On the topic of Miley Cyrus, my girlfriend had Bangerz in her car for the longest time. After a few listens and an acceptance that I would be having to hear it more than a few more times, it's really not bad. Yes, there are songs I still hate on it, but it isn't pointless trash as many believe. It's not an album I listen to if I'm not in my girlfriend's car. But you know.. I don't really mind it. _________________ Attention all planets of the solar federation: We have assumed control.
On the topic of Miley Cyrus, my girlfriend had Bangerz in her car for the longest time. After a few listens and an acceptance that I would be having to hear it more than a few more times, it's really not bad. Yes, there are songs I still hate on it, but it isn't pointless trash as many believe. It's not an album I listen to if I'm not in my girlfriend's car. But you know.. I don't really mind it.
It's good that you finally turned around, because 33 1/3 may be publishing a book on that album (and it wasn't written by me).
It's good that you finally turned around, because 33 1/3 may be publishing a book on that album (and it wasn't written by me).
Really? Wow I didn't know that. I haven't read any of the 33 1/3 books but I've been interested in doing so. Some of my favorite albums are a part of that series. Sidenote, I heard the book on Sign o the Times is horrible. _________________ Attention all planets of the solar federation: We have assumed control.
(Also, talking about Big Star and Iggy Pop when people bring up poptimism is like explaining the Darren Wilson trial when talking about race relations; just shut up, because it doesn't have anything to do with the issue)
1 I actually just wrote a full review of Cyrus' new album that I can't post here yet because it's my audition for staff writing on the school magazine. "Just" being within the past week, but you get the point.
2 It's interesting that you praise "Twinkle Song" - the one part of the review I'll paraphrase here is that it sounds to me like someone gave a 3rd grader a toy piano and had them try to remember Blue October's "It's Just Me", with the overall thing being somewhat cute, somewhat emotional, but marred by completely immature and boring lyrics.
3 In what world is "Good Night" the bit of The White Album you want to recreate? Lennon wrote it to be intentionally cheesey and child-friendly.
4 I'm not sure what word you meant, but it's definitely not "auteuristic", as auteuristic is only sort of maybe a word (auteurism is but auteuristic doesn't even show up as a form of it in dictionaries) and it refers to the idea that the director of a film essentially wrote the film.
5 If we wanna talk about Artistic Ambition in Pop (cuz I really don't know what word you meant instead of "auteuristic") since MBDTF, you have to really look no further than albums like Lonerism, Channel Orange, Born to Die, Boys and Girls, Reflektor, Random Access Memories, Yeezus, (arguably) Pure Heroine, Because the Internet, Bankrupt!, Strange Desire, Currents, hell, I would argue that Mark Ronson's "white funk revival with hip hop and Tame Impala" effort this year shows as much artistic ambition as Cyrus does here.
6 You're treating this like it's supposed to be a pop album. It sort of maybe is? But really it's someone who's made pop music making a notably different record. That's like comparing Butch Walker's newest album to Aerosmith because Walker is most arguably famous for being in SouthGang.
7 "Pushes boundaries" is not a valid argument for the quality of an album. If you push boundaries (albeit in this case, not that far) and it doesn't actually work, that doesn't make it great. Just because Zooropa is more experimental, that doesn't mean it's better than War.
8 If you legitimately still think that this album really was pushing the boundaries that far, I'm confused. Yeah it would be weird for it to get radio play. But it really hasn't. I don't obsessively listen to pop radio, but I check in from time to time and haven't heard any of this. None of the songs have charted. The album hasn't charted. [EDIT: 100% my bad did not realize that was a Thom Yorke style release] The lyrics aren't anything special - hell the whole first song is essentially just "Young, Wild, and Free" without Snoop Dogg. Musically, it's interesting, sure, but in a world where we have Pond, The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala, etc. making music that gets noticed critically or some of it even gets radio play, it's really not that shocking.
9 No one's mentioned Big Star or Iggy Pop, and in fact you're the one trying to draw comparisons between Cyrus and Captain Beefheart.
The thing that bothers me is that there really are good arguments in favor of this album, and there are good moments, but the whole "yeah it's different" thing has just gotten really old.
I like a few songs off this album, have nothing against her as a whole, like Party in the USA, think Can't Be Tamed is rather catchy, like The Flaming Lips old stuff, like some of The Flaming Lips new stuff, like the people The Flaming Lips help make albums with usually (like Steve Burns, that album's actually really cool), this one just fell flat and that's a pity because it didn't have to.
I'll defend an album I like that's hated tomorrow when it's not 11 PM and I have 2 chem labs due in 8 hours. _________________
3 In what world is "Good Night" the bit of The White Album you want to recreate? Lennon wrote it to be intentionally cheesey and child-friendly.
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4 I'm not sure what word you meant, but it's definitely not "auteuristic", as auteuristic is only sort of maybe a word (auteurism is but auteuristic doesn't even show up as a form of it in dictionaries) and it refers to the idea that the director of a film essentially wrote the film.
auteur theory has been loosely and sloppily applied to music for a little while now, so Applerill is just following common usage, even if that word is gross looking (no prescriptivist tho). people really just mean "cinematic," because music already has auteurs, called composers, and Cyrus is not a composer.
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5 If we wanna talk about Artistic Ambition in Pop (cuz I really don't know what word you meant instead of "auteuristic") since MBDTF, you have to really look no further than albums like Lonerism, Channel Orange, Born to Die, Boys and Girls, Reflektor, Random Access Memories, Yeezus, (arguably) Pure Heroine, Because the Internet, Bankrupt!, Strange Desire, Currents, hell, I would argue that Mark Ronson's "white funk revival with hip hop and Tame Impala" effort this year shows as much artistic ambition as Cyrus does here.
i think it's clear Applerill means pop as defined in opposition to this music, seeing as this stuff is still considered the underground, but using the definition of pop you're using, which i find more functional in today's musical landscape, i agree that there are plenty of people making pop music that has artistic ambitions. i don't know if all the picks you chose really succeed any better than Cyrus and the FLips, but there's no reason to derail too much.
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6 You're treating this like it's supposed to be a pop album. It sort of maybe is? But really it's someone who's made pop music making a notably different record. That's like comparing Butch Walker's newest album to Aerosmith because Walker is most arguably famous for being in SouthGang.
this is hard to evaluate, since she did play one of the songs at the VMAs. i'm not sure what level of confrontation with the mainstream is needed to clarify that something isn't intended as chartable. even Yeezus, an angry, hastily assembled temper tantrum against the music and fashion industries, still was intended to chart and make Kanye money and SNL features and and
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8 If you legitimately still think that this album really was pushing the boundaries that far, I'm confused.
totally agree with you and amplifying your bit at the end of this paragraph. i can't think of this as a Cyrus record at all when it just sounds like 93 minutes of the same kind of FLips sadism they've dabbled in on the gummy skull thing and other assorted bullshit since Embryonic.
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9 No one's mentioned Big Star or Iggy Pop, and in fact you're the one trying to draw comparisons between Cyrus and Captain Beefheart.
who, by the way, has the surname Van Vliet.
agree with benpaco on the whole on this one. your writing is good, Applerill, and you have a clear passion for the album, but i think you overstate just too much and seek to contextualize the album in just the right spot for your analysis to work instead of working in the opposite direction, having your analysis come from the actual context that the album comes from. glad i sat down and read it, regardless!
I KNOW THIS ALBUM IS OVERDRAMATIC AND CLICHÉ AF, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? IT'S CATCHY AF AND THAT'S ALL I NEED TO LISTEN TO IT AGAIN ON SPOTIFY. _________________ ...and for dessert!
RockyRaccoonIs it solipsistic in here or is it just me?ModeratorProfile Maryland
Why do I love it? I don't really know. I discovered it early into my musical development and early into my learning guitar and it just stuck with me. I know how ridiculous it is, I know how garishly over the top it is, and I love it for that. I love it in the same way that I love professional wrestling, because it's just so insane and ridiculous that it's lovable. It doesn't hurt that a ton of the songs are fun and catchy, even if they have the depth of a birdbath and are about as formulaic as it gets, it's still fun. And, lucky for me being a guitarist and lover of guitar solos, one of the requirements for the formula of hair metal was to have an exceptionally talented guitarist (unless you're Poison, in which case, you're stuck with CC Deville, the best worst guitarist ever), and as such, to have sick, shredding guitar solos.
In fact, I think that the talent of the musicians gets lost in the spectacle of hair metal. Hair metal gave us incredible guitarists like Nuno Bettencourt, Vito Bratta (who can't play any more because he practiced too damn much), Reb Beach, Randy Rhoads, Slash, Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and a ton of others. And vocally, there are some amazing talents in hair metal, whether it's the glorious voice of Miljenko Matijevic from Steelheart or Mark Slaughter (who holy motherfuck hits a D6 in "Reach For The Sky" which is fucking nuts) from Slaughter or Sebastian Bach from Skid Row, there are some amazing voices.
So yea, knock hair metal for being formulaic, knock hair metal for having an idiotic image, but that's why I love it, I almost feel like it got so insane that it became self-aware, sort of like the WWE is now, where everyone's like "Yea, I know this is completely manufactured and insane but it's amazing because of that".
All I'm saying is, give hair metal a chance. _________________ Progressive Rock
I'm thoroughly convinced that if popular music criticism has a Renaissance of attempted canonization and tries to evaluate the dominant artistic rock mode of the mid-aughts that they'll place pop punk up there. MCR, FOB, and Green Day all released venerable masterpieces in that time period, and I'm sure plenty of others that I've never given a listen did, as well. it was just fashionable to malign them because everyone was being territorial about the word "emo" and had to resist the mainstream or some other garbage, but we've seen with passing decades that the retroactively canonized stuff tends to also be the biggest sellers with shouts out to the actually notable underground releases that were sonically innovative and not just continued releases in a certain fashion trend. seriously, how many indie rock releases from the 2000s that made Pitchfork's various lists even made it to their own P2K or whatever they called that decade overview list? this is one spot where Rolling Stone remains ahead of the curve, in my opinion.
I never saw that it was popular to dislike pop punk until a couple years ago when I started looking at music review publications. I've always disliked pop punk, but practically everyone I met in Jr. High and High School loved pop punk passionately, especially bands like Panic! at the Disco, Green Day, Blink 182, and Fall Out Boy. I'd be curious to hear why you think critical opinion will eventually shift in favor of pop punk. What is it that has drawn a lot of mainstream audiences to it? Because whatever it is, I've never seen the draw. I'd definitely like to hear someone in these forums plead pop punk's case though, because whenever I talk to someone in real life about it, it seems to just come back to nostalgia. It's what people my age grew up with and so it's what they like, but that's not a very strong critical defense. _________________ Overall - The 2010's - 2020
In fact, I think that the talent of the musicians gets lost in the spectacle of hair metal. Hair metal gave us incredible guitarists like Nuno Bettencourt, Vito Bratta (who can't play any more because he practiced too damn much), Reb Beach, Randy Rhoads, Slash, Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and a ton of others. And vocally, there are some amazing talents in hair metal, whether it's the glorious voice of Miljenko Matijevic from Steelheart or Mark Slaughter (who holy motherfuck hits a D6 in "Reach For The Sky" which is fucking nuts) from Slaughter or Sebastian Bach from Skid Row, there are some amazing voices.
2 things:
1.) You are right about the talent in hair metal. A lot of the musicians really weren't any good and just put on makeup and wrote ballads, others really had some undeniable skill. Winger for example. Not a fan of the band, but they were all really great musicians. George Lynch is another guitar player you could have added to your list.
2.) In my opinion, hair metal didn't give you Eddie Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen had a large part in giving you hair metal. _________________ Attention all planets of the solar federation: We have assumed control.
I love the contributions you all have made so far (especially Satie's pop punk comments and Rocky's hair metal ones) but part of me wonders whether critiquing others's suggestions (not just from me, but from other people here) goes against the optimistic goal of this thread. The whole point of these artists being mentioned here is that there are lots of common complaints against them, so bringing up those easy complaints once more here is sorta redundant, and goes against the joy I hoped this thread to bring. Does that make sense?
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