Friday, June 19, 2009
Creamtastic / Reviews Halfway To Christmas Part Duh Part 2: Hell Comes to Claustown
Posted by Sean Maloney on Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:55 AM
The other day when Steve posted this video of Chris Weingarten talking about the state of music criticism, our good buddy "luke from character" took a bit of umbrage with the idea that you only need 140 characters to review a record--he feels that that all your going to get are "made-for-williamsburg/(east nashville?) zingers". He challenged us to write about our favorite records using the "twitter method" and I took him up on it.
Honestly, even though I'm all for traditional, long-form criticism--it almost, sorta pays my bills after all--writing 140 character reviews is pretty fucking fun. Will it replace traditional criticism for those that enjoy such things? No, but it does give many records the attention they deserve--as little as possible. Face it folks, you might love every record in your collection and feel that every record deserves some sort of respect but you are wrong--there's more crap out there then you are willing to acknowledge.
Not to get all Ayn Rand-y about this, but the current state of music is a great argument against collectivism and every asshole out there having access to the means of production. Twitter reviews can't devalue music anymore than the flood of synch-licensing we've seen in the past ten years or the MySpace's mere existence already have. The marketplace is flooded, there's a "new hip band" scoring every salad dressing commercial and endless corporations trying to give you free music just for looking at a box of cornflakes. THIS is what cheapens music, not snarky critics having fun with the formats they have available to them.
After the jump, my ten favorite albums for 2009, reviewed in 140 characters or less...just to prove that I don't shit on everything.
Wolves in the Throne Room/Black Cascade: Vangelis gargles Borax and rides a unicorn made of chainsaws and blast beats. 7.5/10
Clutchy Hopkins meets Lord Kenjamin/Music is My Medicine: Silly names meet to create beautiful dub-funk, more silly names 7/10
Streetlight Allstars/"Free Drinks": A thoughtful tribute to the time honored tradition of grifting liquor at nightclubs - like my diary 8/10
Novalima/Coba Coba: Afro-peruvian dub-jazz.Say that three times fast.Afro-peruviandub-jazzAfro-peruviandub-jazzAfro-peruviandub-jazz 7.5/10
Mastadon/Cracke The Skye: Noodle, Noodle, Noodle, Chug, Chug, Chug, Noodle, Noodle, Noodle, SWOOOOOOOOOOOOSH Chug Noodle Noodle Chug 6.5
Mia Calderon/Manik: Electro-Bossa Nova from Nashville? As much of a surprise to us as it is to you. More please. Pretty Please? 7.5/10
El Michels Affair/Enter The 37th Chamber: Actually like the Tribute to Isaac Hayes more, but it doesn't have an ODB cover. I Love ODB. 7/10
Those Darlins/Those Darlins: Country garage stomp about cigarettes, cigarettes,cigarettes and BOOOOOOOOOZE. Well, maybe not all the cigs. 8/10
Kidsmeal/Secret Recipe: Longtime local DJ finally gets around to releasing something and - wadda ya know - it's superduper tight, boyee 9/10
Das Rascist/"Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell": This year's "Thou Shalt Always Kill" is making me hungry just thinkin' 'bout it. 7/10
And in case you doubt that last one:
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