MMJ in the New Yorker

[Penny Lane]

???

Maybe it's just my mood today, but I read the article and wasn't offended by it.  I've read worse, that's for sure.  I dunno...I just figured out what that this sentence is about Highly Suspicious:
"seemed more like comic efforts than like evidence of catholic taste.:

Edited to add:  I should admit that the New Yorker was a required "text" when I was in college.  I don't enjoy this style of writing...it's as if the whole article is one big metaphor for no good reason.

I am still sort of baffled by the hippie, punk, long hairs, and beard references.  I mean, I had to look up a handful of words used in this article and the most descriptive terms used to describe the fans deal with hair.   ;D

So, I guess there are parts that I just roundly ignored...but, to me I saw the only digs as the semi-complaint about First Light and the full complaint about Wonderful.

Is there sarcasm here that I am just refusing to see?

i didn't think there was a strong opinion of the record either way (or of the band)..i guess thats' what my problem was..i would have respected him more if he came out and said 'this is terrible' or sorry  'this treacle album is terrible, pass the krumpets'....it was just a lot of fluff, and the references and comparisons he made didn't seem right to me...

[Tracy 2112]

here's the dude who wrote the article being "creative"

Sasha Frere-Jones sings "A Million Poems"


and here he is trying to be Charile Rose w/Fiona Apple (and sucking at it)

Fiona Apple's Interview at Charlie Rose Show

[lasvegas]

not understanding all the hate here.

def not the best review i've ever read, but also not the worst.

seemed to me he liked the album and likes the band.

and the new yorker is one of if not the best magazine still in print.

[TSarge]

not understanding all the hate here.

def not the best review i've ever read, but also not the worst.

seemed to me he liked the album and likes the band.

and the new yorker is one of if not the best magazine still in print.

Agree that the New Yorker is one of the best magazines still in print. Really, I could care less whether a critic likes the band or not. The reason I posted it though was because the astronomical levels of high-brow douchiness.

[lasvegas]

Agree that the New Yorker is one of the best magazines still in print. Really, I could care less whether a critic likes the band or not. The reason I posted it though was because the astronomical levels of high-brow douchiness.

werd.

we're on the same page then.

[slimsloslider]

i gather that the reason for the article being written in the first place was more motivated by the editors curiosity about a band that seems to be doing very well for themselves, so they assigned someone who doesn't necessarily understand the band, but wants to because he thinks its his job to. i don't disagree with everything the guy wrote (i do disagree with his decision to pick up a guitar and attempt to write a song that steals its melody from a terrible pink tune), but he's still entitled to his opinion. personally, i think he's trying too hard to explain the band's popularity and put in perspective for the new yorker's subscribers' benefit, but that's just my opinion.

[bluesky]

well said penny!

???

Maybe it's just my mood today, but I read the article and wasn't offended by it.  I've read worse, that's for sure.  I dunno...I just figured out what that this sentence is about Highly Suspicious:
"seemed more like comic efforts than like evidence of catholic taste.:

Edited to add:  I should admit that the New Yorker was a required "text" when I was in college.  I don't enjoy this style of writing...it's as if the whole article is one big metaphor for no good reason.

I am still sort of baffled by the hippie, punk, long hairs, and beard references.  I mean, I had to look up a handful of words used in this article and the most descriptive terms used to describe the fans deal with hair.   ;D

So, I guess there are parts that I just roundly ignored...but, to me I saw the only digs as the semi-complaint about First Light and the full complaint about Wonderful.

Is there sarcasm here that I am just refusing to see?

i didn't think there was a strong opinion of the record either way (or of the band)..i guess thats' what my problem was..i would have respected him more if he came out and said 'this is terrible' or sorry  'this treacle album is terrible, pass the krumpets'....it was just a lot of fluff, and the references and comparisons he made didn't seem right to me...

[kydiddle]

The "review" didn't offend me or anything so much as it just seemed to lack any real point. It had a few good compliments, and I thought his placement of MMJ as a peer of Radiohead seemed spot on. MMJ CAN conduct their career as they like and have acquired an incredibly devoted fanbase -- it would take a wretched album (or two...or three) to get us turned off from this band.

I've read a lot of what SFJ has to say in the New Yorker and while I appreciate music critics, they tend to turn their writing into some sort of art itself and miss the point entirely. He's a horrible example of this...

[NoVa_NoLa]

i didn't think there was a strong opinion of the record either way (or of the band)..i guess thats' what my problem was..i would have respected him more if he came out and said 'this is terrible' or sorry  'this treacle album is terrible, pass the krumpets'....it was just a lot of fluff, and the references and comparisons he made didn't seem right to me...

Gotcha and agree...2 pages of review and after reading it, the reader is not really enthused or un-enthused about the band.

...
I've read a lot of what SFJ has to say in the New Yorker and while I appreciate music critics, they tend to turn their writing into some sort of art itself and miss the point entirely. He's a horrible example of this...

This  ^^^^

:)

[Penny Lane]

Nova--did you get your DBT ticket yet? ;)

[DaFunkyPrecedent]

e__wind...why aren't you getting down on all these guys for being "downers"???

[foomex]

That Sasha should be named Doucha... not because of the Circuital review... but for being so close to my beloved Fiona.

*If anyone saw that Fiona clip... I was part of the Free Fiona movement.  :embarassed:  LOL

[NoVa_NoLa]

Nova--did you get your DBT ticket yet? ;)

:)  shoot...was just at Tip's on Friday and forgot...need to get back up there to get tix for that and for Gillian Welch before those shows sell out...