X Meets Y

12 January 2014

I hate writing about music.

Chiefly I, myself, take great displeasure in writing about the stuff, but then also quite frankly – and with no disrespect to anyone reading who does write about it – I am no fan of any writing about music.

I mean, what is it good for?

Permit me to backtrack and clarify slightly; I do not mean any writing that has anything to do with music. Interviews: fine. Features: fine. News: fine. What raises my heckles is writing that is actually about the music itself.

If I never read about a “hypnotic baseline” or “x band meets y band” or “difficult second album syndrome” again it will be too soon. Can you remember the last time you read an album review that didn’t resort at some point to some formulaic cliche? And again: what is it good for? Gone are the days where to decide whether you wanted to buy a record you had to read a review and hope that the journalistic reinterpretation actually bore some relation to what the bloody thing sounded like.

Now: just listen to it. Decide for yourself.

Of course, you need a filter, and reviews still provide some vital sense of filtration, even if the words they contain are frequently padded with twaddle. My favourite reviews currently are Pitchfork’s reviews – not the full length ones, don’t be silly, but the ones presented in their Spotify app – you get probably 30 words at most, the rating and a link to start listening. Job done.

End of year lists are simultaneously the most useful – from a discovery point of view – but also most horrendous – from a writing point of view – pieces of music journalism there are. The linguistic hoops that you inherently have to jump through to give some indication of why this record is ranked better then that record leave no room for anything of quality, but yet frequently people feel the need to do a couple of lines (or more) about each.

Now, it’s quite probable I’m just tilting at windmills; the industry has too much set up feeding the review cycle, so we’ll have to put up with it.

Bands will forever sound like x meets y.

But it does feel like there’s got be a better way of doing it.

Anyway, here’s my yearly dose of music journalism entitled ‘What, right now, were my favourite records in 2013 (excluding Beyoncé as I still haven’t listened to that yet)’:

1. Arcade Fire – Reflektor (Best thing they’ve ever done. Yes including Funeral)
2. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories (First Daft Punk album I’ve liked enough to buy)
3. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City (More like Hannah Hunt please)
4. Kanye – Yeezus (Shame about the lyrics)
5. Daughter – If You Leave (Sorry, just got something in my eye…)
6. Speedy Ortiz – Major Arcana (Wish MTV2 still existed to play stuff like this)
7. Mount Kimbie – Cold Spring Fault Less youth (Really great)
8. Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold (Hardly original but who cares?)
9. Arctic Monkeys – AM (Didn’t think they still had it in ‘em)
10. The National – Trouble Will Find You (A weak National record is still a good record)
11. Atoms For Peace – Amok (Better live then on record but still great)
12. The Strokes – Comedown Machine (Best thing they’ve done in years)
13. Blood Orange – Cupid Deluxe (Good vibes)
14. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Mosquito (Still got it)
15. Haim – Days Are Gone (Brilliant)
16. Sampha – Dual EP (Who says I can’t put an EP on this list?)
17. Gold Panda – Half of Where You Live (Turns out I like electronic music now)
18. Waxahatchee – Cerulean Salt (Spellcheck nightmare)
19. Darkside – Psychic (Blade Runner soundtrack)
20. Savages – Silence Yourself (Probably should be higher on this list, really)
21. Lots of other stuff. It was a good year, wasn’t it?

From: Articles

12 January 2014