Wilco “I Might”

 

               Wilco, what happened to you? I’m worried about you. You’ve fallen far from such great heights, from the critically-acclaimed “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” to the coolest alternative country rock band. That’s a big difference: the difference between being “Billy the Kidd” or a rancher with a keen sense of style. Seriously, this is scary. All the drama from “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” right down to using snippets from the Conet Project feels lost, gone forever. Listening to that album it’s a different band. That band was a better band, one that could get the coveted ’10.0’ from Pitchfork.

                I can’t blame you entirely. The circumstances surrounding “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” are legendary. Dropped by your label, you offered free of charge your best album. Eventually you got picked up by another label owned by the same conglomerate “Warner Brothers”. People watched everything unfurl and thought “Wow, the music industry is dumb”. When the album eventually was offered for sale, it ended up being your best-selling album, despite (or perhaps because of) its previous free nature.

                Pitchfork hasn’t been as kind to you since. After that 10.0 you’ve been hanging out in solid ‘7’ territory. How can you really improve a product declared to be perfect? No one can get a ’10.1’. It’s impossible. You made it and fell. Even other, heavily praised bands (Animal Collective) didn’t receive a 10.0. They got a 9.6, leaving at least .4 worth of improvement for a future product.

                By now you’d probably be happy with an eight. That 10.0 might have been from the cover alone: a picture of those famous towers in Chicago won over a critic or two residing in the Midwest’s hippest city. You knew how to cater to the critics then. Experimental without being overwhelming, ambitious enough to meet your goals, you had it all. What happened since then Wilco?

                Don’t give up. You have plenty of talent. Receiving a 10.0 means Pitchfork is legally obligated to cover whatever you do for the rest of your career. Since they made you buzzworthy, they have a duty to report on their previous star pupil. Well, you’ve had a big weekend, announced your new album entitled “The Whole Love” and come out with the song “I might”. Additionally, at a relevant music festival in Massachusetts, you debuted two new songs: Born Alone” and “Dawned on Me”. Together this ought to create enough buzz to help you hype your new album. Giving out singles of the “I Might” song at the festival shows you understand how to create buzz. But still, Best New Music might be a bit hard for you now, at least judging off of your new song.

                Clearly you know the game of hype. Let’s hope the new album can at least compare to your previous glory. I wish you the best.

Will Dâm-Funk ever get “Best New Music” on Pitchfork?

                No, probably not. Damon G. Riddick might have had his moment pass back in 2009. Back then every type of music began to sound excellent. Pitchfork popped “Best New Music” every other day. Even then Dâm-Funk managed to get only an 8.2, nothing terrible but just a few points shy of that coveted score. 

                Of course Damon did a few things to ensure a good score on Pitchfork. He did a remix for Animal Collective. After that he managed to get a sweet blurb in the taste-making newspaper “The New York Times”. Those in the “New York Times” foresaw great things happening to the Professor of Funk. Using his remix and NYT article he maneuvered to open for Animal Collective in Prospect Park. Everything was falling into place. 

                Watching him open in Prospect Park felt like seeing all those people from the Titanic flail about due to a lack of lifeboats except somehow more heart-wrenching.  Everyone around me looked in disbelief as this man choked up pretty hard. In the beginning he told people what year a record was made to try to get cheers; by the end he was reduced to saying “Cheer if you like being alive”! Not many people cheered, they felt cheated by his utter lack of charisma and annoying long-windedness. 

                His ultimate statement came out towards the end of 2009 called “Toeachizown”. I stayed away from the release for a while, remembering my awful experience with him at Prospect Park. The lame performance turned me away from his music for a long while. Only after I saw he did remixes of virtually anyone who had ever released a song did I begin to let my guard down. With his kind of remix release schedule I figured he made roughly three remixes a today, one for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner. 

                I wonder what Dâm-Funk’s average day is like. I imagine most of his day consists of finding puns off of his name. As he’s driving down the road looking at the empty California landscape he sees someone dressed in a Pepé Le Pew costume he says to himself “Damn Skunk”. While he watches TV and a character does something ridiculous on his favorite USA Network show he laughs “Damn Monk”. Going to his day job as a head of a recycling plant he thinks about everything people throw away and mutters “Damn Junk”. Performing at The Smell, a famous venue in Los Angeles, California, he sees someone vomit on a shorter person’s head and screams out “Damn Drunk”. 

                Perhaps 2011 will recognize the huge amount of work this guy does. Sure, his live show is a bit empty but what do you expect people’s reactions would be to retro slow-moving funk? Now I realize the Animal Collective concert might not have been the best way to reach out to potential fans. Animal Collective and Dâm-Funk aren’t that compatible. Plus releasing an over two hour debut is a tough thing for anyone to handle. Yet I have respect for someone who follows his muse this hard for this long. Before Damon goes to sleep I’m sure he reads roughly two to three funk history textbooks. He needs to in order to keep his professor position at a local community college over the weekend. 

                Thursday marked his partial re-habilitation into the indie-sphere. Since the Animal Collective fiasco he’s kept a lower profile, releasing some old tracks and one EP. Remixes have been his only new material. After coming out with his remix of Ariel Pink’s song “Fright Night” it is time for him to emerge out of the darkness and into the light. Finally he came out to Bonnaroo. How he did I do not know days after the fact. What I’m going to ask is unusual: anyone cognizant enough please advise me how well he did in your own words. I want to know. Thus far I’ve only found gearheads checking out his equipment. Gearheads aren’t people they are machines. 

                Bonnaroo isn’t even that great a music festival. I’d probably put it down as a third-tier festival, after Coachella and SXSW. Each one of those festivals is real. They are held in states that people generally hold favorable opinions of. Tennessee is gorgeous, beautiful really, but the middle of nowhere Tennessee doesn’t hold quite the same charm of desert fun in the sun or Austin’s Hipster Paradise. Appearing at Bonnaroo is a good first step, but Damon will need to improve his festival game for next year if he wants to tap into a buzz vein. 

                Dâm-Funk I want you to tutor me in the ways of the funk. Failure to do so would be tragic as I’ve dedicated roughly 800 or so words to you. Don’t damn the funk.

Beirut’s come back to us.

                 Where have you been Zach Condon? Have you been finishing up High School so you’ll no longer be a High School dropout? Or did you return back to the Balkans to learn more about Balkan Folk music so you can ‘indie-fy” it for culturally ignorant Americans? 

                Really, you’ve missed out on a lot by keeping a low profile the past few years. Your last album was in 2007. Back then, people were willing to wait longer for albums. I don’t know if you have enough clout to just sort of sit on your laurels the way LCD Soundsystem did or Arcade Fire did. “March of the Zapotec/Holland EP” was your last EP in the hit filled year of 2009. Compared to Animal Collective, Neon Indian and the chillwave gang, you didn’t stand a chance. 

                Maybe you missed your chance to become a giant powerhouse of music by waiting so long. Brooklyn seems to have dulled your senses. You have married, but what music have you come out with lately? I know your work on the “Realpeople” electro project might have tried to capitalize on blog house music, but otherwise you’ve been quiet, too quiet for the ravenous music-devouring hordes on the internet. You do seem to have found a niche with lonely people on the internet who play your first album over and over again on Last.fm (to be honest, most of your fan base scares me). Whoever listens to “The Flying Cup Club” on repeat worries me a tad since that album was in hindsight a tad bit weak. 

                Now I hear you may be coming out with a new album this year. A few things can be done to get your band back in shape. Get your twitter back in order. Tweet about every little aspect of each song. Make an actual twitter account, like Beirut2011. Follow Beach House’s example; make the twitter account the year you break through to popularity. Do what James Murphy did and release cryptic YouTube videos of you recording in a haunted house. Since you’re in New Mexico, perhaps you could say something mystical as you walk through the desert at night. 

                Get your website updated. I’m glad to see “Sunday Smile” is available for download, but that song came out during the George W. Bush administration. How about you give at the very least a newer MP3 to download, like a single song you’re comfortable releasing. Do you even have any new songs written? If not, just offer some leftovers and call it ‘an exclusive premier’ or talk about whatever world tours you’re doing. I’m glad you did some tours back in 2010, but this is a new year. That lazy website might work for Black Dice since no one cares about them, but I thought you wanted this band thing to be big, why else would you have moved to Brooklyn.

                It seems you have done one thing right: you got Pitchfork to do your announcements for you. They mentioned you’re touring with all those bands that make sweet money cakes and win awards. Arcade Fire might be a surrogate family for you. While the music scene has changed, they’ve stayed true to themselves. Since your music generally mines pre-existing European folk traditions, the Arcade Fire might help you out due to their unique status of being the whitest band on Earth. With all that time you’ll spend with them you could learn how to win a Grammy as well.

                Not all bands can stay true to themselves. Just as a backup for relevancy and authenticity, I’d suggest having a retro synthesizer just in case you decide to explore 80s pop music with a lo-fi sound. That’s kind of a big thing right now, so it is a comfortable crutch if you need it. I’m not saying you do, but it is good thing to have if you want to get your predominately wistful and bleary eyed (due to crying) fan base dancing.

                Think about it. I can’t tell you what to do. Only you can. Figure out how to open up in spectacular fashion. Get a ton of hype, pull a Panda Bear and tease your audience with rumors of an album. Whatever you do, just remember the internet buzz sleeps for no man. Avoid the fate of Bright Eyes. Rise above.

The Leak Culture

                      Of all aspects of the music blog world, nothing is more obsessive and dedicated than the leak-o-sphere. Usually I’m all for music obsessiveness, but this is probably the logical conclusion of so much lusting after the hippest thing. What happens as a result of this lifestyle is you know about every release before anyone. You gain a few perks as a result of this, for one you become elevated into a position of ultra-coolness. Suddenly people can feel your aurora of musical relevance. Friends begin asking you what you’ve been listening to, but there are downsides as well.

                A result of following this entire buzz is you become excommunicated from people with normal, healthy (mainstream) tastes in music. Lady Gaga, who the fuck is that person? I don’t have time for her; I just got the leak of Black Dice’s next album. Even bigger is the amount of time you spend hounding various bit torrent sites, in an attempt to remain more relevant than other people on the internet you’re probably never going to meet. Think of it as a pissing contest but without the wholesome ingredient of piss and you’re halfway there. 

                I speak from experience. For a while, I ended up constantly chasing the dragon. Yes, the obsession with music gets really bad for this particular approach to music. Usually there needs to be some form of detox for those who fall into this lifestyle. All the coolness of bestowing the gift of new, unreleased music on the unsuspecting internet people becomes addictive. 

You don’t know where to stop, people on the internet tend to be bad at giving others constructive criticism. Usually you’re just told to continue doing it. Unaware of this obsession, you forget shaving; try to do music research wherever you can, during a party using someone else’s computer, on your phone as you commute to work on the train, wherever. Pitchfork is lame; it becomes time to dive into seriously bleeding edge music forums; the kind of music forums where the members have a room dedicated to music in real life. But it doesn’t stop there.  Finally you reach the end of your addiction, where you’re manually splicing together little samples of the actual album from Amazon.com. And an even worse end is what follows: disguising yourself as a lowly janitor, you pretend to be just cleaning out the recording studio at a pivotal time. With a recording device hidden in your thick-framed glasses, you have your recordings saved, cut-up and edited on your computer. 

These scenarios are scary. But you can back away from this before you start hiding underneath desks waiting for the next big thing to drop. You can prioritize. Understand you’re not the only one waiting for this album; there are countless numbers of other people who can do your dirty work. Keep in mind you don’t need to be on the vanguard, being on the edge can become unnecessarily stressful. Care about those artist you think deserve your care. As tempting as it may be to discover a band before they release an album, remember how much time and energy you’re expending for this task. Might it perhaps be more important to interact in real life rather than constantly trying to find new leaks?

So, as someone who has been there, done that, sent leaks via Gmail, via AIM to various friends and comrades, I wish you’d step away from that edge my friend. Think of what are the most important artists to you. Wind down from there. You don’t need to be the guy who gets everything before anyone. There’s no reason why record store guy can’t just up his game onto the internet.

Relax. Breathe. It is going to be ok. Artists will continue releasing stuff. You don’t need to be the first one. Enjoy life. Don’t let the leak-o-sphere suck you in. I mean, hell, do you really want to end up like Julian Assange? You probably don’t. Simply remember Animal Collective’s universal appeal to reason: 

I don't mean to seem like I

Care about material things,

Like a social status,

I just want

Four walls and adobe slabs

For my girls

Why Pitchfork isn’t God

Today we witnessed something quite unusual. Pitchfork, the crème de la crème of music review sites, busted out something it hadn’t used for a while: the legendary 10.0. What the 10.0 stands for is pure musical perfection, that solid score, the genuine article. For whatever reason, people tend to hold Pitchfork to some unimaginably high standard in musical journalism. So whenever they pan or promote an album, people take it unreasonably personally. You need to realize: it is just a music blog dressed in nice clothing, nothing more, and nothing less. It doesn’t care about your emotions towards itself, if it did, it would offer a comments section.

People were shell-shocked at what got the 10.0: Kanye West. All sorts of accusations went flying about how Kanye West is extremely main stream. Usually Pitchfork tries to be a trend seeker, but here it actually just follows the trend. Most of the time when it bestows its high scores, it tries to focus the readers’ attention on something that perhaps they hadn’t seen before. Here that is not the case: unless you’ve been living in a cave in Outer Mongolia, you’ve heard of Kanye West. So focusing on pop is something that feels a bit unfamiliar with the Pitchfork staff. Generally speaking, Pitchfork hates pop and tends to bash it with enthusiasm.

However, this only covers part of the dilemma. Reacting against the review is legendary among Pitchfork readers. Even those who hate it read it. They try to get ahead of the ‘Pitchfork wave’ as it is called. To be honest, Kanye West has been making music for a while. His taste is good, even if he comes across as a bit arrogant “voice of a generation” or rude “Imma let you finish”. So it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that he had a 10.0 in him. It was inevitable based on the sheer amount of time he’s been doing this, and the amount of effort he’s put into this. The vitriol that people have been up in arms about this is surprising; everyone on twitter seemed to be obsessing about it.

Which leads me to the fact: Is Pitchfork mainstream? Has it decided that reviewing buzz bands just doesn’t pay the bills anymore? There’s already been discussion of the ethics related to blogs starting up record labels. Will Pitchfork simply streamline its review process, for when a band gets a high enough write-up, it decides to release the artist itself? Oddly enough, this is happening with smaller blogs and write-ups. Pitchfork does host various respected music festivals, it does have its feet wet. Why not plunge all the way in.

I don’t know what’s next for music reviews. Lately it feels like music reviews and actual quality have become two entirely separate things. Before I just thought that there was something I wasn’t getting with the endless coining of new genres and promotion of indie bands of dubious quality. Now I wonder whether or not Pitchfork or other so-called “indie” sites are really just extensions of the mass media that the cools kids try to escape. Is there really a way out of mass-produced, slick production? Or will the transformation of these so-called “hip” sites continue unabated as they begin to include more and more bands that may be defined as mainstream.

But overall, I’m happy for Kanye West. He deserved it. This is actually a great album. It proves that occasionally pop can really transcend its commercial aspirations and become an art. Besides that, it shows that Kanye can put his money where his mouth is.

Regarding Pitchfork, I just don’t know. It feels weird to criticize the reviewer even though you do agree with them. Yes, it is a wonderful album. Does it weld its influence properly? Do all of those albums really deserve “Best New Music”? Why do people feel the need to argue with each and every numerical score it gives, and record it only to use it against it later? Seeing how people saved the reviews for albums like Animal Collective’s Danse Manatee only to use it against other, recent reviews shows me the level of thoroughness people have for the site. Grade (score) inflation does happen, it is inevitable that reviewers often let personal feelings influence their writing. I know I have certain weaknesses, but I try to counter against them.

What do you think is next for online musical journalism? I have too many questions and not enough answers.