Be Ambitious, Just do it Slowly

This is the message that Dusted Magazine had to deliver to The Big Sleep in this wonderful review.

I get it, not everyone wants a band like At the Drive-In to morph overnight into Mars Volta. But still:

"The Big Sleep have also gotten better by huge leaps with each outing, delivering on the promise of their earlier songs without maturing too ambitiously."

Duh...

Okay. Big breath.

Ambition is this amazing force that propels most creatures to do anything. Most associate ambition with human greed and a drive, a passionate motivation to strive for something better. Essentially, to be ambitious is to desire improvement.

In some cases, ambition can cause one to make terrible decisions. Take U2's existence. They wanted to save the world. And now they get to walk around saying they are doing it, they are IMPROVING THINGS. The only thing they are improving is the notion that it's okay to call someone the Edge who is so obviously behind the cutting edge of guitar technology that I can't even come up with a fucking joke about it. Oh, never mind, here:
Pictured: The Grammies, where mediocrity meets talent!

Let's get back to the review at hand. The reviewer essentially claims that the band played their ambition card perfectly. I think we all know what too ambitious is(listen to Imperial Bedroom). What is too ambitious to this errant scribe? Big Sleep were a band who emulated Sonic Youth and Trans Am, who buried most of their melodies in guitar noise(sounds familiar, huh?). Now their voices are louder in the mix, and, according to said scribe, "Less suspense, more drama; cleaner noise, bigger noise, better noise."

Less suspense? Seems like you spend a lot of the review talking about the tension the album creates(ie. "Morose breather “Little Sister” is unremarkable on its own, but its place at the apex of a five-song rise in tension illustrates the big-picture design the band works so convincingly."). So, what? How?

How? How is the noise cleaner? Less guitars, more synth feedback? Tape loops? Crazy percussion? Casio army? Please, tell me more about this band and the...Oh, never mind.

No one cares about the music. It's just words on paper. They don't have to mean anything.

Belong: Colorless Record EP: Pitchfork Generalizations

Hey, there's a new album out! And guess what, the band has been described as "droney" and "shoegazey!" Can we get any lazier than this? How about you waste an entire paragraph talking about how the New Orleans-based groups first effort was associated with Hurricane Katrina, only they recorded it BEFORE the hurricane? And then you tell us why the association works! Thanks!

Let's see, the review looks innocous enough, until we pull these little guys out:

"Belong use feedback and drone to overwhelm the tunes.
-Voices inside a collapsed mineshaft, maybe, or echoes from a kid stuck in a well.
-Belong take the happy-sad melody and banish it to the horizon, where it can just barely be heard through the thick chords.
-...sings abstractly pained lyrics...barely audible over a swarm of fragile yet menacing guitars"

What do these lines have in common? They're the same goddamn thought repeated over and over again.

But, lo!!! I snuck in a line from an AMG review of "Isn't Anything" in there. Could you tell the difference? Neither could I.


"Someone overhearing it in my vicinity likened it to Robert Pollard trapped inside a seashell, which made some sense"


My Conversation with Person Who is Overhearing the Belong Record I'm Reviewing

Person: Wow, that's a crazy record you're listening to.

Me: Mm-hmm.

Person: Kind of sounds like Robert Pollard trapped inside a seashell.

Me: Ye...what, what did you say?

Person: It sounds like Robert Pollard, trapped in a seashell.

Me: What the hell's that supposed to mean?

Person: You know, if Pollard was in a sea...

Me: I know what it literally means, but how can you say that? Are you referring to how you can't hear the lyrics?

Person: Yeah, you know?

Me: No, I don't. Because if you put Robert Pollard in a seashell, and you pick up the seashell to listen to the ocean, you'd hear a really drunk, divorced old guy sing "I am a Scientist" to himself. You might not even be able to hear the ocean.

Person: Yeah, but...

Me: Yeah but nothing. That's a terrible comparison. Terrible.

Person: I was just saying...

Me: You were just saying nothing. That's what I'll imagine; this conversation never happening.


"...a message in a bottle rolling along on the heavy waves of the chords."

Where oh where have I heard an oceanic reference in regards to shoegaze before? From Allmusicguide overview of MBV: "they rode crashing waves of white noise to unpredictable conclusions." AMG review of Slowdive: "...swelling waves of flanged guitars, layers of wispy vocals floating in and out of the mix...", Rolling Stone's review of "Loveless": "Bilinda Butcher and Kevin Shields gently breathe pretty tunes into the thick, sweet waves of droning distortion."

I could go on forever, but it's tedious and annoying. It's the old adage, "How many ways can you say the same fucking thing about shoegaze/post-rock music since 1988?"

I'm sorry, but drone has been around FOR CENTURIES. There has to be a better way to describe an album. When you take away the references to feedback, drone, and hazy, barely audible vocals, you get:

-the album is not in anyway related to Hurricane Katrina
-all four songs are pysch-pop covers
-the last track demonstrates the band's approach to constructing music

Look, if this is all the band sounds like, I'd be willing to say...oh, wait, I'm sorry. They beat me to the punch.

"...it could have been made by a lot of bands."

Ah yes, so why would you recommend an album of psych-pop covers by yet another droney band, let alone give it an 8.4 out of 10? Maybe it was the sequencing of the songs? Nope, you didn't seem to mention that. Perhaps the production value...no, guess not. You talked about the songs, but moreso about how they were covered in "thick chords."

If the album is full of drones and feedback and sounds like a lot of bands, why not focus on what makes the album DIFFERENT. In my estimation, all I have to do is turn on my iPod and remember what I didn't like about Deerhunter.

Music? What music?

Ever since Pitchfork gave And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Death... a 10 out 10 rating, I've been obsessed with finding out what makes the least perfect record in their eyes.

Liz Phair has done the deed. 20 to 30 year olds males fell in love with her indie-rock raunch and roll, and fell even harder when you realize you can kind of see her nipple in the liner notes.

Anyways, nothing kills a hipster erection like a mainstream cross-over, and Liz did just that, although she did talk about cum and other fun eyebrow-raising matter. Matt LeMay hates this album more than he hates Smashmouth and U2 combined! Also, he doesn't know how to talk about music, so he uses words like "depth" and "transparent." All in a days work at Pitchfork!

It could be said that Liz Phair's greatest asset has always been her inability to write a perfect pop song.

Nope. That's wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. She wrote great songs, kaput. And indie producer Brad Wood helped wrap it in nice little gems. To say that she was never able to write perfect pop songs

On her 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville, Phair's gruff voice wrapped awkward non-hooks around flimsy, transparent chord progressions, resulting in (to everyone's surprise) a certifiable indie roadtrip classic. It still stands as a powerfully confrontational album, skirting convention yet marked by Phair's striking awareness of her own limitations.

I like this early pattern of putting down Phair's talent. Non-hooks? Transparent chord progressions? So, the progressions aren't even there? This is retarded. Please learn how to write about music. And wait, "indie roadtrip classic?" Why is it only roadtrip worthy?

Unfortunately, it seems that Phair has spent the better part of her post-Exile career trying to gloss over the very limitations that made her original statement so profound. Though her second album, Whip-Smart, had a few choice moments which recalled the insight and complexity of Exile, it ultimately seemed like a much more calculated affair.

I can't say this enough, but, what the fuck? He just said that Exile was full of non-hooks, and was apparently transparent. How did it suddenly become complex and insightful? Are you paying attention to what you're writing?

Things didn't start to go horribly awry, of course, until Phair's next album, Whitechocolatespaceegg. That record's attempts to radio-ize her sound only dismantled the depth of her music-- if not the awkwardness-- resulting in an odd batch of songs that perhaps encapsulated Phair's faulty view of what constitutes a radio-friendly album.

This is such a clusterfuck. I need to go back and figure out what the F he's talking about

Exile In Guyville - imperfect, gruff, full of awkward non-hooks, flimsy, transparent, limited, insightful, complex, deep

Read that again. He's describing the same album, and no, it's not complimentary. Does he like the album? Does he hate it? This is crap. This guy is writing an entirely schizophrenic piece. Within the first two paragraphs he's contradicting himself. Awful.

And he hasn't even touched the record he's supposed to be REVIEWING yet! This is madness!

Ten years on from Exile, Liz has finally managed to achieve what seems to have been her goal ever since the possibility of commercial success first presented itself to her: to release an album that could have just as easily been made by anybody else.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't her goal. She just did, so deal with it. Oh yeah, you're just filling this review with empty anti-mainstream rhetoric, so what's the point?

Even the songs on Liz Phair that could be considered "shocking" or "profound" are gratuitous and overdetermined, eschewing the stark and accusatory insights of Exile in favor of pointless f-bombs, manipulative ballads, and foul-mouthed shmeminism.

You threw a lot of big words in there, but what are you saying? Anything about the music? Maybe? Anytime soon?

Liz Phair has always been known for her vulgarity, but on Exile and parts of Whip-Smart, she put that trait to good use. On "Fuck and Run", a standout from Exile, Phair used the word's negative connotations as a means of pointed self-deprecation and lamented, "Whatever happened to a boyfriend/ The kind of guy who makes love cause he's in it/ I want a boyfriend/ I want all that stupid old shit/ Letters and sodas."

Hi, my name is Matt LeMay. I'm in love with the past. I want to always live in 1994. I want Liz Phair posters hanging above my bed. I can't come to terms with my sex rock idol selling out and making a cheesy rock record, so I give the album a 0.0 because I'm an idiot. Also, I apparently have no idea how to talk about music without using vague adjectives that better describe articles of clothing.

"Flower", Phair's most notorious track to date, reads like a laundry list of graphic sexual desires, but rather than paint a uniformly flattering portrait of her love interest, he's immature, he's obnoxious, and despite it all, she still wants to fuck his brains out-- a simple, necessarily crude semi-contradiction that speaks volumes.

OK, I get it now. Matt LeMay is immature, obnoxious, and still gets jiggy with rando girls. Liz was the only rocker who got him. I now understand his problems with this album. Oh yeah, he's STILL NOT TALKING ABOUT THE NEW RECORD.

"Flower" would seem to have a descendent in "H.W.C." ("Hot White Cum"), in which Phair extols the virtue of semen as a beauty aid ("...Dear Cosmo: Splooge, The New Rouge!"). But, unlike the complex, alternatingly cocky and self-effacing sexuality of "Flower," "H.W.C."'s unqualified sperm-praise is entirely vain and degrading. Even more degrading is the constipated donkeyfuck harmonica solo towards the track's end, a hilarious sideshow that only magnifies the triteness of the song's glycerin-slick production.

Alright, I'll at least concede that the donkeyfuck harmonica thing is funny, but can I point out that he referred to none of the music on the track? Anything? Guitars, bass, keyboards, fucking kazoo? I don't think that's unreasonable to ask for in a music review.

Though "H.W.C." is without question the best water-cooler conversation piece on Liz Phair, "Rock Me" makes for a close second. Here, Phair sings exuberantly about the benefits of an affair with a younger guy including-- I shit you not-- "[playing] Xbox on [his] floor." In between choruses of, "Baby baby baby if it's alright/ Want you to rock me all night," Phair declares, "I'm starting to think that young guys rule!" without a trace of self-doubt or reflection.

Here we go, another specific song mentioned. He has an entire paragraph to mention a single note of the music and he strikes out. I know the music is trite and recycled, but can you at least write that out? It would help.

It's hard to imagine that the Liz Phair of ten years ago wouldn't have had something profound and devastating to say about older women who shack up with clueless college kids, but on "Rock Me"-- as on the rest of Liz Phair-- vapid, clich�-filled rhyme couplets dominate.

What? Isn't it "profound" to say that she wants to suck off a young dude? Isn't that well within her crude/saucy tastes? He's really sticking to the lyrics here when I'd like to hear about the music.

Take, for example, the album's first single, "Why Can't I", "co"-written by Avril Lavigne songwriting team The Matrix. With a chorus of, "Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?" and a cookie-cutter rock/pop background, the song could easily pass for Michelle Branch. The lyric, "We haven't fucked yet/ But my head's still spinning," seemingly seeks to set Phair apart from the teen-pop crowd, but the use of the word is completely gratuitous-- change it to "kissed" and stick a 16-year-old girl in front of the mic and no one could tell the difference.

Awesome. He finally talked about music, using the "cookie-cutter" thing. I know that the music is formulaic, but that's just half-assed at this point. I've already waxed poetic about this shit, everyone knows it happens. Liz Phair ages, needs money, tries to make a crossover record, perhaps for her and her daughter's well-being. That's all you had to write. I know it sucks when artists do this, but it happens. The cash comes-a-callin'. If you watched TV for 24 hours you can hear 10 Who songs, I guarantee it.

Only on "Little Digger" does Phair attempt to tackle subject matter unique to the circumstances of her own life as a 36-year-old single mother. The song has received positive press for addressing a difficult issue, as Phair sings to her son about his absent father and the new men she's dating. But the fact that anything positive could be said about this track speaks only to the overwhelming lack of substance on this record. From its cloying synthstring arrangements to its ballad-in-a-box drumbeat to its infuriatingly manipulative chorus of, "My mother is mine," "Little Digger" offers up all the insight and emotion of a UPN sitcom.

Woo hoo!! Synthstrings and a drumbeat! Let the music review begin!!

In recent interviews, Phair has been upfront about her hopes of mainstream success, and claims full awareness that Liz Phair is likely to alienate many of her original fans.

Notice the use of "claim". It means that Liz might not know what she's doing, which is preposterous. Do you honestly think someone can make an album of cloying sound-alike mainstream tracks without realizing the intent/impact? You're wrong.

What she doesn't seem to realize is that a collection of utterly generic rocked-out pop songs isn't likely to win her many new ones[fans]. It's sad that an artist as groundbreaking as Phair would be reduced to cheap publicity stunts and hyper-commercialized teen-pop.

Remember what I said about the Who? How about the Eagles? The Beatles? The Rolling Stones? ELO? The Kinks? Elvis? The Fall?

What do they all have in common? All of them are groundbreaking. And they all have sold their songs to terrible commercials, usually ones involving cars driving around and a voice-over saying something about APR. I'd say that's a cheap publicity stunt, and it's hyper-commercialized. So, are you going to write about that shit as well? I thought not.

But then, this is "the album she has always wanted to make"-- one in which all of her quirks and limitations are absorbed into well-tested clich�s, and ultimately, one that may as well not even exist.

Hold it against her, man. Really, she let you down, shattered your expectations, you know, the ones you set in your head 10 years ago? Also, Matt, she's never going to fuck you, so let it go.

Next time you give a musical recording a 0 out of 10, list the musical reasons. Don't list shit about how she let you down. Save it for the Waahhhmbulance, dude.

The Expectation Machine

I've been obsessing about it all week: how one's expectations affects the way an album is experienced. As if hearing my complaints echoing in the depths of the interweb, Jason Crock of Pitchforkmedia.com decides to address the subject at hand with much aplomb. Unfortunately he doesn't really conclude anything. So much for all of that aplomb.

One thing about Pitchfork: the first thing I noticed about the site was their overwhelming support and almost deranged love of the Dismemberment Plan. Let me direct you to their "Best Albums of 1998" list.

At least I wish I could, as they seem to have taken it off of their website. I found that they gave "Emergency & I," the band's breakthrough the number 1 album of the year in 1998. Even though it came out in 1999. They even admitted to it.

When listing why an album that only they, the staff of Pitchfork had heard(the album hadn't been officially released), they just said they were excited. This is an embarrassing example of a band and an entire music publication holding hands, looking dreamily into each others eyes, and saying,"I'll help you if you help me." I'm sure there are better examples of this mutual handjob, but that's for another post.

Anywho, time for some endless postulations. This involves Crock's review of former-Dismemberment Plan leader Travis Morrison's new record All Y'all.

Is it them, or is it me? Or is it all of us? Do we as music fans hold our heroes in too-high regard, forcing them to live up to arbitrary standards that we decided they've met and can never really accomplish again?

One could say it is all of us, really. And yes, part of growing up and finding music you love is the hero worship. I was younger man when my younger brother received Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dreams, one of those albums that kill you with awesome fun. Radio-friendly weirdery like "Today" coupled with the prog-metal-drone of "Silverfuck" really moved the group into a world of hero worship. My expectations were admittedly high when Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was released, and boy howdy did that record kick MORE ass than Siamese. Not many times have bands been able to meet ridiculous expectations. For every The Bends/OK Computer there are hundreds of Doolittle/Bossanova's.*

The standards couldn't be more arbitrary. But this is where critics come in. They need to temper their own expectations and review these albums with a clear mind. Pure expectations are a good basis for a fan's opinion of an album. Expectations should not be the defining element in a review, and that's where critics fall short. I'm not saying critics should completely ignore expectations, but they shouldn't use it as the back-bone of a bad review. Whew.

Is it fair to beat up on Travis Morrison for breaking up his former band and then daring to try something different?

No, it's not fair. We good? Cool.

His self-admitted heroes, often worshipped via the D-Plan's website...were Neil Young and Prince-- two musicians who mangle the expectations of their numerous fans almost yearly.

Yeah, and those guys suck. No, scratch that. Those guys are popular and legendary because they took those chances, Neil more so than Prince in my opinion (although big shout-out to The Black Album). Critics hated a lot of Neil Young stuff when it came out, especially after Harvest. Neil was expected to make quiet acoustic singer-songwriter material for the soft-rocking 70's. This he did not do, over and over again. He played with Crosby, Stills and Nash, and then he broke off. Then he played with Crazy Horse, and then left them in the dust. The guy built his career on constant change and abrupt departures.

At one point he was expected to release Homegrown, a Harvest-like down-home collection of tunes. After getting high with Rick Danko and playing him some raw tracks from an abandoned project, Rick convinced Neil to can Homegrown (much to the chagrin of his record company) and release the derisive Tonight's the Night. I've heard the Homegrown bootlegs, the thing would've sold millions.

Just to make sure, Jason Crock is holding Travis Morrison up to the same standards as Neil Young and Prince. Therefore, should he not judge the album knowing well in advance that the record may not sound the way he thinks it should.

It shouldn't have been a surprise when Morrison, free of the checks and balances of his old band, followed his muse to wherever it would go, even when those ideas were embarrassingly toothless or undercooked on his first solo record.

You're right, it shouldn't have been a surprise. It seems to me that you were surprised and a little offended at what your Holy Travis Morrison created. But you've spent all this time talking about the effects of expectation...

Is it any different than before, really, or have I changed as a listener? The D-Plan were a near-constant soundtrack to my years around the turn of the century-- would anything Morrison ever does afterward hold up?

Where to start? Notice the reference to D-Plan? Notice that fact that he's not reviewing a D-Plan album? I beg the critic to stop living in the past and fast-forward a bit.

Secondly, yes, you've changed as a listener. Everyone knows it, but no one wants to face the reality. You grow older. You're sitting there listening to Merzbow, Skip Spence and Pere Ubu. Suddenly it's 5 years later and you're loving softer tones, lighter tracks, even the 10,000 Maniacs are fine for your tender ears. What once exhilarated you is now gathering dust on your shelves. Fast forward 20 years and your ear and brain have aged quite a bit. You can't hear tones in the high frequencies, you find yourself turning down the bass and pumping the treble. And then you realize that you're listening to this guy:


You get the picture. To wish this record sounded like D-Plan is to ignore the process of aging.

Crock goes on to slam every element of this album. Nothing is safe, the arrangements, lyrics, sequencing and mixing are all not only called into question but outright slammed on. And then we're left with this ultimate paragraph.

It's a bleeding-heart fan's paradox: We keep giving favorite artists more chances because their music meant so much to us at one point in time, even though it gets increasingly less likely it ever will again.

This makes me angry. He's a die-hard D-Plan fan. How could his review not be stained by ruined expectations? Notice this: "...because their music MEANT so much..." You like an artist because their music MEANS so much to you, present tense. Crock obviously cares not for anything his beloved ex-D-Plan members try, so why have him review this album? Oh yeah, Pitchfork is based on solid support and the deranged obsession with Dismemberment Plan.

If we could listen to this record in a total vacuum, maybe we'd see All Y'all shows a lot of promising ideas with sometimes hoary execution, which is miles of improvement over the inadvisable Travistan.

As a critic, you should be able to listen to a record in a vacuum of some sort. Least of all, you should be able to measure a record fairly against past output, not just cling to past glories and frown upon any deviation from the assigned expected path you set in your head.

It's not that hard. If you don't like an album, you're allowed to talk about the past, but you can't use "in the good old days" rhetoric as the foundation of your criticism. Unless you're an old, old man, Crock. And I will assume that you are. You'll probably need these:

The Curse of the Fourth Album Pt. 1

I'll admit to focusing my bile on some easy targets, but I did not expect this kind of behavior from Steven Thomas Erlewine. I'm not looking to chom this guy on a regular basis, but when he does a horrible job reviewing the album I'm writing a piece on, well, them's the ropes as they say.

For the first installment of this series, we'll focus on a post-punk underdog called Magazine and their fourth doomed album Magic, Murder and the Weather. Formed when founder Howard Devoto split from the Buzzcocks, the band laid low for most of 1977 before they debuted their brand of arty post-punk. After the relative success of Real Life, the band released a murky, keyboard heavy sophomore question mark named Secondhand Daylight. While not terrible, it left many wondering if the band had any magic left.

Enter Martin Hannett, everyone's favorite Joy Division producing junkie maniac who helped create their third record, the wonderfully titled The Correct Use of Soap. Such a collaboration makes pale, skinny, averted to cool people like me boil over with nerdiness. And for good reason, as the record delivers on its promise of strange sounds and icy precision. In fact, the man responsible for both of Joy Division's LP's, the original Spiral Scratch EP that jump-started the British punk explosion, an EP by ESG that spawned the most sampled piece of music in history (UFO), claimed that The Correct Use of Soap was the greatest album he had worked on in his career.

One can then expect a downturn, and indeed this is the big one. The band followed up with Magic, Murder and the Weather which was indeed the band's final record. The curse strikes again!! However, the record wasn't as bad as the critic's words read. There's nothing like the critic's 300 pound gorilla, otherwise known as expectations. You hear a band's album and are blown away. You begin to wonder what their next release may sound like, and...Boom!


Imagine that this building embodies your expectations. They're toast, son.

You are setting yourself up for disappointment. Critics especially seem to believe they know how good a band COULD be. They cook up a vision in their criticBrains with the loftiest of expectations. Meanwhile, the unassuming band doesn't give a shit about the critic. They are going to make the kind of music they want to make. Critics get it wrong because they believe that they know MORE about the direction the band should be going than the band themselves!

!!GGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Alright already, I'm making myself crazy here. Let's read this wonderful review of the album from Allmusicguide.com.

Magazine's final studio album, Magic, Murder and the Weather, finds Dave Formula's washes of cold, brittle keyboards dominating the bitter and cynical music.

Alright, we already find the reviewer has an issue with the keyboards. He doesn't want those keyboards, not one bit. Maybe I'm putting words into his mouth...

Occasionally, Howard Devoto's weary lyrics surface through the icy mix, but it's clear that Devoto and Magazine have both had better days.

Maybe I'm confused, but I'm pretty sure Devoto's lyrics have always been weary. A sample of Devoto's lyrics from the 3 previous albums:

"A frightening world is an interesting world to be in."
"You think I'm a lame duck, I don't give a blue luck, I don't give two hoots..."
"Clarity has reared, its ugly head again, so this is real life"
"Then I got tired of counting all of these blessings, and then I just got tired"

If these lyrics aren't weary or bleak, I will hit myself in the face with a baseball bat.

It's not a graceful way to bow out, but the album has enough strong moments to prevent it from being an embarrassment as well.

What!?! That's it? As far as I can discern, the album contains icy keyboards and weary lyrics. Give me a break. This is a terrible review. He cites the band's signature sounds and lyrics as weird stylistic choices specific to this album. Even stranger is the complete lack of musical criticism. Completely brutalizing. Also, notice the critical about-face at the end of the review. Let's enter Steven Thomas Erlewine's criticBrain:

"Hmm...I only wrote two sentences in this review. Maybe I should listen to the album so I can be a responsible critic and inform the public about the content of the record. Or, I could just cop out with a final sentence that will leave everyone confused and turned off."

Thanks for nothing, S.T. Erlewine.