December 22, 2010
December 13, 2010
My Moon My Man
Feist - My Moon My Man (acoustic)
Feist recorded this amazing version of one of her most memorable tracks of 2007's The Reminder. The raw power of her voice is stunning especially in live one-take recordings, where it appears as naturally as possible. It seems as if her lips can't breathe a cacophonic sound. It used to be available at Amazon, but no longer.
The Reminder is $4, buy it
.
December 8, 2010
On The Dissolution of Indie
A reaction to an article by Carles.
You probably know that music's stingiest critic gave a perfect score to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
. For people who don't read Pitchfork, or even those that didn't know what Pitchfork was, in the days following the review its reverberations were unavoidable. On one album score, the magazine spent all 14 years of its accumulated snob capital. Whether it was internet-payola or pageview prostitution or honest truth, the review sadly mattered. Ironically it did little to explain why this was only the second perfect release of the past decade.
In its history Pitchfork has served to clean the rarefied air that indie music inhabits, and dissociate it from the pop music of MTV and Rolling Stone. But just because it didn't review The E.N.D. doesn't mean it does not care about major-label top 40 music. Notice its 2006 song of the year, Justin Timberlake's "My Love," or its recent and happy acquiescence of Lady Gaga.
At its best Pitchfork is a well-written articulation of the musical elements, technology and performance that make a record a success or failure. At its worst it is verbose, unfocused and pretentious writing that makes unfamiliar references to feign intelligence and belittle the reader. The elitist tastemaker has always had its detractors, but unlike say Rolling Stone's haters, these people still read it. That is because, through agreement or disagreement, they need Pitchfork to validate their tastes.
Perhaps nothing the magazine has done has been easier to agree on than the fact that Twisted Fantasy is not the most perfect album since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
. The adulation did little more than imply that Kanye West might be the living incarnation of MJ, and advertise its URL to the readership of Rolling Stone. If it can be so wrong or bought so cheaply, does what Pitchfork says matter anymore?
You probably know that music's stingiest critic gave a perfect score to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
. For people who don't read Pitchfork, or even those that didn't know what Pitchfork was, in the days following the review its reverberations were unavoidable. On one album score, the magazine spent all 14 years of its accumulated snob capital. Whether it was internet-payola or pageview prostitution or honest truth, the review sadly mattered. Ironically it did little to explain why this was only the second perfect release of the past decade.In its history Pitchfork has served to clean the rarefied air that indie music inhabits, and dissociate it from the pop music of MTV and Rolling Stone. But just because it didn't review The E.N.D. doesn't mean it does not care about major-label top 40 music. Notice its 2006 song of the year, Justin Timberlake's "My Love," or its recent and happy acquiescence of Lady Gaga.
At its best Pitchfork is a well-written articulation of the musical elements, technology and performance that make a record a success or failure. At its worst it is verbose, unfocused and pretentious writing that makes unfamiliar references to feign intelligence and belittle the reader. The elitist tastemaker has always had its detractors, but unlike say Rolling Stone's haters, these people still read it. That is because, through agreement or disagreement, they need Pitchfork to validate their tastes.
Perhaps nothing the magazine has done has been easier to agree on than the fact that Twisted Fantasy is not the most perfect album since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
. The adulation did little more than imply that Kanye West might be the living incarnation of MJ, and advertise its URL to the readership of Rolling Stone. If it can be so wrong or bought so cheaply, does what Pitchfork says matter anymore?
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