Controversial Music Opinions...

[Khrz]

I understand that, but best new music starts at what, 8+ ? 9.3 is OK Computer level of best new music. That's album of the year level.
And there has been quite a few BNM reviews recently, actually, while there can be months without any. I'm not sure Pitchfork really has a BNM quota/minima...
But well, I'm well aware that my initial question was stupid, there's no real answer to that ; people who agree that it is too much will shit on the Pitchfork rationale, people who think it's warranted will praise the music, and nothing in all this will make me "get" the music any better. I guess it was rethorical, more than anything.

[Jon]

　
You know that electronica music made and preformed live by guys sitting at a desk behind a laptop and turntable? Well Jamie xx is another one of those.

That's how the vast majority of electronic music is performed live these days: Autechre, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher... your statement sounded negative and way too general.

[r_z]

The Quietus gave its Jamie xx review an interesting spin:

Jamie xx's debut solo album is influenced by his formative experiences in London's clubs, or at least that's what he wants you to think.

[...]

Where the music played at the aforementioned nights and the scenes that splintered off from them, as Smith describes, formed some of the most exhilarating, pivotal moments of London's nightlife last decade, In Colour fails to capture any of the potential thrill that comes with a night out in the city he so missed while absent from it. It doesn't even encapsulate the pre-night buzz and anticipation or the post-club regret and comedown. What is offered instead is a collection of sexless, sonically conservative tracks overwrought in bass and nostalgia, and largely void of personality – club music for the neoliberal age. These experiences, at nights such as FWD>> and clubs like Plastic People, seem to form mere marketing fodder in order to make In Colour appear more interesting than it is.

[...]

By track two, 'Sleep Sound', the jokes start to write themselves, and that's the trouble with In Colour, just how overwhelmingly inoffensive it is, failing to deliver on both those prime club influences and Smith's background as part of The xx.

[...]

http://thequietus.com/articles/17991...-colour-review

[Dr Channard]

your statement sounded negative and way too general.

Man. Desk. Laptop. Turntable. What is negative about any of this? And what pertinent details did I leave out? Looks to me like I covered everything there.
　
　
　
　
　








I KID I KID!!! It was a bit harsh of me. I’m sorry. I actually like the album opener and the video for it is cool as well.

[Jon]

I KID I KID!!! It was a bit harsh of me. I’m sorry. I actually like the album opener and the video for it is cool as well.

I'm sure I came off more harsh than I meant, as well. I'm one of those people that will stand behind "computer" music.

That Jamie xx album ain't no 8 or 9, though. 6 (7?) years of hype sure does wonders.

[WorzelG]

Buzz Osborne elaborates on his opinions about Montage of Heck
http://www.nme.com/news/melvins/86124

Brett Morgen is such a Courtney Love sycophant, he doesn't even bother to hide it. I mean there are audio tapes of Courtney rambling on to Tom Grant about Kurt wanting a divorce which correlates with what Buzz says about his final conversation with Kurt. Yet Brett Morgen is trying to make us believe that Kurt was so upset by the thought that Courtney would cheat on him that Kurt attempted suicide just because of that???? He wanted a divorce and out of the relationship, her cheating would make his goal easier.

[henryeatscereal]

Brett Morgen is such a Courtney Love sycophant, he doesn't even bother to hide it. I mean there are audio tapes of Courtney rambling on to Tom Grant about Kurt wanting a divorce which correlates with what Buzz says about his final conversation with Kurt. Yet Brett Morgen is trying to make us believe that Kurt was so upset by the thought that Courtney would cheat on him that Kurt attempted suicide just because of that???? He wanted a divorce and out of the relationship, her cheating would make his goal easier.

Well, everyone knows that Kurt was terribly upset with Courtney's cheating, and some even say that she was one of the main reasons of his suicide, the "fan theories" go as far as saying that the MTV unplugged was Kurt's "conscious" attempt at his funeral and last swan song (he wanted the set decorated as a funeral, the first song in the set is "About a Girl" and the last one the Leadbelly-cover "Where did you sleep last night?").
Maybe Kurt wanted the divorce but at the same time he felt conflicted and decided to kill himself, Courtney did nothing to "save their relationship" and Kurt's addictions did not help either...

[Sutekh]

i dont know anyone involved so it would be lame of me to speculate

anyway

bloke was super depressed and hooked on proper drugs, probably at the age and status where he realised rock music is basically bullshit and fame/money dont bring happiness. a kid piles on stress and going out with courtney must have been trying even for someone with lots of stamina and patience (the cheating, drugs, plus can you imagine what a domestic between two addicts would be like). I have no trouble believing he killed himself and while its beyond improper to speculate if the widows behaviour might have been a factor, its hard to believe it made it any easier

[allegro]

Well, everyone knows that Kurt was terribly upset with Courtney's cheating, and some even say that she was one of the main reasons of his suicide, the "fan theories" go as far as saying that the MTV unplugged was Kurt's "conscious" attempt at his funeral and last swan song (he wanted the set decorated as a funeral, the first song in the set is "About a Girl" and the last one the Leadbelly-cover "Where did you sleep last night?").
Maybe Kurt wanted the divorce but at the same time he felt conflicted and decided to kill himself, Courtney did nothing to "save their relationship" and Kurt's addictions did not help either...

No, not "everyone knows," that's just rumor crap post-Kurt-death. The biggest reason for Kurt's death, and everybody who knows him says this, even Buzz, is HEROIN. Depression and heroin don't mix. He wrote "About a Girl" way before Courtney, and it appears from various sources that he wanted to ditch Courtney way before, but she was like a fucking noose around his neck and the only way out was probably death because divorce would rake him through the mud and, really, heroin removes all logic. He was addicted to heroin WAY the fuck before Courtney, too, but she certainly wasn't a good partner choice. But, Courtney wants to believe that it's all her fault, and handy film editing leaves it at that. She wants to be the martyr.

[henryeatscereal]

It's a fact that he wrote "About a girl" way before Courney and it isn't even about her, but that doesn't mean the song related to his sentimental situation at the time...
I'm not trying to pass this theories as "facts", god knows what really happened, i just heard the them and they make sense to me but in the end that's all they are: theories.
The fact of the matter is HEROIN was his drug of choice and he was depressed, those two are the only true "killers" we could find so far, yet there's always a "inner factor" and it's impossible to get a glimpse on Kurt's mind at the time, i just know that Courtney was a bitch and Kurt was depressed and annoyed (with fame) and that he had a ton of heroin at his disposition.
The "theories" about the unplugged show make a lot of sense but that doesn't make them truth, yet i'm pretty sure Kurt was sure that would be one of his last shows in a really long time...

Oh yeah i also hated how Courtney played "martyr" in the era, Kurt dies she cries and gives interviews up the ass and then she decides to show up in the MTV awards already with Michael Stipe as his "date", WTF?

[GulDukat]

I personally think that Radiohead is overrated. I like them, I've followed them since OK Computer and I'd see them in concert. That said, they're not one of my favorite bands. When it comes to my favorite albums from the 1990's, there are several albums that I would put above OK Computer--Nevermind, In Utero, Core, Dirt, Mad Season's s/t, Ten, MCATIS, TDS, The Fragile, Tori's first four, Core, Purple, Tiny Music, etc. Different genres, I suppose. If other people think that OK Computer and KID A are some of the best albums of the last 25 years, I can understand that--they're just not albums that really resonate with me.

[WorzelG]

Talking of overrated I think REM has to be up there. I do own two of their albums, out of time and automatic for the people because I really liked everybody hurts and losing my religion, but I didn't get into the rest of the albums so think of them as a singles band - I absolutely loathe shiny happy people, those jangly guitars. I don't care if its supposed to be ironic

[Sutekh]

I personally think that Radiohead is overrated. I like them, I've followed them since OK Computer and I'd see them in concert. That said, they're not one of my favorite bands. When it comes to my favorite albums from the 1990's, there are several albums that I would put above OK Computer--Nevermind, In Utero, Core, Dirt, Mad Season's s/t, Ten, MCATIS, TDS, The Fragile, Tori's first four, Core, Purple, Tiny Music, etc. Different genres, I suppose. If other people think that OK Computer and KID A are some of the best albums of the last 25 years, I can understand that--they're just not albums that really resonate with me.

when it comes to radiohead, I love ok c through to the live album, and remain baffled as to why anyone gives a shit about everything released before or after. early stuff isnt quite fully formed and later stuff is bloated

[GulDukat]

Talking of overrated I think REM has to be up there. I do own two of their albums, out of time and automatic for the people because I really liked everybody hurts and losing my religion, but I didn't get into the rest of the albums so think of them as a singles band - I absolutely loathe shiny happy people, those jangly guitars. I don't care if its supposed to be ironic

I like R.E.M.--but yeah, not a band I go nuts over.

[henryeatscereal]

I think the exact opposite: R.E.M. are underrated and the little praise they get it's because two of their lousiest songs of their catalog ("Losing my religion" and "Everybody Hurts".)
Their pre- "Out of time" era is highly underrated...

[implanted_microchip]

I think the exact opposite: R.E.M. are underrated and the little praise they get it's because two of their lousiest songs of their catalog ("Losing my religion" and "Everybody Hurts".)
Their pre- "Out of time" era is highly underrated...

I've not given it a listen in ages but I remember thinking Accelerate was a pretty great album actually.

[henryeatscereal]

I've not given it a listen in ages but I remember thinking Accelerate was a pretty great album actually.

oh yeah, "Supernatural superserious", "Until the day is done" and "I'm gonna DJ" are great tracks, "Collapse Into Now" deserves some love too, it was R.E.M.'s last album and it did not get any kind of reaction...

[Kunstmord]

Never been too big of a R.E.M. fan, but I love Up, and Collapse Into Now. Accelerate has it's good moments, too. I think that Peter Buck is very underrated as a guitarist, he writes some crazy good stuff.
Random fact: Up is actually the first CD I ever bought in my life.

[piggy]

Hell, yeah. Peter is actually my main guitar hero because he's so against the grain of most players. Johnny Marr as well, for the same reason.

[onthewall2983]

This is from the "Bad albums released by good bands" thread, rather than derail it I thought I'd bring it over here.

While i'm at it, The Division Bell is AMAZING.

For quite awhile, I really wanted to be one of the cool kids and slag this off. But I can't. Aside from the fact that it was the first Pink Floyd I'd ever listened to with some depth besides what I heard on the radio or saw on MTV, it is for me now one of their absolute best. It's definitely a lesser work when compared to their work in the 70's, but it contained enough of the three members' distinctive musical identities to carry it through.



The songs are a lot stronger than people give credit for as well. Granted there is none of the biting social commentary Roger Waters has so brilliantly done, but it's clear this group of songs is more of something looking within than out at the world. And it's not as if it feels exclusive to the problems of aging rock stars either, there are universal themes of miscommunication, fear, love, redemption and nostalgia that the keenly observant listener will find some common ground in.

[GulDukat]

The Division Bell is certainly a divisive album--it's gotten a lot of poor reviews, but it has its fans. I'll have to listen to it again, as it's been quite a while.

[Krazy]

Listening to it right now about to take a flight out of Canada, eh.

It's pretty chillax and will never be regarded as their greatest album, but kind of disappointing people can't or won't or don't want to realize there are some gems on this. High Hopes is also one of my fave PF tracks so I'm a bit biased.

[henryeatscereal]

I love "The Division Bell", i think it's even better than "A momentary lapse of reason" (and i like that one too..)
Since we're getting "controversial": i consider "The Wall" an overrated album and one of Pink Floyd's worst albums (that show how good they were...)

[Khrz]

It really helps to not be aware of a band's legacy when you start to know them. The first Pink Floyd album I really listened to (as opposed to "heard") was A Momentary Lapse of Reason and it's still one of my favorites.

It's funny how masterworks are rarely retroactively mindblowing. I have a huge respect for Pink Floyd's earliest body of work, but the emotional connection isn't there. My father told me that when he first listened to Ummagumma he was blown away, he had never heard anything like it, nobody had. Yet he was telling me this 25 years after it was released and I was obviously politely unimpressed.
I find it funny today, when I read people heralding NIN's The Slip as the best thing Reznor had put out while considering The Downward Spiral a quaint piece of art. Guess the wheel keeps on turning

[fillow]

^^
this.
My first KMFDM album was WWIII, Manson album - Holy Wood, Pumpkins album - Machina, and so on. Still my favorite albums of theirs.

[Sutekh]

still blows my mind that holy wood is referred to as a classic now & is rated highly by younger fans, at the time me and my mates were so disappointed, plus how can it be the better part of 20 years old... HOW

[implanted_microchip]

still blows my mind that holy wood is referred to as a classic now & is rated highly by younger fans, at the time me and my mates were so disappointed, plus how can it be the better part of 20 years old... HOW

I'm a younger fan and credit Holy Wood as one of the albums that opened me up to Manson to begin with. The way I think it worked was after Mechanical Animals a lot of fans probably hoped for another major reinvention of style and sound, and it wasn't really that. It was far more a culmination of all the sounds Marilyn Manson had been at that point and really tying up that whole trio of records and summarizing what Marilyn Manson was up until then. It was like a sort of final chapter that allowed for a whole other style and sound to come in later, but at the time people probably didn't want that. But because it's so clearly a lot of Antichrist and Animals and bits of Portrait all combined stylistically and musically, it serves as a great intro album for people. It's the kind of album where, if someone were to listen to it and tell me their three favorite songs, I could totally recommend them the next album they should listen to. It's not as heavy as Antichrist Superstar but it's not as melodic and accessible as Mechanical Animals and so people who were big fans of one but not the other probably found it unsatisfying in general.

Looking at interviews and writing and whatnot from that time period it really does come across as if Manson was being very sincere in feeling like he had something to say and really wanted to push for something, really felt it was a big artistic statement and important to him as a person and artist and then got a very "Meh" reaction from everyone, got written off as just being too repetitive or doing the same thing and being a one trick pony despite a lot of the album/era focusing exactly on that. The whole thing is about cycles and tying it back into the past two albums to make the whole Triptych make sense and it's this really ambitious thing that has to do most of the legwork for any of that concept to make sense because he's retroactively telling a story in reverse. That's insane to try. Funny enough once everyone shrugged and didn't care, what's he go and make? Golden Age of Grotesque, an album all about decadence and no one paying attention and reducing himself to mindless entertainment. "So let us, entertain you/You say what you want but filth is all that they hear." Hell, Spade openly talks about him being tired of the character he'd been playing album to album. "I'm a diamond that is tired of all the faces I've acquired." After that you get a "farewell tour" and greatest hits collection and Manson saying lots of shit like "I'm not done with music but this is definitely the end of a certain version of me" and all sorts of things that make it very clear how uninterested he was in being Marilyn Manson and making music whatsoever, then finally makes another album and -- shock -- it's totally different from anything else and everyone hates it.

I actually think Manson's entire career is really depressing in a way because you can totally see this guy creating an image bigger than himself and having to grapple with that and finally just giving up and giving in and giving the crowd what it wants. I really dislike Born Villain immensely for all the reasons people seem to have liked it and think it's the most desperate attempt at just being what you think people want. "I hate you all yet somehow you find me incredibly charming." He made a music video where fucking gives you the finger. It's beyond obvious. TPE feels like a really great record and one that's actually sincere and doing something fresh again and I'm very happy to hear it, but at least for a while it really felt like the guy was just giving up. He went from talking a lot when he was younger about not considering himself shock rock and disregarding Alice Cooper comparisons to touring with Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie and basically just succumbing to it. As far as I'm concerned I see it as him having hit a point where he wanted to do something totally separate and personal and stop being the social/political person he was and he did, and it was called Eat Me, Drink Me. People hated it so he made half the songs on The High End of Low political and social and so you get a totally uneven, half-bored album where he had nothing real to say at all about any of those subjects but everyone expected him to, and then finally just makes Born Villain, an album whose title alone feels like a fuckin' parody.

As far as controversial goes I'd say the fact that Eat Me, Drink Me is in my top 3 Manson albums is fairly controversial. Oh and Yeezus is my favorite album of 2013.

[Sutekh]

eveyrthing you say is 100% true... after the amazing progression from portrait to antichrist to mechanical, we basically expected him to destroy the universe and start a revolution or something, but what we got was a song that sounded a bit like song 2 and a song that sounded a lot like beautiful people, and the image just seemed like a panto manson (still gutted he didnt go with the bald head image from early promo shots - when those pictures appeared we were super hyped, its hard to convey how genuinely unsettling he seemed).

But yep, looking back on it... it was the coda to the whole 90s trajectory, summing it all up. The actual panto manson came with the next album! And I was so horrified by that I didnt bother with him for 4 years.

I love eat me drink me... the music is great and honest, vulnerable manson was quite refreshing. Great tour too. The two after that were just too galling, watching a childhood hero self destruct. I genuinely think that after he dies, those albums will be hailed by some musos as some of the most gut wrenchingly depressing albums ever, they document his decline and the really sad thing is the tone is almost celebratory

a lot of us love to live vicariously through youthful punk rock nihilism but i guess at my core im pretty normal, because ultimately im gutted he didnt slow down, settle down with dita, prove that you can be edgy and transgressive in your heyday and yet not end up frazzled and on a slab somewhere

[rampface]

EMDM was the last Manson album that I gave a shit about. For me, that is his last record (TPE is a step in the right direction but the fucking lyrics... ugh!)

[implanted_microchip]

EMDM was the last Manson album that I gave a shit about. For me, that is his last record (TPE is a step in the right direction but the fucking lyrics... ugh!)

I'd argue TPE's lyrics are still vastly better than most of Born Villain's and far greater than the majority of THEoL's. There's no "15" or "Unkillable Monster" level lyrics in terms of awfulness, haha. Slave Only Dreams to Be King has some great ones, "Like a winter in Hades, We drooled for the ladies as though all the apples were owned by God" is so classic Manson to my ears. "Lazarus' got no dirt on me," "My dagger and swagger are useless in the face of the mirror." There's a lot of very self-aware lyrics about ego, not living up to your reputation or even your own standards, admittance of past failures, acceptance of mortality and actually facing your limitations. It has plenty of lesser-lyrics like Killing Strangers or The Birds of Hell Awaiting but it's still a step up from shitpiles "Sometimes I dream I'm an exterminating angel travelling executioner from Heaven sent to give you the prettiest death I know." I couldn't imagine a worse line possible, ugh. Just typing it made me vicariously embarrassed.