Bradford Cox Interview

[Boxbie]

This is so Fucken good. Even when the weight of is argument threatens to capsize the point he is still bang on target.

One of the best. They should be way bigger than they are.

https://youtu.be/MFH5gUTgcaw

[snipelfritz]

Wow...not quite five minutes in and that was utterly UNBEARABLE.

In 1:19-1:56, that guy took Trump-style rambling stupidity and cranked it to the absolute limit on unlikability.

"To me...my personal take, I mean, y'know, it's not that I feel like my artistic or uh creative interests are fading or my ability to improvise with my group or other artists or visually, graphically, film, things of that nature but I feel like um that culture, and I'm not just blaming industries that propagate culture but culture itself is fading a bit."

THAT'S 37 SECONDS OF SAYING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT SOMEHOW STARTING IT WITH GIVING HIMSELF A PAT ON THE BACK

If you think that meant anything coherent to you, you're on the same level of broken as sparrow seeing snake-people faces in the Golden Girl's hair.

I listened a little more, and this guy is seriously the pretentious, art school version of Donald Trump (all self-righteousness without saying anything of substance whatsoever), if he was portrayed by Emo Phillips (except that would make him likable).

[popvulture]

I love Bradford.

[baremountain]

I like Bradford & his artistic sensibilities, but it is taxing to hear him talk sometimes. I like what he has to say, but I wish he were a little less self-righteous in saying it, ya know?
While he was talking about 'safe' music that replicates the feeling of music that already exists I just couldn't help but think "this is exactly why I think Fading Frontier was a huge misstep in their catalog". At least he called himself out on that though? Idk.

I miss old Deerhunter - I caught 'em live this past tour and I was disappointed by how un-improvisitory the set felt compared to seeing them 3x around Monomania (they were pretty good then) and right after Halcyon Digest came out (second best show of my life, right behind My Bloody Valentine - totally powerful and engaging). It makes sense they have less room for improv because they added two touring musicians to round out their band, but if they weren't trying to play the boring BS from their new album they wouldn't need a 3rd guitarist and keyboard player who don't quite fit as part of the band and were most definitely always just "playing the parts".

[popvulture]

Funny, I saw them a couple weeks ago and they were really, really great. Closed the set with old stuff, including "Flourescent Grey," which made me happy. Final song was "Nothing Ever Happened," and they definitely stretched it out quite a bit. Also earlier in the set, many songs had been re-worked for the new lineup, and had an awesome sort of funk edge to them. There was saxophone. Palatable saxophone.

His self-righteousness has never bothered me, as it's never seemed to come from a hostile place. I think he's just a true weirdo. Dunno—I think there are many, many more people to get mad at.

[Boxbie]

Ok, so you've got to take into context that he's made amazing records for over a decade. And he's kind of trolling the guy too.

Most played band on the station? Disclosure!

[snipelfritz]

Always separate the art from the artist. For better or for worse.

Plus, Deerhunter was always second behind Deerhoof.

Maybe this guy would've been considered edgy in 1991, but damn, is this tryhard and shallow in the 2010's. Where the fuck is Spacey? He'd back me on this (in far less nuanced language).

[D.o.S.]

Long boring original reply:

NSFW: show

Indie Rock's Tom Petty Delivers Surface Level Talking Points.

Record Execs Hate #2!

or: Mid 00's Courtney Love Impersonator winds up on Radio.

actual thought: I think it was Chris Ott who said that the hallmark of a music writer that was worth reading was that, whether you shared or agreed with the taste of the writer, you could know a lot about their views on music by simply reading the writing. I think this is a pretty good litmus test for anyone that talks about any sort of creative or ambiguous entity, as well, and I think that's sort of why I'm compelled to say that this is rambling nonsense. I'm not going to presume that he's loaded but I would be very unsurprised if he was.

"Tastes are being engineered, everything is content, everything is editorial, everything is designed to push you one way or another." Sure. That's not new. And then Royal Trux appears... because reasons? Major labels don't sign outre bands anymore because it's not a legitimate business model? Sure.

The thrust of the interview, as far as I can see (and it's 3:40 am so I may be missing something), is that this dude is not happy about a viable, uniform "alternative" music existing in opposition to mainstream artistic interests. That this phenomenon doesn't have to exist anymore could be a good thing, I think.

His bit about everything being available all the time and how horrible that is... I feel like Albini did a really good synopsis of the positives of that same discussion a couple of years ago here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz_CPzuwSk4

The whole talk has a ton of perspective on the issue (probably stemming from the fact that SA is 30? years older than this dude), but the part I'd like to highlight is at the 19:50 mark onward.

Woke up in the morning and realized I could do better reply:

"Wow, I guess casecandy really isn't doing too well these days."