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.)

—-

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 commentary: 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 marathonpacks)

Yaassss!!! Join me! Disliking Klosterman gets lonely. We even have similar tastes, but the way he writies about things makes me question what I like. (Edited to add my special Chuck Klosterman tag) (via lastbutnotleast)

There are people who like Klosterman?  (Never forget.)

I do not particularly like Klosterman. And this is something of a shit sandwich of a piece. But, it’s sort of girded by whitebread slices of truth… (er, that metaphor got away from me).

He’s clearly adopting a faux-naive critical stance as a rhetorical gesture

I’m guessing this doesn’t mean much to more than (maybe) 10,000 people in the entire country. In fact, if you effortlessly understood 100 percent of this article’s opening sentence, you can probably skip the rest of the piece.

And then his conclusion actually seems like the truth to me, at least.

It’s possible that she’s an authentic genius, and that w h o k i l l will mark the “breakthrough” beginning of a major career punctuated by intermittent moments of meaningful innovation. She could end up like James Murphy or Cat Power. But it’s just as possible — in fact, more possible — that this will not happen. She will probably just make a bunch more albums of varying quality, none of which will get the collective adoration of w h o k i l l. And then Garbus will end up with this bizarre 40-year-old life, where her singular claim to fame will be future people saying things like, “Hey, remember that one winter when we all thought tUnE-yArDs was supposed to be brilliant?”

Granted, it’s not hard to predict things when your prediction is Either this thing will happen or the rough opposite of it will happen, but his thoughts about the fickleness and transience of indie taste-making seem very true to me. The frou-frou about The Strokes’ ten year anniversary, for example. If The Strokes have to scrape and claw for respect in ten years’ time, you really think Tune-Yards is going to be a slam dunk?

But, still, yes, ultimately, Chuck Klosterman is a prevaricating loser. (via bmichael)

The way Tumblr formats these things is tough to parse out (this one paragraph is me, Sean/Popcorn Noises) but suffice it to say I agree with all of this and the Klosterman piece is a terrible excuse for ‘criticism.’ His argument is a muddled cocktail of ignorance and arrogance—I didn’t really listen to it, but I don’t get it, so obviously no one will even take it seriously a year from now—and has little to do with the perils of “critical adoration.” (Also, isn’t the point of a critics’ poll to reflect the taste of critics? Why get all snide about something “10,000 people in the entire country” care about as if Pazz & Jop were the Peoples’ Choice Awards?) I dislike Klosterman a little more every time I read something he’s written about music and I’m reblogging it here for posterity so I never forget.

(via bmichael)

Source: marathonpacks

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