Hot Take/ Musical Confession Thread!

[TenderLovingKiller®]

@gaporter while you’re here; I’ve waiting to hear your hot take on Damon Albarn’s criticism of Taylor Swift’s songwriting bona fides.

 

[gaporter]

You’re kinda bending over backwards here to defend an opinion that there have only been two female solo albums released in the past 10+ years that are interesting and/or innovative but sure people shouldn’t be judged good or bad based on their identity.

To be completely honest, most of my post had no relation to that take, I more or less was just using it as a springboard to discuss a phenomenon I've been seeing as of late. I said I disagreed with that opinion and I do, pretty vehemently actually. I'm not going to defend it and I also am not going to tell you what parts of my post you should focus on, but the thesis behind what I wrote wasn't in agreement with VD's take. I can understand why it reads the way now, but it sucks that what I actually wrote is going to get overlooked because I wrote it in relation to an opinion I disagree with. But that's really my own fault for not being clear I suppose.

 

[CrazyDiamond84]

I think @Viking Dan might just need some good recommendations. I'd be shocked if you could find something that sounds close to Courtney Barnett's 'Sometimes I Sit and Think...'. Arlo Parks album from last year was amazing and felt refreshing. I always like to suggest Alex the Astronauts 'The Theory of Absolutely Nothing' as a really fun catchy album.

 

[TenderLovingKiller®]

To be completely honest, most of my post had no relation to that take, I more or less was just using it as a springboard to discuss a phenomenon I've been seeing as of late. I said I disagreed with that opinion and I do, pretty vehemently actually. I'm not going to defend it and I also am not going to tell you what parts of my post you should focus on, but the thesis behind what I wrote wasn't in agreement with VD's take. I can understand why it reads the way now, but it sucks that what I actually wrote is going to get overlooked because I wrote it in relation to an opinion I disagree with. But that's really my own fault for not being clear I suppose.

Yeah, my apologies, I read it as; “I think what he means is...” and if that is what he meant I don’t think I would took his opinion as a all that hot.

 

[bettim84]

Most if not all of us dislike certain artists that are otherwise universally well-regarded. This thread would be more interesting if we use it for hot takes other than the “I-don’t-like-thing” variety.

 

[gaporter]

@gaporter while you’re here; I’ve waiting to hear your hot take on Damon Albarn’s criticism of Taylor Swift’s songwriting bona fides.

Damon said something uninformed, but reading the context of what he said I didn't feel like he was trying to undermine anyone. He was talking about the difference between someone who writes a song by themselves and someone who has co-writers. The problem was he shouldn't have singled out Taylor Swift, one of the very few pop artists who does write most of her own material. If he had used someone like Katy Perry as an example, I don't think people would have batted an eye. But he said something factually incorrect and invoked the wrath of the Swifties in the process, so most people didn't get past the headline before writing him off as just another old man trying to discredit Taylor Swift.

The worst thing was that it made Damon look hypocritical, because he's the last person who should be talking about how collaboration makes the art less personable or whatever. Even before Gorillaz, he was in a band with Blur where he relied on the help of others and even in his solo work, he has outside producers and musicians who help create the sound of the album. I guess maybe he considers that he writes the music by himself and just has other people help him realize it, but then he should be able to recognize that Taylor does the exact same thing.

Probably not the spicy take you were expecting but just how I honestly feel about the situation

 

[waruv]

Honestly music genres being very homogenous is nothing new, I think the emergence of streaming to where every new release is at your fingertips the instant its out has just put a spotlight on how so many albums just sound... the same.

I don't necessarily agree with the wording of the hot take VD posted but I think I understand what he's getting at. There's been this shift over the last decade or so for music publications to try to push to give more shine to women in rock, which is great. An unfortunate side effect, at least to me, is that a lot of people feel the need to treat every woman who makes a rock album with kid gloves and put them on this pedestal where they can do no wrong, to an uncomfortable degree. If a woman makes a good rock album, it can't just be a good rock album, it has to be a statement and it's going to be treated like this big revelation. The irony in this praise is of course that it ends up feeling like the artist isn't being praised for the content of her work, but for the mere fact that she is a female in a male-dominated genre. But that kind of acclaim goes against the idea of equality in music. Women are just as capable as men of making mediocre music and you're allowed to recognize that. You shouldn't treat an artist's music differently just because they're a woman, or they're transgender, or they're Black or whatever. If you aren't willing to hold artists who are women and minorities to the same standard that you do straight white men, then you're part of the problem.

Let's separate this out from VD's take because I think it's an interesting point, and it makes me wonder if it's just more about the music the artists are making and what people respond to from each gender as opposed to active media intention.

Here is N&G's Super List for the Top 10 Albums of 2021

10	Lucy Dacus - Home Video	69
9	Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever	71
8	Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises	87
7	Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END	88
6	Olivia Rodrigo - Sour	89
5	Squid - Bright Green Field	93
4	Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee	100
3	Low - HEY WHAT	120
2	Arlo Parks - Collapsed in Sunbeams	120
1	Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be an Introvert	206

Six women, four men (or male led bands). What is interesting to me isn't so much the gender split (yay N&G, though don't get too happy with this unless you want me to go back to our sausage fest in the Top 500 of all-time), but rather genres and album types we see.

Little Simz is hip-hop, but the other five (Arlo Parks, JBRekkie, Olivia, Billie, and Lucy) were all to some extent singer heavy personalized vocal albums (sorry to distill it down that much) and all six can skew dark in a lot of spots, generally represent an emotional range with some story tleling elements. The four male led groups (Low, Squid, GYBE, and Floating Points) have one big outlier in FP/PS/LSO which is some brilliant instrumental/classical hybrid music. but otherwise are definitely more rock heavy with a mixture of genre choices with some post-punk/post-rock elements involving substantial instrumentation, production, and the like but not exactly much lyrical content.

Media wise, it's a helluva lot more interesting and easier to write about lyrical content, speculate on any behind the scenes details, get a better understanding of the "who" behind the artist than it is to parse into the the production decisions of Low. It's also a lot more dangerous as a writer to slam lyrical and storytelling choices of an artist because you may be insulting something personal or speaking from a place of ignorance.

I think it's more nuanced than just the media being afraid to criticize albums by women in rock, I think it's a lot about what men and women in rock are able to get away with recording, what people tend to appreciate artists for, and how it filters down from there. To me, it's probably more a reflection on us as music fans than anything else, and really, we're never going to have equality in music reporting when music is so inherently unequal. Basically...it's quite possible we're treating these albums as personal revelations because men aren't expected to release albums like that especially outside of hip-hop.

 

[gaporter]

Yeah, my apologies, I read it as; “I think what he means is...” and if that is what he meant I don’t think I would took his opinion as a all that hot.

Eh, like I said I should have clarified what I meant, so the fault is on me. I'm not going to pretend I know what VD's opinion is, I can only speak for myself. I think my wording did lend itself towards that interpretation though so I can't blame you. Maybe I'll edit my original post.

 

[waruv]

And since I'm writing paragraphs in a hot take topic, here's a hot take to drop and peeve people off

I'd much rather have a greatest hits compilation of most musicians from the 50s-80s than actually try to piece together a discography for them - the sheer pressure to constantly be releasing music resulted in an insane amount of filler.

 

[Dtknuckles]

Wiz. His major claim was that The Lemon of Pink "isn't music," then demanded that someone fight him and got even angrier when no one would.

To bad..I would have been down for a good avant-guard street fight.

 

[bettim84]

Huey Lewis & The News belong in the pantheon of Great American Bands.

Yes, exactly. It’s more fun to argue about things comparatively than to simply say “this artist is bad/boring.”

Not that we necessarily need to argue. Instead we can all just agree and acknowledge that Presence is the best Led Zeppelin album.

 

[debianlinux]

Let's separate this out from VD's take because I think it's an interesting point, and it makes me wonder if it's just more about the music the artists are making and what people respond to from each gender as opposed to active media intention.

Here is N&G's Super List for the Top 10 Albums of 2021

10	Lucy Dacus - Home Video	69
9	Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever	71
8	Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises	87
7	Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END	88
6	Olivia Rodrigo - Sour	89
5	Squid - Bright Green Field	93
4	Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee	100
3	Low - HEY WHAT	120
2	Arlo Parks - Collapsed in Sunbeams	120
1	Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be an Introvert	206

Six women, four men (or male led bands). What is interesting to me isn't so much the gender split (yay N&G, though don't get too happy with this unless you want me to go back to our sausage fest in the Top 500 of all-time), but rather genres and album types we see.

Little Simz is hip-hop, but the other five (Arlo Parks, JBRekkie, Olivia, Billie, and Lucy) were all to some extent singer heavy personalized vocal albums (sorry to distill it down that much) and all six can skew dark in a lot of spots, generally represent an emotional range with some story tleling elements. The four male led groups (Low, Squid, GYBE, and Floating Points) have one big outlier in FP/PS/LSO which is some brilliant instrumental/classical hybrid music. but otherwise are definitely more rock heavy with a mixture of genre choices with some post-punk/post-rock elements involving substantial instrumentation, production, and the like but not exactly much lyrical content.

Media wise, it's a helluva lot more interesting and easier to write about lyrical content, speculate on any behind the scenes details, get a better understanding of the "who" behind the artist than it is to parse into the the production decisions of Low. It's also a lot more dangerous as a writer to slam lyrical and storytelling choices of an artist because you may be insulting something personal or speaking from a place of ignorance.

I think it's more nuanced than just the media being afraid to criticize albums by women in rock, I think it's a lot about what men and women in rock are able to get away with recording, what people tend to appreciate artists for, and how it filters down from there. To me, it's probably more a reflection on us as music fans than anything else, and really, we're never going to have equality in music reporting when music is so inherently unequal. Basically...it's quite possible we're treating these albums as personal revelations because men aren't expected to release albums like that especially outside of hip-hop.

Nice, I thought @gaporter's take was very thought provoking but was missing a lot of extra layers for me and this post really covered most of that ground. Me, personally, I've always literally preferred woman voices and the energy they bring to their music. I don't think I am entirely above the sort of anti equality bias @gaporter mentions and I do think that bias exists in some measure for a lot of women creating music. In actuality this is the hot take discussion I've been waiting for. I am very interested in exploring underpinnings to my preferences.

 

[Joe Mac]

Damon said something uninformed, but reading the context of what he said I didn't feel like he was trying to undermine anyone. He was talking about the difference between someone who writes a song by themselves and someone who has co-writers. The problem was he shouldn't have singled out Taylor Swift, one of the very few pop artists who does write most of her own material. If he had used someone like Katy Perry as an example, I don't think people would have batted an eye. But he said something factually incorrect and invoked the wrath of the Swifties in the process, so most people didn't get past the headline before writing him off as just another old man trying to discredit Taylor Swift.

The worst thing was that it made Damon look hypocritical, because he's the last person who should be talking about how collaboration makes the art less personable or whatever. Even before Gorillaz, he was in a band with Blur where he relied on the help of others and even in his solo work, he has outside producers and musicians who help create the sound of the album. I guess maybe he considers that he writes the music by himself and just has other people help him realize it, but then he should be able to recognize that Taylor does the exact same thing.

Probably not the spicy take you were expecting but just how I honestly feel about the situation

Honestly I did read it as the indie snob thing tbh and that he is another boring old man. There’s that chain of thought in white man rock circles that if you don’t make music on your own or in some spontaneously formed group that it’s not authentic or something, dimissing pop stars because of the use of songwriting houses or uber-producers to write alongside as not being authentic. He just missed the target with Taylor. He had a bit of a pop at Adele a few years back too.

 

[gaporter]

Honestly I did read it as the indie snob thing tbh and that he is another boring old man. There’s that chain of thought in white man rock circles that if you don’t make music on your own or in some spontaneously formed group that it’s not authentic or something, dimissing pop stars because of the use of songwriting houses or uber-producers to write alongside as not being authentic. He just missed the target with Taylor. He had a bit of a pop at Adele a few years back too.

Sure, but I still maintain that if he hadn't brought Taylor into it, people wouldn't have really gotten so upset. It's kind of an expected thing for the older veterans of the music industry to sneer at the current popular trends, and while I'd like to believe Damon is a bit more open-minded, I'm not gonna act surprised that he has some antiquated ideas. Him praising Billie Eilish in the same statement leads me to believe he was mistaken about Taylor not writing her own music because she tends to be on the more stereotypical pop music side of things where Billie has sort of crafted her own sound, and in that sense I wouldn't really expect Damon Albarn to be a Taylor Swift fan anyways. He probably just assumes every synthetic sounding pop song was written by a team of songwriters and anything that sounds "authentic" to his ears was written by the artist. Either way, I feel like he should just admit he was wrong and let the story fizzle out as it will. I feel like it pretty much already has tbh.

 

[Joe Mac]

Sure, but I still maintain that if he hadn't brought Taylor into it, people wouldn't have really gotten so upset. It's kind of an expected thing for the older veterans of the music industry to sneer at the current popular trends, and while I'd like to believe Damon is a bit more open-minded, I'm not gonna act surprised that he has some antiquated ideas. Him praising Billie Eilish in the same statement leads me to believe he was mistaken about Taylor not writing her own music because she tends to be on the more stereotypical pop music side of things where Billie has sort of crafted her own sound, and in that sense I wouldn't really expect Damon Albarn to be a Taylor Swift fan anyways. He probably just assumes every synthetic sounding pop song was written by a team of songwriters and anything that sounds "authentic" to his ears was written by the artist. Either way, I feel like he should just admit he was wrong and let the story fizzle out as it will. I feel like it pretty much already has tbh.

Oh yeah totally it only got traction because he picked the wrong target. Grumpy old indie man gunna do grumpy old indie man stuff. Honestly, he never struck me as the sharpest tack, as wonderfully talent an artist as he is.

His old sparring partner Noel gets away with it because generally it is his missing link younger brother who he’s slagging off for it

 

[mrjoshuamccormack]

Damon said something uninformed, but reading the context of what he said I didn't feel like he was trying to undermine anyone. He was talking about the difference between someone who writes a song by themselves and someone who has co-writers. The problem was he shouldn't have singled out Taylor Swift, one of the very few pop artists who does write most of her own material. If he had used someone like Katy Perry as an example, I don't think people would have batted an eye. But he said something factually incorrect and invoked the wrath of the Swifties in the process, so most people didn't get past the headline before writing him off as just another old man trying to discredit Taylor Swift.

The worst thing was that it made Damon look hypocritical, because he's the last person who should be talking about how collaboration makes the art less personable or whatever. Even before Gorillaz, he was in a band with Blur where he relied on the help of others and even in his solo work, he has outside producers and musicians who help create the sound of the album. I guess maybe he considers that he writes the music by himself and just has other people help him realize it, but then he should be able to recognize that Taylor does the exact same thing.

Probably not the spicy take you were expecting but just how I honestly feel about the situation

Definitely a great point about Damon's collaboration. I remember when I first heard of Taylor Swift. She was just starting out, and American Songwriter had a feature about her. Now, back then, and when she first came out, I absolutely loathed her. I still don't really call myself a fan, though I've listened to and somewhat enjoyed about 3-4 of her albums.

The co-writing statement was just... weird. I've read about her long enough to know that she, just like Damon, is quite capable of writing songs on her own, but she chooses co-writes often because (I assume this is the reason) she enjoys co-writing. Just like Damon bringing in collaborators for Gorillaz, etc, because he enjoys that.

Such a weird, short-sighted, and basically dumb thing for Damon to say.

 

[Ericj32]

The problem was he shouldn't have singled out Taylor Swift, one of the very few pop artists who does write most of her own material. If he had used someone like Katy Perry as an example, I don't think people would have batted an eye.

Doesn’t Katy Perry have shared or sole songwriting credits on all of her songs on all of her albums? I don’t get what the distinction is there.

 

[LiamGallaghersBucketHat]

Man, it’s hot in here

 

[Ericj32]

Man, it’s hot in here

Like girl, I think my butt can bend!

 

[gaporter]

Doesn’t Katy Perry have shared or sole songwriting credits on all of her songs on all of her albums? I don’t get what the distinction is there.

Well then it would appear I'm no better than Damon because I assumed a lot of Katy Perry's songs were written by other people. Not saying anything bad, I like pop music and honestly don't care if a pop star doesn't write their own music, but if I'm misinformed on Katy then I do apologize.