Random Music Thoughts

JazzyRandy said:
I don't think I did a best-of-2018 list, but if I ever do this will rank highly.
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Figured I need a distraction from being productive, so hey why not put together an off-the-cuff list.

The only album to yet reach 5-star status should probably be at the top.
1) Aaron Parks - Little Big

Next are a group of albums that have 4.5 stars. These almost could be interchangeable, but 2 and 6 are fairly set.
2) Victory - Broken Instrument
3) Marcus Strickland - People Of The Sun
4) Ben Wendel - Seasons
5) Kamasi Washington - Choices
6) Joshua Redman - Still Dreaming

Closing out is tougher. 21 albums with 4 stars. A couple of these could easily be replaced by something left off.
7) J Cole - KOD
8) August Greene (mainly this is Robert Glasper & Common) - August Greene
9) Walter Smith III & Matthew Stevens - In Common
10) Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer


Ok, now that I got that off my back, I can get back to work.

Although, looking and thinking at this I really want to move 7 and 9 into the earlier group and drop 5 and 6. But to do so would mean listening to 3 of the 4 today to make sure the ratings need to be adjusted. That may require more fiddlin' around than I have right now. I'd need to wax my bow to get into that.
 
Doggonnit! Now I have a persistent irressistable urge to do 2019. Surprisingly I have "only" 19 albums from 2019.

No 5-star albums yet, so the first group are the 4.5-star albums. The bookends are set, but the middle is mushy
1) Jason Palmer - Sweet Love: The Music Of Anita Baker (exquisite)
2) Raphael Saddiq - Jimmy Lee
3) Joshua Redman - Come What May
4) Joshua Redman & Brooklyn Rider - Sun On Sand

Though the rest of the list are all 4-star albums, a couple stand out and may be better than #5
5) Kendrick Scott - A Wall Becomes A Bridge
6) Skyzoo & Pete Rock - Retropolitan

And closing out with...
7) Theo Croker - Star People Nation
8) Atmosphere - Whenever
9) Tedeschi Trucks Band - Signs
10) Snarky Puppy - Immigrance
 
slate.com

What Was It Like When Critics Could Kill? Most Musicians Still Don’t Want to Talk About It.

The days when publications like Pitchfork could end a career are over, but many artists haven’t forgotten them.
slate.com slate.com

This article made me realize something for myself that should've been painfully obvious: I no longer seek out and read music reviews. In this day and age, when I can basically listen to anything I want to decide for myself, why would I want to? It isn't that I never read reviews, I just don't go looking for them. And RYM reviews are often so contrarian to how I perceive things some times that they usually have no weight for me.
 
Unsomnambulist said:
slate.com

What Was It Like When Critics Could Kill? Most Musicians Still Don’t Want to Talk About It.

The days when publications like Pitchfork could end a career are over, but many artists haven’t forgotten them.
slate.com slate.com

This article made me realize something for myself that should've been painfully obvious: I no longer seek out and read music reviews. In this day and age, when I can basically listen to anything I want to decide for myself, why would I want to? It isn't that I never read reviews, I just don't go looking for them. And RYM reviews are often so contrarian to how I perceive things some times that they usually have no weight for me.
Click to expand...

Two paragraphs stood out for me:
The interviewer was DiCrescenzo, the former Pitchfork critic. He revealed to Moore that it was he who had given the band the 0.0. “And he said, ‘I have to tell you that I’ve changed my perception on that record. I actually think it’s great.’ ” DiCrescenzo added he’d actually asked Pitchfork if he could do a new review. They had passed on the offer. “And I kind of just laughed,” Moore said. “I don’t know if he was saying that to appease me. He did sound like he was being genuine. It was nice to hear. And that’s pretty much the whole story.” (In 2013, writing for TimeOut Chicago, DiCrescenzo recalled his own end of the phone call. “I apologized and told him that I now love the record,” he wrote. “It’s unlike anything else, eerie and beautiful. The fiftysomething eternal punk told me never to be sorry for the nonsense I typed.”)
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That email—that email breaks my heart a little bit. Morrison doesn’t sound antagonistic at all. He sounds resigned. Other than Moore, who’d been granted catharsis via a reviewer’s apology, everyone passed on my offer to revisit the old Pitchfork wounds. Which brings us back to where we started and underlines the point of our endeavor. We are left with the assumption that these were career- and life-altering moments. That they were painful then, and they are still painful now. And that—that is something that is very, very hard to imagine happening again.
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Those two kind of encapsulate it all for me. :):(

It would be great if we had some kind of thread for Music Criticism, but who would read it? :meh:
 
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My son and I often discuss favorite rappers and how age sometimes influences opinions. He can appreciate young Nas but doesn't get too excited about recent Nas. He is lukewarm about Royce da 5'9". If I break out albums from Murs after-30 era, I can't pay my son to listen to them. To my dismay, one of the few "old" rappers he genuinely loves is Kanye. :vic:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1288504562547134466
For the record, I still enjoy Kanye production, but his lyrics of the last few years have gone far downhill. Not that it matters, because he (rightfully) did not make this list anyway.
 
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The Neil Young Archives are abandoning Facebook. From today’s announcement:

NYA DAYS AWAY FROM DROPPING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM​
We have been working on this project for a couple of months. Trying to disengage from the corrupt social platform is a costly and time-consuming process for NYA. Our cost will be almost $20,000 to disengage, while treating our subscribers with respect, making it as easy as possible for them to continue with us after Facebook.​
Facebook knowingly allows untruths and lies in its political ads to circulate on the platform, while bots sow discord among users. Sowing dissent and chaos in our country via political disinformation is something we can not condone. Simply put, Facebook is screwing with our election.​
The money we are spending to get out of this mess is designed to make it as easy as possible for our valued Facebook users to log in simply and securely to NYA without the social media platform involved in any way. It is in keeping with what we have been maintaining re: the irresponsible social media platform for the past two years.​
 
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