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Sophie "It's Okay To Cry"


BoomTssPhace

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Social media really has introduced and sequentially poisoned so many things I’ve loved.

 

 

Sometimes I day dream about my memory of living a day without internet or streaming media at my command.

 

 

 

More and more as I get older I fantasize about me personally being given the option to erase the internet from existence for everybody and selfishly I think I'd do it. Fuck the rest of the people; I think things would be better, generally.

 

I certainly appreciated and gave more chances to music, games and film before the internet made it all so easy to access. I have fond memories of getting a train into London, about an hour 15 minutes journey each way, walking into a big HMV and finding copies of the obscure stuff I liked. I would be excited to bring it home, looking at the CD booklet/game manual on the way back, immediately put it on when I got in and really give it a chance, but with all these options at my finger tips now I will switch off if my attention isn't grabbed straight away and I hate it.

 

Convenience isn't always great IMO.

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Ultrademon / Lily is probably wondering why she isn't the one making the headlines. Seapunk is much better than this. Chatroom with Enya is better than this entire album. [/font]

Dang this stings because it's true and I'm afraid the answers for it are uncomfortable. Sophie is...funded. I don't know if it's independently or what but these videos, promos, cheek prostheses and tours are getting her noticed as an LGBT touchstone. In this sense, she's closer to an alt Taylor Swift than IDM vanguard. Lily was still doing GoFundMe for HRT/transition help last time I checked and we all know what kind of cash is in IDM. Too bad adulation by bald Germans can't be converted into currency.

 

 

Excellent point. A lot of musicians have been shafted, I feel like the general dismissal of genrewave in the early 00s unfairly fucked over a lot of artists who pioneered these trends. The press labeled stuff witch house, chillwave, and seapunk then doubled down at the backlash, and in the wake a lot of musicians moved on or departed into obscurity as 00s music history footnotes listened to and remembered only by diehard fans. Sure a lot of music of the era was gimmicky AF but plenty of it wasn't. Holy Other, Memory Tapes, and Elite Gymnastics all come to mind. To add insult to injury plenty of these trust babies, art students, and other "indie artists" throwing around terms like "bedroom producer" and "DIY" when their careers are anything but. 

 

 

After 5 years of 'experimental club' this whole hyperactive rnb aesthetic is just tiring to me. It is a music scene made up entirely of graphic design students.

 

 

PC PR Music

 

I remember I completely swore off Fader, was already done with PFork at this point as well. I've mentioned this multiple times but a watershed moment was reading a feature Fatima Al Qadiri's life and her concept and experiences behind her Desert Strike EP. I can't recall one bar of music and I've heard it multiple times. I can picture the cover art immediately though. To this day everything I've read about her work has been far more interesting than the music itself. It's almost a needless part of her artistry. I'm picking on her in particular (Brute had some engaging tracks) but encapsulates this trend.

 

Perhaps the 00s were a lot better after all. I remember being cynically annoyed when MIA was getting hyped but goddamn I could no resist eventually getting into her stuff because it was so fucking catchy and fun. There was substance to it. It was simple and transparent. Now all of these artists are so goddamn self-aware and contrived that there's no line between their artistry and their reception. The linear notes/bio, label write-ups, bleep and boomkat blurbs, music site reviews and features: it's all the same thing at this point. Musically all of the playfullness and novelty of these genres and styles has been sucked out. Those who still have these attributes aren't getting the write-ups or acclaim, they're still plugging away on smaller labels and doing their own thing way out of the spotlight. And it's appealing. There's a reason I dive into a tape label like Orange Milk over PAN and Hyperdub in 2018. 

 

Really on the fence about SOPHIE in terms of how truly important her album was. I still stand by it being one of most interesting listens this year and I'm perfectly ok that it's acclaimed, even if it's not one of my personal favorites by any means. The reality is I have fucking clue how to approach the state of music going into 2019. There's worthwhile music that should be truly loved by fans and there's the behemoth of pop culture as an idea. Those things used to overlap greatly. We don't have that anymore. No music industry heighary of underground, indie, mainstream. No radio when everyone has their own streaming niches. Everyone has their own zeitgeist, the shared idea of pop culture is a fucking incoherent soup now. 

Edited by joshuatx
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To this day everything I've read about her work has been far more interesting than the music itself.

This x1000.

The music is weak af but she has an interesting(ish) backstory so it was lapped up my hacks and poseurs for a bit.

 

Sophie makes music that only Sophie can, like it or lump it's she's forging her own path and doing so with effort and focus.

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Ultrademon / Lily is probably wondering why she isn't the one making the headlines. Seapunk is much better than this. Chatroom with Enya is better than this entire album. [/font]

Dang this stings because it's true and I'm afraid the answers for it are uncomfortable. Sophie is...funded. I don't know if it's independently or what but these videos, promos, cheek prostheses and tours are getting her noticed as an LGBT touchstone. In this sense, she's closer to an alt Taylor Swift than IDM vanguard. Lily was still doing GoFundMe for HRT/transition help last time I checked and we all know what kind of cash is in IDM. Too bad adulation by bald Germans can't be converted into currency.

 

 

Excellent point. A lot of musicians have been shafted, I feel like the general dismissal of genrewave in the early 00s unfairly fucked over a lot of artists who pioneered these trends. The press labeled stuff witch house, chillwave, and seapunk then doubled down at the backlash, and in the wake a lot of musicians moved on or departed into obscurity as 00s music history footnotes listened to and remembered only by diehard fans. Sure a lot of music of the era was gimmicky AF but plenty of it wasn't. Holy Other, Memory Tapes, and Elite Gymnastics all come to mind. To add insult to injury plenty of these trust babies, art students, and other "indie artists" throwing around terms like "bedroom producer" and "DIY" when their careers are anything but. 

 

 

After 5 years of 'experimental club' this whole hyperactive rnb aesthetic is just tiring to me. It is a music scene made up entirely of graphic design students.

 

 

PC PR Music

 

I remember I completely swore off Fader, was already done with PFork at this point as well. I've mentioned this multiple times but a watershed moment was reading a feature Fatima Al Qadiri's life and her concept and experiences behind her Desert Strike EP. I can't recall one bar of music and I've heard it multiple times. I can picture the cover art immediately though. To this day everything I've read about her work has been far more interesting than the music itself. It's almost a needless part of her artistry. I'm picking on her in particular (Brute had some engaging tracks) but encapsulates this trend.

 

Perhaps the 00s were a lot better after all. I remember being cynically annoyed when MIA was getting hyped but goddamn I could no resist eventually getting into her stuff because it was so fucking catchy and fun. There was substance to it. It was simple and transparent. Now all of these artists are so goddamn self-aware and contrived that there's no line between their artistry and their reception. The linear notes/bio, label write-ups, bleep and boomkat blurbs, music site reviews and features: it's all the same thing at this point. Musically all of the playfullness and novelty of these genres and styles has been sucked out. Those who still have these attributes aren't getting the write-ups or acclaim, they're still plugging away on smaller labels and doing their own thing way out of the spotlight. And it's appealing. There's a reason I dive into a tape label like Orange Milk over PAN and Hyperdub in 2018. 

 

Really on the fence about SOPHIE in terms of how truly important her album was. I still stand by it being one of most interesting listens this year and I'm perfectly ok that it's acclaimed, even if it's not one of my personal favorites by any means. The reality is I have fucking clue how to approach the state of music going into 2019. There's worthwhile music that should be truly loved by fans and there's the behemoth of pop culture as an idea. Those things used to overlap greatly. We don't have that anymore. No music industry heighary of underground, indie, mainstream. No radio when everyone has their own streaming niches. Everyone has their own zeitgeist, the shared idea of pop culture is a fucking incoherent soup now. 

 

 

This post puts its finger on what really bothers me (and drove me away from) almost all music media. In particular, I remember reading Pitchfork between 2007-2010 and realizing just how much they enjoyed massively overhyping artists' debut albums and then giving any subsequent work a failing grade. It's like they had a perverse pleasure in building people up and then knocking them down off their throne 6 months later only to be replaced by the next thing. That, combined with the fact that no matter where you go all the outlets are just reposting the same boring shit as based off of promo copy as anybody else and it was like, what's even the point?

 

The only site I ever return to that I read in that era is Tiny Mix Tapes, because at least they go out of their way to pick up on some really unique work. Stereogum/P4K/Fader/et al are all just parrots of each other, sitting in a room sucking their own dicks. 

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thanks man, also this thread is funny. almost everyone who posted in this thread just wants to fuck ~18 yr old submissive korean girls. 

 

edit: me too

Edited by Slacker
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On 7/26/2018 at 4:53 AM, Ivan Ooze said:

1. Saying that an album is shit because it gets hyped and a bunch of 'hipsters' praise it but not your cool friends, is pretty lame

 

2. talking shit about an album that you haven't even given a decent listen or repeated listenens is stupid

 

3. There is nothing wrong with the production, it's supposed to sound like that, the drums smack you in the face, the vox and synths make your head pop off and the bass blows your nuts off

 

4. autechre was def an inspiration, just listen to 'pretending' and 'not okay', who the fuck cares if its not autechre level, noone is on their level

 

5. it's a very varied and exciting album if one would just take some effort to listen to it a few times but hey, who in the hell wanna do that these days

 

6.

tumblr_pbtwvrDn0K1wn30bbo1_1280.jpg

Best post on a very odd/hilarious/perplexing thread! (I don't think watmm is so vitriolic nowadays)

Though I've seen their name a lot I know fuck all about Sophie apart from the Autechre remix and I was thinking about conducting some further investigations. And this pops up.

(somebody send the thread over to Drowned In Sound forum, stand back and watch the most amazing meltdown ?)

 

Edited by beerwolf
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