4. I have no idea what these songs are supposed to be about. The lyrics are superficially indecipherable. There’s one track (‘Powa’) where Garbus briefly and convincingly sings like Robert Plant. There’s another track (‘You Yes You’) where she repeatedly screeches the phrase “What’s that about?” and it might be the single most grating musical moment of 2011.
Or, you could like, listen closer and think. It’s not that hard. I like Klosterman, but no music writer is ever anywhere near good when s/he tries to parse why others like an artist without doing the actual messy ethnographic work, or (much worse) to be a sportswriter/political wonk and predict an artist’s legacy. (via marathonpacks)
I have no idea how I am supposed to take a piece seriously when it contains the sentence, “I’m not really in a position to argue for (or against) the merits of tUnE-yArDs, simply because I’ve barely listened to w h o k i l l.”
(via thirtydollarproject)
He’s doing it to establish a ‘non-partisan’ air so his ‘friendly advice’ seems more sincere I guess.
(I think TBH an experienced music critic should be able to get quite a lot out of something on first listen and maybe articulate it usefully. I don’t think that’s what Klosterman’s doing.)
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What’s so lame about this piece is that it’s Klosterman’s way of doing for music crit what cable TV pundit-hacks do for political discourse: substituting poll-number commentary for actual critique of ideas, substituting inane speculation for informed opinion. It’s clearly one of those quota-filling posts that he coughed out in a couple hours.
(via tomewing)
