I was wondering when you would get to this in your McCullough retrospective. It is notorious, of course. As I remember it, Tony Wilson and the surviving band members were furious. And there is no denying that the last two paragraphs - in particular, the first sentence of the penultimate paragraph - are catastrophically ill-judged. But I think overall it is better than its reputation suggests. He's writing with raw feelings that are genuinely powerful, and incline me to forgive the points where he gets carried away and goes too far. And he situates Curtis in a place and time better than any other writer before or since. A work of flawed genius.
reading matters 2: keeping it in the Family
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Our Kid with a Rabbit Holed about the wacky world of the Young
Wikipedians who are frenziedly writing the second draft of music history.
(The first draft...
faves of the 2010s
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(Tracks not full lengths)
Ke$ha – “We R Who We R”
Ke$ha - “Backstabber”
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, "Round and Round"
Rangers – “Golden Triangles”...
Acen apex
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This video for the Monolithikmaniak mix of “Window in the Sky” - only to be
found in this fuzzy, off-TV video cassette recording - is some kind of
audio...
asignifying craft
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… a new millennium style of pop writing / rock criticism that is cautious
about reaching for significance and concentrates instead on a kind of
inventory...
Visual Music - a lecture, by me
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*Visual Music - a talk at the Tate Modern, July 27 2018*
*Presented by 4:3 as part of the Uniqlo Tate Late series*
There is a subset of experimental ani...
Corduroy Psychedelia
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Interesting piece at *Split Infinities *on a band that is getting talked
about at the moment but written before all the are-they-or-aren't-they buzz
"Am...
The Red Hot Chilli Peppers
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In honour of the new RHCP doc, which is focused on Hillel Slovak, their
tragically-died-young guitarist, and in further honour of Flea's jazz ...
Futuromania - the paperback
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The paperback edition of Futuromania has just come out
Older eyes will recognise the graphic design's nod to this best-seller of
the 1970s
...
angel delights
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https://rada-ve.bandcamp.com/track/saturn-rings-songs
*Go on* - listen to that gorgeous bubble bath of synthtronica!
Another vintage release, with a vi...
I was wondering when you would get to this in your McCullough retrospective. It is notorious, of course. As I remember it, Tony Wilson and the surviving band members were furious. And there is no denying that the last two paragraphs - in particular, the first sentence of the penultimate paragraph - are catastrophically ill-judged. But I think overall it is better than its reputation suggests. He's writing with raw feelings that are genuinely powerful, and incline me to forgive the points where he gets carried away and goes too far. And he situates Curtis in a place and time better than any other writer before or since. A work of flawed genius.
ReplyDeleteYes it's overwraught but absolutely forgivable in the circumstances I think - and authentic in its heroizing impulse.
ReplyDelete