I got a stuck on this Letterman performance last night. Right around 1:05, when Robyn twists her hands upwards like she’s demonstrating a DNA helix, something happens. Her body starts to hear the music and Robyn begins to move differently, as if she’s perfectly happy to sing but would really…
One of the primary reasons as to why I check my twitter feed so often is diplo’s dedicated use of the website. As anyone who follows him can confirm, his ‘tweets’ (really rubbish word, by the way) are endlessly entertaining - funny and intelligently irreverent.
So I was initially quite surprised when I saw the below update from pitchfork (here is the linked-to blurb / elaboration):
I say ‘surprised’ because I assumed that a website as aware of pop music and it’s accompanying characters as Pitchfork would know better than to take something that Diplo says on the internet quite so literally. However, if you think about it, it isn’t at all surprising that they try to whip up some sort of story of a - as their tag brilliantly informs us, ‘beef’ between Diplo and Maya. Internet journalism is heavily reliant on page impressions / hits, and considering how little time it takes to regurgitate (and in this instance, misinterpret) a few throwaway remarks, under a headlines that screams something to the effect of ‘Diplo called most of MIA’s album shit’, this is all quite predictable. And this is not the first time, either.
In a similar case, the constantly-struggling-to-stay-relevant NME tried to create a feud out of a a twitter exchange (or something) between Foals and Lost Prophets - the very definition on a non-story, (for me) primarily because I had no idea that the latter were still making ‘music’.
Now, it could be argued that devoting any sort of attention to these sorts of instances of hit-hunting is self-defeating - why moan about the lack of a story, thereby creating a ‘story’ (in the loose sense)? Well, quite. But at the heart of what I’m talking about is a larger issue - if I may adopt a somewhat self-important tone, and that is the proliferation of utterly useless and pointless crap in online music coverage. And I’m not singling out pitchfork as the lone culprits (an otherwise excellent website) as they are hardly alone at it - something the NME story demonstrates. Diplo himself summed it up in his usual manner - with humour.
Anyway, as this blog / exercise in futility is supposed to be about music itself, have a listen to a track from the aforementioned MIA album. Because I think it is a rather swell piece of pop:
The year is halfway over, and I was recently discussing which albums so far have impressed me. Because of my memory’s tremendously sieve-like nature, I couldn’t think of more than 3-4 at the time, so I sat down and went through iTunes, to make a sort of ‘interim-report’ list. I’ll stop boring you, so…a. Albums.
1. Caribou - Swim
2. Pantha du Prince - Black Noise
3. Lindstrøm & Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool
4. LCD Sound System - This is Happening
5. Mandarinen Träume : Electronic Escapes from the Deutsche Demokraktische Republik 1981-1989
6. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
7. Connan Mockasin - Please Turn Me Into The Snat
8. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
9. Matthew Herbert - One One
10. Hot Chip - One Life Stand
11. Yeasayer - Odd Blood
12. Sleigh Bells - Treats
13. These New Puritans - Hidden
14. Fang Island - Fang Island
15. Four Tet - There Is Love In You
…also - (have to listen to them more)
Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union
Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal
Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
b. EPs / singles
Tensnake - Coma Cat EP
James Blake – The Bells Sketch EP
James Blake – CMYK EP
Paul Chambers - Yeah, Techno! EP
Erol Alkan & Boys Noize - ‘Avalanche’ / ‘Lemonade’ Single
