skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Okay, so I guess criticism is out the window. Criticism is, by definition, "arrogant," and it is presumptuous to express any opinion other than gushing praise.
Hey, I'm all for constructive argument, but when people are going to the extreme by relaying the absurd notion that Downie should leave the group due to their so-called failure in the studio...
To me, that's not criticism -- that's just bitchiness.
das_hips Wrote:If you don't like the material, criticize the band, they're the ones that wrote the material.
Just out of curiosity, who has said they don't like the material?
I think the debate here is actually about the production. And sorry, but the fact that the songs may be redeemed or reinvented when played live doesn't redeem the production on the album itself.
If you don't like the material - Don't listen to it.
If the production of the album - Don't listen to it.
It's that easy. But maybe that's just my two cents.
tragicallysteve Wrote:If you don't like the material - Don't listen to it.
If the production of the album - Don't listen to it.
It's that easy. But maybe that's just my two cents.
Here's a newsflash, dipshit: I'm not listening to it.
What you really mean is, "don't talk about it."
skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Here's a newsflash, dipshit: I'm not listening to it.
I hate to point out the obvious, but that's pretty fuckin' rude.
sundin13 Wrote:skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Here's a newsflash, dipshit: I'm not listening to it.
I hate to point out the obvious, but that's pretty fuckin' rude.
Did it occur to you that I intended it that way, Einstein?
Whatever.
For me this thread is only marginally about the production on the album and more about the assertion that with this work the band has demonstrated such a complete misunderstanding of what to do with the material that their dissolution may be their only salvation. All this based on one person's self righteous claim that the material "cried out for restrained intimacy" and that this cry was so obvious that for the band (and apparently 95% of the folks on this board) to have missed that fact demonstrates a complete lack of musical judgement.
I will repeat myself. This is not valid criticism. It is simply arrogance.
For criticsm to be considered valid it must be based on the work the artist has produced, not on the work someone thought they should have produced. Those who never got over Dylan plugging in the guitar were able to offer little in the way of understanding his work from that point on.
I respect one's opinion that they would have enjoyed these songs more had they more of a stripped down acoustic approach, but that's a matter of personal taste and that's all it is. By itself, it adds little to our understanding of the work.
Who says this material "cried out for restrained intimacy" and on what basis is that claim made? There are those who would differ. "They need to emerge as sort of living, breathing, wild and woolly, rock 'n' roll beasts--because that's what they are" (Gord D).
Does that mean the artist is always right? No......but don't you love it when they are?
skippy the wonder dog Wrote:tragicallysteve Wrote:If you don't like the material - Don't listen to it.
If the production of the album - Don't listen to it.
It's that easy. But maybe that's just my two cents.
Here's a newsflash, dipshit: I'm not listening to it.
What you really mean is, "don't talk about it."
Here's a newsflash, fuckchops: I don't monitor what music you listen to. I guess you're too busy bitching about music you don't even listen to to realize that.
You're right, I meant "don't bitch about it". What gives you the right? Do The Hip owe it to you to only put out music that you enjoy?
Here's a question: Why do you come to a fan forum to complain about the band's music? If I were you, I'd find something better to do with my time.
Ah... you gotta love the internet - Where any faceless moron can express thier ignorant opinions
Dr. J Wrote:For criticsm to be considered valid it must be based on the work the artist has produced, not on the work someone thought they should have produced. Those who never got over Dylan plugging in the guitar were able to offer little in the way of understanding his work from that point on.
Wrong example for this thread, J.
If you want to cite Dylan, let's talk about Empire Burlesque, Infidels, Shot of Love, and Oh Mercy. On each of these albums, Dylan demonstrated a weak grasp of his own material. Each of the albums has great songs, but Empire Burlesque and Shot of Love have terrible production and are essentially unlistenable. On Infidels and Oh Mercy, Dylan included second-rate songs that have not stood the test of time and are no longer performed live, and cut songs that are now considered classics.
"Every Grain of Sand" and "In the Summertime" are great songs, but I've never found a Dylan fan who didn't think Shot of Love was a shitty album. Empire Burlesque is similarly derided, although most people like the songs themselves.
Any Dylan fan soon learns the difference between a great song with poor production and a lousy song. Dylan's studio output is often pretty shaky, and it includes lots of shitty albums of good songs.
It is entirely valid to criticize a recording on the basis of poor production or tasteless performance. "He should have done it this way" is a valid critique.
Incidentally, where are people getting this acoustic bullshit? A more stripped down approach doesn't necessarily mean Hip Unplugged. There are several shades between Queen and a single acoustic guitar.
skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Did it occur to you that I intended it that way, Einstein?
It did, and while I'm at it, I'd like to point out another obvious observation -- you're an asshole.
tragicallysteve Wrote:You're right, I meant "don't bitch about it". What gives you the right? Do The Hip owe it to you to only put out music that you enjoy?
I'm sorry -- where is it written that we're all entitled to opinions, unless we aren't too impressed with the production on the Hip's latest album? Is that an addendum to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Yeah, it's a fan forum. Here's another newsflash: adult fans of a band often have negative opinions about things the band does, and they enjoy debating the merits of albums and songs. This distinguishes them from the drooling fan-boys, whose most intelligent contribution usually amounts to "do they owe it to you to only put out music that you enjoy?"
I'm glad you acknowledge that you're a faceless moron, at least.
Having attempted to absorb some of this to-ing and fro-ing, I post again in this thread to reflect:
I feel sad for Hip fans (and anyone who spends valuable minutes of their lives posting and reading here is a hip fan, whether they criticize the album or gush in praise of it) who aren't enjoying this album -- you wait with eager anticipation for two-plus years for the new record to drop, and even though they've given a taste of everything that makes them great and enough new twists to keep it fresh and enough poetry and bafflement to keep you head scratching, you don't like it.
You don't like Yer Not the Ocean, an anthem of personal/political/ metaphysical defiance. You don't jack up the volume for the part that goes ".... and take and take and take ..." and you don't get a little shiver at the image, poetry, and sound of "you're up to my chin/ you're not coming in"
You're blah on The Lonely End of the Rink -- which is a hip hockey song that is so unashamed to be a hip hockey song it makes us blush with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. And it just rawks. It just wears it's baseball cap backward and rawks.
You excoriate In View because it is a stupid song with plinky keyboards. But why, damn it, why can't you stop humming it. Why can't you actually skip Track 3?
You're okay with Fly because, well it soars and that idea about "love is to try or die trying" is just simple and complex enough to remind you of why Gord Downie at the best of times is all Gord Downie. Moonbeam, Ontario must make you smile, at least a little.
Luv (Sic) -- you think the title is too cute by half. Gord dangles something about Northrop Frye in the liner notes that has the Hipbase scurrying to peg his arcana, and you don't think "this is classic -- moody grove peculiarly interlaced with heightened vocabularly -- with a twist of the new lime -- Gord's acceptance of introspection." Instead you think ... Ah, I don't know what you think. Something about Bob Rock.
The Kids don't get it. Just how hard it is. The gushers and praisers are like the song -- guts split open and splayed like roadkill on the highway, traffic copters whirling overhead. They brought out all the frying pans from Freak Turbulence, Heart of the Melt, and No Threat and just tried to knock us silly. The critics don't get it. Don't want it.
Pretend. To you it's not the new Flamenco. It's not the new Hip wedding song. It's overproduced garbage with recycled lyrics for the green bin of the world container. Too bad you can't join us, the gushers and the praisers, in the waltz. Come on, you can pretend -- yes you can, yes you can, yes you can.
It comes to Last Night You Had a Lengthy Title. It leaves you featureless and freezing. They've glommed it with noise. I feel bad for you, for the band, for jilted lovers everywhere – why don’t you love the Hip like you used to? I’m confused, I awake in cold sweat.
Next up, you won’t be caught dead swimming past The Drop Off. The band is beating up on us again with musical and lyrical punches to the solar plexus and then a big music-stops Gord Downie uppercut to the jaw. The second time “iridescence” has made itself iridescent in a Hip song. But no swimming past the drop off for you. You’ll be waiting for us on the beach feeling sorry for yourself, the song, Bob Rock, the music industry, the Hip, or some other aural defectiveness that has galled you. Too clumsy? Too noisy? To instrument-y? Too much Gord, not enough Paul? More me less you? C’mon, just enjoy it. There’s a Dylan reference in it for christsakes.
My God, you don’t even like Family Band. Even the Hip Saga – making some honest rock and roll and going virtually unnoticed; gripping the city but not hitting the town – reduced to a three-and-a-half minute ditty, complete with Johnny’s kick drum and the video-possibility of Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker dressed in exterminator suits fumigating an elevator, leaves you nonplussed. Yes, maybe you would have produced it differently if the Hip had hired you, maybe it would have been all As I Wind Down the Pines redux, or, the nightmare scenario, it would have been all Evelyn all the time. But it’s not, so relax. The things been out for a week and you’ve already shelved it. Even if in the end, you’re a shade shy of truly loving it, give it thirteen or fourteen dozen listens like you would any Hip album and then rank it low on your list after M@W or IVL or whatever else you got all worked up about in 199? or 200?. You’ll probably end up admitting that it’s better than a lot of other non-Hip stuff out there, right. So, enough with the sack cloth and peel back the despair – Gord should quit; the band should quit; Bob Rock should quit; I should quit; you should quit; the Dose reviewer should quit. Annihilate a little later.
And finally – there’s a World Container with your name all over it. Yes, they Queen-tarted it up. Yes, Bob Rock has personally insulted us all by intimating that it could have been Gord alone in a room with a bare lightbulb and that fold-up guitar on which he was strumming Springtime in Vienna in MAv’s hotel room. It could have been Gord doing a spoken word piece. It could have been three minutes of introspective silence and then a gunshot. It could have been monkeys at a typewriter. But it’s not – it’s a glorious exultation of sound (“oh no it isn’t!!”); it’s the family band that Gord was singing about. It’s a bright wash of music because it’s a World Container and it contains everything, including a billion ways to go berserk and a billion production foibles to go berserk about. I feel bad that you won’t sing with me when I crank my car stereo to 900 and look like a complete idiot driving up Yonge Street shouting, not singing, “Out past the ‘No Attractions Past This Point’ sign!” revelling in a brand spanking new album from my favouritest band in the universe, complete with a orchestral final number that brings the house down.
All these songs are flaws in progress and you would have liked something different. That’s fair. You’re entitled to your criticism – it’s thoughtful, if caustic. I guess what compels me to write at length and risk stinging rebukes that I’ve missed the point of your criticism entirely, is that I think it is a really good album. I eagerly wait for two years for each new Hip album and this has been well worth the wait for me. So, since you are Hip fans and I imagine that you were probably eager like me for the new material, I am saddened, and of course, confused, by your deflation with the album, particularly comments that you’ve already shelved it or will probably only give it a few spins. Like others, I imagine, I get my back up because the tenor of your criticism, like that of the Dose writer, is so dismissive. We’re all fans here, and this is World Container Week. We won’t get another chance for brand new material for at least another two years, so, you know, let’s enjoy 11 more songs.
ct
skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Wrong example for this thread, J.
No I don't think so, Skip, I chose it for obvious reasons...although now it appears they weren't as obvious as i thought.
Quote:It is entirely valid to criticize a recording on the basis of poor production or tasteless performance.
I agree.
Quote:"He should have done it this way" is a valid critique.
If that's all there is, I disagree. May or may not make for an interesting read, but not a valid critique.
Quote:Incidentally, where are people getting this acoustic bullshit?
I may have gotten that from the previous comment that Rink would also have benefitted from a more "intimate camp-fire approach." I guess I hadn't visualized drums and amplifiers at the campfire.
Having read the discussion (pushing rudeness aside), I really liked the album. However, I personally would have liked a soft coke machine glow esque slant to the material.
sundin13 Wrote:skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Did it occur to you that I intended it that way, Einstein?
It did, and while I'm at it, I'd like to point out another obvious observation -- you're an asshole.
Yes, Skippy the Wonder Dog (if that is your real name), discussing the merits of albums and songs is enjoyable. Everyone has their own opinion, which even the stupidest of people are entitled to. But you're not discussing, you're complaining and insinuating that the Hip aren't making a record properly. How was the production on your last album? Just checking...
As for implying that I'm a "drooling fan-boys", I have a few questions for you
How old am I?
When did I start listening to the Hip?
Is my dog wonderful, like yours?
It's funny, you seem to know everything about me and all I know about you is that you're an asshole.