'tis a shame to see that the Wire is now home to Mark Fisher's resentment-tantrums in the form of a blog
reading his thoughts on how Portishead were just too darned stylish the first time around, I found myself thinking, 'could i possibly care less what this fellow thinks about portishead's first record?' (answer: no)
it never ceases to amaze me how lacking in musical and intellectual content his criticisms are
"Gibbons's gloom always struck me as being more like illegible grumbling than the oblique bleakness it wanted to be."
yep, that's genuine critical intelligence, to foment 'suspicion' about musicians' commitments and then tell us what their art 'wanted to be' lol ... nothing like endless psychologizing hypotheses in place of, say, actual discussion of the music
it's hardly surprising that the fellow who so frequently uses the term 'smugonaut' is the one who exemplifies it better than anyone else in music writing on the net
(nice to see Blanning's mention of Todd Haynes tho, with whom I spent the afternoon not long ago discussing theory, gay cinema, criticism, music, and of course the dylan film -- a perfect example of someone who knows theory inside-out and is making art out of it, not hacklike drive-by blogposts lol)
what do y'all think, with a little more work and maybe reinforcing the foundations a bit, this aMinda just might turn out to be suitable for filling in the void left by nomad huh?
but yeah, i quit my 6+ year subscription about 3 years ago and never looked back... wouldn't mind reading the Voigt interview though as I'm a huge fan of his Gas project.
where is this wire blog though i can't for the life of me find it? not even a link from the magazine site.
not familiar with his writing but what he said re: portishead sounds like shit. and he looks douchey as well.