Simon Sez:
From Simon Reynolds’ blissblog (I know, kiiind of a cringe-inducing name), the good old Eff-You to mediocrity in a series of pithy little reviews of the pop critics’ 2008 favorites:
Bon Iver3 years ago
A voice like shredded wheat with no milk. Nothing about the sound or the backstory made me want to persevere long enough with this to find the vaunted brilliance.
Deerhunter
Someone somewhere described this as like a bunch of Chapterhouse B-sides. Unfair, but this does strike me as an overly meticulous collation of borrowed bits and bobs (the sources all things I like, but what’s the point?). Not so much blissed out as prissed out.
Hercules and the Love Affair
C.f. McAlmont, this kind of capital ‘S’ Singing from a capital ‘S’ Singer always seems like a good idea on paper. Otherwise this is just Faze Action all over again, no?
Lil Wayne
I was all set to put Tha Carter III in my list, remembering having enjoyed it a lot when it came out, but in the end just opted for “A Millie” in top tunes (and that mostly for its brain-evacuating voice-loop rhythm, which is only a notch about the drivel Swizz Beatz Mk2 was peddling last year, or was it the year before?). The rest of the record I barely remember, and nor can I summon any desire to revisit. Sadly I’ve come to the conclusion that I much prefer Lil Wayne circa his debut album to the Noughties version with its crabwise flow and allusive density. Lil Wayne, he’s the John Sessions of rap, really. Sort of funny; very nearly entertaining.
Cut Copy
This is New Pop revivalism, essentially—the next logical step from the interminable postpunk revival, but drawing on New Pop’s wetter side—OMD, China Crisis. Nice blurry/yearn-y sound. Will anyone care in a year?
The Bug
Commendable, well-executed, most effective when it relents a bit from being so unrelenting. When it’s on I can’t fault it, exactly. But I’ve gone back more to Dusk + Blackdown: as an audio-essay about London, Margins Music has a more seductively sensuous and varied sound-palette. It also seems significantly more up-to-date than London Zoo (isn’t an album largely based around dancehall really kinda early Noughties?!). And it doesn’t hammer the getting-somewhat-fatigued London=darkness notion so hard.
Flying Lotus
Highly listenable, quite impressive, the best of it makes me think of Sa Ra sans the kosmigroovy sexiness and goofadelic humour. The least of it is a bit… Prefuse 73-y.
There’s plenty more in the consensus-overlapzone that leave me cooler still (Fleet Foxes, TV On the Radio,Santogold, etc), I’d happily accept that the problem is me, I need to put in some more work (but whoever said you had to work at listening to music?), I seem to have fallen into a kind of simpleton mode of assessment, which is that if after a couple of listens I can’t remember anything about a record or find the urge to listen again, then… goodbyeee. Life is short and there’s too many other fish in the sea of sound.
