Drew Daniel (Matmos) on 'Favourites' lists

[killer b]

This (admittedly lengthy) piece by Drew Daniel of Matmos / Soft Pink Truth is fantastic. I've long hated the Bakers Dozen feature in the quietus (oh, Jeff Buckley. David Bowie. Radiohead. Great), and he nails why, and adds some extra that I'd not considered, but are also true.

http://thequietus.com/articles/16052-drew-daniel-matmos-soft-pink-truth-anti-favourite-albums-essay

You should read it.

The comments below the line are funny as fuck too.

 

[marty21]

So far it is my favourite article on favourites lists

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Got halfway through number 2 and got bored. It sums up everything I hate about "serious" music journalism.

 

[killer b]

Got halfway through number 2 and got bored. It sums up everything I hate about "serious" music journalism.

I appreciate that in your world music is just a sequence of meaningless noises and a pound sign, so any attempt at analysis more in depth than 'yeah! I like this!' is probably lost on you.

 

[Athos]

What a painfully self-absorbed load of drivel.

We just want you to name a few decent records mate. You know, as a starting point for a discussion and as a way to discover new music. Nobody's asking you to "quantify[ing] your love and connection to your friends in public..." You're taking it, any yourself, a bit too seriously. Seriously.

Furthermore, his 'insights' that art appreciation is subjective and that tastes change over time are such truisms as to be banal; whereas some of his other points are ridiculous, and a few are the same thing said in different ways.

This would rank in my bottom one of articles about lists.

 

[killer b]

oh. I found it witty and thoughtful.

 

[Part 2]

I got bored of it.

 

[alan_]

If he had merely stated his objection to the task of ranking a bakers dozen in the form of an essay or whatever, then it might have read a lot better than trying to shoehorn his objections into an arbitrary form, some of which made sense but the majority (in my opinion) was style over substance. Why has he thirteen reasons to object?

 

[killer b]

to fit the theme of the column?

 

[alan_]

Yeah fair enough

 

[alan_]

but still

 

[alan_]

If he had been asked for top ten, would he junk (which) three, similarly if it was top twenty could he find another seven

 

[el-ahrairah]

i'm fairly pretentious and thus tolerant of pretension but that was so wanky even i gave up!

 

[alan_]

Concluding Reason Thirteen: It Encourages The Use Of Numbers To Rate And Rank Music, And That Is A Bad Thing.

And because I have never wanted to receive recompense for my art based on purely numbers alone I am happy to be paid the inverse of my popularity,

Also because I am only asked these questions because of numbers and rankings I might shut the fuck up

But I probably wont

 

[boing!]

I thought it was a good article. I do think that lists such as Baker's Dozen, and especially the glut of end of year lists we get are reductive and probably unhealthy for everyone involved. I still read them (and contribute to the one on here), because it's fun, but also because I'm lazy, because I want to have my tastes validated, or because I don't want to feel like I'm missing out on what other people are listening too. All not particularly good reasons to listen to something.

 

[ouchmonkey]

excellent piece. and much funnier than you lot seem to think too

 

[killer b]

I don't really see this wankiness that people are claiming - it's just an enjoyable lengthy rant about the effect particular ways of thinking about culture has on culture. It's certainly a discussion worth having, I think.

 

[redsquirrel]

This (admittedly lengthy) piece by Drew Daniel of Matmos / Soft Pink Truth is fantastic. I've long hated the Bakers Dozen feature in the quietus (oh, Jeff Buckley. David Bowie. Radiohead. Great),

Surely it depends on who's doing the list and how well written the article is. Some (the majority I admit) are boring drivel, others can/have either been either interesting pieces in themselves, act as introductions to new music or provide insight into the chooser. I thought Stewart Lee's was good and it was Stuart Braithwaite's list that introduced me to Codeine.

That said the article is pretty good, but doesn't that show that the important thing about such writing is the who and how rather than the format?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Another thumbs up from me. I think it's good to have a bit of actual criticism written now and again.

He is right about buzz feed and list culture I think. But I still read and enjoy that sort of thing, obv.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

And yeah it does depend on who is doing the list. Stewart Lee's was good because he avoided obvious Quietus-friendly choices.

 

[killer b]

I think it's more what they do with it than who writes it tbh. You'd hope, for example, that Michael Gira would produce an interesting list, rather than the hackneyed canon-fodder he actually submitted. The last one I remember really enjoying was Genesis P-Orridge - which is essentially a list of 13 psych-rock albums I've never heard of. On the rare occasion that someone breaks with convention and uses it as a tool for discovery, then I think it can have value, but for the most part that isn't happening. I think Daniel's contention is that the format is limiting, and the way it makes people engage with their music (both writer and reader) is corrosive. I agree with him.

Do you remember those FACT 'best albums of the 80s & 90s' articles, and the whining that went on here about this or that album missing from the list?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I think it's more what they do with it than who writes it tbh. You'd hope, for example, that Michael Gira would produce an interesting list, rather than the hackneyed canon-fodder he actually submitted.

Or maybe those are simply 13 albums he likes and has been influenced by?

"Cool rockstar is actually normal and likes mainstream stuff" shocker.

 

[killer b]

I don't think there's anything shocking about it, it just doesn't make for a very interesting or enlightening article.

 

[redsquirrel]

Or maybe those are simply 13 albums he likes and has been influenced by?

"Cool rockstar is actually normal and likes mainstream stuff" shocker.

But it's not just his choices, his comments on the albums are pretty bland too, like KB I remember seeing Gira's name, thinking that his list should be interesting and being disappointed.

 

[redsquirrel]

I think it's more what they do with it than who writes it tbh. You'd hope, for example, that Michael Gira would produce an interesting list, rather than the hackneyed canon-fodder he actually submitted. The last one I remember really enjoying was Genesis P-Orridge - which is essentially a list of 13 psych-rock albums I've never heard of. On the rare occasion that someone breaks with convention and uses it as a tool for discovery, then I think it can have value, but for the most part that isn't happening. I think Daniel's contention is that the format is limiting, and the way it makes people engage with their music (both writer and reader) is corrosive. I agree with him.

Looking back through the list one recent one that stands out for me is Peter Strickland's

 

[killer b]

yeah, its great once it gets going, but for my money he needn't have bothered with the mbv/jamc/stereolab section...

 

[redsquirrel]

yeah, its great once it gets going, but for my money he needn't have bothered with the mbv/jamc/stereolab section...

I really love the Hawk and the Hacksaw album he picked, just great.

Anyway I reckon you should give us a list of your 13 least favourite baker's dozen lists

 

[killer b]

hah! K. I'll have a dig later. There's some fucking howlers on there. I once proposed having a bakers dozen bingo game, then realised it'd mean I have to read them...

 

[Knotted]

Reason 1 is excellent. Other reasons aren't.

 

[ouchmonkey]

Someone should title an oldies compilation "We Must All Listen To The Same Important Canonical Classics, Together, Now!" and be done with it. This sense that you've got to reach the finish line of consumption, that you're running out of time and you'll have missed the best part if you don't gobble down Blowhard Celebrity favourites A, B and C is absurd.


...It would be comforting if it were merely meaningless, but it's actively harmful, insofar as it reifies what is ineffably subjective (a fancy pants way of saying that it treats prejudice and opinion as if they had some concrete, fact-like obviousness). It lends a false cultural weight and definitive force to passing critical moods and infatuations, rewarding consensus records that are easy to love that press the same old pleasure receptors, while starving out the ambitious, the recalcitrant and the odd.