they're all like that. hey guys I've listened to a lot of music and this review is my way to prove that. it's formulaic to a fault.
His ruminative mood and gravelly Sprechstimme are both anticipated by the Australian band Flash & the Pan's 1978 recording of "Walking in the Rain". I wouldn't be surprised if Auvinen himself didn't know that; it's not a terribly common recording.
What does the second sentence have to do with anything beyond dick waving? Fuck me if you've heard the influence why didn't you make the fucking record, you twat.
I'm sure there's various 80s movie references in some of their reviews. Because, you know, the fucking 80s, man!
I'm Losing My Edge
I know very little about music from a technical perspective, although at the time I didn't realize that that goes for, oh I dunno, like 99% of all music critics, particularly those who focus on pop music.
Eric P's links and music-is-amazing for new music in general
case in point
"It's not hard to spot the influences informing Scared. The reductionist house productions bear comparison to Dial Records' Pantha du Prince and Lawrence; the vocoders immediately recall Ricardo Villalobos' "Easy Lee", while the nimble 808 programming is similar to that of Non Standard Institute's Tobias Freund. But Tin Man doesn't only pull from dance music. His ruminative mood and gravelly Sprechstimme are both anticipated by the Australian band Flash & the Pan's 1978 recording of "Walking in the Rain". I wouldn't be surprised if Auvinen himself didn't know that; it's not a terribly common recording. But the more distant reference points reinforce the sense that Tin Man's talent, beyond songwriting and sonics, has a lot to do with the way he filters far-flung ideas into a unique, unexpected, and almost claustrophobically personal sound."
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14447-scared/
The single "1901" bursts with brightness from the start with a weave of ringing pop guitars and the candy-licked voice of Thomas Mars singing "fold it, fold it, fold it" as if the act of folding something (maybe a relationship) could be a carnival ride. "Fences" follows in more mellow fashion, with a slow-spinning disco lean that moves into the even mellower Air/Tangerine Dream-influenced "Love Like A Sunset." That range marks the borders of the album as a whole, and laced throughout all of it are generous, wide-eyed melodies of a kind that makes for swooning sighs and curious feelings of instant nostalgia.
case in point
"It's not hard to spot the influences informing Scared. The reductionist house productions bear comparison to Dial Records' Pantha du Prince and Lawrence; the vocoders immediately recall Ricardo Villalobos' "Easy Lee", while the nimble 808 programming is similar to that of Non Standard Institute's Tobias Freund. But Tin Man doesn't only pull from dance music. His ruminative mood and gravelly Sprechstimme are both anticipated by the Australian band Flash & the Pan's 1978 recording of "Walking in the Rain". I wouldn't be surprised if Auvinen himself didn't know that; it's not a terribly common recording. But the more distant reference points reinforce the sense that Tin Man's talent, beyond songwriting and sonics, has a lot to do with the way he filters far-flung ideas into a unique, unexpected, and almost claustrophobically personal sound."
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14447-scared/
Heh, Philip Sherburne, I've read a few reviews of his and they're all like this. Here's where I admit to being a big fan of Pantha du Prince and Villalobos tho :gloomy But I don't expect the average PF reader to know or get any of the references Sherburne is talking about here.
Fuck PF, give me King of the Gigabitches any day of the week.
AVClub is guilty of the same thing; I dunno why BrandNew is praising them. I think a lot of the time they're even worse than P4K --if they're not, it's only because they're only a paragraph or two long and the meaninglessness is much more succinct.
For instance, from their review of Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix:QuoteThe single "1901" bursts with brightness from the start with a weave of ringing pop guitars and the candy-licked voice of Thomas Mars singing "fold it, fold it, fold it" as if the act of folding something (maybe a relationship) could be a carnival ride. "Fences" follows in more mellow fashion, with a slow-spinning disco lean that moves into the even mellower Air/Tangerine Dream-influenced "Love Like A Sunset." That range marks the borders of the album as a whole, and laced throughout all of it are generous, wide-eyed melodies of a kind that makes for swooning sighs and curious feelings of instant nostalgia.
It's just flowery nonsense.
Conspiracy-addled claustrophobic noises swath the hooks throughout, revealing the intoxicating assuredness of a star who sought the spotlight in order to barrage it with glitter and shrapnel.
I did selectively pick that one because it's memorably awful. It reminds me of that shit Dave Halverson wrote about Cybermorph when he was on acid.
But still, this is in their review of MIA's MAYA from just a few days ago:QuoteConspiracy-addled claustrophobic noises swath the hooks throughout, revealing the intoxicating assuredness of a star who sought the spotlight in order to barrage it with glitter and shrapnel.
:derp