birthday Party - Junkyard
10 The Dirty Three - Ocean Songs
The full 50 and subsequent discussion is here. The poll came as a comment on the list compiled by The Age newspaper which asked music industry types to pitch their oz top ten. The results for their poll is here, with Midnight Oil's 10-1 leading the list. The full article in The Age is also online.
But my own votes for the Mess and Noise poll were thus:
01 Dirty Three - Ocean Songs
02 You Am I - Hi Fi Way
03 ACDC - TNT
04 The Avalanches - Since I Left You
05 Golden Rough - This Sad Paradise
06 Grand Salvo - 1642-1727
07 Gaslight Radio - hitch on the leaves
08 INXS - Kick
09 Drones - Wait Long By The River...
10 New Buffalo - The Last Beautiful Day
I think the top three are basically interchangeable, and even for someone who presented an Australian music program for 8 years on radio it was tough to pick my ten favourites of "all time".
On You Am I's "Hi Fi Way" which features toward the top of all the final lists, music journalist Ed Nimmervoll has this to say:
It’s still hard to believe how much You Am I accomplished with their epochal second album. Vibrant, even thrilling, in sound, but imbued with melancholic childhood memories and a sense of coming of age that was idiosyncratically Australian, Hi Fi Way set a benchmark that hasn’t been matched since.
True.
I've included INXS on my top 10 because it rules, and it was the first album I ever bought with my own pocketmoney. Also true.
01 The Saints - I'm Stranded
02 You Am I - Hourly Daily
03 You Am I - Hi-Fi Way
04 Triffids - Born Sandy Devotional
05 Radio Birdman - Radios Appear
06 Avalanches - Since I Left You
07 The Saints - Eternally Yours
08 Augie March - Sunset Studies
09 The Birthday Party - Junkyard
10 The Dirty Three - Ocean Songs
The full 50 and subsequent discussion is here. The poll came as a comment on the list compiled by The Age newspaper which asked music industry types to pitch their oz top ten. The results for their poll is here, with Midnight Oil's 10-1 leading the list. The full article in The Age is also online.
But my own votes for the Mess and Noise poll were thus:
01 Dirty Three - Ocean Songs
02 You Am I - Hi Fi Way
03 ACDC - TNT
04 The Avalanches - Since I Left You
05 Golden Rough - This Sad Paradise
06 Grand Salvo - 1642-1727
07 Gaslight Radio - hitch on the leaves
08 INXS - Kick
09 Drones - Wait Long By The River...
10 New Buffalo - The Last Beautiful Day
I think the top three are basically interchangeable, and even for someone who presented an Australian music program for 8 years on radio it was tough to pick my ten favourites of "all time".
On You Am I's "Hi Fi Way" which features toward the top of all the final lists, music journalist Ed Nimmervoll has this to say:
It’s still hard to believe how much You Am I accomplished with their epochal second album. Vibrant, even thrilling, in sound, but imbued with melancholic childhood memories and a sense of coming of age that was idiosyncratically Australian, Hi Fi Way set a benchmark that hasn’t been matched since.
True.
I've included INXS on my top 10 because it rules, and it was the first album I ever bought with my own pocketmoney. Also true.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Pitchfork
Daily Swarm pointed me to a great article/q&a with Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber.
"Hot on the heels of big dual announcements – the long-rumored launch of Pitchfork.tv and the company’s first foray into commercial music licensing (selecting part of the soundtrack for Take-Two Interactive’s Major League Baseball 2K8 video game) – and with the lineup announcement for this July’s Pitchfork Music Festival imminent, Schreiber sat for a lengthy interview with the Chicago Sun-Times’ Jim DeRogatis and spoke about the company’s past, present, and future."
Read the full interview here.
"Hot on the heels of big dual announcements – the long-rumored launch of Pitchfork.tv and the company’s first foray into commercial music licensing (selecting part of the soundtrack for Take-Two Interactive’s Major League Baseball 2K8 video game) – and with the lineup announcement for this July’s Pitchfork Music Festival imminent, Schreiber sat for a lengthy interview with the Chicago Sun-Times’ Jim DeRogatis and spoke about the company’s past, present, and future."
Read the full interview here.
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