TPWRTD (or) Thanks for Ten Years of Toxic Disappointment
December 14, 2009 10:35 AM Subscribe
The People Who Ruined The Decade
The GUARDIAN weighs in:
Forget Bush, Brand and Bin Laden, this decade's pop culture produced its own range of baddies from all corners. So who spent the decade buying ugly houses? Who was responsible for a pig being pleasured on TV, and who encouraged us to seek 'thinspiration' from Lindsay Lohan?
The GUARDIAN weighs in:
Forget Bush, Brand and Bin Laden, this decade's pop culture produced its own range of baddies from all corners. So who spent the decade buying ugly houses? Who was responsible for a pig being pleasured on TV, and who encouraged us to seek 'thinspiration' from Lindsay Lohan?
Coincidentally, the hands-down worst offender was also picked as Time's Person of the Year, 2006.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:41 AM on December 14, 2009 [9 favorites]
posted by Wolfdog at 10:41 AM on December 14, 2009 [9 favorites]
The Pixies reunion ruined the decade? A whole decade?
Really, you can forget Bush and Bin Laden next to that.
posted by munchingzombie at 10:42 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Really, you can forget Bush and Bin Laden next to that.
posted by munchingzombie at 10:42 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
oh, I get it. It's like the HAMBURGER tag. the whole thing is supposed to be like a tongue in cheek sarcastic thing. haha, I get it, you actually like An Inconvenient Truth and iTunes. ha, awesome take on the top ten list, you guys.
oh wait... Will.I.Am is on here. so is lindsay lohan.
so this is serious? oh fuck that.
posted by shmegegge at 10:43 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
oh wait... Will.I.Am is on here. so is lindsay lohan.
so this is serious? oh fuck that.
posted by shmegegge at 10:43 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
we can blame Gore for [...] inventing the downer-doc
Really? How can you even make that claim with a straight face?
posted by mmmbacon at 10:44 AM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
Really? How can you even make that claim with a straight face?
posted by mmmbacon at 10:44 AM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
Couldn't agree more with Will.I.Am and Gary Lightbody. Sinuses on the anal passage of modern music.
posted by fire&wings at 10:44 AM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by fire&wings at 10:44 AM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
People who write list articles for Digg and Reddit bait should be added to that list....
posted by GavinR at 10:45 AM on December 14, 2009 [5 favorites]
posted by GavinR at 10:45 AM on December 14, 2009 [5 favorites]
Why is this important for me to know?
posted by Anderson_Localized at 10:47 AM on December 14, 2009
posted by Anderson_Localized at 10:47 AM on December 14, 2009
Murder all shitty journalists and pay the remaining ones at least twice as much
posted by Damn That Television at 10:47 AM on December 14, 2009 [8 favorites]
posted by Damn That Television at 10:47 AM on December 14, 2009 [8 favorites]
we can blame Gore for [...] inventing the downer-doc
Really? How can you even make that claim with a straight face?
My guess is, it's someone who never watched a single documentary in full outside of Disney True Life Adventures in grade school until Gore's film came out, and then probably under duress because it was the "in" thing to watch that year.
posted by hippybear at 10:48 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Really? How can you even make that claim with a straight face?
My guess is, it's someone who never watched a single documentary in full outside of Disney True Life Adventures in grade school until Gore's film came out, and then probably under duress because it was the "in" thing to watch that year.
posted by hippybear at 10:48 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
I'm going to cross out almost every single one of those and instead say that the people who ruined the decade were those taciturn folks (you know, like the writer) who liked something then immediately turned on it with vehemence the second it became a more widely known cultural touchstone.
Seriously, this list is like a guide needless contrarianism.
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 10:48 AM on December 14, 2009 [6 favorites]
Seriously, this list is like a guide needless contrarianism.
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 10:48 AM on December 14, 2009 [6 favorites]
Why is this important for me to know?
Rhetorical, I'm assuming. You did click the link.
posted by philip-random at 10:48 AM on December 14, 2009
Rhetorical, I'm assuming. You did click the link.
posted by philip-random at 10:48 AM on December 14, 2009
Lists like this are awesome and amusing and perfect for reading at work. Thank you! I look forward to digesting this over the next 8 hours or so.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:49 AM on December 14, 2009
posted by Afroblanco at 10:49 AM on December 14, 2009
I think if anything ruins the teens, Top Ten Lists are going to be at the top of the list.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:53 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by dunkadunc at 10:53 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
So much snarky goodness it took 7 pages to contain it all!
I'm being facetious.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:57 AM on December 14, 2009
I'm being facetious.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:57 AM on December 14, 2009
Okay, that didn't quite take me 8 hours, but then again I did skip all the UK-specific ones.
Still, it amused me for a few minutes. My favorite was well-spent.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:58 AM on December 14, 2009
Still, it amused me for a few minutes. My favorite was well-spent.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:58 AM on December 14, 2009
we can blame Gore for [...] inventing the downer-doc
Really? How can you even make that claim with a straight face?
My guess is, it's someone who never watched a single documentary in full outside of Disney True Life Adventures in grade school until Gore's film came out, and then probably under duress because it was the "in" thing to watch that year.
They must not have watched the episode with the lemmings.
posted by mmmbacon at 11:00 AM on December 14, 2009 [4 favorites]
Really? How can you even make that claim with a straight face?
My guess is, it's someone who never watched a single documentary in full outside of Disney True Life Adventures in grade school until Gore's film came out, and then probably under duress because it was the "in" thing to watch that year.
They must not have watched the episode with the lemmings.
posted by mmmbacon at 11:00 AM on December 14, 2009 [4 favorites]
The British press exhibits a breathtaking level of snark compared to the American. This is a *good* thing, so I'm looking forward to reading the Guardian take the piss out of everyone.
posted by lukemeister at 11:00 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by lukemeister at 11:00 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
No Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab, or The Decemberists? Surely one of these can be blamed for turning indie rock into a stultifyingly polite pursuit reserved for the upper-middle class.
posted by naju at 11:02 AM on December 14, 2009 [11 favorites]
posted by naju at 11:02 AM on December 14, 2009 [11 favorites]
Many of these examples seem to be heavy on "great things that lead to people making dumb copies." Attention great people of next decade: only inspire greatness, not mediocre knock-offs. Such knock-offs will tarnish your reputation for starting something great.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:06 AM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:06 AM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
I'm glad Perez Hilton's on that list. I hate that douche and can't wait for the day he gets his comeuppance.
But why do I hate him? I don't even know him. Weird.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 11:08 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
But why do I hate him? I don't even know him. Weird.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 11:08 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Gore came much closer to inventing the Internet than he did the downer-doc.
posted by norm at 11:09 AM on December 14, 2009 [4 favorites]
posted by norm at 11:09 AM on December 14, 2009 [4 favorites]
The Guardian's no Buffalo Beast, that's for sure.
posted by ardgedee at 11:13 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by ardgedee at 11:13 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Seriously, this list is like a guide needless contrarianism.
Although the too-precious-by-half Guardian dearly yearns for that to be the case, it's actually mefi that has that market cornered.
posted by blucevalo at 11:14 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Although the too-precious-by-half Guardian dearly yearns for that to be the case, it's actually mefi that has that market cornered.
posted by blucevalo at 11:14 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Blaming the Pixies for their lame reunion tour is completely valid. They always seemed unhappy and resentful on stage. But don't just throw Dinosaur Jr and the Stooges in there along with them. J Mascis playing with Mike Watt -- one of the best shows I've seen.
posted by rottytooth at 11:15 AM on December 14, 2009
posted by rottytooth at 11:15 AM on December 14, 2009
Some people just let everything "ruin" their decade.
Seriously, if you think it's that fragile, why bother taking it out of the box?
posted by louche mustachio at 11:16 AM on December 14, 2009
Seriously, if you think it's that fragile, why bother taking it out of the box?
posted by louche mustachio at 11:16 AM on December 14, 2009
No Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab, or The Decemberists?
Ben Gibbard goes beyond ruining the decade for me. I'd nominate "planet"
"Oooh, this microtechno guys are on to something! Let's keep the samples, and discard every other compositional technique more elaborate that a single 8-bar phrase looped for four minutes. People will LOVE that!"
fuckface.
posted by 7segment at 11:23 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Ben Gibbard goes beyond ruining the decade for me. I'd nominate "planet"
"Oooh, this microtechno guys are on to something! Let's keep the samples, and discard every other compositional technique more elaborate that a single 8-bar phrase looped for four minutes. People will LOVE that!"
fuckface.
posted by 7segment at 11:23 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
I'm thinking this list needs a little more of a Stephanie Meyer-ish flair to it.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 11:24 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by WinnipegDragon at 11:24 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Hey guys remember when Al Gore didn't ever make a documentary but for some reason everyone seems to think his name is Davis Guggenheim?
RELATED: Robert McNamara didn't make Fog of War either.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:26 AM on December 14, 2009 [6 favorites]
RELATED: Robert McNamara didn't make Fog of War either.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:26 AM on December 14, 2009 [6 favorites]
Apparently, to not have your decade ruined, it helps to be out of touch about a lot of English popular culture. I havben't paid attention to it since The Wombles went off the air, and yet my decade didn't seem all that grand.
Overground, underground, wombling free ...
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:26 AM on December 14, 2009
Overground, underground, wombling free ...
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:26 AM on December 14, 2009
is this the place where i vote for this decade as the best one ever? it basically was...at least for someone who came of age in the dour and humorless (i mean sarcastic) 90s, this decade offered sincere but complex joy a shot at the limelight way more than any other I can think of: from lolcats to Hey Ya to the Believer to like caring about politics and stuff, this decade made me glad to be alive even when it sucked massive ugly dicks.
thanks to this terrible article for reminding me of that for a second. lady gaga for president!!!!!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:34 AM on December 14, 2009 [18 favorites]
thanks to this terrible article for reminding me of that for a second. lady gaga for president!!!!!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:34 AM on December 14, 2009 [18 favorites]
I had a great decade! My secret: I ignore stuff I don't like.
posted by bondcliff at 11:37 AM on December 14, 2009 [8 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 11:37 AM on December 14, 2009 [8 favorites]
I enjoyed Beep. Well, the opening strings anyway. That would make a good loop for a completely different song.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:41 AM on December 14, 2009
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:41 AM on December 14, 2009
From the article: It was supposed to be so easy. Get your CDs, rip them in to iTunes, put them on your iPod. Then, whenever a latent desire to listen to REO Speedwagon arose you could sate it right away. Brilliantly convenient. But what iTunes actually means is that after eight years of the sodding thing, everyone's attention span is so completely fried by the amount of choice that it's hard enough to get through one song without SKIP SKIP SKIPPING, let alone a whole album.
The last ten years of my life have been ruined by the fact that I can choose to listen to the music I like! If only iPods had the ability to play albums, I wouldn't have wasted all this time!
This whole list is all kinds of wrong. Is it a joke?
posted by battlebison at 11:44 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
The last ten years of my life have been ruined by the fact that I can choose to listen to the music I like! If only iPods had the ability to play albums, I wouldn't have wasted all this time!
This whole list is all kinds of wrong. Is it a joke?
posted by battlebison at 11:44 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
The problem is that Bush, Brand, and Bin Laden are pop-culture icons. Hell, at this piont, the images of the burning/collapsing Twin Towers are pop-culture icons. There is simply no more separation, anywhere, that can be approached unironically. I blame whoever it was who first put the image of Che Guevara on a t-shirt.
(Oh, and The Decemberists. Jesus Motherfucking Christ in a chicken basket, I hate that guy's voice.)
posted by tzikeh at 11:46 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
(Oh, and The Decemberists. Jesus Motherfucking Christ in a chicken basket, I hate that guy's voice.)
posted by tzikeh at 11:46 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
If these people ruined the decade, then grating cynicism trying to pass for humor ruined my life.
posted by Nattie at 11:47 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by Nattie at 11:47 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
I must have been out of touch for a decade, I've never even heard of at least half of these.
posted by octothorpe at 11:48 AM on December 14, 2009
posted by octothorpe at 11:48 AM on December 14, 2009
^ "at this point," dammit. Seriously, the waiting line for the comment-edit-time-window is getting longer and longer....
posted by tzikeh at 11:48 AM on December 14, 2009
posted by tzikeh at 11:48 AM on December 14, 2009
Once again, I am insufficiently British.
posted by Naberius at 11:50 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by Naberius at 11:50 AM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
DAVID SIMON For ruining any TV drama that isn't The Wire
I'm pretty sure this list is at least half sarcasm. I mean, sure, the above statement is plenty true, but the idea of good TV ruining the decade is intentionally silly.
posted by hopeless romantique at 11:52 AM on December 14, 2009
I'm pretty sure this list is at least half sarcasm. I mean, sure, the above statement is plenty true, but the idea of good TV ruining the decade is intentionally silly.
posted by hopeless romantique at 11:52 AM on December 14, 2009
How much longer am I going to have to endure these lazy-ass list one-every-ten-years list articles? Will they be over by Jan 4 or so? I'll just go to sleep until then.
posted by GuyZero at 11:54 AM on December 14, 2009
posted by GuyZero at 11:54 AM on December 14, 2009
This moslty just feels like a list of things I will be trying to think of when trying to get that last damned pink pie piece in the 2025 edition of Trivial Pursuit British Edition.
I can just see myself saying something like:"Oh yeah that's right that Facebook guy's name was Tom...not Carl damn! And I can't believe I friended that guy only to learn that the whole thing was a DARPA created self-initiated personal monitoring website designed to encourage the world's future politicians to take incriminating photographs of themseves, clearly label them, and then hand deliver them to the world's largest corporations...Well I guess hindsight is 20/20."
posted by trojanhorse at 11:58 AM on December 14, 2009
I can just see myself saying something like:"Oh yeah that's right that Facebook guy's name was Tom...not Carl damn! And I can't believe I friended that guy only to learn that the whole thing was a DARPA created self-initiated personal monitoring website designed to encourage the world's future politicians to take incriminating photographs of themseves, clearly label them, and then hand deliver them to the world's largest corporations...Well I guess hindsight is 20/20."
posted by trojanhorse at 11:58 AM on December 14, 2009
Counterpoint: Best of 2009 BC! (Spoiler: Lady Gaga is still controversial)
Blaming the Pixies for their lame reunion tour is completely valid. They always seemed unhappy and resentful on stage.
If I hadn't seen them in Santa Barbara, I would agree with you. Their Coachella set was one block of music, which was enjoyable but lacked personality. Then I saw them at the end of their tour, and it was a lot more fun. I remembered there being some chatting on stage, but I might be making things up (review of the show).
posted by filthy light thief at 12:01 PM on December 14, 2009
Blaming the Pixies for their lame reunion tour is completely valid. They always seemed unhappy and resentful on stage.
If I hadn't seen them in Santa Barbara, I would agree with you. Their Coachella set was one block of music, which was enjoyable but lacked personality. Then I saw them at the end of their tour, and it was a lot more fun. I remembered there being some chatting on stage, but I might be making things up (review of the show).
posted by filthy light thief at 12:01 PM on December 14, 2009
(Oh, and The Decemberists. Jesus Motherfucking Christ in a chicken basket, I hate that guy's voice.)
Man, I am so glad somebody agrees with me on this.
I swear, one of this decade's main crimes was making me lose faith in music for a little while. For a few years, every "rock" band just had to feature a whiny male vocalist. It made me even more cynical and disillusioned than I was before.
But then bands started rediscovering dreampop/shoegaze, and music was saved. Yaaay!
posted by Afroblanco at 12:03 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Man, I am so glad somebody agrees with me on this.
I swear, one of this decade's main crimes was making me lose faith in music for a little while. For a few years, every "rock" band just had to feature a whiny male vocalist. It made me even more cynical and disillusioned than I was before.
But then bands started rediscovering dreampop/shoegaze, and music was saved. Yaaay!
posted by Afroblanco at 12:03 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Pete Cashmore, Will Dean, Grace Dent, Priya Elan, Andrew Emery, Rob Fitzpatrick, Stuart Heritage, Malik Meer, Rebecca Nicholson, Alex Rayner, Steve Rose, Sam Richards, and Richard Vine are all bad and should feel bad.
posted by delmoi at 12:05 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by delmoi at 12:05 PM on December 14, 2009
Decades are like Star Trek films.
What's that rule? The even-numbered ones suck?
Of course, then you get pedants coming out of the woodwork to point out that years 1-10 AD would have been the first decade (the original "zeros"), and thus it follows that the 2000s are the 201st decade, so it's an odd-numbered one.
Then you get people arguing about whether a decade should be 2001-2010, or 2000-2009, whether John was better than Paul, and when "hipsters" first existed.
But the crux of that statement is entirely true. Decades are like Star Trek films. In each, Patrick Stewart and William Shatner are both completely and utterly awesome.
posted by explosion at 12:05 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
What's that rule? The even-numbered ones suck?
Of course, then you get pedants coming out of the woodwork to point out that years 1-10 AD would have been the first decade (the original "zeros"), and thus it follows that the 2000s are the 201st decade, so it's an odd-numbered one.
Then you get people arguing about whether a decade should be 2001-2010, or 2000-2009, whether John was better than Paul, and when "hipsters" first existed.
But the crux of that statement is entirely true. Decades are like Star Trek films. In each, Patrick Stewart and William Shatner are both completely and utterly awesome.
posted by explosion at 12:05 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Harry Potter wasn't that bad, if anything it gave us the excellent Wizard People, Dear Reader.
This decade was three things to me, the ipod, the hummer H2, and the "support our troops" magnet.
posted by hellojed at 12:05 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
This decade was three things to me, the ipod, the hummer H2, and the "support our troops" magnet.
posted by hellojed at 12:05 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
I must have been out of touch for a decade, I've never even heard of at least half of these.
Perhaps your problem is that you don't live in the U.K.
posted by delmoi at 12:06 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Perhaps your problem is that you don't live in the U.K.
posted by delmoi at 12:06 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I think this person just hates everything. They get points for being comprehensive though.
posted by dancingfruitbat at 12:09 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by dancingfruitbat at 12:09 PM on December 14, 2009
"Oooh, this microtechno guys are on to something! Let's keep the samples, and discard every other compositional technique more elaborate that a single 8-bar phrase looped for four minutes. People will LOVE that!"
I believe you mean to be hating on Jimmy Tamborello. I, however, hate Gibbard for marrying Zooey Deschanel.
*shakes fist*
posted by YoBananaBoy at 12:11 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
I believe you mean to be hating on Jimmy Tamborello. I, however, hate Gibbard for marrying Zooey Deschanel.
*shakes fist*
posted by YoBananaBoy at 12:11 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
I really like the Decemberists a whole lot.
No reason to hate on the man's voice. I find it pleasant, interesting, and supremely intelligible.
posted by scrutiny at 12:18 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
No reason to hate on the man's voice. I find it pleasant, interesting, and supremely intelligible.
posted by scrutiny at 12:18 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Might be worth pointing out to any Americans reading that this was published in The Guide, The Guardian's wee Saturday listings supplement, the same place where Charlie Brooker's infamous "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr., where are you now?" column. It's not meant to be taken as anything other than low-calorie Saturday morning hangover material.
posted by Len at 12:18 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by Len at 12:18 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Comprehensive indeed:
YOU For listening, watching, consuming and tweeting about this lot and not just going for a nice walk instead.
SEE ALSO Us, for writing about them in the first place and not warning you sooner/strenuously enough.
It's like The Game. By knowing that the decade is ruined, you are partly to blame for its downfall.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:24 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
YOU For listening, watching, consuming and tweeting about this lot and not just going for a nice walk instead.
SEE ALSO Us, for writing about them in the first place and not warning you sooner/strenuously enough.
It's like The Game. By knowing that the decade is ruined, you are partly to blame for its downfall.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:24 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
This just seems to be a list of everyone successful in the last decade, so this article fits in quite nicely with the age-old British habit of running down anyone who actually made something of themselves.
FWIW, I am British, and I hated My Humps too.
posted by pascal at 12:27 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
FWIW, I am British, and I hated My Humps too.
posted by pascal at 12:27 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
For most of the noughties, Will.I.am ripped the limbs off R&B-flecked pop and left her screaming in a basement.Whatever else Will.I.am did or didn't do, at least he didn't write that line.
But what iTunes actually means is that after eight years of the sodding thing, everyone's attention span is so completely fried by the amount of choice that it's hard enough to get through one song without SKIP SKIP SKIPPING, let alone a whole album.Damnit, you're supposed to listen to the album as a whole! Art rockers are very, very angry at you!
...Plus a lot of people that only the British care about. Oh, and Kanye West and Dan Brown, wow, that's bold.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:34 PM on December 14, 2009
Where's the Pig? I read through the whole damn thing and didn't see anything about the Pig. There was a bit at the end about Mexican pigs which I took to be a reference to Swine Flu. But where's the Pig mentioned in the first para? Okay, maybe I missed it when my eyes glazed over once or twice but I want to know about Porno Porky. You know what ruined the whole decade for me was this article that didn't follow through on the promised PIG!
posted by CCBC at 12:43 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by CCBC at 12:43 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
This blows. And not just because I expected better.
posted by tommasz at 12:44 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by tommasz at 12:44 PM on December 14, 2009
Might be worth pointing out to any Americans reading that this was published in The Guide, The Guardian's wee Saturday listings supplement, the same place where Charlie Brooker's infamous "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr., where are you now?" column. It's not meant to be taken as anything other than low-calorie Saturday morning hangover material.
Yes, this. This isn't meant to be serious. It isn't meant to be sarcastic or ironically clever or anything like that. It's fluff. The Guide doesn't even carry serious reviews or articles, they're in another section of the paper. What's funny is how upset it's making most of you.
CCBC: Rebecca Loos, who is famous basically because she once allegedly had an affair with David Beckham, appeared on a reality TV show where she masturbated a pig in order to collect its semen.
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:54 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Yes, this. This isn't meant to be serious. It isn't meant to be sarcastic or ironically clever or anything like that. It's fluff. The Guide doesn't even carry serious reviews or articles, they're in another section of the paper. What's funny is how upset it's making most of you.
CCBC: Rebecca Loos, who is famous basically because she once allegedly had an affair with David Beckham, appeared on a reality TV show where she masturbated a pig in order to collect its semen.
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:54 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
from article: “One thing we can blame Gore for, though, is inventing the downer-doc. An Inconvenient Truth melted a glacier of sobering, sanctimonious documentaries that were waiting to flood the cinemas and hector us on how doomed the Earth is because of global warming/human greed/not watching enough sobering, sanctimonious documentaries.”
DU: “Oh FFS, this too stupid to read any further.”
Are you serious? Al Gore was, hands-down, one of the worst things about the past decade, and that article is dead-on for pointing it out. He's the absolute epitome of self-serving liberal politicians who spout any pontificatory blather they can get their hands on and encourage the "common folk" to take them so seriously they're seen as virtually beyond reproach. The next time I hear somebody refer to "Al Gore's prophetic An Inconvenient Truth" I'm going to smack somebody - hell, I've even heard breathless upper-class democrats refer to him directly as a prophet! Honestly, people can spend all their time talking about how popularizing environmental concerns is important and An Inconvenient Truth opened lots of eyes, and that's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that Al Gore is as much an execrable human being as any other politician of any stripe; he seized just on the right issue at the right moment to endear himself with a whole segment of people who are gullible enough to take him as seriously as he takes himself. His enduring popularity among liberals, combined with the (lack of any real) reaction in the US to the East Anglia climate-science email 'scandal,' has convinced me beyond any doubt of what I've suspected for a long time now: that people in this country are a lot more ready to trust a blathering politician than a scientist. And while I'm not one to advocate knee-jerk worship of scientists, I think the situation as it is is as close to backwards as we could come.
posted by koeselitz at 12:56 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
DU: “Oh FFS, this too stupid to read any further.”
Are you serious? Al Gore was, hands-down, one of the worst things about the past decade, and that article is dead-on for pointing it out. He's the absolute epitome of self-serving liberal politicians who spout any pontificatory blather they can get their hands on and encourage the "common folk" to take them so seriously they're seen as virtually beyond reproach. The next time I hear somebody refer to "Al Gore's prophetic An Inconvenient Truth" I'm going to smack somebody - hell, I've even heard breathless upper-class democrats refer to him directly as a prophet! Honestly, people can spend all their time talking about how popularizing environmental concerns is important and An Inconvenient Truth opened lots of eyes, and that's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that Al Gore is as much an execrable human being as any other politician of any stripe; he seized just on the right issue at the right moment to endear himself with a whole segment of people who are gullible enough to take him as seriously as he takes himself. His enduring popularity among liberals, combined with the (lack of any real) reaction in the US to the East Anglia climate-science email 'scandal,' has convinced me beyond any doubt of what I've suspected for a long time now: that people in this country are a lot more ready to trust a blathering politician than a scientist. And while I'm not one to advocate knee-jerk worship of scientists, I think the situation as it is is as close to backwards as we could come.
posted by koeselitz at 12:56 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
And, for what it's worth, I like documentaries a lot - I watch them all the time - and An Inconvenient Truth really is sanctimonious twaddle. It may present science that's largely true, but that doesn't change its being arrogant, self-important, pontificatory crap which might be acceptable if it were coming from people who actually know two shits about the material - but, of course, Al Gore et alia don't. It's really only worth watching if you're the type of person who likes sitting in the choir and being preached at, nodding your head, glibly satisfied that all the sinners listening sure deserve what's coming to them.
posted by koeselitz at 1:03 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by koeselitz at 1:03 PM on December 14, 2009
Al Gore was, hands-down, one of the worst things about the past decade, and that article is dead-on for pointing it out.
South Park just texted: they want their schtick back.
posted by joe lisboa at 1:06 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
South Park just texted: they want their schtick back.
posted by joe lisboa at 1:06 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
he seized just on the right issue at the right moment
If you actually do some research, you'll see that AG has been warning us about global warning since at least the late 80s, back when it was still called "the greenhouse effect."
posted by Afroblanco at 1:09 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
If you actually do some research, you'll see that AG has been warning us about global warning since at least the late 80s, back when it was still called "the greenhouse effect."
posted by Afroblanco at 1:09 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
koeselitz: combined with the (lack of any real) reaction in the US to the East Anglia climate-science email 'scandal,'
Since derails are fun, what the fuck are you talking about?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:17 PM on December 14, 2009
Since derails are fun, what the fuck are you talking about?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:17 PM on December 14, 2009
me: Oh, and The Decemberists. Jesus Motherfucking Christ in a chicken basket, I hate that guy's voice.
afroblanco: Man, I am so glad somebody agrees with me on this.
scrutiny: No reason to hate on the man's voice.
Unless we hate it. I think that's a pretty good reason.
posted by tzikeh at 1:18 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
afroblanco: Man, I am so glad somebody agrees with me on this.
scrutiny: No reason to hate on the man's voice.
Unless we hate it. I think that's a pretty good reason.
posted by tzikeh at 1:18 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
back when it was still called "the greenhouse effect."
Recently hacked emails have revealed that the so-called "greenhouse effect" is in fact the product of the massive amounts of hot-air emitted by internet contrarians.
posted by joe lisboa at 1:20 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
Recently hacked emails have revealed that the so-called "greenhouse effect" is in fact the product of the massive amounts of hot-air emitted by internet contrarians.
posted by joe lisboa at 1:20 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
How said air is transmitted from computer screen to atmosphere remains a mystery...
posted by joe lisboa at 1:21 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by joe lisboa at 1:21 PM on December 14, 2009
No reason to hate on the man's voice.
I just went to you tube and heard it for the first time, "thanks" to this thread.
There is a reason.
posted by Zambrano at 1:23 PM on December 14, 2009
I just went to you tube and heard it for the first time, "thanks" to this thread.
There is a reason.
posted by Zambrano at 1:23 PM on December 14, 2009
tzikeh: "Oh, and The Decemberists. Jesus Motherfucking Christ in a chicken basket, I hate that guy's voice."
Let me lay this trip on you: David Sedaris opening for the Decemberists.
posted by boo_radley at 1:24 PM on December 14, 2009
Let me lay this trip on you: David Sedaris opening for the Decemberists.
posted by boo_radley at 1:24 PM on December 14, 2009
Afroblanco: “If you actually do some research, you'll see that AG has been warning us about global warning since at least the late 80s, back when it was still called ‘the greenhouse effect.’&rdquo
Yes, I've read Gore's earlier writings on climate change. I know an environmental scientist (a real one, one of those concerned about global warming) who's read them; he says they're at best muddled and at worst flatly insane. I tend to agree, and it seems to my eye that they're just a set of arbitrary positions designed carefully to appeal to the right special-interest groups, from the Sierra Club on down, in order to secure the proper endorsements. You're free to disagree, but there's a reason Gore hasn't loudly trumpeted his old environmentalist stuff: because even then it was just following on other peoples' theories, though back then he was much worse at making sure he was technically correct.
posted by koeselitz at 1:24 PM on December 14, 2009
Yes, I've read Gore's earlier writings on climate change. I know an environmental scientist (a real one, one of those concerned about global warming) who's read them; he says they're at best muddled and at worst flatly insane. I tend to agree, and it seems to my eye that they're just a set of arbitrary positions designed carefully to appeal to the right special-interest groups, from the Sierra Club on down, in order to secure the proper endorsements. You're free to disagree, but there's a reason Gore hasn't loudly trumpeted his old environmentalist stuff: because even then it was just following on other peoples' theories, though back then he was much worse at making sure he was technically correct.
posted by koeselitz at 1:24 PM on December 14, 2009
Yeah, I think this person just hates everything. They get points for being comprehensive though.
It's not a single person. It's Pete Cashmore, Will Dean, Grace Dent, Priya Elan, Andrew Emery, Rob Fitzpatrick, Stuart Heritage, Malik Meer, Rebecca Nicholson, Alex Rayner, Steve Rose, Sam Richard and Richard Vine.
Decades are like Star Trek films.
What's that rule? The even-numbered ones suck?
More like, underwhelming at best.
posted by philip-random at 1:29 PM on December 14, 2009
It's not a single person. It's Pete Cashmore, Will Dean, Grace Dent, Priya Elan, Andrew Emery, Rob Fitzpatrick, Stuart Heritage, Malik Meer, Rebecca Nicholson, Alex Rayner, Steve Rose, Sam Richard and Richard Vine.
Decades are like Star Trek films.
What's that rule? The even-numbered ones suck?
More like, underwhelming at best.
posted by philip-random at 1:29 PM on December 14, 2009
shakespeherian: “Since derails are fun, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Well, first of all, there's not that much to derail in a list of bad influences on the last decade. Second, I grant that I probably don't have my finger on the pulse or anything, but my sense is that most liberals aren't really concerned about what happened there, and seem a bit ambivalent about whether the scientists there get railroaded. I would've liked to see a bit of outcry over the whole thing, and a strong sense that what happened there was sensationalist claptrap and crude distortion of the highest order - nothing, absolutely nothing in those emails could be construed as being deceptive or unscientific in the slightest, and the fact that US media still seems to be reporting it (of course) as a "two-sided issue" is outrageous. But again, I might not have a proper sense of how people really feel about it. The whole thing pretty much pissed me off, to be honest - especially the fact that one perfectly honest and straightforward guy has already had to step down over it.
posted by koeselitz at 1:30 PM on December 14, 2009
Well, first of all, there's not that much to derail in a list of bad influences on the last decade. Second, I grant that I probably don't have my finger on the pulse or anything, but my sense is that most liberals aren't really concerned about what happened there, and seem a bit ambivalent about whether the scientists there get railroaded. I would've liked to see a bit of outcry over the whole thing, and a strong sense that what happened there was sensationalist claptrap and crude distortion of the highest order - nothing, absolutely nothing in those emails could be construed as being deceptive or unscientific in the slightest, and the fact that US media still seems to be reporting it (of course) as a "two-sided issue" is outrageous. But again, I might not have a proper sense of how people really feel about it. The whole thing pretty much pissed me off, to be honest - especially the fact that one perfectly honest and straightforward guy has already had to step down over it.
posted by koeselitz at 1:30 PM on December 14, 2009
Thanks for the Loos info. Now, anyone got a video of her and David Beckham?
posted by CCBC at 1:39 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by CCBC at 1:39 PM on December 14, 2009
I laughed pretty hard at that article, but this thread wins!
posted by dabitch at 1:42 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by dabitch at 1:42 PM on December 14, 2009
RE: Mr. Gore.
Can't one be both A. glad he made a movie that got a lot people THINKING again (or maybe the first time) about what a mess we're making of our planet, and B. pissed that it's opened the sluices on any number of hack doom-cumentaries that don't really do anything but repeatedly smash us all in the face with the AWFUL TRUTH, to the point of leaving only despair in their wake, which accomplishes nothing?
I personally haven't seen AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, mainly because of all the formerly SUV-owning converts who were suddenly telling me I HAD TO!!!! I guess I'm just a contrarian ... or maybe I got the message the first time, in 1972 when I was twelve years old and National Geographic dedicated an issue to the problem of POLLUTION.
Message received way back then: we're poisoning our skies, our rivers, our lakes, our soil, our oceans, ourselves ... and we're all gonna die if we don't radically change some of our sloppy behavior.
Al Gore did not invent this idea any more than he invented the internet.
posted by philip-random at 1:42 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Can't one be both A. glad he made a movie that got a lot people THINKING again (or maybe the first time) about what a mess we're making of our planet, and B. pissed that it's opened the sluices on any number of hack doom-cumentaries that don't really do anything but repeatedly smash us all in the face with the AWFUL TRUTH, to the point of leaving only despair in their wake, which accomplishes nothing?
I personally haven't seen AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, mainly because of all the formerly SUV-owning converts who were suddenly telling me I HAD TO!!!! I guess I'm just a contrarian ... or maybe I got the message the first time, in 1972 when I was twelve years old and National Geographic dedicated an issue to the problem of POLLUTION.
Message received way back then: we're poisoning our skies, our rivers, our lakes, our soil, our oceans, ourselves ... and we're all gonna die if we don't radically change some of our sloppy behavior.
Al Gore did not invent this idea any more than he invented the internet.
posted by philip-random at 1:42 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Are you serious? Al Gore was, hands-down, one of the worst things about the past decade, and that article is dead-on for pointing it out. He's the absolute epitome of self-serving liberal politicians who spout any pontificatory blather they can get their hands on and encourage the "common folk" to take them so seriously they're seen as virtually beyond reproach.I honestly have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
The next time I hear somebody refer to "Al Gore's prophetic An Inconvenient Truth" I'm going to smack somebody - hell, I've even heard breathless upper-class democrats refer to him directly as a prophet! Honestly, people can spend all their time talking about how popularizing environmental concerns is important and An Inconvenient Truth opened lots of eyesYes, it was important. I don't know if you noticed but the entire tenor of the global warming debate changed after that movie came out, at least as far as I was aware of it.
and that's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that Al Gore is as much an execrable human being as any other politician of any stripe; he seized just on the right issue at the right moment to endear himself with a whole segment of people who are gullible enough to take him as seriously as he takes himself.Again. That's almost entirely meaningless. But the charge that he made himself popular, so what? He didn't run for office after the movie came out, even though a lot of people expected that he would win the democratic primary easily. It's not really all that clear why you think "making yourself popular" is some kind of moral failing.
His enduring popularity among liberals, combined with the (lack of any real) reaction in the US to the East Anglia climate-science email 'scandal,' has convinced me beyond any doubt of what I've suspected for a long time now: that people in this country are a lot more ready to trust a blathering politician than a scientist. And while I'm not one to advocate knee-jerk worship of scientists, I think the situation as it is is as close to backwards as we could come.This is just a weird statement. The "Climategate" scandal is huge on the right. It might as well be Watergate to them. It's being ignored on the left because it doesn't matter. What are we supposed to say about it? That scientists sometimes write mean things in email? That right-wingers take things out of context? None of those things are novel. The fact that we're not talking about is because we trust scientists. In fact we trust them so much that we're willing to overlook evidence that makes them look bad and continue to trust what they say.
So yeah, what you wrote nonsensical and confused. Most of it's just invective nonsense, combined with a few incoherent statements of "support"
posted by delmoi at 1:54 PM on December 14, 2009 [10 favorites]
koeselitz: I would've liked to see a bit of outcry over the whole thing, and a strong sense that what happened there was sensationalist claptrap and crude distortion of the highest order - nothing, absolutely nothing in those emails could be construed as being deceptive or unscientific in the slightest, and the fact that US media still seems to be reporting it (of course) as a "two-sided issue" is outrageous.
I guess maybe I don't see what else you expected. Are you aware of how long now haven't known what country our President was born in? Were you watching the news when we weren't sure whether John Kerry had maybe shot himself with a magic shrapnel gun?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:58 PM on December 14, 2009
I guess maybe I don't see what else you expected. Are you aware of how long now haven't known what country our President was born in? Were you watching the news when we weren't sure whether John Kerry had maybe shot himself with a magic shrapnel gun?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:58 PM on December 14, 2009
koeselitz: ... because even then it was just following on other peoples' theories...
OK, I'll bite: Was he supposed to be having theories of his own? Because I don't know what you thought, but I always thought he was, you know, a politician, not a climate scientist -- and that therefore, it would actually be a good thing if he relied on other people to do the theorizing.
Seriously, we get that you don't like Gore. But your pronouncements about his motives really don't have any more weight than my opinion of George Bush's taste in dinner wear.
posted by lodurr at 2:01 PM on December 14, 2009 [4 favorites]
OK, I'll bite: Was he supposed to be having theories of his own? Because I don't know what you thought, but I always thought he was, you know, a politician, not a climate scientist -- and that therefore, it would actually be a good thing if he relied on other people to do the theorizing.
Seriously, we get that you don't like Gore. But your pronouncements about his motives really don't have any more weight than my opinion of George Bush's taste in dinner wear.
posted by lodurr at 2:01 PM on December 14, 2009 [4 favorites]
koeselitz: Yes, I've read Gore's earlier writings on climate change. I know an environmental scientist (a real one, one of those concerned about global warming) who's read them; he says they're at best muddled and at worst flatly insane. I tend to agree, and it seems to my eye that they're just a set of arbitrary positions designed carefully to appeal to the right special-interest groups, from the Sierra Club on down, in order to secure the proper endorsements. You're free to disagree, but there's a reason Gore hasn't loudly trumpeted his old environmentalist stuff: because even then it was just following on other peoples' theories, though back then he was much worse at making sure he was technically correct.
I don't think Gore has ever really attempted to present himself as a scientific expert on anthropogenic climate change, but rather as a pretty recognizable guy who can speak persuasively and really cares about a particularly important issue that a lot of people refused to care about for a long time. I don't think Bono necessarily has a hugely nuanced grasp on the politics of Sudan, but I don't think he hitched his wagon to Darfur because he thought it would be politically expedient.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:02 PM on December 14, 2009
I don't think Gore has ever really attempted to present himself as a scientific expert on anthropogenic climate change, but rather as a pretty recognizable guy who can speak persuasively and really cares about a particularly important issue that a lot of people refused to care about for a long time. I don't think Bono necessarily has a hugely nuanced grasp on the politics of Sudan, but I don't think he hitched his wagon to Darfur because he thought it would be politically expedient.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:02 PM on December 14, 2009
Can't one be both A. glad he made a movie that got a lot people THINKING again (or maybe the first time) about what a mess we're making of our planet, and B. pissed that it's opened the sluices on any number of hack doom-cumentaries that don't really do anything but repeatedly smash us all in the face with the AWFUL TRUTH, to the point of leaving only despair in their wake, which accomplishes nothing?
I really don't follow the thought process on B. I mean, it didn't open the sluices on anything, and if you'd seen it you would realize it was a far cry from the "hack doom-cumentaries" you're talking about. on top of that, it's entirely unfair to say that it accomplished nothing but despair, which (again) you'd know if you'd seen it. The fact is that alerting people to the problems of a society or a practice or a business is what activism DOES, and that alerting people to problems can inspire people to do their part to fix it. I'm sorry, but this statement smells strongly of regurgitation, and doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of substance behind it.
posted by shmegegge at 2:13 PM on December 14, 2009
I really don't follow the thought process on B. I mean, it didn't open the sluices on anything, and if you'd seen it you would realize it was a far cry from the "hack doom-cumentaries" you're talking about. on top of that, it's entirely unfair to say that it accomplished nothing but despair, which (again) you'd know if you'd seen it. The fact is that alerting people to the problems of a society or a practice or a business is what activism DOES, and that alerting people to problems can inspire people to do their part to fix it. I'm sorry, but this statement smells strongly of regurgitation, and doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of substance behind it.
posted by shmegegge at 2:13 PM on December 14, 2009
Decades are like Star Trek films.
What's that rule? The even-numbered ones suck?
What? Is this some bizarro Metafilter that doesn't know basic nerd facts? The even numbered ones are the good ones. Except 10 sucked and 11 was generally liked, so maybe the pattern is now reversing.
posted by kmz at 2:31 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
What's that rule? The even-numbered ones suck?
What? Is this some bizarro Metafilter that doesn't know basic nerd facts? The even numbered ones are the good ones. Except 10 sucked and 11 was generally liked, so maybe the pattern is now reversing.
posted by kmz at 2:31 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Let me lay this trip on you: David Sedaris opening for the Decemberists.
I can't believe they then thought it would be a good idea to have Gilbert Gottfried, Curtis Armstrong, and Fran Drescher to come out and start scatting during the encore.
posted by drezdn at 2:38 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
I can't believe they then thought it would be a good idea to have Gilbert Gottfried, Curtis Armstrong, and Fran Drescher to come out and start scatting during the encore.
posted by drezdn at 2:38 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Forget Bush
Fuck you. That's like saying ignore gravity.
posted by Mcable at 2:41 PM on December 14, 2009
Fuck you. That's like saying ignore gravity.
posted by Mcable at 2:41 PM on December 14, 2009
drezdn: I can't believe they then thought it would be a good idea to have Gilbert Gottfried, Curtis Armstrong, and Fran Drescher to come out and start scatting during the encore.
This is scarier than the octopus thread and the crocodile thread.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:44 PM on December 14, 2009
This is scarier than the octopus thread and the crocodile thread.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:44 PM on December 14, 2009
the (lack of any real) reaction in the US to the East Anglia climate-science email 'scandal,'
The only scandal is that people like you call this a scandal, when there is no scandal.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:45 PM on December 14, 2009
The only scandal is that people like you call this a scandal, when there is no scandal.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:45 PM on December 14, 2009
That was a tragically retarded set of lists. I take it The Guardian has run out of news and journalism?
posted by five fresh fish at 2:52 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by five fresh fish at 2:52 PM on December 14, 2009
That was a tragically retarded set of lists. I take it The Guardian has run out of news and journalism?
As has been pointed out several times in the thread, this article appeared in The Guide which is basically the listing supplement of The Guardian. Most people reading it are shambling back from the shops with bacon rolls, a dessicated husk from the night before or sitting shaking in a greasy spoon. It's not meant to be anything other than a light-hearted five minute read after a night on the piss.
Quite often the best thing about the Guide is the cover.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 3:30 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
As has been pointed out several times in the thread, this article appeared in The Guide which is basically the listing supplement of The Guardian. Most people reading it are shambling back from the shops with bacon rolls, a dessicated husk from the night before or sitting shaking in a greasy spoon. It's not meant to be anything other than a light-hearted five minute read after a night on the piss.
Quite often the best thing about the Guide is the cover.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 3:30 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Blazecock Pileon: “The only scandal is that people like you call this a scandal, when there is no scandal.”
This feels like a derail, and I have a feeling it's just a misunderstanding between you and me, but I should say: 'people like me,' nothing. There's plenty of scandal. The scandal is that a bunch of honest, hard-working scientists who make their living investigating phenomenon and have the decency to spend some time trying to education the rest of society about what they find out have been railroaded by those eager to find controversy where controversy doesn't exist. The scandal, as I said above, is that the US media can still present a case of outright theft of private emails, which in fact turned out to be empty of anything controversial, as though there are two sides, in that inimitably stupid way that the US media always presents things: "on the one hand, the emails were stolen; but on the other hand..." In fact, if anything, the climatologists at East Anglia probably deserve a big heap of praise, since frankly if I were in their place and you raided my email you'd find a hell of a lot more angry, bitter invective and controversial statements than anybody found in theirs.
But I suspect you simply didn't understand what I meant. I wasn't really as clear as I could have been; so here you go. I recall noticing a headline yesterday, though I haven't gone back to find it yet, that indicated that big business interests in the US were implicated as being responsible for the theft of those emails. Of course, I don't expect to read about that much on the news, but it would make sense. What's astounding is that, no matter what you find in them, apparently simply stealing someone else's emails is enough to besmirch their name and start a pretty meaningless debate about scientific ethics nowadays.
posted by koeselitz at 3:47 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
This feels like a derail, and I have a feeling it's just a misunderstanding between you and me, but I should say: 'people like me,' nothing. There's plenty of scandal. The scandal is that a bunch of honest, hard-working scientists who make their living investigating phenomenon and have the decency to spend some time trying to education the rest of society about what they find out have been railroaded by those eager to find controversy where controversy doesn't exist. The scandal, as I said above, is that the US media can still present a case of outright theft of private emails, which in fact turned out to be empty of anything controversial, as though there are two sides, in that inimitably stupid way that the US media always presents things: "on the one hand, the emails were stolen; but on the other hand..." In fact, if anything, the climatologists at East Anglia probably deserve a big heap of praise, since frankly if I were in their place and you raided my email you'd find a hell of a lot more angry, bitter invective and controversial statements than anybody found in theirs.
But I suspect you simply didn't understand what I meant. I wasn't really as clear as I could have been; so here you go. I recall noticing a headline yesterday, though I haven't gone back to find it yet, that indicated that big business interests in the US were implicated as being responsible for the theft of those emails. Of course, I don't expect to read about that much on the news, but it would make sense. What's astounding is that, no matter what you find in them, apparently simply stealing someone else's emails is enough to besmirch their name and start a pretty meaningless debate about scientific ethics nowadays.
posted by koeselitz at 3:47 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]
It is a very common mistake to turn twenty years old at a time when music sucks. It being common does not make it forgivable.
If you are in your late teens or early twenties and suddenly you realize that you are listening to Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab, or The Decemberists with musical wood in your music pants, there may still be time to go freeze yourself for ten years and hope that 2018 is at least as good as 1968.
posted by dirty lies at 3:47 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
If you are in your late teens or early twenties and suddenly you realize that you are listening to Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab, or The Decemberists with musical wood in your music pants, there may still be time to go freeze yourself for ten years and hope that 2018 is at least as good as 1968.
posted by dirty lies at 3:47 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
... and that, BP, as you probably should have known, is why I put the word 'scandal' off in scare-quotes; because I don't think it's a 'scandal' any more than you do, beyond the fact that those climatologists are getting railroaded for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
posted by koeselitz at 3:48 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by koeselitz at 3:48 PM on December 14, 2009
I also misread you the firs time koeselitz, and thought you were saying the complete opposite of what you are trying to say. The media was more concerned about the EVIL COMPUTER HACKERS that got into Paris Hilton's sidekick than they are about the email theft. Murdoch should be at the very top of the list.
I fully expect that next time TV shows a satellite picture of earth they follow with an interview of a flath earther for, you know, balance.
posted by dirty lies at 3:52 PM on December 14, 2009
I fully expect that next time TV shows a satellite picture of earth they follow with an interview of a flath earther for, you know, balance.
posted by dirty lies at 3:52 PM on December 14, 2009
... and since I seem to be airing plenty of controversial opinions in this thread...
kmz: ”What? Is this some bizarro Metafilter that doesn't know basic nerd facts? The even numbered ones are the good ones. Except 10 sucked and 11 was generally liked, so maybe the pattern is now reversing.”
The rule is: the even-numbered ones, up to #6, are superior. After that they are junk. And anybody who thought that new trash was any good wasn't paying attention; JJ Abrams is a talentless hack, and besides he's admitted that when he was young he was bored by Star Trek, and it shows. Young Spock being made fun of by kids on Vulcan? Please.
posted by koeselitz at 4:57 PM on December 14, 2009
kmz: ”What? Is this some bizarro Metafilter that doesn't know basic nerd facts? The even numbered ones are the good ones. Except 10 sucked and 11 was generally liked, so maybe the pattern is now reversing.”
The rule is: the even-numbered ones, up to #6, are superior. After that they are junk. And anybody who thought that new trash was any good wasn't paying attention; JJ Abrams is a talentless hack, and besides he's admitted that when he was young he was bored by Star Trek, and it shows. Young Spock being made fun of by kids on Vulcan? Please.
posted by koeselitz at 4:57 PM on December 14, 2009
>: But then bands started rediscovering dreampop/shoegaze, and music was saved. Yaaay!
Oh my, yes.
Anyone notice how for a while, EVERY SINGLE INDIE ROCK BAND sounded like Franz Ferdinand or The Killers? And the new big thing seems to be sounding exactly like Yacht.
I miss old Stereolab.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:30 PM on December 14, 2009
Oh my, yes.
Anyone notice how for a while, EVERY SINGLE INDIE ROCK BAND sounded like Franz Ferdinand or The Killers? And the new big thing seems to be sounding exactly like Yacht.
I miss old Stereolab.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:30 PM on December 14, 2009
Anyone notice how for a while, EVERY SINGLE INDIE ROCK BAND sounded like Franz Ferdinand or The Killers? And the new big thing seems to be sounding exactly like Yacht.
I met a girl once who told me she was into "British Indie, Like The Strokes and The Killers". She was quite insufferable.
According to Wikipedia that kind of music is called "Post Punk Revival"
posted by delmoi at 6:43 PM on December 14, 2009
I met a girl once who told me she was into "British Indie, Like The Strokes and The Killers". She was quite insufferable.
According to Wikipedia that kind of music is called "Post Punk Revival"
posted by delmoi at 6:43 PM on December 14, 2009
I miss old Stereolab
Yeah, back when they were doing nothing more than ripping off Neu!
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:31 PM on December 14, 2009
Yeah, back when they were doing nothing more than ripping off Neu!
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:31 PM on December 14, 2009
Yeah, back when they were doing nothing more than ripping off Neu!
This is true but not a criticism in my book.
posted by joe lisboa at 9:30 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
This is true but not a criticism in my book.
posted by joe lisboa at 9:30 PM on December 14, 2009 [2 favorites]
Dissing The Pixies (while admitting that they smoke any contemporaries?) is grounds for ignoring these twits in my book.
posted by readyfreddy at 9:40 PM on December 14, 2009
posted by readyfreddy at 9:40 PM on December 14, 2009
>: Yeah, back when they were doing nothing more than ripping off Neu!
You mean their tracks "Orgiastic", "Peng! 33" and "The Seeming and the Meaning"? If so, I'm getting some Neu!.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:46 PM on December 14, 2009
You mean their tracks "Orgiastic", "Peng! 33" and "The Seeming and the Meaning"? If so, I'm getting some Neu!.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:46 PM on December 14, 2009
You mean their tracks "Orgiastic", "Peng! 33" and "The Seeming and the Meaning"? If so, I'm getting some Neu!.
Stereolab - Jenny Ondioline
Neu - Hallogallo
posted by philip-random at 11:08 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Stereolab - Jenny Ondioline
Neu - Hallogallo
posted by philip-random at 11:08 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Stereolab - Jenny Ondioline
Neu - Hallogallo
... but that's so 90s, I just realized.
I actually helped interview Stereolab once on a radio show and made a point of dragging my Neu! along and playing it. As I recall, they just kind of politely smiled and talked about something else. Very nice people who did a hell of a good job of stealing exactly the right parts of certain other people's music, and then put it to good use.
But it has always bugged me that the credit for Jenny Ondioline goes to Gane, Sadler. Maybe it's got something to do with ongoing reparations for WW2.
posted by philip-random at 11:14 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Neu - Hallogallo
... but that's so 90s, I just realized.
I actually helped interview Stereolab once on a radio show and made a point of dragging my Neu! along and playing it. As I recall, they just kind of politely smiled and talked about something else. Very nice people who did a hell of a good job of stealing exactly the right parts of certain other people's music, and then put it to good use.
But it has always bugged me that the credit for Jenny Ondioline goes to Gane, Sadler. Maybe it's got something to do with ongoing reparations for WW2.
posted by philip-random at 11:14 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]
Anyone notice how for a while, EVERY SINGLE INDIE ROCK BAND sounded like Franz Ferdinand or The Killers?
Try living in England. Every single indie rock band sounded like watered-down Coldplay. Or really watered-down postpunk. Or Oasis-lite pubrock. Or they were the Wombats (Don't try to find their music to hear what I'm talking about. Just....don't).
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:14 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
Try living in England. Every single indie rock band sounded like watered-down Coldplay. Or really watered-down postpunk. Or Oasis-lite pubrock. Or they were the Wombats (Don't try to find their music to hear what I'm talking about. Just....don't).
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:14 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
Mostly accurate. The parts I didn't entirely agree with are also parts I didn't necessarily entirely disagree with.
Ben Gibbard needs his own place in hell. This list can't contain the likes of him.
posted by saysthis at 1:45 AM on December 15, 2009
Ben Gibbard needs his own place in hell. This list can't contain the likes of him.
posted by saysthis at 1:45 AM on December 15, 2009
Yeah, Jenny Ondioline is the standout, er, 'tribute' to Neu!
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:51 AM on December 15, 2009
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:51 AM on December 15, 2009
"The Decemberists. Jesus Motherfucking Christ in a chicken basket, I hate that guy's voice"
I feel like this about Bright Eyes. I want to kidnap him and feed him mandrax.
posted by mippy at 5:18 AM on December 15, 2009
I feel like this about Bright Eyes. I want to kidnap him and feed him mandrax.
posted by mippy at 5:18 AM on December 15, 2009
If you are in your late teens or early twenties and suddenly you realize that you are listening to Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab, or The Decemberists with musical wood in your music pants, there may still be time to go freeze yourself for ten years and hope that 2018 is at least as good as 1968.
I turned 17 in 1999 and let me tell you, 2009 is a LOT better. Back then, everyone listened to Travis, Kittie or Eiffel 65.
posted by mippy at 5:35 AM on December 15, 2009
I turned 17 in 1999 and let me tell you, 2009 is a LOT better. Back then, everyone listened to Travis, Kittie or Eiffel 65.
posted by mippy at 5:35 AM on December 15, 2009
I'm a huge fan of Neu! and just discovered Stereolab for me, so thanks for the little derail!
posted by ts;dr at 6:01 AM on December 15, 2009
posted by ts;dr at 6:01 AM on December 15, 2009
I turned 17 in 1999 and let me tell you, 2009 is a LOT better.
Push comes to shove, I'd have to rate 1999 as the worst ever for so-called pop music. I don't even remember the names really (other than Britney Spears who's conspicuous non-talent was ubiquitous) as I was generally just ignoring it, downloading all manner of fringe stuff, buying lots of old vinyl. But I remember the thought occurring. This has to be some end of the millennium thing. The whole culture has spontaneously decided that we must unleash all of this awfulness now, lest it infect us for the next thousand years. I'm not sure that it worked.
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
Push comes to shove, I'd have to rate 1999 as the worst ever for so-called pop music. I don't even remember the names really (other than Britney Spears who's conspicuous non-talent was ubiquitous) as I was generally just ignoring it, downloading all manner of fringe stuff, buying lots of old vinyl. But I remember the thought occurring. This has to be some end of the millennium thing. The whole culture has spontaneously decided that we must unleash all of this awfulness now, lest it infect us for the next thousand years. I'm not sure that it worked.
posted by philip-random at 9:15 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
Just want to express the slightest regret for calling out Sufjan upthread, since I actually like him quite a bit. It's still music for WASPy grad students though. (The other three groups I mentioned can go ahead and flip their tour buses.)
posted by naju at 9:49 AM on December 15, 2009
posted by naju at 9:49 AM on December 15, 2009
Oh, and in general, even in the recent past we had raw stuff like Pixies and Sonic Youth and what-have-you that the crust-punks and noise lovers could get behind. Something has changed, believe you me. My favorite 00's analogue is the incredible Animal Collective, but they got famous in '09 by trading in their harsh abrasiveness for a mostly pleasant electro-pop record. [/contrarian]
posted by naju at 9:53 AM on December 15, 2009
posted by naju at 9:53 AM on December 15, 2009
philip-random: “Push comes to shove, I'd have to rate 1999 as the worst ever for so-called pop music. I don't even remember the names really (other than Britney Spears who's conspicuous non-talent was ubiquitous) as I was generally just ignoring it, downloading all manner of fringe stuff, buying lots of old vinyl. But I remember the thought occurring. This has to be some end of the millennium thing. The whole culture has spontaneously decided that we must unleash all of this awfulness now, lest it infect us for the next thousand years. I'm not sure that it worked.”
People are always in a rush to feel as though current music is awful and to romanticize the past, but certain eras have gotten a pass that really should not have, I think. I'm not saying you're doing that - I remember pop in 1999, and it was plenty bad. But it seems like there have been years when it's been much, much worse. 1985, for example. a-ha? Foreigner? Madonna? Jesus fucking christ. The 80s in general get a tremendous whitewashing from my generation (I was born in '79) because it's that primal childhood music from before when we were artistically aware, I think, and because it's somehow easy to be nostalgic about that kind of slop. But Mark E. Smith was damned right when he said in 1982: "It should be clear now to everyone that new wave has been a massive mistake, shouldn't it?" And it's easy to talk about the counterculture of the time and say there was plenty of good music ('Mekons' Fear And Whiskey was released that year!') but equally easy to forget that that counterculture existed in large part as a haven for the few people in 1985 who were actually in their right minds, and who comprehended that the pop music establishment was a morally, spiritually and artistically bankrupt behemoth sucking out the blood of every talented or intelligent musician it could touch and spewing forth bile and filth neatly packaged in the form of hip, catchy singles. People hear the phrase "new wave" and wax poetic about the forward-thinking artistic nuances of Duran Duran, but I think they forget that in large part at the time what characterized Duran Duran's approach was complicity, complicity in a culture that sopped up the very worst (and most marketable) aspect of all the concurrent streams of music and recapitulated them on the world as an actual betrayal of themselves.
Think of all the musical influences being strip-mined at the time. R&B and jazz weren't seen as things in themselves, as establishments, as respectable achievements of the past to be revered, but as techniques for the procurement of monetary compensation and colorations to be deployed by savvy producers. All the soul was drained from R&B, all the whimsical and human and natural and gritty realism to it was sandblasted away by men in suits with a keen eye for crafting hits. And music was bought some by the kids, but the tone was increasingly determined by that suddenly middle-aged generation so aptly depicted in The Big Chill (a hateful movie which anyone who thinks the 80s were a great time for music should be forced to watch) which saw everything with a weird air of nostalgia and which actually managed the strange mental contradiction of looking back on the rebellion of the 60s from the vantage point of the establishment with a keening fondness devoid of regret or self-awareness, lauding people like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin as heroes whilst simultaneously disregarding every single thing any of the had stood for.
So in the 80s we had pop acts trying to sound like whitewashed, prettified versions of the crappy pop acts of the 50s. There were plenty of white bands who recapitulated the old "we're a white group co-opting real black music and making it sanitary so you can enjoy it!" thing - often with token black backup singers hired to make the whole thing convincing. (The aforementioned Mark E. Smith wasn't just trying to be obtuse or offensive in The Fall's anti-pop masterpiece "The Classical" when he snarled "where are the obligatory niggers?!" - he was mocking the A&R fucks who appraised singles on those very terms.)
And even R&B itself, in the hands of the people who'd inherited it, started to wither and die. The appeal of Michael Jackson and the modern R&B-pop he inspired - imitated widely to this day - was that it really sanitized R&B and removed its roots to create a kind of pure primal drama-geared stuff that wasn't messy, threatening, or complicated by unfortunate or unpleasant realities. You can find Michael Jackson catchy, and he certainly is, but really the remarkable thing about the innovation that he and Quincy Jones developed together was that it removed all the particular complication and immediate circumstantial and geographical context of R&B. No more 'churchiness;' no more blues-inflected willingness to talk about the cruddy realities of work, money, heartache, and pain; no more of the sloppiness and jaunty pleasures of booze and casual sex and love - only a stylized, carefully-cultivated aggressive masculinity that is less a persona than a posture. When Otis Redding had need or urgency in his voice, it was a little scary and a little uncomfortable right away, and it still is, because he's a human being talking about his problems and his music carries with it all of the immediacy that that implies. You don't know what he's going to say, but he's clearly not censoring himself or calculating, and that honesty is a little frightening and gives the music an edge. Michael Jackson's approach is utterly different; not only is the music behind him utterly purified of any 'rootsiness' (the horn section is used more and more sparingly, while electronic elements begin to take over, and any semblance to the sounds of jazz, blues, or gospel is either heavily modified or removed altogether) but Jackson's own vocals are careful only to be about the most universal sentiments imaginable, purified of historical or cultural context; Jackson's particular gimmick, the touch which I believe makes him popular, is to then re-introduce an aggro tone which has the benefit of being vague enough not to offend any one group of people but just threatening enough to give listeners the subconscious thrill of sensing that they're hearing music that is somehow 'racy' (in both senses of the term.) At any rate, it should amaze and alarm anyone that it took less than fifteen years to go from this to this in R&B, and the 80s were the decade that got us there.
posted by koeselitz at 12:26 PM on December 15, 2009 [6 favorites]
People are always in a rush to feel as though current music is awful and to romanticize the past, but certain eras have gotten a pass that really should not have, I think. I'm not saying you're doing that - I remember pop in 1999, and it was plenty bad. But it seems like there have been years when it's been much, much worse. 1985, for example. a-ha? Foreigner? Madonna? Jesus fucking christ. The 80s in general get a tremendous whitewashing from my generation (I was born in '79) because it's that primal childhood music from before when we were artistically aware, I think, and because it's somehow easy to be nostalgic about that kind of slop. But Mark E. Smith was damned right when he said in 1982: "It should be clear now to everyone that new wave has been a massive mistake, shouldn't it?" And it's easy to talk about the counterculture of the time and say there was plenty of good music ('Mekons' Fear And Whiskey was released that year!') but equally easy to forget that that counterculture existed in large part as a haven for the few people in 1985 who were actually in their right minds, and who comprehended that the pop music establishment was a morally, spiritually and artistically bankrupt behemoth sucking out the blood of every talented or intelligent musician it could touch and spewing forth bile and filth neatly packaged in the form of hip, catchy singles. People hear the phrase "new wave" and wax poetic about the forward-thinking artistic nuances of Duran Duran, but I think they forget that in large part at the time what characterized Duran Duran's approach was complicity, complicity in a culture that sopped up the very worst (and most marketable) aspect of all the concurrent streams of music and recapitulated them on the world as an actual betrayal of themselves.
Think of all the musical influences being strip-mined at the time. R&B and jazz weren't seen as things in themselves, as establishments, as respectable achievements of the past to be revered, but as techniques for the procurement of monetary compensation and colorations to be deployed by savvy producers. All the soul was drained from R&B, all the whimsical and human and natural and gritty realism to it was sandblasted away by men in suits with a keen eye for crafting hits. And music was bought some by the kids, but the tone was increasingly determined by that suddenly middle-aged generation so aptly depicted in The Big Chill (a hateful movie which anyone who thinks the 80s were a great time for music should be forced to watch) which saw everything with a weird air of nostalgia and which actually managed the strange mental contradiction of looking back on the rebellion of the 60s from the vantage point of the establishment with a keening fondness devoid of regret or self-awareness, lauding people like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin as heroes whilst simultaneously disregarding every single thing any of the had stood for.
So in the 80s we had pop acts trying to sound like whitewashed, prettified versions of the crappy pop acts of the 50s. There were plenty of white bands who recapitulated the old "we're a white group co-opting real black music and making it sanitary so you can enjoy it!" thing - often with token black backup singers hired to make the whole thing convincing. (The aforementioned Mark E. Smith wasn't just trying to be obtuse or offensive in The Fall's anti-pop masterpiece "The Classical" when he snarled "where are the obligatory niggers?!" - he was mocking the A&R fucks who appraised singles on those very terms.)
And even R&B itself, in the hands of the people who'd inherited it, started to wither and die. The appeal of Michael Jackson and the modern R&B-pop he inspired - imitated widely to this day - was that it really sanitized R&B and removed its roots to create a kind of pure primal drama-geared stuff that wasn't messy, threatening, or complicated by unfortunate or unpleasant realities. You can find Michael Jackson catchy, and he certainly is, but really the remarkable thing about the innovation that he and Quincy Jones developed together was that it removed all the particular complication and immediate circumstantial and geographical context of R&B. No more 'churchiness;' no more blues-inflected willingness to talk about the cruddy realities of work, money, heartache, and pain; no more of the sloppiness and jaunty pleasures of booze and casual sex and love - only a stylized, carefully-cultivated aggressive masculinity that is less a persona than a posture. When Otis Redding had need or urgency in his voice, it was a little scary and a little uncomfortable right away, and it still is, because he's a human being talking about his problems and his music carries with it all of the immediacy that that implies. You don't know what he's going to say, but he's clearly not censoring himself or calculating, and that honesty is a little frightening and gives the music an edge. Michael Jackson's approach is utterly different; not only is the music behind him utterly purified of any 'rootsiness' (the horn section is used more and more sparingly, while electronic elements begin to take over, and any semblance to the sounds of jazz, blues, or gospel is either heavily modified or removed altogether) but Jackson's own vocals are careful only to be about the most universal sentiments imaginable, purified of historical or cultural context; Jackson's particular gimmick, the touch which I believe makes him popular, is to then re-introduce an aggro tone which has the benefit of being vague enough not to offend any one group of people but just threatening enough to give listeners the subconscious thrill of sensing that they're hearing music that is somehow 'racy' (in both senses of the term.) At any rate, it should amaze and alarm anyone that it took less than fifteen years to go from this to this in R&B, and the 80s were the decade that got us there.
posted by koeselitz at 12:26 PM on December 15, 2009 [6 favorites]
Wait, so the Pixies & Sonic Youth had shitty instruments & equipment?
Somehow, I don't exactly believe that. Not beyond the first albums, anyway. Like any musos anywhere, as soon as they had a spare couple of grand, they'd be off buying *that* particular model of Fender from 1972 because it sounds 0.0000001% better than the one from 1988. And they'd be buying those things before paying the rent or buying food other than ramen.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:43 PM on December 15, 2009
Somehow, I don't exactly believe that. Not beyond the first albums, anyway. Like any musos anywhere, as soon as they had a spare couple of grand, they'd be off buying *that* particular model of Fender from 1972 because it sounds 0.0000001% better than the one from 1988. And they'd be buying those things before paying the rent or buying food other than ramen.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:43 PM on December 15, 2009
he was mocking the A&R fucks who appraised singles on those very terms
Hey there, fuckface!
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:45 PM on December 15, 2009
Hey there, fuckface!
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:45 PM on December 15, 2009
My standard for judging music now, now that I'm old, is "is he/she mumbling?" If the answer is no, well, I'm willing to give it sort of a try.
For God's sake, breathy strumming guy, I haven't been able to hear correctly since I stood too close to the amp at that Meat Puppets show at the Orange and Brew back in 1991! Enunciate!
Also, stand up straight.
And stop poking that quail (long story).
posted by staggering termagant at 12:55 PM on December 15, 2009
For God's sake, breathy strumming guy, I haven't been able to hear correctly since I stood too close to the amp at that Meat Puppets show at the Orange and Brew back in 1991! Enunciate!
Also, stand up straight.
And stop poking that quail (long story).
posted by staggering termagant at 12:55 PM on December 15, 2009
Yeah, there's more than just the equipment and recording techniques going on here. I can take or leave the lo-fi aesthetic. I'm talking more about willing to do daring stuff like a 30-minute wall-of-detuned-drone version of "Diamond Sea." When's the last time the music blogs championed something like that, or you even heard something like that? The real problem is that "indie" was co-opted and marketed, like all things eventually are, Urban Outfitters and American Apparel turned it into a trendy mall lifestyle, and now it's as bloodless, defanged and white as Twilight (which, incidentally, features the latest hits from Death Cab, Grizzly Bear and Bon Iver in its soundtrack). I guess every struggling, talented-but-strange musician figured out that they can become commercially successful if they play it safe and create pleasing pop songs. You might even be featured on the next iTunes commercial, and then you can buy four walls and adobe slats for your girls.
posted by naju at 1:09 PM on December 15, 2009
posted by naju at 1:09 PM on December 15, 2009
UbuRoivas: “Wait, so the Pixies & Sonic Youth had shitty instruments & equipment? ... Somehow, I don't exactly believe that. Not beyond the first albums, anyway. Like any musos anywhere, as soon as they had a spare couple of grand, they'd be off buying *that* particular model of Fender from 1972 because it sounds 0.0000001% better than the one from 1988. And they'd be buying those things before paying the rent or buying food other than ramen.”
... was created using the highest aspect
Of today's technology, you gadget-minded cretin.
Prior to delivery, it was given a thorough inspection
By Fred here in the white coat. [*]
posted by koeselitz at 1:14 PM on December 15, 2009
... was created using the highest aspect
Of today's technology, you gadget-minded cretin.
Prior to delivery, it was given a thorough inspection
By Fred here in the white coat. [*]
posted by koeselitz at 1:14 PM on December 15, 2009
Blixa Bargeld (Einsturzende Neubaten, The Bad Seeds) on Sonic Youth's guitars in the early years and later:
“Actually, I hate guitars, but in Sonic Youth's case I really liked what they were doing with guitars. The fact that they preferred... this preference for cheap, broken, clapped-out guitars, which they then played in a freely-invented tuning which had nothing to do with normal guitar tuning, that's always fascinated me...
“Between songs they'd twist the machine-heads until you heard 'kerrang!' Then they'd say 'that's okay' and start playing. From this tuning, the feeling of the moment, they'd start improvising a piece of music. They later perfected this style when they said to themselves, 'If we play in loads of different tunings, we might as well play loads of different guitars.' They weren't all arranged in a row, on a stand, like jewels. They were sticking out of a cardboard box. I liked that.”
Here's Sonic Youth performing "Schizophrenia" in 1987. You can see that Thurston Moore is playing a Fender Stratocaster, which I would personally say ranks as what is generally thought of as a "nice guitar," not a "shitty guitar," but which is probably just a stock model and not really that posh. I can't ID Kim's bass there (somebody else should be able to) but I can tell that Lee Ranaldo's guitar is a weird, homemade wooden deal with lots of strange modifications.
This looks like a good resource if you're more interested than I am in Sonic Youth's equipment.
posted by koeselitz at 1:59 PM on December 15, 2009
“Actually, I hate guitars, but in Sonic Youth's case I really liked what they were doing with guitars. The fact that they preferred... this preference for cheap, broken, clapped-out guitars, which they then played in a freely-invented tuning which had nothing to do with normal guitar tuning, that's always fascinated me...
“Between songs they'd twist the machine-heads until you heard 'kerrang!' Then they'd say 'that's okay' and start playing. From this tuning, the feeling of the moment, they'd start improvising a piece of music. They later perfected this style when they said to themselves, 'If we play in loads of different tunings, we might as well play loads of different guitars.' They weren't all arranged in a row, on a stand, like jewels. They were sticking out of a cardboard box. I liked that.”
Here's Sonic Youth performing "Schizophrenia" in 1987. You can see that Thurston Moore is playing a Fender Stratocaster, which I would personally say ranks as what is generally thought of as a "nice guitar," not a "shitty guitar," but which is probably just a stock model and not really that posh. I can't ID Kim's bass there (somebody else should be able to) but I can tell that Lee Ranaldo's guitar is a weird, homemade wooden deal with lots of strange modifications.
This looks like a good resource if you're more interested than I am in Sonic Youth's equipment.
posted by koeselitz at 1:59 PM on December 15, 2009
I guess this just goes to show the lie-dream of one not in the know.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2009
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2009
– but I wanted to say... I think Ubu's right about guitarists in general, even punker guitarists, being enamored with instruments and quite willing to pay beaucoup bucks for posh gear if it was 'the right gear.' I mean, aren't Les Pauls the power punk guitar? Not cheap, those - nice instruments. Wish I could afford such. I have a shitty Ibanez Stagestar, which I guess is the step-down model from the Roadstar; I got it used for $50, ripped it apart, and rewired it like a Telecaster. (I am like Sonic Youth! Heh.)
Here is a video from 1988 of The Pixies playing a song which handily describes my own feelings about Kim Deal. Kim's on the Aria Pro II bass, of course (which bass actually belonged to Kelley, if I recall correctly; she had to borrow $50 airfare from Black Francis to go borrow it when she first joined the Pixies, and kept playing that bass for most of the time they were together, I think.) Frank's on his beloved Telecaster, and although they don't show him Joey Santiago always played a Les Paul, so I'm sure that's what he's playing. Interestingly I saw them play Come On Pilgrim here in Denver three weeks ago, and they used the same instruments. Note, of course, that in the video, even then in '88 when they weren't exactly the media darlings they are now, they've got a number of very nice backup guitars on stands behind them; Frank, for one, seems to have a couple there, and at the beginning a roadie comes out and puts another one out for him. They're not exactly eschewing nice equipment.
Burhanistan: “What scares me is that now I'm years older than Smith was in his prime.”
That's been hanging over my head long enough that I've sort of given in and settled on shooting for being as great as Mark E. Smith singing "I'm a fifty year old man!" from a wheelchair because he's broken his hip. Then again, Raymond Chandler didn't publish his first novel until he was 50 - maybe we have some time left.
posted by koeselitz at 3:39 PM on December 15, 2009
Here is a video from 1988 of The Pixies playing a song which handily describes my own feelings about Kim Deal. Kim's on the Aria Pro II bass, of course (which bass actually belonged to Kelley, if I recall correctly; she had to borrow $50 airfare from Black Francis to go borrow it when she first joined the Pixies, and kept playing that bass for most of the time they were together, I think.) Frank's on his beloved Telecaster, and although they don't show him Joey Santiago always played a Les Paul, so I'm sure that's what he's playing. Interestingly I saw them play Come On Pilgrim here in Denver three weeks ago, and they used the same instruments. Note, of course, that in the video, even then in '88 when they weren't exactly the media darlings they are now, they've got a number of very nice backup guitars on stands behind them; Frank, for one, seems to have a couple there, and at the beginning a roadie comes out and puts another one out for him. They're not exactly eschewing nice equipment.
Burhanistan: “What scares me is that now I'm years older than Smith was in his prime.”
That's been hanging over my head long enough that I've sort of given in and settled on shooting for being as great as Mark E. Smith singing "I'm a fifty year old man!" from a wheelchair because he's broken his hip. Then again, Raymond Chandler didn't publish his first novel until he was 50 - maybe we have some time left.
posted by koeselitz at 3:39 PM on December 15, 2009
"Don't forget, he's still up to it,
That Steve Albini!
He's in collusion with Virgin Records
Against me!
I'm a fifty year old man!
What're you gonna do about it?"
posted by koeselitz at 3:42 PM on December 15, 2009
That Steve Albini!
He's in collusion with Virgin Records
Against me!
I'm a fifty year old man!
What're you gonna do about it?"
posted by koeselitz at 3:42 PM on December 15, 2009
Having become musically aware at the beginning of the 80s, what I notice in retrospect is that the decade's pop music had this kind of disintegrative quality to it. Where it didn't mine the past, as koeselitz talked about, it stumbled blindly in any direction at all, in the hopes of creating something defining. What we got were the vaguest shadows of musical forms, really amateurly done and badly produced, even for the technology at the time.
Just to pull one example out of many - the snare drum. The 80s pop snare was screwed up to a stupidly high level, with reverb added to it, creating the signature loud, echoing "pop" of many of the decades Top 40 hits. This was a really bad idea, even in comparison to the way kits were miced in the studios of the 70s. A lot of people bring up the saxophone solo, but to me that brash, bubble gum snare is what defines the 80s for me, because it stands out as an example of exhibiting a level of production quality below that of the decade previous, possibly for the first time in modern music history.
This may have been why the punk in that decade was so great. Reagan's president, and the radio is filled with awful, awful garbage. What else are you going to do but start a punk band?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:53 PM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
Just to pull one example out of many - the snare drum. The 80s pop snare was screwed up to a stupidly high level, with reverb added to it, creating the signature loud, echoing "pop" of many of the decades Top 40 hits. This was a really bad idea, even in comparison to the way kits were miced in the studios of the 70s. A lot of people bring up the saxophone solo, but to me that brash, bubble gum snare is what defines the 80s for me, because it stands out as an example of exhibiting a level of production quality below that of the decade previous, possibly for the first time in modern music history.
This may have been why the punk in that decade was so great. Reagan's president, and the radio is filled with awful, awful garbage. What else are you going to do but start a punk band?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:53 PM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
> Kim's bass looks like either an Ovation or an Ampeg. Hard to tell, though.
Ovation Magnum. No, I'm not a gear nerd, why do you ask?
posted by ardgedee at 5:19 PM on December 15, 2009
Ovation Magnum. No, I'm not a gear nerd, why do you ask?
posted by ardgedee at 5:19 PM on December 15, 2009
Details on Kim Gordon's Ovation Magnum I, of which she apparently played 3 during the 80s, and which was the successor to her Mustang bass.
posted by koeselitz at 6:06 PM on December 15, 2009
posted by koeselitz at 6:06 PM on December 15, 2009
Koeselitz, that is among the greatest comments ever made on MetaFilter.
I don't know if I'd go that far, but thank you, sir, for putting the 80s in their place.
And it's easy to talk about the counterculture of the time and say there was plenty of good music ('Mekons' Fear And Whiskey was released that year!') but equally easy to forget that that counterculture existed in large part as a haven for the few people in 1985 who were actually in their right minds, and who comprehended that the pop music establishment was a morally, spiritually and artistically bankrupt behemoth sucking out the blood of every talented or intelligent musician it could touch and spewing forth bile and filth neatly packaged in the form of hip, catchy singles.
Don't want to pump myself up too much but this was me more or less in 1985, mid-twenties, a radio and club DJ, smoking lots of dope, doing lots of psychedelics, yet entirely in my "right mind" insofar as I was consciously surfing the godforsaken fucking awfulness of the WHOLE culture (it wasn't just the pop music that sucked), and having so much young man's fun that it's hard for me to really HATE the 80s that much as a decade, just pretty much EVERYTHING that was BIG DEAL popular.
... with exceptions, of course. Prince, for instance, was the anti-Michael Jackson and pretty much unstoppable until he did the Batman soundtrack. But that was 89 by which point we had Public Enemy in particular and hip-hop in general firing on all cylinders. Which gets back to my initial comment about 1999 representing a nadir. I guess the reason it bugged me so much was that there really was NOTHING happening in terms of serious cultural groundswells. Lots of great bands, songs, albums, concerts ... but nothing that seemed to do justice to it being the culmination of the millennium. Movies were great that year, of course, and hi-tech was a MONSTER. But popular music ........ ?
As for Sonic Youth, I've always accepted it as part of their mythology that they didn't so much seek out shitty guitars as just needed so many of them (different fucked up tunings for pretty much every song) that they couldn't pull it off any other way.
posted by philip-random at 9:57 PM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
I don't know if I'd go that far, but thank you, sir, for putting the 80s in their place.
And it's easy to talk about the counterculture of the time and say there was plenty of good music ('Mekons' Fear And Whiskey was released that year!') but equally easy to forget that that counterculture existed in large part as a haven for the few people in 1985 who were actually in their right minds, and who comprehended that the pop music establishment was a morally, spiritually and artistically bankrupt behemoth sucking out the blood of every talented or intelligent musician it could touch and spewing forth bile and filth neatly packaged in the form of hip, catchy singles.
Don't want to pump myself up too much but this was me more or less in 1985, mid-twenties, a radio and club DJ, smoking lots of dope, doing lots of psychedelics, yet entirely in my "right mind" insofar as I was consciously surfing the godforsaken fucking awfulness of the WHOLE culture (it wasn't just the pop music that sucked), and having so much young man's fun that it's hard for me to really HATE the 80s that much as a decade, just pretty much EVERYTHING that was BIG DEAL popular.
... with exceptions, of course. Prince, for instance, was the anti-Michael Jackson and pretty much unstoppable until he did the Batman soundtrack. But that was 89 by which point we had Public Enemy in particular and hip-hop in general firing on all cylinders. Which gets back to my initial comment about 1999 representing a nadir. I guess the reason it bugged me so much was that there really was NOTHING happening in terms of serious cultural groundswells. Lots of great bands, songs, albums, concerts ... but nothing that seemed to do justice to it being the culmination of the millennium. Movies were great that year, of course, and hi-tech was a MONSTER. But popular music ........ ?
As for Sonic Youth, I've always accepted it as part of their mythology that they didn't so much seek out shitty guitars as just needed so many of them (different fucked up tunings for pretty much every song) that they couldn't pull it off any other way.
posted by philip-random at 9:57 PM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]
People hear the phrase "new wave" and wax poetic about the forward-thinking artistic nuances of Duran Duran,
New Wave - and I'm not American - for me means XTC, Magazine, Orange Juice. Post-punk and post-punk with synths. Duran Duran was new romantic, a musical/fashion subculture which was based on slickness and surface.
I think that if you take the down-the-line mainstream music of any year- what was most popular, as opposed to what was good or critically acclaimed (and these categories do overlap) - it's going to be a bit bobbins.
philip-random, at the time I thought 1997 was a great year for music. 1999 just saw those bands releasing good albums then bringing out lacklustre ones. But then UK Garage came in 2000 which was the down-to-earth version of R+B.
posted by mippy at 8:52 AM on December 16, 2009
New Wave - and I'm not American - for me means XTC, Magazine, Orange Juice. Post-punk and post-punk with synths. Duran Duran was new romantic, a musical/fashion subculture which was based on slickness and surface.
I think that if you take the down-the-line mainstream music of any year- what was most popular, as opposed to what was good or critically acclaimed (and these categories do overlap) - it's going to be a bit bobbins.
philip-random, at the time I thought 1997 was a great year for music. 1999 just saw those bands releasing good albums then bringing out lacklustre ones. But then UK Garage came in 2000 which was the down-to-earth version of R+B.
posted by mippy at 8:52 AM on December 16, 2009
Duran Duran was most certainly not New Wave in America, either. Wall of Voodoo, Devo, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, The Tubes - these were New Wave.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 10:08 AM on December 16, 2009
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 10:08 AM on December 16, 2009
Duran Duran was most certainly not New Wave in America, either. Wall of Voodoo, Devo, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, The Tubes - these were New Wave.
For the record, this argument went on at the time: the cool bands with weird haircuts versus the uncool bands with weird haircuts. Duran Duran are interesting because, as I remember it, their first few singles were considered very cool (Girls On Film with its edgy video etc) but by the time Hungry Like A Wolf hit, We The Cool were beating a hasty retreat.
And then a few years later, I saw Decline of Western Civilization, part 1 where the pissed off French guy pretty much says, "New Wave was invented because punk rockers were jealous that they couldn't get filthy rich, snort coke, fuck models like proper rock stars."
posted by philip-random at 10:59 AM on December 16, 2009
For the record, this argument went on at the time: the cool bands with weird haircuts versus the uncool bands with weird haircuts. Duran Duran are interesting because, as I remember it, their first few singles were considered very cool (Girls On Film with its edgy video etc) but by the time Hungry Like A Wolf hit, We The Cool were beating a hasty retreat.
And then a few years later, I saw Decline of Western Civilization, part 1 where the pissed off French guy pretty much says, "New Wave was invented because punk rockers were jealous that they couldn't get filthy rich, snort coke, fuck models like proper rock stars."
posted by philip-random at 10:59 AM on December 16, 2009
For the record, this argument went on at the time: the cool bands with weird haircuts versus the uncool bands with weird haircuts. Duran Duran are interesting because, as I remember it, their first few singles were considered very cool (Girls On Film with its edgy video etc) but by the time Hungry Like A Wolf hit, We The Cool were beating a hasty retreat.
Yeah, I remember this because I was an unashamed Duran Duran fan throughout the 80s. They were part of the New Romantic scene (which they shared with Spandau Ballet and ... I don't know, I think that was it), as mippy pointed out.
Duran Duran's first album was pretty great, but then Rio came out, and the transition from edge-lite to pop was clear. But not just in the auditory sense. At a time when MTV was "video, video, video, video, VJ babbling for a few seconds, repeat", music videos had no styles, no genres, nothing. It was wide open. People did all kinds of crazy stuff, with mixed results. But Duran Duran made music videos that set a standard of sorts. Their videos had a consistent style. For a band to have a video style became a thing, and then this broadened into different music genres having different music video styles. Duran Duran attained a great deal of fame mostly by helping MTV become successful, and MTV in turn helped Duran Duran.
My enjoyent of them continued through Seven and the Ragged Tiger. I even liked Arcadia, to be honest (hated Power Station though), but Notorious was pure and utter gruel. I tuned out at that point.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:39 PM on December 16, 2009
Yeah, I remember this because I was an unashamed Duran Duran fan throughout the 80s. They were part of the New Romantic scene (which they shared with Spandau Ballet and ... I don't know, I think that was it), as mippy pointed out.
Duran Duran's first album was pretty great, but then Rio came out, and the transition from edge-lite to pop was clear. But not just in the auditory sense. At a time when MTV was "video, video, video, video, VJ babbling for a few seconds, repeat", music videos had no styles, no genres, nothing. It was wide open. People did all kinds of crazy stuff, with mixed results. But Duran Duran made music videos that set a standard of sorts. Their videos had a consistent style. For a band to have a video style became a thing, and then this broadened into different music genres having different music video styles. Duran Duran attained a great deal of fame mostly by helping MTV become successful, and MTV in turn helped Duran Duran.
My enjoyent of them continued through Seven and the Ragged Tiger. I even liked Arcadia, to be honest (hated Power Station though), but Notorious was pure and utter gruel. I tuned out at that point.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:39 PM on December 16, 2009
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
One thing we can blame Gore for, though, is inventing the downer-doc. An Inconvenient Truth melted a glacier of sobering, sanctimonious documentaries that were waiting to flood the cinemas and hector us on how doomed the Earth is because of global warming/human greed/not watching enough sobering, sanctimonious documentaries.
Oh FFS, this too stupid to read any further.
posted by DU at 10:40 AM on December 14, 2009 [37 favorites]