This is impossible to answer because if I'm wrong about it I don't know that I'm wrong about it

[koganbot]

Tom wrote this in his Guardian column on the subject of what critics might be wrong about now:

The answer isn't likely to be some crazy underground music: it'll be hiding in plain sight, probably popular but not completely mainstream, ­dismissed because we think we've already got its number.

Then he added on his Tumblr:

Other stuff I was thinking of (or which was suggested to me) here: teenpop, Latin pop (Jonathan Bogart's suggestion and I suspect a good one), and the whole OTHER hardcore continuum - hardcore/happy hardcore/hard house/'scouse house'/donk/'clubland' etc.

To which I replied:

But wait, you're surrounded by rock critics who LOVE teenpop and go over it with a fine-toothed comb. And you're surrounded by critics who love Scooter. You'll ALWAYS find critics willing to plump for the proles and plump for the bubblegum (not that teenpop has been bubblegum for years, but only the people who have their ear to it know that). As for Latin pop, the problem is more that not many of the critics you pay attention to pay attention to it, not that they're wrong about it. But some who do pay attention to it do sometimes show up on ilX (including Rolling Country every now and then).

Obviously, if it's something we're wrong about we won't know what it is, because we're wrong about it. Ballads, smooth jazz, adult contemporary, urban AC. Not that I necessarily think that we're wrong about it, given that I don't listen to it much and that's 'cause I don't think I'll like it, and I don't think I'm wrong to think it's not very good. But if you're looking for what's hiding in plain sight, that's where you look. Michael Bublé. I mean, I thought his last single sucked.

Comments

[meserach.livejournal.com]

The problem is that if you spend a lot of time listening to music that you're pretty sure you won't like on the basis that you might be wrong, you're probably going to end up pretty unhappy! (Except in the presumably rare cases where you actually realise you were wrong).

One's taste is a defence mechanism (or at least, a time-saving mechanism).

[koganbot]

Well, this is where finding things "interesting" can come in handy.

Actually, in the old days waiting for hours to hear a particular song on the radio was an effective way to pick up on stuff you disliked along the way.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought Tom's column was thought-provoking, but I was confused about his singling out Fall Out Boy as likely '00s Sabbath equivalents, because I've never gotten the idea that Fall Out Boy are particularly hated by critics -- have they even ever received especially negative reviews? Always figured they had their backers.

Also, terminology/taxonomy question: I'm guessing, from Frank's answer, that Scooter would fall under Tom's "hardcore/happy hardcore/hard house/'scouse house'/donk/'clubland'" classification? If so, are their other Scotteralikes out there? Or are they an anomaly?

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

"...are there...," I meant, obviously. (By "anomaly," I mean both "Anomaly in that some critics love them" and "Anomaly in that other harcore/happy harcore/etc.'s sound not very much like them"?)(Or okay, what I really want to know is this: If I love Scooter, who else in that category would I love?)

[meserach.livejournal.com]

Well, the band I immediately thought of when I heard Tom's "happy hardcore/'donk' description were, of course, the Blackout Crew.

I don't know that I'd call them like Scooter, as such, but uh, well, they look and sound like this:

[koganbot]

I can't answer Chuck's question about how much Scooter are an anomaly, since I'm so poor in my understanding of what qualifies something as belonging to these genres (not that it's ever going to be a settled question; see endless arguing in Wiki over hardstyle). But surely Scooter float around the neighborhood of these genres.

My point would be that, e.g. for the Blackout Crew, we can't possibly say that The Critics are wrong for disliking the Crew when some critics emphatically like them (not just Tom and Martin and (not as emphatically) Lex and Al; but this guy too; I like 'em pretty well myself).

[koganbot]

Not to mention this guy and this guy.

[meserach.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on who "The Critics" are. Perhaps they aren't those critics. ;)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

There had to be at least a coupla critics Back Then who liked Sabbath!

(Also the issue isn't just enjoying them, but picking up on them as Important, right? What's the going rate on "in 25 years Blackout Crew will be as revered as [insert Chicago house dude / classic acid house track]"?)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

There had to be at least a coupla critics Back Then who liked Sabbath!

There were, and as somebody suggests in Tom's comments, perhaps the most visible and vocal one was Lester Bangs. (Metal Mike Saunders and -- briefly, until he recanted his Sabbath-like -- Dave Marsh were a couple others.) But that's another part of what makes Tom's essay confusing: Comparing fleeting reactions to Sabbath's first album (at least Bangs's) with reactions to Fall Out Boy's entire decade seems weirdly incongruent. And the fact that it's hard to find reviews as dismissive of FOB as old reviews of Sabbath seem to have been (Christgau initially gave their debut an E, not a C+ or B-) makes the equation even harder to comprehend.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

I do agree, though, that Tom's point seems to have as much to do with "missing the historical social importance of," not merely "disliking." (And it's also true that, by the end of the '70s, most critics still didn't seem to have grasped Sab's importance -- or, at least, they didn't seem to have liked them much yet. And Fall Out Boy's recording career didn't actually last the entire decade, if that matters.)

[koganbot]

When Tom first linked the piece on his Tumblr he wrote, "in what's fast becoming a tradition I'm writing about things I know precious little about and hoping to get away with it." And he wrote in response to Andrewtsks saying, "But Bangs LOVED Sabbath" (I think you made your way to that comment) Tom wrote: "One of the points I didn't have space to get into is how the window of wrongness usually isn't long - by 73 most people were on board with Sabbath, Bangs himself I think earlier: another equivalent is how suddenly most critics I know (me included) all clicked with Gaga on the Fame Monster after a year of rolling our eyes at her. But his original Rolling Stone review was absolutely a pan. :)"

But I think Tom really wanted to make a point of Fall Out Boy deserving better than they got from critics. And as I said, somewhere around here, other than the singles FOB still never clicked with me. For that matter, neither has Sabbath, and this is what I wrote on that thread of Tom's that you can't access:

Well, what do you [Tom] think of that Sabbath album? I heard it when it first came out and thought it was a joke. Don't recall if I've heard it since. Did subsequently own five Sab albums, though two of those were Master Of Reality twice. First one I actually bought with my own money was Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in '74, on the heels of a favorable Jon Tiven review, and I wanted to like it since doing so would fit my glitter-punk whateverness, but it sounded weak, sorry. Then when I took several swipes at Sabbath in early WMS and Xhuxk countered by saying why he liked them I got albs 2 through 4. And I played them a few times and they ended up on the reference shelf and eventually I sold them. Then when I reviewed the Rondellus' medieval versions of Sabbath alb for my "Onslaught" roundup in the Voice I got the Voice to spring for a used copy of Master Of Reality, which I eventually sold. I respect Iommi, hear force in what he was doing and think the rhythm section had stuff going on, but Ozzy's singing was a bore. What I'm saying is that maybe Bangs and Xgau were right, not as in "right by their lights and from their point of view" but just right that the album isn't very good. I don't know. As I said, I don't remember it, just remember laughing at it at age 16. It's generally not considered as good as the three that followed, is it? Xgau panned the first Funkadelic album when it came out, and maybe it wasn't good either (I've only heard a couple of cuts from it on a later compilation), then went on to praise Funkadelic's later albs. In any event, Xgau and Bangs, especially the latter, were good for ensuring that stuff like Sabbath wasn't dismissed out of hand. Sabbath were influential, but no more than Crosby, Stills, & Nash, whom Xgau gave middling to low grades pretty consistently, and he was right.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Except of course, if Tom already likes Fall Out Boy (which he seems to, after having had reservations at first), they sort of don't fit into his thesis about stuff we're "wrong" about, unless they wind up being bad. (Personally, I've never understood why anybody cares about them -- The singles included, which have just struck me as thin and weedy, even when they try to boogie. So maybe they would fit Tom's thesis, for me, if I later change my mind.)

As for Sabbath, yeah, I've always thought the first album didn't stack up to the next couple (second and third at least -- I'd pick Sabotage, their sixth, after that, Vol. 4 being really uneven beyond "Supernaut." Never liked Sabbath Bloody Sabbath much.) And I've always had the impression that was a fairly common weighing of those records, too, though lately I've been noticing more people defending the debut, which some folks seem to think of as their blues-rock record -- which would explain the Cream comparisons, I guess (in other words, maybe they weren't really inventing metal yet), and actually makes me more interested in checking it out again, if I ever see a copy for $1. Got rid of mine after Stairway came out.

Not sure I agree with you about CSN being equally influential (I guess your point is that they invented soft-rock in the way Sabbath invented metal? Except they didn't. And right, Sab sort of didn't, either, but they sort of did. I dunno, maybe you trace CSN to Fleetwood Mac/Eagles to uh Little Big Town? Except the Band and Byrds and Burritos etc all came first right? Though maybe those guys lacked the harmonies.) And definitely disagree about Ozzy's singing being a bore on those early albums, and "stuff going on" somewhat downplays the groove the rhythm section achieved on those records as well. But we had that argument over two decades ago, I think!

Btw, I know I'm nitpicking him to death, but I'm pretty sure Tom is also way way way off in assuming that, "by 73 most people were on board with Sabbath," if by "people" he means critics. 1993, maybe. But in 1973, or even 1983, I'm fairly sure that most critics still would have dismissed them.

[koganbot]

To go off-topic (whatever the topic is), at the time I wouldn't have differentiated Sabbath and Deep Purple and Grand Funk and Uriah Heep as being drastically different in kind - like a different genre - from Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago and the like, though obviously the latter used horns (while some of the former may have merely had horns). They all were willing to go bulky in the sound, and weighty in the singing. Just as in '66 I wasn't differentiating Neil Diamond as different in kind from the Rolling Stones. The lines get separated retrospectively, but that separation is based to some extent on what happened later, so differences that were just, you know, differences later get seen as defining differences - my point being that the definitions belong to the later period (which doesn't mean that the differences weren't differences).

My jazz-playing roommate Sheldon in San Francisco once claimed that the Big Bands were the heavy metal of the '40s.

I actually assume that there is something I'm not getting about FOB and MCR and Thursday and Panic! At The Disco, that there's stuff I'm not homing in on in the sound, to some extent because I can't get past the vocals.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

FOB is in the process of becoming my new Kelly Clarkson (meaning I genuinely thought I hated them, until I realized I like every single they've released) and I don't think there's anything to get about the sound -- the lyrics are the important thing. (Same with MCR and Panic! and Thursday, who I don't like as much, don't like at all, and haven't heard, respectively.) FOB really use their words -- even the titles have to work. "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" is the best example, I think.

[koganbot]

Dave talks a little about the critical response (or nonresponse) to Fall Out Boy here (and includes a couple of Xgau CG's).

I could ask the Brits on poptimists, "Who else sounds like Scooter?" but I think I'll wait for a weekday, when more of the Brits are at work and therefore will pay more attention to such questions (needing an excuse to fuck off).

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Dave talks a little about the critical response (or nonresponse) to Fall Out Boy here

Apparently, I am "not authorized to view this protected entry." What does Dave say? (I did just check the two Xgau CG's on his site -- a C+ and a B- -- though those are mediocre grades, not devastating ones. And may or may not be typical -- though, yeah, C+/B- sounds about right to me.)

[koganbot]

Oh, I forgot that Tom put the thread under friends lock; I almost never make my posts friends only, so I don't think to look when others do. (I've listed you as a friend anyway, so you can always see what I've got. Lex, Martin, and I have friended you, which you can see on your profile, which I'll bet you've never looked at.)

Anyhow, I'm going to assume that Dave doesn't mind your seeing what I wrote, and reprint it:

Well, to provide some perspective, not a single Fall Out Boy song or album has ever been touched (even to pan it) on Pitchfork. New York Times has covered Fall Out Boy in the past to mixed but generally favorable reviews, and my sense is that they are for the most part ignored in most places where reviewers would get too huffy about 'em.

Actually, Xgau himself on FOB is kind of interesting for its semi-parallels to his Sabbath pans:

From Under the Cork Tree (2005)
Stuck between pretentious young purists who believe catchy love songs betray their hardcore heritage and eager younger fans who believe catchy love songs fulfill their teenthrob destiny, these Warped Tour cover boys aren't terrible, but are they ever ordinary. Only their record company would claim that emotional vocals, dramatic dynamics, poppy-punky tempos, and not actually all that catchy tunes add up to "their own sound." They have some talent, they're cute, and they work hard. Thus they get to pretend that "Douse yourself in cheap perfume it's/So fitting of the way you are" is a lyric for the ages, a/k/a next week. [C+]

Folie a Deux (2008)
Admittedly, the two classic lines Pete Wentz comes up with here--"Imperfect boys with their perfect lives" and the cheeky Nirvana cop "I don't care what you think as long as it's about me"--reflect the new thematic legitimacy of superstar self-pity in an era when fans would rather envy their musical heroes than identify with them. But that doesn't mean non-fans should feel obliged to get with the program. Low-tune for a pop band, low-momentum for a rock band, they stand a chance of evoking bad Elvis Costello when they take you by surprise or emote on in the background. In fact, when Mr. C. himself makes a shock-horror guest appearance, he's surprisingly hard to tell from Patrick Stumpf. Which is weird, disturbing--especially for Mr. C. [B-]

Personally agree with Xgau on both counts (except for the "envy musical heroes than identify with them" bit), I've never understood FOB at all. I've always thought that they feel like molasses and taste like high-fructose corn syrup.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Nope, had no idea I have a livejournal profile!

Anyway, Fall Out Boy's music was at least liked by enough critics for them to score a #30 Pazz & Jop single ("Sugar, We're Going Down", which got 20 points) in 2005. Which is certainly more than lots of other hit '00s acts I can name.

[koganbot]

Infinity On High only got seven people to vote for it in 2007, which is surprisingly low (though I don't really like much from it beyond the singles, which I definitely do like). "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race" only got only three voices. But FOB has some champions at poptimists.

[koganbot]

By the way, do you know how to access any Pazz and Jop sections prior to 2007? The late '90s and early '00s seem to have been wiped out in part or in full (damned if I can find my Eminem essay, for instance, though fortunately I downloaded it at the time so I've still got it). Incompetents.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

No idea, and yeah, it's pathetic. Though to be fair, accessing old Pazz & Jops was sometimes erratic even in the old days, when I was still there. Anyway, on this year's ILM Pazz & Jop thread, somebody seemed to access some old P&J data through some sort of google cache search, I think? Maybe Miccio. I'm not sure I understand how that works, though.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

FWIW I've added you as a friend now Chuck - the friendslock is just habit really, I should use it less.

[koganbot]

Dave doesn't mind you seeing what he wrote, that is.