@tylermunns"Perhaps what you’re saying is, “there is great potential for personal growth in exposing oneself to stuff they typically assume to be crap, as one may surprise oneself and avoid a certain stagnation of musical awareness,” or, as Werner Herzog likes to say, “the poet must not close his eyes.”
These things I can appreciate."
That is pretty much what I'm saying, and the reason I linked to my Discogs collection was so that you could see that. I buy a mix of old and new releases.
For female pop artists I'd put Lana Del Rey up there with the very best of them-- from any era. There just isn't as much of it -- and algorithms now often drive artistic and production decisions, whether we realize it or not, and that very idea kind of repulses me.
There is still incredible music being released today-- but it's at a much lower volume and pace than say the 70s, 80s, or 90s I'd generally say.
Newish releases that I'm liking a lot are:
Real Estate - Daniel
MGMT - Loss of Life
Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Past Is Still Alive
Woods – Perennial
The Smile – Wall Of Eyes
J Mascis – What Do We Do Now
Peter Gabriel – I/O (Dark-Side Mixes)
DC Gore – All These Things
Waxahatchee -- Tigers Blood
@toro3I don’t believe in most maxims either, especially when it comes to our own minds, but these observations that you listed are good things to consider and think about.
Even as a kid there were albums that didn’t grab me right off, but there was something in them that made listen again, and eventually, in some cases, I’d "get it".
It took me literally forever to start really loving jazz. I had so little exposure to it as a kid that, as an adult, I had to do a lot of listening to begin to start loving it. For me, jazz is a whole new world that I’m just now getting to explore and I’m having a lot of fun doing just that!
@wesheadleyI’m with you 100% on the repulsion from algorithmic dominance in the dissemination of music today.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I really chafe at the “female artist” bit.
No one ever says, “you should check out (insert male artist). When I’m in the mood for male artist music, he really hits the spot.”
If someone said that to you, you would furrow your brow and say, “what? ‘Male artist?’ What the hell are you talking about?”
Yet, for some reason, even in 2024, we constantly hear this bit of, “if you like female artists, you should check out (insert female artist),” or, as is rampantly the case in this very thread, instead of discussing Taylor Swift and her music, an inexplicable choice of saying stuff like, “nah, listen to (Joni, Aretha, Whitney, Adele, Beyoncé, blah, blah, blah…) instead,” as if it’s automatically assumed that because two different artists are female, they are automatically alike.
If someone said to you, “don’t listen to Justin Bieber, listen to Cecil Taylor,” that would be a very strange comment; where the hell does Cecil Taylor fit into a Justin Bieber conversation? Well, they’re two male artists, so, that’s why.
WTF?!?!
@tylermunnsYou’ll get no argument from me regarding the fake divide between male and female artists. When I ask myself what am I in the mood to listen to, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it in terms of ’male’ or ’female’ artist. I think more about the style, sound, or overall vibe of the music and then I make my choices.
It’s like when people assume that since most of the great chefs that they can think of or name are male, that therefore males must make better chefs. I think BS! What’s happened is that males got most of the "opportunities" over the decades so it isn’t surprising there’s more of them in this or that category. I really do believe that this is changing, but like most things, it feels like its taking forever!
There are now more females in PHD programs in the U.S. than there are males for example. There are definitely more females in music these days than ever before as well. Change is always hard and the status quo is always very sticky.
A talented and self-aware, confident songwriter who had enough faith in her artistry to convince her conservative banker father to move to Nashville and help his daughter establish herself there. Plays the business beautifully and it’s a pleasure to watch her songwriting grow throughout the years. Compare the promise of "Tim McGraw" (2006) with 2022’s well-realized "Anti-hero".
Though not yet on a Dolly Parton level of philanthropy, she gives back to her communities and has single-handedly inspired a generation of females to dive into music and musicianship.
@gpgr4bluMadonna said she was a fan of Swift’s production skills. This says a lot seeing as how Madonna was a perfectionist when it came to her songs’ sound and space.
Her style may not be your aesthetic, but calling her "vapid and talentless" is simply ignorant.
@wesheadleyI just discovered Hurray For The Riff Raff by simply browsing through Tidal's new releases in Folk/Americana. Good artist with some catchy progressions!
@erik_squiresI think you’re confusing Taylor Swift with Britney Spears.
Britney Spears was tied to a conservatorship that she got out of recently, not Taylor Swift.
@wesheadleyYou say, “…the fake divide between male and female artists…” yet you also say, “For female pop artists I’d put Lana Del Rey...”
Further, if we actually entertained such dumb sexism in this way (comparing ‘female artists’), and then took your assertion that Lana Del Rey’s oeuvre could be placed “among the best,” “in any era,” we’d still be walkin’ on reeeeaaaal thin ice.
If we looked at the songwriting output in the era of mid-‘60s-through-mid-‘70s by the likes of Carole King, Ellie Greenwich, Cynthia Weil, Nina Simone, Dolly Parton, Valerie Simpson, Aretha Franklin, Loretta Lynn, Nico, Bobbie Gentry, Joni Mitchell, and Betty Davis, and then looked at Lana Del Rey’s oeuvre, and then said hers could be “put up there with any of them,”…um…uh…yyyyeeaahh, no.
If we threw her oeuvre into the mix of ‘90s artists like The Breeders, Aimee Mann, Björk, Lauryn Hill, Sinead O’Connor, Liz Phair, Iris Dement, Sleater-Kinney, Gillian Welch, PJ Harvey, Lucinda Williams, and Fiona Apple…um…uh…yyyeeeaaahh, no.
Throw Lana (or Taylor for that matter) into a room with either of those eras’ artists in their primes (we could do it with other eras…mid-‘70s-through-mid-‘80s, for example…same result) and she’d likely pull a Wayne’s World-esque, bowing-on-her-knees-on-the-floor, “We are not worthy! We are not worthy!” (in this case, the ‘we’ being her two-dozen-odd different co-writers the last decade)
Ha! You're right! I should not make that distinction unless asked to.
Regarding Lana Del Rey -- have you listed to her album "Norman Fucking Rockwell"? She's an exceptional songwriter. She does not write by committee like say, Beyonce'. Check it out here.
I will say that there is nowhere near the volume of exceptional work being released these past couple of decades like there was during the 60's or 70's, or even the 80's - 90's. Especially when you consider the lyrics, which usually range from the trite to the unbearably bad (with exceptions!).
@wesheadley Unlike her previous LP, Lust For Life, which had no less than 17 different writing credits on it, Norman Fucking Rockwell! was another Jack Antonoff job.
I don’t dislike Lana Del Rey. Not my fave, but she’s alright.
Jack Antonoff…that’s another story.
His role, as I see it, is to take artists with talent and find a way to bland them up for mass consumption.
He must have good social skills or something. He’s curried the favor of many a top-selling artist (including Swift) and receives good words from each. I find the music he has worked on in a producer/co-writer capacity as well as his own stuff (whatever outfit that may be, Bleachers, solo, whatever) to largely be bland and lame. It seems he’s found a way to be considered some kind of svengali who somehow retains at least a modicum of street cred while making lame music that people with no taste think is good.
One of my favorite current artists, Annie Clark (St. Vincent) had made 4 knockout LPs (I consider two of them, Actor and St. Vincent, to be classics) before ’17’s Masseduction. I thought that one was a letdown. Whatever. A great artist is entitled to have a so-so one after four straight killers. The next one, ‘21’s Daddy’s Home, was another disappointment. This time, I did some research. Found the common denominator: Jack Antonoff. I then did some research on this Jack Antonoff character. Came to the conclusion he sucks.
I don’t have much skin in the game with the other artists he’s produced.
I was just listening to early ‘10s Lana and was reminded that it’s pretty good. It’s not like I’m gonna be pissed if her music starts to be lame. I don’t like it enough to be bothered. St. Vincent was different; once I realized he, based on his track record, may have largely been the reason St. Vincent’s music became more bland and lame, I was indeed pissed.
I really hope her next LP is Antonoff-free and returns to pre-Antonoff quality.
I’ve slowly, very slowly, come to the conclusion you have come to about Antonoff. He HAS made Lana more bland and I keep hoping she’ll find a new producer, or go back to one like Dan Auerbach. Her writing I think remains strong... but the music has become increasingly bland. I’ve checked out his band the Bleachers and found them to sound highly derivative and mediocre-- like a bad Bruce Springsteen tribute band.
I have not give St. Vincent much of a chance, but bought Daddy’s Home and was not too thrilled about what I heard-- may try listening to some of her older material.
Antonoff does seem to be a kind of a vampire that sucks the life out of many of the artists he produces. Had high hopes for Lorde’s last couple of albums-- but the last one in particular was a real snooze-- just went and checked who produced it-- Jack Antonoff, again!
@wesheadley
Yup.
I remember roughly a decade ago seeing pics of Jack Antonoff with Lena Dunham.
Not knowing he was involved with that wretched song “We Are Young” by fun. (ugh…that ‘lower-case letters’ thing…compounded, in this case, by the juvenile, cutesy/quirky addition of the period (.) at the end…ugh…) I just saw him as Lena Dunham’s boyfriend. I’m not proud of this, but my visceral experience upon seeing those pics was, “ew, that’s a punchable face.” But, in my ignorance, I just thought he was Lena Dunham’s boyfriend (as opposed to a big pop star) and didn’t think much of it and promptly forgot about him.
Fast-forward roughly a decade later, as I mentioned, I realized he was the common denominator in one of my fave current artists’ last two bland/lame/disappointing LPs. After researching this Jack Antonoff character, I realized a lot of things that caused me to conclude he sucks.
After this conclusion, I felt a little less guilty about having the instant reaction upon seeing pictures of him of, “ew…that’s a punchable face.”
Threads that warn our fellow Forum members about fraudulent websites and threads that say negative things about companies that spend big advertising dollars with Audiogon get SHUT DOWN BY THE MOD CZARS....yet a thread about a less than mediocre talent whose rich Hedge Fund daddy greased the wheels of a label and a staff of hundreds "created" an auto-tuned, politically geared media sensation complete with the full backing of the NFL, the DNC, Ticketmaster, and every other think wrong with music today.....and the discussion about the Cult of Swifty goes on for almost 4 pages on this site.
i have no strong feelings on swift's music, which seems competent but unremarkable. her ungodly popularity, however is fascinating. last time she was in town for a concert we asked a bunch of her fans what her big appeal was and they all answered with some variation of "she's a good role model because she's noncontroversial and has never committed any crimes." which, when you think about it, is setting the bar pretty low.
@loomisjohnson The “she’s a role model” thing you said so many of her fans said when asked what was so appealing about Taylor Swift…I find that unfortunate.
This notion of a celebrity being a “role model.” That dog won’t hunt.
Just another person, like the rest of us. Flawed like the rest of us.
MLK? Jesus? Okay, if someone chose people like that as role models, I could dig it.
A celebrity? That is kind of sad. For this idea to still be so rampant is indicative of a sick society. We seem to expect celebrities (from whatever occupation) to be “role models” more than we expect actual good-deed-doers to be role models.
Remember that ‘90s commercial with Charles Barkley where he said, “I am not a role model. Parents should be role models. Just because I can dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” Yup, that pretty much sums it up.
The idea that a cliche-spewing, milquetoast, 1950s idea of what a “good role model is, a ‘non-controversial’ (controversy?!?! Oh no!! Using your brain for five seconds?!!? Oh no!! Saying things that challenge inane conformity?!?! Oh no!!! We can’t have our kids learning about such things!!) person?
Wow. That is really sad and does not bode well for our future if we are so fearful of something “different” and so crave mindless conformity.
Scary.
I wonder how different her PR/media hype is from Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, & Bruce Springsteen…
History will demonstrate that deeply flawed individuals can be competant public servants. And those who fit the wide definition of "strong role model" can make the world a much more dangerous place.
"The opposition" uses a tool whereby they require supporters to "defend the indefensible", which is highly effective to force the other side to play defense, and kill (meaningful) conversations. The ability (and willingness) to connect the dots pertaining to major issues while minimizing the impact of (often trivial) individual flaws doesn’t make a person complicit, or a bad person. It makes them an adult capable of sorting things out, assigning priorities, and solving real problems. This also requres a high risk tolerance for being proven wrong.
So many people here sound like so many from my parents' generation when the Beatles first came out, that this new music that was intended for people a generation younger than themselves, by definition had to be no good, they didn't need to even listen to it to know that... I'd expect it's always been this way and always will be.
@larsman What if “the new thing the kiddies are all gaga about” is, at one time, the Beatles, and at another time, it’s Taylor Swift?
What if, at one time, it’s Bob Dylan, and another, it’s 21 Savage?
Chuck Berry, or Bad Bunny?
Surely we’d agree that the first thing is much better than the second?
Just because people get older and things marketed to young folks seem juvenile and frivolous doesn’t mean they are just as good as those things from the past.
You mean to tell me she’s a singer? I’ve never heard her sing anything and Candice Owen’s says she’s a psychopath.
What is amusing about that is: Candace Owens does not even know the definition of the term. Since a picture is worth one thousand words, Candace should look in the mirror if she wants to understand psycopathy.
I’ve said quite a bit about a whole heckuva lot of things on the three pages of this thread.
I commented on,
- Taylor Swift’s music and her cynical exploitation of the American’s need for vapid pablum
- sexism
- pop history
- Jack Antonoff
- digitally-pitch-corrected vocals
- whether there is any merit to exposing oneself to a significant swath of Top 40 music in 2024
- the ways people ascribe “role modeling” to celebrities
- the ways older people slag contemporary popular music
- the ways people go out of their way to contribute to a subject of an online forum thread even though they write how stupid, bad and frivolous the whole thread is
- the ways people somehow find a way to turn a thread about a bland apolitical pop artist into a vomit-fest of irrelevant political crap
I “added my $0.02” on a whole heckuva lotta things on this thread, all of them relevant to the thread.
What you chose to do was different.
What you chose to do was come on this thread and do nothing but feed the trolls, and feed them by referencing our former President and Candace Owens, two things that couldn’t possibly be more irrelevant to the topic of Taylor Swift’s music.
When I criticized the decline of the thread going from being about Swift’s music into a bunch of dumb, childish, completely irrelevant, junior-high-cafeteria-level blather, you got butthurt and chose to attempt to attribute hypocrisy to me, a wild and sad attempt, one that failed badly, only further embarrassing yourself.
Thank you, @tylermunns(aka Trog), for contributing two more cents and further enhancing your own troll status. You certainly know how to type a lot of words and say nothing.
@immatthewj Read my multiple posts here on this thread, and then read yours.
See if you can figure out which of the two things is “conversation,” and which is “trolling.”
You said I was “trolling.”
Ha!
It takes one to know one.
Have you ever heard the psychologist term, “projection”?
Look into it.
@tylermunns, you are a legend in your own mind. Now go type another five thousand or so meaningless words that say nothing and that nobody cares about.
"Taylor Swift’s music and her cynical exploitation of the American’s need for vapid pablum."
This kind of wrinkles me. I mean, I'm no Swift apologist or celebrator, but that quote above just reeks of cultural gatekeeping -- as if you feel that you are somehow better and more astute than millions upon millions of musical appreciators in this country. It's on par with those in this community who feel that rap is not music.
@simao My description of Taylor Swift’s music (have you ever heard Taylor Swift’s music, by the way?) as constituting a “cynical exploitation of the American’s need for vapid pablum” is not at all “on par with those in this community who feel that rap is not music.”
Not in any way whatsoever. How one could make such a leap in logic, how one could draw such a comparison, is beyond me.
“Cultural gatekeeping.” Talk about yet another meaningless, vague, buzzword-infested word salad of a trendy term.
“The O’Reily Factor” with Bill O’Reily was the #1-rated cable “news” (quotation marks around ‘news’ is a must in this case) show for some 15-odd years.
In 2022, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” was Hulu’s most-watched series premiere in the U.S.
In 2016, an objectively, indisputably vile person was ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
McDonald’s “OVER 20 BILLION BURGERS SOLD” (or whatever number the sign says).
We could go on and on.
Do YOU think those are all good things? After all, someone who never engages in “cultural gatekeeping” would never commit the egregious sin of pointing out that something is utter garbage. I mean, look at how many people buy the stuff!
Americans buy utter garbage, and they literally fall over each other in droves (note the typical opening feeding frenzy after the ranch hands ring the feeding bell at 6:00 am at a big box-store on Black Friday) trying to buy it.
This is very old news.
And no, it is neither snobbery nor “cultural gatekeeping” (whatever the hell that means) to point this out, and to call the things cited above things like “trash,” “garbage,” “objectively bad,” “drivel,” “pablum,” etc.
Just because 20 trillion burgers sold doesn’t mean it ain’t bad for ya.
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