2014, the fairly unassuming year with its share of good releases and its deficit in anything ‘groundbreaking’. The critics hummed and hawed over petty feuds between The War on Drugs and Sun Kil Moon and boring guitar music continued to drone lifelessly from both camps. Like two dads bickering drunkenly to the mild amusement of almost nobody, music journalism picked sides to make a definitive statement in a climate where nothing definitive or statement worthy was happening.
Socially conscious bloggers drove Ariel Pink’s newest release into a chasm of ‘problematic’ groupthink and strung him high for his complicity in the crimes of the patriarchal state. Commentary surged from all sides with some having the audacity to question, “wait, what was the sexist part?”. Meanwhile, albums were panned after the lippy missteps of their creators and critics proved that they are much more qualified to discuss the social context of music than the music itself, which nobody really remembers anyway.
In the great year of mouthing off, even the reclusive enigma that is Richard D. James, rose forth from his 7 year hiatus to shed some unwanted light on his belief in the 911 conspiracy.
I hope this year has taught us to offer art some asylum from it’s unstable environment. It isn’t art’s fault that it grew up around a bunch of assholes. Sometimes the kid with the immature, misogynistic, conspiracy obsessed father can be the most interesting of the lot.
I can’t say I know what I want from this blog yet but I know I’ll be reviewing music. I can promise that much. And I mean music, the actual sound waves.
A particular sound!
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