Rogue Wave! Sweet. One of my friends knew their guitarist or something, before they made it big, back in Oakland, and put them on a mix CD that subsequently made its way to me, and for about 5 seconds I was moderately cool. And then they started playing 'Lake Michigan' all the time on the radio, and I was back to being uncool.
Yeah, that first one is awful, I'm not letting you off the hook for this one. It's not objective awful pop music, but it has the horrible failure that (a) it's completely unoriginal, (b) it's not as smart as previous songs exploring the same territory and, (c) it doesn't seem to be about recognizable human emotions, per se, but just embodying tropes of pop music.
As long as I'm being cranky, the second one kind of annoyed me as well. Having just been working on my holiday mix CD I get frustrated at the ubiquity of unnecessary levels of compression. When did it become normal that a guitar would be exactly the same volume at all times? It's not that bad to listen to but it's frustrating when making a mix, because it's tricky to put them next to a song with any dynamic range to speak of without one of them sounding off (either too quiet or too loud).
In the category of songs which make creative use of cliches I'm becoming convinced that Robyn is kind of awesome.
The contrast between Stanley's taste in overproduced pop music and heebie's is striking.
It was hard to focus on how boring the first song was on account of the douchey-looking guy next to her in bed.
4: We agreed on "Poker Face" at least.
3: Robyn established herself as kind of awesome with "Konichiwa Bitches" if not before.
A holiday mixes thread might be a good idea.
It was nice of NickS to discredit his opinions with the link in 3.
Nah. I just became aware of Allen Toussaint and The Whispers last week. I don't need this.
In the category of songs which make creative use of cliches I'm becoming convinced that Robyn is kind of awesome.
Geez, welcome to 2008, grandpa. I'm starting to think you're not a hipster at all.
It was nice of NickS to discredit his opinions with the link in 3.
I kind of like the dance moves which look like they were translated into a foreign language and back again.
I'm starting to think you're not a hipster at all.
I'm glad that it only takes five or six years of evidence for you to start thinking something like that -- you wouldn't want to jump to conclusions.
Questions from first 0:45 of the video:
1. Why is she wearing a shirt in bed with the dude? It's like on SatC where Carrie always has a bra on in every bed/sex scene.
2. Why is there a bed in the middle of nature? It's like an ad for erectile dysfunction meds.
Listening to that song from the other room as Blume plays it: wow, that's just horrible.
A holiday mixes thread
The horror... the horror...
Me: (describing things happening in the video)
Tweety: Maybe the Mini Cooper represents the clitoris.
Why is she wearing a shirt in bed with the dude?
I was wondering this too.
Why is there a bed in the middle of nature? It's like an ad for erectile dysfunction meds.
I think the second sentence answers the first, more or less. The whole video seems like a pastiche of stupid tropes from TV commercials. Note especially the rather blatant product placement for the car toward the end.
Anyway, the main thing I was wondering while watching the video was where it was filmed. Somewhere in southern California, I presume, but where? What mountains are those?
Ooh, she's featured in the Twilight: Breaking Dawn soundtrack!
It took me a minute to figure out that some of the comments in this thread weren't referring to another commenter but to some kind of celebrity. (I'm not saying anything too redact-worthy, I hope.)
The Peter Ceteraesque song was better.
Which song on the new Bon Iver album are you referring to?
20: I had the same reaction! (Not redaction worthy, not to worry.)
I have a question for computer nerds. I just got a laptop and I want to use it for, like, writing stuff possibly for scholarly publication. Is there a cheap/free PDF reader that lets me annotate the PDFs?
Also, I reflexively think it would be impossible for me to join the LaTeX cult since I've still never seen any evidence that it's used by anyone except my pretend internet friends. But if I did start using it, would I be able to produce files readable by the archaic bloatware word processor of a person who doesn't use it?
On the topic of the OP, I'm no fan of notions that a meritocracy is desirable, but it seems like a televised singing competition is a great way to produce star singers who will be enjoyable to a large number of people. Better than having some random person catapulted from local bars to the major-label publicity machine based on 1/3 luck, 1/3 incessant hustling, and 1/3 executive hunches.
23.2: I had some success, not much, exporting from LaTeX to HTML, which a.b.wp can read well. My failures were in the equations.
Is there a cheap/free PDF reader that lets me annotate the PDFs?
On OS X: yes, Preview.
On Windows: yes, PDF XChange.
On Linux: yes, PDF XChange run under Wine.
25: Thanks, computer nerd!
27: Not Foxit?
I've never used Foxit, because their linux native reader doesn't do annotation. And I never bothered trying the Windows one under Wine.
But if I did start using it, would I be able to produce files readable by the archaic bloatware word processor of a person who doesn't use it?
Much of the appeal of LaTeX is that it produces very attractive .pdfs, which are of course readable no matter which word processor one uses. If you want someone to *edit* your output, though, they'd either need to have a PDF-annotating thing, like one of the ones nosflow mentions in 27, or you'd have to give them your source, which could be edited by any text editor.
What kind of writing are we talking about, incidentally? If it's nothing but text, maybe ease into it with pandoc and markdown2pdf.
Sending people a .pdf is a great way to say, "I don't want many edits from you." Printing and then faxing a copy is even better, especially if you print a copy with somebody else's mark-up visible.
On Linux: yes, PDF XChange run under Wine.
I hope Wine has improved since I last tried it a decade ago.
Only the top 1% of wine can improve over a decade.
23: LaTeX files are text, so they could edit them (I sometimes edit them with Notepad), but they won't be able to see the formatting. Or rather the formatting will be all-to-visible as cryptic codes like "textit". If you don't have many equations then it's basically fine. If you do have lots of equations then you are your collaborators are out of your goddamn minds to be using anything other than LaTeX, so advice from the sane is probably wasted on you.
I assume that Stanley doesn't like the song for the video because the video is objectively terrible.
The song is pretty bad, though. I sort-of like the idea of the song, which comes through clearest in the line "I can't decide if I'll let you save my life, or I'll drown." A song about a self-destructive person wanting to be saved is more compelling if opting for self-destruction is a live option. But the rest of the lyrics are shitty. Using "my walls" and "catch me because I'm already falling" are metaphors so tired that they lapsed into comas right around The Sorrows of Young Werther first rolled off the printing press.
18: I'm thinking the high desert side of the San Gabriels--one of the Transverse Ranges anyway. There is a "making of" video which provides some more clues, but does not nail it down.
That makes sense. There's definitely a very "desert" feel to them.
"I can't decide if I'll let you save my life, or I'll drown."
agreed this is the only good line. overall...meh. not actively terrible. I wouldn't get up out my seat and go turn it off. am loving the hair thing a little qua trend but hers is wrongly placed.
With the Perri song, I wonder if we have a split based on lyrics versus melody. I like it, but I never hear lyrics unless I make a special effort.
And yes that is one douchey looking guy.
Which song on the new Bon Iver album are you referring to?
Pitchfork's best album of 2011. I have tried to listen to it a few times and found it pleasant enough background music but, at least so far, it just sounds like the same song over and over again and I get distracted about a minute into track 3 and forget that I'm actively listening to anything until it ends and iTunes starts playing Bonerama. The opening brass blast of "Bayou Betty" may actually be my single strongest association with Bon Iver. Maybe it's still too warm out.
39: Yeah, I don't care about lyrics. Most lyrics suck. It's all melody.
it's weird, he decided to go all bruce hornsby and the range on the backing instrumentation, but I've learned to like it. I really love the first album though. they should lock his ass back in that cabin without any synthesizers for a while, after a hot chick recruited to take one for the team has broken his heart again.
42: THAT'S, LIKE, JUST YOUR OPINION, MAN.
I presume the Peter Cetera song was Gotye. Man, I still love that song. Xylophone, yo.
Why should a talent-search show seem any less of legitimate route to pop-stardom? Really, self, get over it.
It's an old tradition, going back to Ted Mack and Arthur Godfrey (in a somewhat different format).
Patsy Cline's breakout performance in a cocktail dress on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts,.
In his day Godfrey significantly assisted the careers of Pat Boone, Tony Bennett, Eddie Fisher, Connie Francis, Leslie Uggams, Lenny Bruce, Steve Lawrence, Connie Francis, Roy Clark, and Patsy Cline. His "discovery" of Patsy Cline on 21 January 1957 was typical. Her scout, actually her mother Hilda Hensley, presented Patsy who sang her recent recording Walkin' After Midnight. Though this was heralded as a country song, and recorded in Nashville, Godfrey's staff insisted Cline not wear one of her mother's hand crafted cowgirl outfits but appear in a cocktail dress. The audience's ovations stopped the meter at its apex, and for a couple of months thereafter Cline appeared regularly on Godfrey's radio program.
One of those people is not like the others.
Uggams made her singing debut on the Lawrence Welk Show and was a regular on Sing Along with Mitch, starring record producer-conductor Mitch Miller.
None more white.
You were right the first time, Stanley. Talent shows are a grotesque pustulation on the body politic. The only thing sicker and wronger than talent shows are state lotteries.
McMegan is only #6 in the "is always wrong" Google, after "the customer", "sex with robots", "the complainer", "divorce", and "torture".
Thank God someone has the courage to speak out on that sex with robots issue.
my husband and I always joke that our older daughter will have an annoying boyfriend named gwenaël. "you just hate him because he's belgian!" she'll say. but what if he's a belgian robot? then what?
Thank God someone has the courage to speak out on that sex with robots issue.
Protest is unnecessary as there will be no issue from sex with robots.
If sex with robots is always wrong and divorce is always wrong, what do you do if your spouse won't stop having sex with robots? I'm, uh, asking for a friend.
Along with mourning Havel, Loomis over at LGM introduces me to the music of Cesaria Evora of the Cape Verde Islands.
The accompanying clip reminds me that I find YouTube music almost physically painful, with the clipping and distortion. I hope a generation isn't growing accustomed to such low fidelity.
There is too much good music (and everything else) available now from the past to be paying any attention to what has not been tested by time and taste. And there is no "progress" in art (and everything else worthwhile) anyway.
Dear Unidentified Friend,
The usual advice is to love the sinner and hate the sin, but when the sinner won't let you love her because she's too busy sinning, you've got a problem.
Yours
One of Many
Do you know what I love, guys? Gelt BUT IT'S ACTUALLY CHOCOLATE! My mom says I can't eat too much because I get "excited."
The first link in the OP made my computer freeze up completely. I'm going to presume that the music is just that bad.
I presume the Peter Cetera song was Gotye.
Yes, that one. I went back and listened to it again, and found that I liked it much better than I remembered. He also has several other songs with interesting videos. The woman who joins him on that song seems annoying, though, at least going by the top youtube videos for her.
Oh, gosh. Gefilte fish for lunch today. I can't wait!
It can be argued that in some circumstances, McMegan is more wrong than torture.
Wow, Pitchfork put the new Destroyer album at #2 on their list? I have long been under the impression that I am one of only, like, ten people in the world who seriously like Destroyer. (And also, confused about why some people seem to love his contributions to the New Pornographers but hate his solo stuff.)
I guess I exaggerate. There was clearly a large "Streethawk was really good and the rest not worth bothering with" contingent. Maybe the problem is I don't have enough taste to discriminate.
65: The lead singer in my main project these days loves Destroyer and blushes when any record review compares his vocal stylings to Dan Bejar's.
Thank God someone has the courage to speak out on that sex with robots issue.
There is nothing wrong with sex with robots!
67: Maybe I should listen to your project.
70: Maybe. I'm sheepish about posting it here for some reason but will happily to share a link via email (my Unfogged one works).
Given the title, I believe this is the appropriate thread to warn people that they can no longer masturbate to fantasies about Kim Jong Il
It's possible that someone could be going from memories, not fantasies.
wait, fanstasies about kim kong il are dead or real kim kong il is dead? if the latter w000t!!! a lot of people who deserved to get got, got got this year.
73: I think they kill them all, just in case.
|| I did not expect a dog who turned his nose up at red wine to take such a liking to cherry vodka. It's good because no one else will drink the stuff.
|>
I hope you've mixed it with something. Giving vodka straight to a dog is cruel.
You should probably call the local office of the humane society and ask them the best ways to serve vodka to your dog.
A greyhound with cherry vodka could be tasty and apropos. Do you have grapefruit juice (and not that super sweet pink grapefruit bullshit, either; the real thing)?
There's artificial grapefruit juice?
It's straight from the freezer. I know better than to give ice cubes to a dog. As much as they enjoy them, it damages their tooth enamel.
This is a pitbull. But I think he's of drinking age in dog years.
Fine. Just don't tell my sister. She gets very upset about that kind of thing.
84: if you only thought of that now, the dog ain't the only one been in the cherry vodka. but srsly, we don't have to explain how it's both wrong and easy to poison dogs with ethyl alcohol, do we?
getting dogs stoned is totally fine, though, maybe just go with that.
86: Once, at a high school party, someone got the parakeet stoned, and it died. That was really sad.
You'll have to trust me on this: he didn't get much.
Do dogs succumb to alcohol poisoning more easily than people (per weight)?
80: Grapefruit juicce cocktail. Like cranberry cocktail, for people who don't actually like the fruit in question, but for some reason, don't want to just drink their favorite flavored syrup.