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.
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Pure Inspiration
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Well, I may not have provoked a musician to pen a retaliation tune (unlike
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crit...
Presentemanía
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In November last year, Kieran and I joined Argentine critics *Pablo
Schanton* and *Antonia Kon* to discuss music writing and music's future as
part o...
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
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Absolutely *fascinating* current affairs programme from 1972 looking at
advice columnists - Dr Stephen Black talks to Marjorie Proops of the *Daily
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Letter to a Young Music Critic
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The easy answer: if you want your writing to be more passionate, write
about things you feel passionate about
Otherwise it can feel a bit forced
If you ...
Fuck Art, Let's Dance / Fuck Dance, Let's Art
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*(a talk I gave at Harvard in 2012 at a conference on Art + Rock) *
“When 'art' walks through the door, it's got 15 suitcases full of very
smelly washi...
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”...
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...
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