• News
    • Essential Tracks
  • ReviewsAlbum Reviews
    • Albums of the Week
  • Features
    • Beginner’s Guide
    • Blueprint
    • Celebrate the Catalogue
    • Greatest Hits
    • Hall of Fame
    • Interviews
  • Columns
    • Da Art of Storytellin’
    • Endless Playlist
    • Full Disclosure
    • Left of the Dial Top of the Charts
    • Out of Range
    • Pop Life
    • Remake/Remodel
    • Shadow of the Horns
    • Treble Roundtable
  • Lists
    • Best Of
    • Treble’s Top 10
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • About
TV_On_The_Radio_1_1290_860
Treble Roundtable

Treble Roundtable: Flawed Classics

By: Treble staff

Welcome back to the roundtable, in which Treble’s writers engage in a casual discussion on music, pop culture and our relation to both. Got a question for us? Feel free to send it over to editor@treblezine.com with the subject “Roundtable topic.”

This week’s topic: We spend a lot of time highlighting our favorite music, both new and old. But as critics, we’re faced with an uncomfortable truth—even great artists can do things that we don’t like. They’re not perfect. And we’re not always willing to admit that. However, the truth must come out eventually, and even some of our favorite records can’t escape our critical ear. So it’s time for the tough love: What personal favorite album of yours has a glaring, even distracting flaw that you find bothersome?

Sam Prickett: TV on the Radio’s ​Dear Science​ is one of my favorite albums, but I usually turn it off about six minutes before the end. That’s because “Lover’s Day” is a pretty unbearable closing track, one that caps off an album of Bush-era political anxiety with a pretty clumsy song about fucking. Maybe the suggestion here is that the only escape from a fundamentally broken world is to lose yourself in another person—which is, I guess, one way to keep such a dystopic album from leaving you in total despair. But lines like “I want to love you all the way off / I want to break your back,” and “Ecstatic disaster / Come let’s arouse the fun,” feel decidedly unsexy—and keep the song from sticking any sort of cathartic landing. ​Nine Types of Light​’s album-ending ode to caffeine is a hell of a lot more believable.

Jeff Terich: I’m a very particular listener when it comes to indie rock—just see how fast I switch the dial every time I hear one of Tame Impala’s chillwave songs. Which is all of them, now. But even someone as exhausted with second-rate Arcade Fires as I am still can’t deny the best of the ’00s indie canon—seriously, we made a whole list out of it and despite a few missing entries, I sincerely love the vast majority of these albums. One in particular that’s just loaded with anthems is Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People, a record that not only piles on some great Dinosaur Jr.-style anthems (“Almost Crimes,” “Cause=Time”) but gets weird (“Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl”) and goes dub (“Shampoo Suicide”). It’s overflowing with interesting ideas and great songs. Which makes it a little frustrating that producer Dave Newfeld couldn’t step away from the boards when the band had a good thing. All of the songs on the album are great, some of the production techniques are extremely frustrating. Why was it absolutely necessary to include studio talk throughout “Looks Just Like the Sun”? Why is Brendan Canning’s whispered voice mixed so loud in “Stars and Sons” that you can practically hear the saliva in his mouth? It’s like anti-ASMR. I’m surprised he didn’t capture the sound of someone chewing a peanut butter sandwich on here just for the sake of making an otherwise perfect noise-pop sound that much more uncomfortable. I still love this album, I just don’t always love the choices it makes.

Jacob Nierenberg: Confession time: I am a Xyloband-carrying Coldplay fan. I was in the eleventh grade when Mylo Xyloto was released, and I remember driving to my local Best Buy right after school to purchase the CD the day it hit the shelves. I loved it then and I still enjoy it now, but even after the first few spins, I couldn’t ignore how overproduced this album is; listening to it can feel like looking at an Instagram post with ten filters applied. “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall,” “Hurts Like Heaven” and “Charlie Brown” are good songs that could have been great if they didn’t sound too lush, too glossy.

John-Paul Shiver: Laurel Halo, the American-born producer, musician, and DJ, has released four dissimilar studio albums since 2012, which move briskly from experimental pop, through minimal techno, to evergreen-ambient textures. Her avant-garde technique remains steadfast. To alter the properties of sound by tinkering with the roles that voice, machines and wide-open spaces can play in modern music. The last two solo records, Raw Silk Uncut Wood for Latency and Dust for Hyperdub, used ambient noise-electronic or classically informed-as a function to either meditate by or move to. It’s easy to get flummoxed witnessing her wringing and twisting the bejeezus out of the sixty-eighth edition of the DJ-Kicks mix series from this past March, on which Halo expertly shuffles musical microclimates like a card shark elbow greasing a three-card molly hustle. Presenting 29 tracks in 60 minutes (DAMN), she drags friends, unknown artists, and leftfield thinkers to walk through this door with her. Like a car mechanic dying to use every tool in the garage, the amalgam captures a specific eagerness: with tempo, dressed in polychromatic tones, throttling past our eyes and ears. Halo, caters the style of the mix to the terrain of the song. Maneuvering through fierce arpeggios, ruff bass lines, space-age micro-house, and machine-like landscapes.

My one quibble is the two minutes per song average happening here. Eating before listening to this is an adventurous choice. Understand, I easily regard this mix as one of the best in the series ever. EVER. Up there with Moodyman, Kemistry & Storm, Andrea Parker and Robert Hood. She never lets us come up for air. From the chimes that start it off, we are desperately trying to hustle forward to keep up. We are bullied into submission and become resolute with the fact, being on edge is the ruse here. Again, Halo is an ultimate wizard at corralling sound tunnels that move faster than The Autobahn at rush hour. But damn Lady, can we hang out with a track for a second before we grabbing our coats?

Konstantin Rega: If you want weirdly great or greatly weird in the jazz biz, Pat Metheny is your man, and your band (Pat Metheny Group). He is a fantastic guitarist and has worked with some of the biggest and best names in the genre. Like his contemporary, Chick Corea, or other experimental jazzers, Metheny is excels at improvising. On his group’s 1984 album First Circle, their best song is the second track, “Yolanda, You Learn”, which winds about a loose melody with guitar, drums, and brass, as well as his iconic word-less vocals. However, this great song is belittled by its summation, which recedes off into a fade just when Metheny is getting somewhere new and darn well good. Actually, he has done this on several occasions: on his album Still Life (Talking) (1987) and We Live Here (1995). Just when the buildup is getting going, he pulls out, leaving the listener lost and not just a bit upset… Perhaps he does this to make the “buildup” all the more standout, but he still lessens, I think, the impact of his masterful creativity as a whole. But with that said, I dearly love his works and continue to ignore these, how shall I put it, artistic misdemeanors.

William Lewis: I’m a sucker for M83′s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. But the thing is just so damn long. Which I wouldn’t even mind that much if they hadn’t grouped the best songs toward the beginning and end of the album. There’s only so many thick guitar chords and synth builds one can stand before it’s time to skip a few tracks.

Jul 19, 2019Jeff Terich
Iggy Pop announces new album, FreeThe Replacements announce Don't Tell A Soul box set reissue, Dead Man's Pop
Home Treble Roundtable: Flawed Classics
July 19, 2019 3 Comments Treble RoundtableBroken Social Scene, Coldplay, Laurel Halo, M83, pat metheny, TV on the Radio
Comments: 3
  1. Elra
    July 19, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    One man’s trash….all the ‘flaws’ Jeff Terich mentions about ‘You Forgot it in People’ are things that I find absolutely fascinating about the production on that album. I speak along with the studio chatter on ‘Looks Just Like the Sun’ as if they were lyrics. Embracing a perceived flaw comes with repeated listening, I find, and becomes an idiosyncrasy instead. (Also Tame Impala’s hardly chillwave, come on.)

    ReplyCancel
    • Jeff Terich
      July 19, 2019 at 3:49 pm

      That’s cool! I don’t expect everyone or even anyone to agree with me. It’s just my own hangup.

      …but those new Tame Impala singles are definitely chillwave.

      ReplyCancel
      • Elra
        July 21, 2019 at 4:28 am

        Of course! I appreciate your opinion. And hey, there’s plenty of albums I LOVE that have moments I can’t stand, totally relate to that. I never liked that the tracks don’t fade into each other on ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’, for example. Maybe other people love that, and that’s them.
        …And I’d call the singles ‘shimmering disco-pop’ but that’s splitting hairs I suppose haha

        ReplyCancel

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Album of the Week
Blood Incantation Hidden History of the Human Race review

Album of the Week: Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race






The Denver band set a new, high bar for death metal with an album that challenges its limits.

Category: Album of the Week, Album Reviews

Top Stories
  • The 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2019
  • Deafheaven announce 10th anniversary tour
  • KAYTRANADA announces new album, BUBBA
  • Tame Impala announce tour dates with Perfume Genius
  • The Flaming Lips announce collaborative album with Deap Vally, Deap Lips
  You Might Also Like  
 
News

Broken Social Scene, Constantines to play Arts & Crafts Field Trip

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/broken-social-scene-constantines-play-arts-crafts-field-trip/' addthis:title='Broken Social Scene, Constantines to play Arts & Crafts Field Trip' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>Chvrches, The Kills, Washed Out also on the bill.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

 
Greatest Hits

Greatest Hits: M83

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/27273-greatest-hits-best-m83-songs/' addthis:title='Greatest Hits: M83' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>78 minutes of dreamy, big-hearted bliss.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

 
News

Broken Social Scene announce tour dates

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/35207-broken-social-scene-tour-dates-announced-2017/' addthis:title='Broken Social Scene announce tour dates' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>Hear new track "Hug of Thunder," with Feist.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

 
Best Of, Feature

Best Songs Ever of 2005

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/best-songs-ever-of-2005/' addthis:title='Best Songs Ever of 2005' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>The top 40 songs of the year, as voted by the fine staff here at Treble.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

 
Column, Pet Grief

The Annual Hot 100 Survey

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/the-annual-hot-100-survey/' addthis:title='The Annual Hot 100 Survey' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>Getting re-acquainted with the hits.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

 
News

New Releases: 5/20

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/new-releases-5-20/' addthis:title='New Releases: 5/20' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>New albums by The Roots, Coldplay, Conor Oberst out today.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

 
News

Broken Social Scene announce spring tour dates

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/broken-social-scene-spring-tour-announced/' addthis:title='Broken Social Scene announce spring tour dates' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>U.S. dates, including Bonnaroo and Pickathon.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

 
Best Of, Feature

The Top 50 Songs of 2010

<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons above -->
<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style" addthis:url='https://www.treblezine.com/the-top-50-songs-of-2010/' addthis:title='The Top 50 Songs of 2010' >
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_compact"></a>
<a class="addthis_counter addthis_bubble_style"></a>
</div>The 50 best jams of the past 12 months.<!-- AddThis Sharing Buttons below -->

  • News
  • Album Reviews
    • Album of the Week
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • Best Of
    • Celebrate the Catalog
    • Hold On To Your Genre
    • Treble’s Top 10
  • Columns
    • History’s Greatest Monsters
    • Remake/Remodel
    • Perversity
    • Pet Grief
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • About Us
2019 © Treble Media