FAITHLESS NOW, JUST GOT SOUL

Herds of nerds stubbornly compete to become king of a fantasy world.
Professor Brothers: History Lesson #1
(by Brad Neely, who also did this)


A reader recently e-mailed me with a smart question about my Pitchfork review of the great new Cub reissues.

READER: Just wondering what source you took the idea from for your conclusion on the Cub reissues review:

"It's been said that you can reason someone into believing in God, but you can't reason them out of it, and I wonder if it's the same way with true love: Once you've taken that leap of faith, does everything change?"

...[F]or some reason, the first part of your conclusion sent me off on some sort of mental/intellectual/odyssey thing...

I'd actually had a very specific piece in mind, and the e-mail caused me to go back and revisit it. I was thinking of a fantastic article by John Jeremiah Sullivan called "Upon This Rock", which appeared in GQ and was featured in Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2006. A lengthy feature on a Christian music festival, it includes the evocative passage below.

SULLIVAN: Belief and nonbelief are two giant planets, the orbits of which don't touch. Everything about Christianity can be justified within the context of Christian belief. That is, if you accept its terms. Once you do, your belief starts modifying the data (in ways that are themselves defensible, see?), until eventually the data begin to reinforce belief. The precise moment of illogic can never be isolated and may not exist. Like holding a magnifying glass at arm's length and bringing it toward your eye: Things are upside down, they're upside down, they're right side up. What lay between? If there was something, it passed too quickly to be observed. This is why you can never reason true Christians out of faith. It's not, as the adage has it, because they were never reasoned into it-- many were-- it's that faith is a logical door which locks behind you. What looks like a line of thought is steadily warping into a circle, one that closes with you inside. If this seems to imply that no apostate was ever a true Christian and that therefore, I was never one, I think I'd stand by both of those statements.

I hope I didn't just give away the ending.
Gui Boratto: Beautiful Life (cross-posted from Pitchfork)

Elsewhere:

Maureen Dowd on George Tenet: "If you have something deadly important to say, say it when it matters, or just shut up and slink off." Cool, but what if you've never had anything deadly important to say in an entire career as a professional political scrivener? Then you make up NASCAR-related quotes and call Democrats sissy girls. Dowd's not a misogynist, you see.

Fellow NYTer Frank Rich's Sunday column, "Earth to G.O.P.: The Gipper Is Dead" probably gets a pass from most of his readers because it bashes conservatives. Rich is playing for the right partisan team or whatever, but he's just so clearly unburdened by concepts like "truth" or "logic" that it's pretty hard to imagine what-- other than no doubt unparalleled social connections-- even qualifies the dude for his job. The Republican convention looks like a country club? Look at the Democratic candidates just eight years ago: white males only. Approving Matthew Dowd namedrop? Apparently, all supposedly cynical political journalists are required ignore the fact that a guy who changed from Democratic to Republican to work for now-President Bush might now, with Bush's poll numbers mired at Nixonian levels, have a professional motivation to turn on dear leader. Then there's Rich's bewildering construction on immigration.

RICH: The sole piece of compassionate conservatism that Mr. Bush has tried not to sacrifice to political expedience — nondraconian immigration reform — is also on the ropes, done in by a wave of xenophobia that he has failed to combat. Just how knee-jerk this strain has become could be seen in the MSNBC debate when Chris Matthews asked the candidates if they would consider a constitutional amendment to allow presidential runs by naturalized citizens like their party’s star governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger (an American since 1983), and its national chairman, Senator Mel Martinez of Florida. Seven out of 10 said no.

Um, so Republican presidential candidates wouldn't fulfill Chris Matthews' thigh-rubbing fantasies and tell him the muscular dude, not they, should be president. Why was he even asking this question, again? And does this really show "xenophobia"?

Ah, the true soul of your Washington press corps. David Broder, would-be Xgau of All Pundits, on one terrifying possibility of the upcoming Presidential primary schedule: "The time from February to Labor Day will be boring beyond belief." Priorities, priorities. (via Bob Somerby)


I've always dreamed of moving to Pakistan or India and becoming a cab driver.
Edwyn Collins and Paul Quinn: Pale Blue Eyes (Velvet Underground cover)


The New Republic's Clay Risen plays the role of a silly, logic-twisting political pundit: "Barack Obama is playing the role of the 'grassroots candidate'" he writes. "Obama plays the people's choice," Risen adds a graf later. In between, he cites the huge number of donors Obama boasts, indicating that the Illinois senator is, indeed, a candidate with grassroots support-- not just playing the role of one on TV. Oh no, some of the people who give to liberal Democrats are rich. Hedge fund managers, in fact. JOHN EDWARDS GETS EXPENSIVE HAIRCUTS! At one point, Risen even acknowledges that, in fact it's "somewhat inaccurate to lump [hedge fund managers] in with 'Wall Street,'" but two grafs later, he complains, "It's strange to see someone so young and so, well, liberal raking it in on the Street." Apparently, liberals are only allowed to get donations from poor people.

Meanwhile, TNR writer Thomas Edsall's report on the possibility Rudy Giuliani can not only win the Republican nomination, but reshape the party and win over Reagan Democrats is pretty terrifying to anybody concerned with civil rights and not going to additional misguided wars launched by complete fucking idiots. BTW, what's with Republicans and men who publicize their Viagra use?


Apparently "Mercury rising" is not a common expression everyone uses to indicate that they are going to get drinks and go clubbing.
Shop Boyz: Party Like a Rock Star (Tom Breihan's take)

Back at Pitchfork, Jess Harvell totally nails his assessments of two of the year's big albums, new LPs by Dan Deacon and Battles.

Woebot delivers a Panda Bear mix.

P.S. Anybody know how to keep the the blockquotes code in blogger from completely throwing off the font for the rest of a post?

I TRIED TO WAKE YOU WITH A REALLY LOUD COUGH

If I had the money to go to a record store, I would.
The Tough Alliance: First Class Riot (cross-posted from Pitchfork)

"STOP TREATING MUSIC LIKE IT’S YOUR STICKER COLLECTION."
- Chris Ott, guest-posted in Nick Sylvester's RiffMarket

In the early '80s, my cousin Kent gave me a 1981 Topps Joe Montana rookie card. Kent lived in Iowa, so he was more of a Green Bay Packers fan, and he knew that his younger cousin-- not yet old enough to appreciate the gift-- was a drooling San Francisco 49ers worshipper. Also, Kent is awesome. My mom, witnessing the destruction I had wreaked upon my collection of more contemporary cards from 1983 and 1984, wisely stashed the card away in a drawer, where it was never seen again until I was old enough to take care of it. I once sent it to Joe Montana himself to autograph; he demurred, saying that signing a rookie card can actually diminish its value. The card now sits beside the 1990 Pro Set card he signed instead, in a frame at my parents' house (until I'm old enough to take care of it).

At its early-'90s peak, as I recall, that beautiful slab of cardboard was worth more than $200, at least according to Beckett. Of course, considering I would never sell it, the card is both worthless and "priceless," like that 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card Bob Costas lugs around in his wallet. The value of the card lies in what it represents to me about my most beloved football team of all time, the Montana-era Niners, and the many happy hours I spent watching and obsessing over them. Is it a little pathetic to fetishize a piece of paper depicting a dude who named his first three kids Alexandra, Elizabeth, and Nathaniel so their full names would all have 16 letters, matching the number he famously wore as quarterback? Probably.

In conversation, I've complained as much as anybody about the current blog-o-matic tendency to treat bands like collectibles. Many writers seem to pack in as many posts per day with as many up-and-coming artists as possible, but their words usually show little love, appreciation, or understanding for the performers they so tirelessly promote. What are the Cold War Kids about? My Pitchfork review revealed one interpretation, but I'd never seen any of their supposed online fans ever give the idea much thought, something that to me seems irreconcilable with normal fandom. How do they sing along? Further, the obsession with collecting seems not just shallow but also narrow, excluding, as Ott notes and Nick observed recently in a piece on Matt LeMay's Get Him Eat Him, a broad swathe of great bands (more on this in a future rant).

All those criticisms still stand. But reading Ott's post, I'm beginning to wonder if the "sticker collector" gripe might not be, probably subconsciously, a proxy for bigger worries. After all, the phrase "record collection" is common parlance, and even if it implies something different than music appreciation or fandom, broad knowledge/ownership of records hardly seems like a negative (except perhaps in the case of "record-collector rock"). Aside from the superficial, no-commitments way many people approach this stuff, I'm not sure what's wrong with a record collection per se. Don't we WANT kids to listen to more music?

Now, I'm sure Ott is being sincere, but it's particularly convenient for a guy like him-- whose "collection" might be said to include the likes of Joy Division, the Clash, Pink Floyd, Arab Strap, Stephen Malkmus, the Constantines, and uh Carlos D.-- to tell today's fervent young music acquirers to cease and desist. Imagine the parallel: A geezer with a yellowing hoard of '60,'70s, '80s and '90s baseball cards starts insisting that people shouldn't bother collecting anything he doesn't already own. If people follow this dude's advice, his collection will become more valuable, and theirs will become worthless. It's common knowledge that more music is put out today than ever; so, too, will the old guy avoid having to learn and obtain the endless varieties of premium and superpremium baseball cards and inserts released in recent years. Lucky that guy!

But bands aren't baseball cards, obviously-- or pogs, or stickers. I've never claimed to have always known as much about music as the modicum I know even now, and Ott certainly wasn't born clutching a 1952 Mickey Mantle. Someone had to give it to him. Instead of wishing technology would slow down or telling young music fans how they suck (and sometimes they do!), it would be more productive to help explain to them why we value certain older records, to help them appreciate new and old music rather than merely compete to own it. This is the function of a good music critic. It's in all of our collective best interest to foster a new generation of people who care about music as passionately as we do, just as it's in-- pardon me for again comparing art and commerce-- the best interest of the National Football League to inspire the kind of passion I had for Joe Montana's 49ers.

Of course, it's always in the best interest of an individual critic to be a dick. Otherwise, how would you get other bloggers to whine about you?


We got our own jihad if you know what I mean.
Bill Richardson: Job Interview and Tell Me

Elsewhere:

Via Bob Somerby, Jack Welch's well-paid Nantucket boys make a joke of your Democratic and Republican presidential debates. Brian Williams, the guy who made you rich is a billionaire douchebag-- do you still let him kiss you good night?:

BRIAN WILLIAMS, OPENING QUESTION (4/26/07): Senator Clinton, your party's leader in the United States Senate, Harry Reid, recently said the war in Iraq is lost. A letter to today's USA Today calls his comments "treasonous" and says if General Patton were alive today, Patton would wipe his boots with Senator Reid. Do you agree with the position of your leader in the Senate?

CHRIS MATTHEWS, OPENING QUESTION (5/3/07): In the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, just 22 percent believe this country is on the right track. Mayor Giuliani, how do we get back to Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America"?

Williams tells us Patton would "wipe his boots" with a top Democrat, then asks Clinton if she supports such a treasonous wimp. Matthews implies the country was last on the right track under a Republican, using the Gipper's own marketing slogan. How do we get such utterly bizarre behavior from a so-called liberal media? Make your own inferences from a recent Poynter item: "Journalists shouldn't be part of a royal class in America."

A recent article in The New Republic by Joseph D. Becker raises important points about the growing divide between the nobles and the peasants in our glorious democracy:

BECKER: Last year, the president of the United States--the CEO of the country--was paid $400,000, with a $50,000 allowance for expenses and up to $100,000 for travel. The amounts are fixed by statute and do not vary with the success or failure of his administration. With responsibilities hardly comparable to the president's, the CEO of Citigroup made nearly $26,000,000 in 2006 (counting all benefits). He may have done better in his job than the luckless president did in his, but surely not 47 times better. Further, if the average annual wage of non-executive employees of Citigroup was, say, $50,000, the CEO made 520 times their salary. There are dozens of such astonishing cases. As a member of Congress recently said, "The average CEO makes more money before lunch than the average worker earns all year."

Becker goes on to call for a study group (how bold!) to look into ways to restrain surging public-sector compensation. However, his critics will point out that this will only cause executives to jump to the private sector, where their pay ISN'T restrained, or even public. And they'd be right. This problem goes way beyond Wall Street.

In a startling development, noted policy wonk Jonathan Cohn calls for more policy wonkery. I'm a big fan of Cohn's policy prescriptions, but I'm skeptical of the politics of this post. Earnestly or not, Cohn is basically the latest guy to carry the Edwards campaign's memetic water, insisting that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton need to give "details" on how they will implement their health care policies, when any honest answer at this early stage would have to be "it depends." Presidents don't enact health care legislation; legislators do. Matthew Yglesias gives an historical view of the subject.

Meanwhile, Colbert isn't just parody, folks. Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Rademaker recently published a column attacking the "Blame America First" crowd. Subscription required, because people pay for this shit. Murdoch knows what's up.

Finally, there is no God: MC Rove might be an atheist. [UPDATE: He's also toast.]

RIGHT NOW MY JOB IS EATING THESE DONUTS

I will punish my body until I believe in my soul.
My Bloody Valentine: Lovelee Sweet Darlene

Is it weird that I like to hear Justice's "D.A.N.C.E." (vid) and "B.E.A.T." (stream), two sides of the same dance-pop single, as metamusic? In this jaded day and scene, their fun-oriented directness seems to me like a music-critical statement in itself. Where LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge" ironically challenged aspiring dance fans to wayback through hipster history (where kids' lack of taste-- "you don't know what you really want"-- would always keep them a little "behind"), the simple Jackson Five-Oh instructions of the Justice tracks return the dance floor from the heads to the hips. Even if those hips belong to wedding-reception grandmas who'd just as soon be wiggling to "Y.M.C.A.". Oy.

Frank Rich was wrong, as expected: Thus far, Don Imus's firing hasn't had a "chilling effect" on free speech, at least not on other talk radio outlets, the New York Times reports. To Rich's credit, he finally turns on the press myth of Saint Condoleeza Rice in today's column, though he continues to place Colin Powell on a long-since-undeserved pedestal. Oh, to be Rich.

Saint John McCain doesn't care about gay people. Mainstream media orgs don't care, period. (Also: Matthew Yglesias on McCain's infinite dumbness.)

FreakyTrigger's latest Poptimism podcast includes Simian Mobile Disco, Justice, Uffie, and a Robyn vs. The Cure mashup.

Kelefa Sanneh praises the virtues of nostalgia. I have a couple of quibbles, but I love that he recognizes the trans-genre importance of sentimentality to music fandom: "We fans are a flighty, easily distractible, gossipy, hopelessly sentimental bunch; our fondness for reunions only underscores the point. Fans of punk and postpunk once thought of themselves as different, but the current reconstitutional convention makes it clear that Pixies fans aren’t so different from Fleetwood Mac fans." (But surely Steve Albini is still better than Fleetwood Mac fans?)

Get Lonely: Bob Desper album download.

Barry Ritholtz lists famous wrong opinions: "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

Oh and I forgot to link to my Patrick Wolf review at Playboy.com (Cleveland Steamer jokes get edited out even at Playboy, kids, sorry).

Surely you've listened to M.I.A.'s "Hit That" by now.

BOFA DEEZ.


It's about to get metaphysical.
Architecture in Helsinki: Heart It Races


Brian Williams wuvs Rush Limbaugh. I am so gonna keep blogging about your worthless millionaire ass, Williams.
Rush Limbaugh: Barack the Magic Negro

THE BUTTER WOULDN'T MELT SO I PUT IT IN THE HOT POCKET

I'm a great sucker for cheerful amateurism.
Primitive Radio Gods: Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with a Song Title That Makes for Easy, Invariably Awful Jokes

In case you needed any further evidence the '90s are back, some angry white man has a column in today's Wall Street Journal clucking about that foul specter, "political correctness." Daniel fox-in-the Henninger writes (reg. req'd):

"Some were brought down by it, and some have made a living from it. Today, there are people who even say that the satire on shows such as 'South Park' or the 'Daily Show' have made political correctness a harmless amusement. We have become so cool that we can simultaneously abide PC's merciless strictures against saying the wrong things about the right people even as we laugh at our subjugation to PC.

Despite the ironic mockery, political correctness still packs a punch. Say the wrong thing today and you can be gone tomorrow, your status as a top broadcaster, university president or politician obliterated. It happens in the small space of a sentence -- defrocked, banished, gonzo."

That's not what gonzo means! Henninger goes on to liken people getting pissed off at highly paid public figures saying fuckwit things to "burning witches"-- a comparison that certainly ought to be covered by Godwin's Law. I'm sure Henninger, as a white male and therefore someone who could potentially be called a "n***** guy," is sincerely concerned about this one disadvantage suffered by us white dudes: If you're wildly successful beyond your abilities but act like a moron, you might lose your easy, high-paying job. BOO. However, his reasoning is as dumb as a box of very small rocks.

It's hard to say, exactly, why Imus ever should've had a position of influence and power. But it's easy to see why he got fired: because he was acting like a douchebag, and because it's hard to say why he ever should've had a position of influence and power. If, for inst, Imus had had any real qualifications or special abilities to fall back on-- any unique redeeming qualities to offer the public-- perhaps he would've been spared. I mean,I didn't really care whether he lost his job or not, but either way some other talentless douchebag (or, novel idea: a talented, non-douchebag!) would be just as qualified to bloviate ignorantly about national affairs... So away Imus went. Yes, this could happen to other overpaid white guys. Eek!

Progressives need to start co-opting "political correctness"-- at this point an increasingly vague, invariably derogatory term-- and using it to describe the 21st-century PC police: all those who claim people who oppose the official White House foreign policy line (such as it is) are supporting the terrorists. The next time Joe Lieberman or Dick Cheney or The National Review or Brian Williams or Howard Kurtz calls patriotic Americans who disagree with them "traitors," the correct response is: "Take your 'political correctness' elsewhere, sir. Most Americans happen to agree with me on this. BTW, SUCK MY BALLS."

This dude totally doesn't watch Daily Show or South Park.


Oh I, M-B-V M-B-V M-B-V M-B-V M-B-V more M-B-V hi-fi.
Kraftwerk: Kometenmelodie 2

UPDATE: Jonathan Chait responds to the responders, and he and I agree: "My point is that the netroots have helped break down one epistemological prison but have created another. Neither the David Broder method of establishing truth nor the Markos Moulitsas method of establishing truth is very reliable. Yet the reflexive equivocators use the bloggers to justify their reflexive equivocation, and the bloggers use the reflexive equivocators to justify their reflexive partisanship. Alterman concludes that the netroots have made the country a better place, and my piece concurs."

BOOKS IN QUANTITY ARE NOT DANGEROUS; A SINGLE BOOK IS

Brace yourself, cos this goes deep.
Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True

Last night I mentioned Jonathan Chait's fantastic piece (reg req'd; bugmenot) in The New Republic on the good, bad, and the queen of the liberal netroots. Now, predictably enough, the bloggers are striking back. OMG ITZ TOTALLY ON.

Round one, Eric Alterman: "The main argument I want to have with Chait concerns what he deems to be the netroots' purposeful intellectual insularity with regard to the idealized platonic cosmopolitanism of establishment journalists and policy wonks."

Yes, Eric, we know what those words mean, thanks. ESCHEW OBFUSCATION.

Chait wins this one in a KO. The netroots are a useful thing, and it's true that journalists' presumptions of objectivity are always inherently flawed, BUT: If you don't at least accept the possibility of an objective truth outside your own mind, or if you choose to ignore same (as the netroots apparently sometimes do), then there's no reason *I*, the reader, need to believe your subjective truth. What's true in my mind might be different, after all.

The netroots, like the conservative movement, have as one of their enemies (consciously or not) the idea of an objective truth that exists outside whatever DailyKos or Grover Norquist decides. This is yucky. And it's inimicable to democracy. (Nor does it square well with Alterman's self-serving feints about "empiricism." Yeesh.)

An aside: Pop music criticism has a more confusing relationship with objective truth, but it doesn't obviate the need for such a concept. Because enjoying/appreciating music is in itself a highly personal, subjective experience, it can be important for critics to communicate the most personal, subjective aspects of their own experiences. However, because readers obviously have no way of verifying the personal, subjective experiences you say you had to an album, it's important not to be objectively full of shit. If you're just making up your personal experiences, pulling your opinions out of the air, you might still be doing interesting writing, but you're not a critic. Objectivity may not be required, but credibility-- a reader's assurance that there *is* some objective truth behind your subjective experiences-- is paramount.

Sorry, that was probably Kerry-esque in its tortured complexity, but it's important. Anyway Matthew Yglesias, predictably enough, acquits himself much more honorably, re-examining Chait's interpretation of Yglesias's independence (and the reasons Yglesias doesn't deviate from the netroots line more often, given the apparent financial benefits of doing so):

"All that said, Chait provides an admirable reconstruction of the intellectual origins of the netroots movement, its love/hate relationship with the conservative movement, and the logic of its objections to the 'centrist' political strategies that seemed so appealing in the 1990s--by far the best account by a true outsider that I'm aware of. He has attached to this, however, an over-complicated account of the netroots' relationship to the left-of-center pundit establishment, since the main story, in my view, is simply that liberal activists want to see liberalism represented on the country's op-ed pages and chat shows by liberal pundits who like liberals and treat them respectfully. The interesting question on this front isn't why this is what liberals want to see, but how it ever came to be the case that it was (and, indeed, continues to be) seen as de rigeur for the left side of the political spectrum to be represented in the MSM primarily by people who don't see the world this way."

UPDATE: What happens when you get a media cohort disinclined to care about objective truth? You get, years after the fact, a press corps still smilingly accepting explanations about Iraq that simply defy the chronological facts-- with most of the liberal netroots just as blissfully ignorant. And only Bob Somerby seems to care. [UPDATE UPDATE: And only Bob Somerby seems to correct his mistakes.]

OFFNOTES IS NOT JOHN MAYER

Contrary to the e-mail addresses of anonymous tipsters to certain music blogs.


See? I'd never wear three-quarter sleeves.
John Mayer: Covered in Rain

I'd like to link directly to Mayer's post about his "Light Green" philosophy of a "third way" on global warming, but the guy's blog setup is major-label whack. Let me just say I went through a huge Mayer phase in my first couple of years of college that I'm not quite ready to explain yet (OK, the melodies and his uniquely vivid, sympathetic rendering of a certain twentysomething anxiety), but which I certainly don't feel the need to apologize for-- except insofar as he has utterly failed to live up to my high hopes for his music. He was better than you think, but the man steadfastly refuses to prove me right.

Mayer's "Light Green" idea-- essentially, "Hey, I've got a huge public platform to speak my mind, but you know what, I don't think this issue is important enough to give up my Porsche SUV or private jets or bottled water" (wait, what does bottled water have to do with global warming again? oh)-- also sums up what his approach has become to music, which is essentially: "Hey, it'd be nice if people liked better music, but they don't, so I'm going to come to them. Sure, let's do everything we can to make 'Your Body Is a Wonderland' marketable! Also, did I mention I'm really good at the blues?"

I mean, it's not like I'm doing as much as I think I should on this incredibly important issue, but at least I'm not minimizing the problem in front of a sizable audience of impressionable readers. And even I think "Daughters" is the (second-)best single of his lame preachy phase (i.e., the last four years).

We're all hypocrites, sure. Particularly on his most recent album-- which, mind-bogglingly, even the old guard of critics seems not to hate-- Mayer actually seems proud of this.

WHY YOU SO STUPID? YOU HUNGRY FOR HOT POCKETS!

If you throw a light on something magical it disappears.
The Tough Alliance: Koka Kola Veins

Some of the music that has made me lose my shit most this year didn't make it onto the official offnotes RIFFMARKET Status Ain't Hood Quarterly Report (brought to you by Tostitos, Breakfast of Champions); it wasn't in album form. FWIW, I'm holding off on a traxx list until the semi-annual report, so it should be ready in, like, November.

Anyway, as with Tom and his "swirly percussive post-noise", I'm not exactly the NME when it comes to coining unnecessary genre names. The vague ILX descriptor "blog house"-- for the all the Kanye-baiting music that followed Justice's Waters of Nazareth EP-- will have to do, even though what interests me more is the melodic pop side of this stuff, the tracks I listen to the way I'd listen to Belle & Sebastian or, like, the Beatles, even if I did get them off Discobelle just like you. Some of the artists I have in mind, like Toronto's Crystal Castles, are far more rock than house, even if they're also great remixers.

Whatever. The point is, in the wake of bands like the Rapture (and now, in the UK, Klaxons) bringing guitars back to the disco, plenty of bands have been springing up, particularly in the past year, that approach electronic music with the same sense of fun, rather than the type of clinicism that birthed descriptors like "Intelligent" Dance Music (no knock on that genre). Hot Chip were probably one of the leading forces on that front, and they're really as great as Sean Fennessey has been saying for ages.

What makes Hot Chip different from another amazing electronic pop outfit like, say, Junior Boys, is the way they don't seem to need to couch their fun in distance or concepts. They sing about monkeys with miniature cymbals, or boys from school, and repeat phrases like "I'm in no fit state" over and over, etc. etc.-- you could gussy it all up with theories about minimalism, maybe bring in some Stockhausen, but with Hot Chip it's probably better not to. As with LCD Soundsystem, there's plenty to think about, but it ultimately achieves pop's simplest goals: moving bodies, touching hearts. Gag me, right? Except that's why I listen to this stuff.

How about Simian Mobile Disco? I'm unspeakably excited about their forthcoming album, and their production work for Klaxons and Arctic Monkeys has done little to dim my enthusiasm. Even more than Hot Chip, or great but inescapably rich-Eurochic-coke-addict stuff like Justice, Simian's "I Believe" (I thought it was "I Bealive"?) straddles this line between post-Daft Punk club fun and melodies worth humming. Other tracks like "It's the Beat" or more in keeping with the Go! Team craziness of some Justice tracks, and are also worthy, but I prefer my Simian with more feeling. Subjective, yeah, but it's still my blog.


In free verse on the road with Kerouac sheltered in his Bivouac.
The Tough Alliance: Holiday

My latest favorite on the poppier side of this microgenre is Swedish electropop duo The Tough Alliance, about whom I hope to say more shortly. Like Sally Shapiro, they manage to bring electronic music fully into the realm of bright, overwhelming pop-- the kind of unbridled cheerfulness that these days usually gets ghettoized alongside far blander guitar-based twee-pop stuff-- and fuse it with some kind of weird situationist aesthetic. This isn't really house music at all, except you can dance to it. And it makes me eager to hear more.

Elsewhere: Jonathan Chait has the impressive, definitive take on the liberal netroots. I don't read Kos anymore, but boy am I glad he's there. At the same time, I feel like once actual journalists cease to believe in the possibility of an objective truth-- an unattainable goal, yes, but surely one worth striving for-- then democracy is impossible. Especially if you're not Hunter Thompson, but especially if you are.

Zach Baron has the impressive, definitive review of the new Dinosaur Jr. comeback. Ah, memory lane.


I've seen what's left of poor technology and worth.
Neil Postman on Cyberspace, 1995.