Album Rating: 3.9
lol i hope someone over there reads that
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lord give me strength
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Album Rating: 3.5
This shit is indeed awesome lads
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Great review and good points, Downer.
What you've mentioned of Ian's review smacks too much of college English classes to me: a bunch of people tasked with drilling for meaning when sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
My favorite experience in that realm was when I was taking my 400 Shakespeare and we were reading Othello. Half of the people in the class decided Iago was gay to the point where one of them got up and declared that the strawberries on the handkerchief during the plot were phallic and decided to draw an illustration of how a strawberry can be turned into a dong with a few properly placed lines.
People forget that it's their brains that add the lines and that the important thing is the whole, you know, betrayal plot. Or, in this case, the fucking rock 'n' roll.
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this album is seriously so much better when you don't think about it and just pay attention
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Album Rating: 4.0
record is awesome
review is fine
planes new av sup
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Review is excellent. Also, "whizwave".
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"What you've mentioned of Ian's review smacks too much of college English classes to me: a bunch of people tasked with drilling for meaning when sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
We had to write a few fiction short stories for my AP Lit class (12th Grade), and funnily enough, I ended up imbuing symbolic meaning like that into most of my compositions. I'm not saying it was well-done at all---it probably came off as heavy-handed to anyone who caught it---but it actually convinced me most of authors intend a lot of the extra meaning that we try to derive. Of course there's overanalysis, but that shouldn't be a reason not to extract as much meaning as possible.
Sorry for the tangential discussion Downer
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Oh, some of it, sure. But Iago is not gay and the strawberries on the handkerchief are not fruit-dipped dongs.
There's a difference between intended symbolism and a stretch to support whatever your left-field idea is, I guess, what I'm saying.
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Album Rating: 2.6
SputnikMusic 1 - 0 Pitchfork
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Album Rating: 2.6
Adam Downer you always find a way back into my heart. Phenomenal stream-of-consciousness writing. I am green with envy in the best of ways.
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Album Rating: 2.6
Also I now feel bad for rating this a 2.6.
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Atomic, I always picture you speaking with a slight southern gentlemen accent.
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Album Rating: 4.0
i like this so far
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Album Rating: 3.5
interesting piece
saw a poster at my local venue last night that these guys are playing there in late March. I haven't heard their music but I guess I'm going to see them live. heeyyyyyyy why not, right?
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Album Rating: 3.0
I'm having trouble trying to find what everyone loves about this. I mean, it's good but there is nothing about this album that jumps out at me as excellent.
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There are many great points in this review. Well done.
This overthinking and contextualizing thing tends to be annoying and really doesn't fit many rock albums. On the other hand, using such social observations and politics in your reviews makes them simply more interesting. That's why, many critics decide to do so even at the expense of muddling the overall message of the review (Pitchfork do it all the time). I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. I'm not necessarily against...
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Album Rating: 3.0
Excellent review.
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Album Rating: 3.0
I just get worried about tying opinions to social contexts that are fluid and thus overlooking the material object in front of you
To a certain extent, you can only review and judge to the fullest of your capabilities in the present time/context, though I understand your broader point. But, I don't think this review makes a particularly strong case against it, as you adopt that very form of review in order to critique it. All I gained from this review, which is apparently trying to avoid being an "intellectual circle-jerk", was generalised comments about this album topping their debut, and "shit slays bro".
You fall into the same traps as the reviewers you allude to, by barely delving into any discussion about the music itself, and distracting from the "material object in front of you" by spending half of the review talking about another review or another album. If you had beefed up the review with another paragraph on the actual music then perhaps the balance would be better, but as it stands, you seem to refer to the music more than addressing it directly.
I think we’re starting to miss the point of rock music
And what is the point of rock music?
You play a dangerous game, resorting to assumptions of idiomatic homogeneity to make a broad social point. This is in fact indicative of what you later mention, "the state of rock", and specifically, rock criticism: obsession with idiom and use. The entire critical approach to "rock music" is called into question by your review, though you do little more than perpetuate the problem by implying a non-intellectual, simplistic, "shit slays, bro" approach is the romantic alternative for the genre we should just thrash about to. The problem is in treating the music as worthy of heavy musical analysis, as well as socio-cultural analysis; to treat it as music, not just cultural phenomena.
If people start seriously talking about You’re Nothing, which they should, I pray it’s because of the music and not the surrounding, extratextual discourse
Indeed.
Also, did you call these guys British?
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Seriously good review Downer. I love the points you bring up, and you do it in a way that's really
interesting and meaningful.
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