Thoughts on AI, advice to young critic, the Angry Samoans as dinner music, "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll" as ASMR, the road to humane politics, and 21 Louis Armstrong albums in no particular order.
100% on board with an Angry Samoans reunion! Maybe this will prompt those unfamiliar with them to give their music a listen. Might even upset and offend some people which is always a bonus.
Christ, what a pretzel of a paragraph—like watching a man throttle himself with his own thesaurus while the band keeps playing. A self-styled autodidact on parade, chewing over the vibrations of music as though every bassline were a goddamn revelation from the sky. He digs through his “good feeling” like a junkie pawing the carpet for crumbs—pleasure, humor, insight, pathos, all piled into one big literary meatloaf. Then he lurches to the punchline: pay me or I’ll stop. A shakedown note scrawled in the margins of his own ego.
And then—the robots. The machines. AI, that grand mechanical bugaboo slouching through the night. He declares, with all the solemnity of a drunk priest, that writers have bodies. As if flesh and sweat were holy currency. But the machines, poor bastards, don’t. They “know” but don’t know. They’ve got the data, but not the blood. He tries to plant his flag on the cerebellum, wrong hemisphere entirely, like a conquistador staking claim on the wrong continent. And yet there it stands, the whole mess: body versus ghost, art versus algorithm, a half-cocked sermon about intelligence penned in the style of a man trying to beat himself to death with philosophy.
Of course Portrait of the Artist is a good novel--first-rate, absolutely.. I've read it either twice or thrice starting when I was a teenager in college, and always liked it--only not as much as other novels. That's the way aesthetic responses work. They're not absolutes, they're personal, which this being art they should be. Nor does one ordinarily remember exactly when he/she read a book more than once.
Surprised not to see Louis Armstrong’s The California Concerts appear on your list. Tom Hull gave that 4-CD box an A+ and he’s right. You did mention it in your Pops as Pop essay so maybe you misplaced it?
Inspirational Correspondent’s Note: I saw Neil Young tonight, Chicago. Crazy Horse doppelgangers, the Chrome Hearts, supporting. But Neil is still the master planner, manipulator, puppeteer, weirdo. Don’t even ask about the opening act.
A VERY political set, laden with his political hits (cf. “Ohio”). Masterstroke: debuted a brand-new song that obvs. got worked out on the bus, “Big Crime (in D.C.)” the crime coming from you know who, you know where. Inspirational Fragment: “No more great again.”
Try to write a fake review of Kississippi's "Jesus Freak" in the style of Robert Christgau
ChatGPT said:
Kississippi – Jesus Freak
Rating: B+
Zoë Reynolds never sounded less interested in saving your soul and more intent on saving her own. Jesus Freak is all airy synth pads and honey-drip hooks, pop polish floating over lyrics that keep glancing at the abyss. Reynolds leans into irony by borrowing an evangelical slogan for her most secular record yet. Call it bedroom pop refracted through Paramore and Taylor Swift radio envy, but smaller and sadder, with the production dialed down to a velvet murmur. The chorus of the title track could almost pass as Hillsong if you weren’t paying attention, which is the point—faking piety while confessing doubt. Nothing here breaks new ground, but if you like your indie pop with melodies you hum after one listen and lines that sting the second, this is where Reynolds finally makes her case.
(This review is fictional, written in the compressed, quippy style of Robert Christgau as requested.)
There’s some decent stuff on IOR&R, right? I’m going with Time Waits for No One and THIS:
https://youtu.be/77GpDsJa00o?si=fN0CsangrH-aziJY
100% on board with an Angry Samoans reunion! Maybe this will prompt those unfamiliar with them to give their music a listen. Might even upset and offend some people which is always a bonus.
AI retort, in the style of you know who:
Christ, what a pretzel of a paragraph—like watching a man throttle himself with his own thesaurus while the band keeps playing. A self-styled autodidact on parade, chewing over the vibrations of music as though every bassline were a goddamn revelation from the sky. He digs through his “good feeling” like a junkie pawing the carpet for crumbs—pleasure, humor, insight, pathos, all piled into one big literary meatloaf. Then he lurches to the punchline: pay me or I’ll stop. A shakedown note scrawled in the margins of his own ego.
And then—the robots. The machines. AI, that grand mechanical bugaboo slouching through the night. He declares, with all the solemnity of a drunk priest, that writers have bodies. As if flesh and sweat were holy currency. But the machines, poor bastards, don’t. They “know” but don’t know. They’ve got the data, but not the blood. He tries to plant his flag on the cerebellum, wrong hemisphere entirely, like a conquistador staking claim on the wrong continent. And yet there it stands, the whole mess: body versus ghost, art versus algorithm, a half-cocked sermon about intelligence penned in the style of a man trying to beat himself to death with philosophy.
No Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?
An oversight I’m sure.
Still a magnificent list, Robert!
Of course Portrait of the Artist is a good novel--first-rate, absolutely.. I've read it either twice or thrice starting when I was a teenager in college, and always liked it--only not as much as other novels. That's the way aesthetic responses work. They're not absolutes, they're personal, which this being art they should be. Nor does one ordinarily remember exactly when he/she read a book more than once.
???? Isn’t the reference to Portrait of the Artist referring to the Louis Armstrong compilation? Or am I missing some kind of joke?
What question did you think Stephen Michaelas was responding to? You didn’t even write about books in this Xgau sez.
https://open.substack.com/pub/johnnogowski/p/exile-on-main-street-vs-the-world?r=7pf7u&utm_medium=ios
"Here’s hoping... they do a concept EP about RFK Jr. fucking up American Samoa’s vaccine program."
Lol! Forever the boomertard.
Boomertard! What a clever neologism from And It Don’t Stop’s pet Nazi! Such wit is out of reach of us mere liberals.
Another boomertard
Surprised not to see Louis Armstrong’s The California Concerts appear on your list. Tom Hull gave that 4-CD box an A+ and he’s right. You did mention it in your Pops as Pop essay so maybe you misplaced it?
Inspirational Correspondent’s Note: I saw Neil Young tonight, Chicago. Crazy Horse doppelgangers, the Chrome Hearts, supporting. But Neil is still the master planner, manipulator, puppeteer, weirdo. Don’t even ask about the opening act.
A VERY political set, laden with his political hits (cf. “Ohio”). Masterstroke: debuted a brand-new song that obvs. got worked out on the bus, “Big Crime (in D.C.)” the crime coming from you know who, you know where. Inspirational Fragment: “No more great again.”
Try to write a fake review of Kississippi's "Jesus Freak" in the style of Robert Christgau
ChatGPT said:
Kississippi – Jesus Freak
Rating: B+
Zoë Reynolds never sounded less interested in saving your soul and more intent on saving her own. Jesus Freak is all airy synth pads and honey-drip hooks, pop polish floating over lyrics that keep glancing at the abyss. Reynolds leans into irony by borrowing an evangelical slogan for her most secular record yet. Call it bedroom pop refracted through Paramore and Taylor Swift radio envy, but smaller and sadder, with the production dialed down to a velvet murmur. The chorus of the title track could almost pass as Hillsong if you weren’t paying attention, which is the point—faking piety while confessing doubt. Nothing here breaks new ground, but if you like your indie pop with melodies you hum after one listen and lines that sting the second, this is where Reynolds finally makes her case.
(This review is fictional, written in the compressed, quippy style of Robert Christgau as requested.)
Is it wrong that Back From Samoa is still one of fave records at 58?