From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V18 #104 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, May 28 2010 Volume 18 : Number 104 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [Jeremy Osner ] The New Fleetwood Mac [Jill Brand ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar ["Nectar At Any Cost!" ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [2fs ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [Rex ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [Rex ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [Rex ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [Jason Brown ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [2fs ] Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar [Rex ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 16:07:24 -0400 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 5:51 PM, michael wells wrote: >> in re five consecutive stone-cold masterpieces: not saying they're >> entering > beatles territory, even remotely. and granted that it took 'em ten years > to knock them out. but has anybody apart from the beatles pulled off as > impressive a feat? hell, maybe it's even *extra* impressive that it was > over a ten-year period? Seems to me like Bob Dylan's output between his first album and "Nashville Skyline" does not include any disks which are not stone-cold masterpieces; that furthermore this is so self-evidently clear as not to be debatable. J ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 16:35:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Jill Brand Subject: The New Fleetwood Mac I still don't get all the hoopla about Challengers. Most of it sounds like a Fleetwood Mac album (and not the good, early stuff, either). I haven't heard Together yet, but I really like the first three albums a lot. My son told me not to get too excited, but I might be surprised. Jill ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 14:06:56 -0700 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar (not my upload). so you're against both the new pornos and the neutral milk hotel? that's messed up, mang. anyhow, for all of the "heretics" hereabouts, it's okay: just go listen to the new josh ritter instead! i'm not so keen on it, to be honest. i mean to say that i like newman's solo records and the zumpano stuff okay; immaculate machine and neko solo are very good -- but not masterpiece-quality; and bejar's side projects are pretty meh (that's difficult to figure, his pornos entries being so magnificent). but then, i'm fairly lukewarm on solo beatles. well, at least in the context of beatles releases proper. i don't care for *Rubies*. but i do very much like the two most recent releases: *Trouble In Dreams* and *Bay Of Pigs*. the latter is a twenty-minute, two-song, web-only EP. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 15:17:13 -0500 From: "gene@hopstetter.com" Subject: Re: The 45rmp heretic... > From: 2fs > > (Please note: All 45s are scratchy and crappy - I have no idea whether this > one is particularly so. To all artists releasing songs only on 7" vinyl or, > worse yet, only on cassette: get over yourself.) Pity you haven't heard the series of 45s Stereolab released for Fab Four Suture. Tim Gane bought a $7k turntable with his first advance from Elektra (a Simon Yorke, IIRC) so he knows a thing or two about analog sound. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 16:46:01 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 5:51 PM, michael wells > wrote: > >> in re five consecutive stone-cold masterpieces: not saying they're > >> entering > > beatles territory, even remotely. and granted that it took 'em ten years > > to knock them out. but has anybody apart from the beatles pulled off as > > impressive a feat? hell, maybe it's even *extra* impressive that it was > > over a ten-year period? > > Seems to me like Bob Dylan's output between his first album and > "Nashville Skyline" does not include any disks which are not > stone-cold masterpieces; that furthermore this is so self-evidently > clear as not to be debatable. > While there are some who might cavil w/the first album as being too coverlicious and indeed w/Nashville Skyline itself as being, well, a bit lesser, the core of that run (from Freewheeling through JWH) is indeed as your last phrase aptly has it. There may be individual *songs* in there that can be argued with, but the high points - and, most obviously, the sheer cliff-face of those albums' world-changing *influence* - are awfully damned massive. That's the thing about the sixties, though: Dylan and the Beatles realigned the planet's axis, and that's extremely unlikely to happen again. It wasn't just them, not even in music - but a whole enormous confluence of factors means that whatever the very high musical quality of TNPs'/Newman's/Case's output (very high indeed if you ask me), to look at their influence on music, or on the world at large, and compare to Dylan is sort of like weighing the odds of this gnat outwrestling this whale. Again: not their fault: we don't live in oceanic times, we barely have mammals, so judging the fineness of the various gnats, and the carefully calibrated miniatures they create, is fine. That's overstating it, true. But it's hopeless to expect the sort of universal...what, devotion? expectation? congregation? that attended Dylan's and the Beatles' stuff to exist now. We have demographics instead: finely tuned, carefully calibrated, etc. You make music now, you can ignore that fact or attune yourself to it, it doesn't matter: it still is. Within that endlessly striated landscape, the New Pornographers have strung as broad a net as is I think possible nowadays...but... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 14:47:51 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 1:07 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > > Seems to me like Bob Dylan's output between his first album and > "Nashville Skyline" does not include any disks which are not > stone-cold masterpieces; that furthermore this is so self-evidently > clear as not to be debatable. Well, yeah, I'll not waste any time on such an enterprise. I'm just kind of internally debating if bands and solo artists can be held to the same standards on this matter. Not coming to any hasty conclusions either. Jill, I wouldn't always have felt this way, but at this point I'd consider "early, good Fleetwood Mac" to potentially encompass anything shy of, say "Tango in the Night". Funny how some artist for which I didn't used to care have slowly worked their way into my good graces; conversely, it must mean the bands I still don't like really do suck pretty bad, so ha, eat that, arena rock bastards who still make me puke. (Normally I would say "Journey, I'm looking at you", but I really can't tell; I might actually be looking at REO Speedwagon.) Anyway, the Pornos have always invited a fair amount of FM comparisons; I've recently decided, though, that TWIN CINEMA is the odd record out. Great as it is, it seems to point in a new-ish direction, whereas CHALLENGERS would be a more natural third record. Subtle thing, though. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 14:57:09 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Nectar At Any Cost! wrote: > > > > i'm not so keen on it, to be honest. i mean to say that i like newman's > solo records and the zumpano stuff okay; immaculate machine and neko solo > are very good -- but not masterpiece-quality; and bejar's side projects are > pretty meh (that's difficult to figure, his pornos entries being so > magnificent). > I rate every Neko record from BLACKLISTED, and really probably FURNACE ROOM, as a no-holds-barred masterpiece... maybe even including the live one with The Sadies. I started off as thinking of Newman's solo records as sort of highly enjoyable place-holders but have revised my opinion of late and find them totally essential. As mentioned, I'm still working on Destroyer-- Bejar in TNP is usually amazing, often scene-stealing, but his tics seem to expand to more than fill the space allotted. I have TROUBLE IN DREAMS around here somewhere and would be delighted to have my opinion rearranged... However, what, really, is a "pissed-up Sunday morning"? Seriously, the 12-year old wants to know. Gawd, I'm such a sad sad fanboy sometimes... Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 17:03:06 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar > Again: not their > fault: we don't live in oceanic times, we barely have mammals, Robyn-worthy, that. The only way to deal with it all, perspective-wise, is to look at it backwards. The farther you get from now in one direction, the more likely it is that something I like was also popular and culturally important. Of course, the farther you go in the other direction, the closer you are to some puzzling totalitarian world with Lady Gaga as fuhrer and countless former American Idol losers as gestapo enforcers ensuring that all good citizens log their requisite 14 daily hours of videogaming, and me wondering how I could just sit by and let it happen. Erm, so, like, I honestly don't know the answer to this question... do New Pornos records hit the Top 10 these days? Because they have been sort of touchstones for a lot of us for years now, and I'm always a little stunned to hear that an act like Grizzly Bear is suddenly (it seems to me) what passes for a smash hit making machine these days. I just don't have a good handle on what makes them and the Decemberists and Shins and Silversun Pickups of the world huge while other very similar artists aren't. I think what I miss out on these days is the building of mainstrem momentum these acts undergo... very possibly it I were this age twenty years ago I might've been all "Wait, U2 and R.E.M. are famous now? So like what about Comsat Angels and Kilkenny Cats... they must be next, right?" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 17:47:28 -0700 From: Jason Brown Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Rex wrote: > Erm, so, like, I honestly don't know the answer to this question... do New > Pornos records hit the Top 10 these days? Because they have been sort of > touchstones for a lot of us for years now, and I'm always a little stunned > to hear that an act like Grizzly Bear is suddenly (it seems to me) what > passes for a smash hit making machine these days. I just don't have a good > handle on what makes them and the Decemberists and Shins and Silversun > Pickups of the world huge while other very similar artists aren't. I think > what I miss out on these days is the building of mainstrem momentum these > acts undergo... very possibly it I were this age twenty years ago I might've > been all "Wait, U2 and R.E.M. are famous now? So like what about Comsat > Angels and Kilkenny Cats... they must be next, right?" New albums by bands like the New Pornos, Decemberists, and Shins do hit the Top 10 in the Billboard charts. But these albums are only selling 60-80k copies in that first week and then drop off rapidly. 15 years ago 60k copies in a week might help you crack the bottom of the top 100. Only really huge acts (Gaga, Taylor Swift) sell large numbers of records these days and even then they don't sell anywhere near level of major acts of the past. My grandmother knew who REM was but my mother has no idea who the Shins are. None of these acts are making a real impact on the mainstream. i love the Decemberists for example but they aren't huge. They have pretty much reached their maximum potential for what they do and if anything thing their more recent work is shrinking their audience. The internet has helped these acts grow their audience rapidly but the infrastructure no longer exists to expose the U2/REM type acts of today go truly mainstream. The only thing that sells huge (i.e. millions of copies) these days is something that the mass audience already is ready to like. - -- We've all got a Briggs in us Somewhere down the road I don't know about you folks but this Briggs will explode - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 20:46:24 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 7:03 PM, Rex wrote: > > > Erm, so, like, I honestly don't know the answer to this question... do New > Pornos records hit the Top 10 these days? Because they have been sort of > touchstones for a lot of us for years now, and I'm always a little stunned > to hear that an act like Grizzly Bear is suddenly (it seems to me) what > passes for a smash hit making machine these days. I just don't have a good > handle on what makes them and the Decemberists and Shins and Silversun > Pickups of the world huge while other very similar artists aren't. I think > what I miss out on these days is the building of mainstrem momentum these > acts undergo... very possibly it I were this age twenty years ago I might've > been all "Wait, U2 and R.E.M. are famous now? So like what about Comsat > Angels and Kilkenny Cats... they must be next, right?" > Jason wrut: "The only thing that sells huge (i.e. millions of copies) these days is something that the mass audience already is ready to like." The key is, there isn't really a mass audience in the same sense there was in Beatles/Dylan days...in which not only did manic teenagers buy Beatles albums, so did their older brothers, and so did their graduate student cousins; and music critics reviewed them and generally respected them as a matter of course. Nowadays it hardly seems even to make sense to think of what Lady Gaga does as even the same thing as what (say) Robyn Hitchcock does, or what the New Pornographers do. It's not even about "quality"; it's about what are these folks' goals, what are their means, etc. I'm pretty sure that if Lady Gaga (who is a synecdoche here, and may not be the best actual choice) were told by her management that no one cared about dance-pop recordings any more, and instead she should make purses, she'd make purses. Or bicycles. Or melting iceberg sculptures. She's an entertainer, that is, who uses music as part of her entertainment package. It might be good music, it might not - in a sense, it's irrelevant, so long as it entertains the audience it's directed towards. Whatever else you can say about them, the New Pornographers (and our lad Robyn, etc.) are musicians: they're making music, primarily. Sure, they're interested in other things, and they recognize the need for at least some sort of packaging/promotional whatnot, and even the need to present that music in a format that their audiences deem "entertaining"...but I would imagine that if *their* managers called them up one morning and said, sorry, no one cares about songs anymore, what else you got? Can you license ringtones exclusively? their answers would be, uh, not really. Perhaps I'm being idealistic here. You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one. We're gonna live in the trees and sing Spanish techno. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 15:08:23 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Offered Free Advice By The Vicar On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 5:47 PM, Jason Brown wrote: > > > New albums by bands like the New Pornos, Decemberists, and Shins do > hit the Top 10 in the Billboard charts. But these albums are only > selling 60-80k copies in that first week and then drop off rapidly. > 15 years ago 60k copies in a week might help you crack the bottom of > the top 100. Only really huge acts (Gaga, Taylor Swift) sell large > numbers of records these days and even then they don't sell anywhere > near level of major acts of the past. My grandmother knew who REM was > but my mother has no idea who the Shins are. > > None of these acts are making a real impact on the mainstream. Thank you, that pretty much explains it to me. Basically, it's just the pictures that got smaller... I bet there's a corollary in that a greater percentage of these "our type" bands' fans actually buy the physical record, being as how they are "old" and stuff... ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V18 #104 ********************************