Catching up
So my brother's stag and doe was this Saturday; it went amazingly well, but between all the work getting that ready and a busy week at my actual job and general exhaustion, I never got around to noting everything I wrote this week, and there was a lot of it:
- The Resident Advisor top 100 albums of the decade poll came out, and not only did I have two blurbs in it, they were both in the top ten. I admit I haven't heard three of our top ten, but what I do know tells me it's a pretty solid list.
- I had two blurbs as well in PopMatters' yearly Slipped Discs artcle; one on Doveman and one on Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Both are albums I should have had more to say about earlier in 2009 than I did, and both are excellent.
- PopMatters also printed a show review I did of the excellent, secretive, house show the Fiery Furnaces played in Guelph.
- RA also published my review of the recent Aarktica album, which I just noticed has a pretty hilarious first comment (one so passive-aggressively nasty that even the other readers have called him out a little). I spend my working days editing and writing nothing but short, declarative, simple sentences. It's called technical writing. Why on earth this bareklik guy thinks music criticism should be written in that form is beyond me (and while there's room for that, I have never and will never write much in that style), but the fact that he's taking a matter of style (i.e. he doesn't like mine) and pretending it's a matter of correctness or, heaven forfend, grammar, is rather precious. I was tempted to write a comment addressing it (partly because I feel that when a reader talks to you, you ought to respond in some way), but what's the point? You don't change anyone's mind over the internet.
- A recent review of mine that's at least closer to bareklik's boring, boring ideal style is my PopMatters review of the fantastic new Retribution Gospel Choir album. As my wording might indicate, I'm not 100% satisfied with this one, mainly just because I don't think I got deep enough into it (blame time and space constraints on my part, really) and I didn't really get to talk about why I think the album is amazing. I usually write in a more digressive style like the Aarktica review because that's how I get to what I consider the good stuff (if I ever do), and I think the RGC one comes off a bit pro forma - or at least it does in my own head.
At some point in there I managed to watch the last episode of Dollhouse, and I'm going to say it one last (probably) time: This was some of the best science fiction qua science fiction ever seen on network TV. io9 has a pretty great list of what people were missing, but damn, is it annoying to think of all the people who would love what they did with the second season who won't try it for one reason or another. As a friend pointed out, part of the reason season two was so good (and for me at least, it's one of the best seasons of any show out there) was because they knew they only had a year and they crammed everything in there, but still: incredble.
- The Resident Advisor top 100 albums of the decade poll came out, and not only did I have two blurbs in it, they were both in the top ten. I admit I haven't heard three of our top ten, but what I do know tells me it's a pretty solid list.
- I had two blurbs as well in PopMatters' yearly Slipped Discs artcle; one on Doveman and one on Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Both are albums I should have had more to say about earlier in 2009 than I did, and both are excellent.
- PopMatters also printed a show review I did of the excellent, secretive, house show the Fiery Furnaces played in Guelph.
- RA also published my review of the recent Aarktica album, which I just noticed has a pretty hilarious first comment (one so passive-aggressively nasty that even the other readers have called him out a little). I spend my working days editing and writing nothing but short, declarative, simple sentences. It's called technical writing. Why on earth this bareklik guy thinks music criticism should be written in that form is beyond me (and while there's room for that, I have never and will never write much in that style), but the fact that he's taking a matter of style (i.e. he doesn't like mine) and pretending it's a matter of correctness or, heaven forfend, grammar, is rather precious. I was tempted to write a comment addressing it (partly because I feel that when a reader talks to you, you ought to respond in some way), but what's the point? You don't change anyone's mind over the internet.
- A recent review of mine that's at least closer to bareklik's boring, boring ideal style is my PopMatters review of the fantastic new Retribution Gospel Choir album. As my wording might indicate, I'm not 100% satisfied with this one, mainly just because I don't think I got deep enough into it (blame time and space constraints on my part, really) and I didn't really get to talk about why I think the album is amazing. I usually write in a more digressive style like the Aarktica review because that's how I get to what I consider the good stuff (if I ever do), and I think the RGC one comes off a bit pro forma - or at least it does in my own head.
At some point in there I managed to watch the last episode of Dollhouse, and I'm going to say it one last (probably) time: This was some of the best science fiction qua science fiction ever seen on network TV. io9 has a pretty great list of what people were missing, but damn, is it annoying to think of all the people who would love what they did with the second season who won't try it for one reason or another. As a friend pointed out, part of the reason season two was so good (and for me at least, it's one of the best seasons of any show out there) was because they knew they only had a year and they crammed everything in there, but still: incredble.
