sherburne on underworld
 

http://www.emusic.com/features/spotl...81_200610.html

an interesting take, sure to inspire ire

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

Hmmm... I find that I am inclined to dissagree with almost every single point that he makes.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

well, i find that i agree with him about their relevance. he pretty much hit the nail and called it out in terms of what underworld means to the larger audience. it's even rather true about dubnobass. it *was* an accident. a mash of tracks they did in a post-mk1 haze that they realized would make a good album (something sid in an interview at some point), but things get cold when he starts trying to analyze the feel of STITI and conclude that it was grasping at straws or going unbalanced. he praises the linearity of twist in one breath, and mentions the album rowla is on as 'going through the motions.' the frantic aspect of pearl's girl is construed as a bad thing (???), and the criticism gets more abstract and stops saying anything valuable altogether in talking about beaucoup fish.
he uses the jarring aspects of their tunes and, from what i can tell, the variation and different attitudes contained within each one, as a sign of failure, and that the desire to load a song with sounds is supposed to be a creative dead end. this isnt a fucking theivery corporation album. the CD isnt going to be water off a duck's back, it's going to be different. not blow your mind different, and not especially harder to digest, but as one good line put it, "the fiftieth listen is better than the fifth." this doesnt especially warm them to everyone, but the people who would have problems with it can name a lot of things about the music that bother them a lot more than just FLOW.

he also implies that this is division of styles is signifying a lack of creative inspiration, and that they dont know what they're doing. now, let's bring tomato into this. i dont know about you guys, but a large part of why i include 'beaucoup fish' as possible favorite of mine is because the visual aspects of the album --brought out in their videos, live tour, artwork-- reached the high point. it was brilliant and inseperable. dubnobass was certainly incredible on this front in terms of album artwork, but i dont feel the same inseperable aspects, as that artwork could stand alone in the 'skyscraper' book, and frankly the videos were rather weak and the style undeveloped. BF introduced to me how such abstract visuals could fuse to music on a fundamental level. it's not "music videos", where fast music gets fast imagery... it's opening different possibilites for the visual medium in electronic music other than hyper-technologial fetishism (something electronic music in general is always in danger of), and being specific to the same aesthetic that ran the album.

all this noise and praise might not detract from the fact that it was also UW's major break from the public, and i'm not contesting that, but that seems to be also his main argument behind the creative fall of underworld, and that an album as relatively lousy as AHDO (a lot of individual tracks are great, but it never really came together as a whole for me) is actually a blueprint for future brilliance. theres a reason why the riverruns have been so refreshing, and it's because they realized they needed to pull out of the complacency apparent on ahdo and especially on tracks like DA3D. while i do agree that they sound like they're trying to find themselves again, i dont think it really lies in AHDO, and the hasty rationalizations for their increasing obscurity seem casually lazy and dont serve as a good bridge to his future points. perhaps a large reason that half as many people bought AHDO was because with the much more pervalent P2P, people could just casually download and listen to see if it was really worth forking the cash for, and unless you were a FAN, there was little to immediately say this one should have been bought over a host of other ones that year, if indeed these people bought albums anymore.

and on a basic level, this guy just sounds old. he basically called out 'kittens' for fulfilling a depraved drug high and overshooting the mark, then favored 'twist' for its light touches of whathaveyous and "flavor." personally i prefer a relentless beat with a lot of noise and without the drugs than the lazy-sunday "chill down compilation"-ness of twist. if your basic problem involves you covering your ears and complaining about the bass, then you're just asking your bands to be friendlier to you, not to find a creative spark.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

Who the f*ck is Philip Sherburne anyway and why should we care about anything he says? ;)

really, I really don't see the point of some columnist overanalysing some band or some music and trying to prove some "point" that can't be proven and using lots of big fancy words to do it.

uhhh....yeah man. Like...totally...whatever.
It's not even clear what the piece is supposed to be... is it a review of AHDO, or some sort of career overview?

His comments about STITI alone are proof enough that the guy doesn't have a clue. Or rather, proof enough that an opinion is just that, an opinion.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

He has to make a living somehow, the poor man! :p

And it is so much more fashionable these days for critics to be, well, critical, especially on the other side of the pond.

He has some good points in there, but he strikes me more as someone who has barely listened to the music at all, almost certainly never set foot in an Underworld gig in his life, and is putting his own spin on already-published articles that have been written over the years, with a huge leap in assumption to replace actual knowledge and/or proper research.

But hey. We are the "hardcore fans" after all. So we are not going to appreciate the negativity.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

i wonder if he gets paid to mention villalobos in every freaking article he writes these days....

besides that, the article doesn't appear to me as necessarily negative...

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

I just can't agree with his points, he's just wrong :p


And he should listen to STITI more :p

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

the response was shocking

KOS i especially love your manifold defense mechanism-statements

Sherburne is probably the best person writing anything on techno today. he also spins techno. he opened for Michael Mayer in NYC not very long ago. not that i agree with him either, Beaucoup Fish is still my favorite.

anyway, last night i dreamt that UW released a new, 2CD version of AHDO and it was a million million times better.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

Come, now. Are you sure you were shocked, having posted a vaguely negative article about UW on .... wait for it ... an Underworld Forum? I think, rather, you posted, then sat back and ate popcorn as you flushed out the fanboy/fangirls with their "manifold defence mechanisms" as usual duckie?

Ah well. Hope you have fun. Blood sports are traditional on Boxing Day after all. :p

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

That is really insightful BLD. :rolleyes:

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

christ you're unappealing

as i said, i thought it was "an interesting take, sure to inspire ire"

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

i don't care about Villalobos either, but HOW OLD ARE YOU?

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

And christ, you are incapable of conducting a sensible, intelligent discussion without making personal comments.

If you had something sensible to say about the article and the music other than "I had a dream they released a 2 CD version of AHDO" then it would be worthy of discussion.

You are trolling, Duckie. You are enjoying every minute of it. It is in your nature. I don't give a flying f*ck whether you think I am "appealing" or not, but if you are going to spout BS and make personal comments about forum members again instead of adding something sensible to a topic, you can expect to get called on it.

Now I am sure there must be a spider in the corner that you could pull the legs off instead, if you are that bored.

Alternatively, you could add to this topic by some serious musical opinion, at which point I will engage with you on a sensible level.

Ta.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

anyway, i think his view is definitely colored by his own fixation on minimal, and that genre's concepts of 'balance' and 'restraint', esp. given how he compares his favorite tracks on AHDO to Villalobos and Luciano.

(does Villalobos count as minimal?)

it's also ironic that he doesn't think to read any of UW's albums as albums, since he's (said that he's) a bedroom listener at heart. i do kind of agree with him on STITI, though--it always felt a bit too big, like every track was trying to reach a bit too far. and the drum & bass track (i forget the title) always felt a little too timely & obvious. i think i never thought of STITI in these terms because the uniform production (smooth, hazy, like in 'soft-focus') made me want the whole thing to make sense.

but better that than (as dubman says) AHDO-esque complacency..

ps. i wrote this before reading Beautiful Burnout's motherly scolding

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

hey, what happened to BLD's last post?

i was going to say that: you're right, but i don't know of any other bloggers/writers who actually care about techno. most of the ones i know are all about 'urban' music etc.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

HAH!!!

So if you wrote that before my motherly scolding... how come you knew I had given you a motherly scolding? Ain't seein' no "last edited by..." on your post! :D

Nuff scolding now, anyway. ;)


Aside from that, I think there is a time-warp in that he tries to compare STITI with a genre that is really much more recent (and, yeah, Villalobos is minimal in my book). It is a bit like comparing apples and oranges imo. STITI pushed the boundaries at the time, exploring different musical areas, not just "dance" or "prog" or "ambient" but, for example, with tracks like Juanita/Kiteless/TDOL, were developping a more whole, rounded piece that incorporated
all of those things in a single piece.

I am really not suprised that Juanita comes up as the fan's favourite in polls because it represents the essence of the whole UW sound. Something that is difficult to categorise.

As for Sherburne being a "bedroom listener" that would tend to indicate to me that he would listen to albums as a whole, wouldn't it?

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

the fact is this: i thought the article was interesting, and immediately thought to post it on dirty. the first association i make with dirty is Underworld, whether that's right or not. i also knew that i was NOT looking forward to continue posting in a thread on dirty about this article, if i chose to actually do so. there's a reason i never post in this particular forum. there are other forums i go to for "serious music discussion", when i need it, but no one on any of them gives a toss about Underworld (except for ... two people).

the fact is, i am not enjoying this at all, but i also couldn't stop myself from getting annoyed. i know--in which i shouldn't have posted a link to (what i thought was) an interesting article in the first place. but the anti-intellectual attitude expressed in KOS's post is literally one of my top 5 pet peeves, next to racism and dead bugs.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

i thought that bit about being a real techno DJ (!!) and opening for Mayer probably came across as too star-struck. i don't even think i agree with him a lot (for one, he's completely up his arse about dubstep), but i still think he writes intelligently about techno. and i like having HIM around, since it'd be really easy to ignore (from a critical perspective). anyway, i appreciate it.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

because "last edited by..." doesn't show up if you edit your post quickly enough

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

I'm going to have to admit that I agree with the article's view of STITI when I first heard the album. As a teenager, all I wanted from the album was more of the "cool" sound of Pearl's Girl. I really hated STITI.

But it grew on me. I listened to the album more and more, and now it has become one of my favorite albums of all time. It simply is one of those albums that isn't "heard" and understood right off the bat. It grew on me and I started hearing more out of the album's tracks that I did at first. It reminds me of jazz, because at first listen (at least to me) the average person doesn't really "feel" and understand jazz (I was the same way). The more I listen to it, the more I "feel" it and understand it's complexities. STITI is in my opinion a very "deep" album. My biggest example being Sappy's Curry (and Banstyle too).

and I'll stop using "quotes" now :D

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

goddamnit i hate how somehow i never stay logged in. had a thought out reply to all this mess and now its gone.

so in essence:
it was good to post the article, it lets people step out of their fanboy bubble and discuss underworld in the context of everyone else, not just you and underworld. even though i dismissed 2/3rds of it because i'm and underworld fan and he's a minimalist (something i dont really see the point in), i thought it was much more thought out than the responses it got ("he's obviously never been to a live show") and certainly the accusations of trolling were. articles like these should help forum members articulate *why* they love underworld past "OMG THEY BRING LIGHT IN" and look at what their beliefs are that lead to that in contrast with his. i'd rather be talking about this (because this place *can* talk about music seriously, thanks, it just doesnt happen (as) often), like whether or not underworld fail their attempts at transcendance because of the music's structure, then talking about hypothetical collaborations, niggling unreleased shit, and shit posted on ebay (except for the tokyo cds, that was rad).

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

To clarify: the accusation of trolling came not from the posting of the article itself, but from the "ha ha look at the fanboys' responses *pointing finger*" reaction, with no comment on the article at all. That was, imo, an unhelpful thing to post, taking the focus away from the subject matter, (which is the reason for posting the article in the first place, it seems,) and veering in the direction of personal attack instead of musical debate. I thought I said that earlier :confused:

Yes, it is important to have musical debate here. It is important for people to examine why it is they like or dislike a particular track or a particular album if they want to. It is also important to remember that nobody is obliged to, and everyone is entitled to an opinion. And, while intellectualism has its place, discussions on the relative merits of intellectualism vs anti-intellectualism would be better suited to the world forum than to the music sections.

The wonderful thing about Dirty is that it unites people from all ages, backgrounds, creeds, colours, walks of life and occupations. Some are intellectual, some are not, some are anti-intellectual. Some express themselves marvellously eloquently, others don't. But we all like the music otherwise we wouldn't be here and that is the cement of the forum. There is no such thing as "too thick to like Underworld" to the best of my knowledge :p ;)

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

the issue behind the pointing and laughing at the fanboys was how utterly incapable a majority were at being able to craft a decent response that didnt call him coked out or ignorant. whether this guy knows what he's talking about or not, he's respected enough to be widely read, and now that he takes a potshot at UW, all of a sudden he's 10 different synonyms of "washed-up". thats why you get laughed at.

and what the hell do you mean when you say intellectualism has its place? we're still talking about underworld, and we're still definately talking about music. this is just incorporating a certain attitude that's pretty pervalent in this forum into that discussion and to say that "now you're thinking too hard, take it to the world forum" is A BIG REASON why it's hard to take this section seriously sometimes.


that sounds just peachy, but you're talking about the internet more than you're talking about dirty. and letting everyone float around in this haze "i just want to BE, man" without having to explain themselves allows DUMBASSES to get away with their dumbass opinion because they're simply "not eloquent" and "there's a place for intellectualism" when really you're just faced with someone whos lazy and doesnt register this conceptual bubble of uncritical and forced acceptance, even in the face of something ludicrous. it's just a place here their dumbassery goes unmolested.

but now i'm talking about the internet and not dirty, so let me relate this back to here.
what you're doing, is by forcibly accepting all and trying to understand and adapt to everyone character, is encouraging stultifying, non-critical conversation that repress things like heatedness and your interpretation of "negative vibes" simply for what? someone's ego? because dirty is such a safe haven that peoples bad argument skills shouldnt be pointed out and their ignorance ignored? this forum isnt going to shit because a few people viciously argue about something. it goes to shit when no one here has a reason past unfocused anger or bleeding positivity. the glue you're talking about is a fairly loose one and it implies that just because you like underworld that you're a voice worth hearing around here. i cant think of many members that contradict that (well, i can, but this isnt the place) but the logic is flawed, not to mention self-insulating.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

So what you are effectively saying is that the people who cannot argue with the same intellectual capacities as you have no voice here, without risking ridicule from the elite few who happen to have an excellent education and above-average argument skills? Jesus, this is a music forum, not the College debating union. It is not about form, it is about substance. If one constantly ignores the substance to criticise the form from ones elitist ivory tower, it alienates the 95% of the population who do not have the same debating skills as you, and they stop posting for fear of being remonstrated with for not being intellectually up-to-the-mark. That is what stultifies discussion. Self-styled, snug intellectuals with their "holier than thou", self-mastubatory rhetoric and critique of those less eloquent than they. There is a huge difference between education and intelligence.

Tell me, would you use the same language talking to the guy in McDonalds, and mock him if he replied with weak argumentative skills? Or would you just not engage in conversation with him in the first place because he is not worthy?

There is a big world out there - not everyone is as fortunate as you or I to have had the educational opportunities we have. Not everyone is fortunate enought to have the intellectual capacity we have. Do we therefore disregard anything they have to say and mock them when they say it? Not I, sir. Not I.

</rant>

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

alright, i'll bite. i read the article and it's not a diss piece on UW. p.s. is clearly wrong about STITI but he does make some good points. i'll start with the bullshit and work up to the good stuff.

Sherburne calls UW a "brand" early on and i haven't got a clue what he means. more than anything, i think this shows he's ignorant of how UW operate. does he even know about Tomato? Clear case of bullshit.

P.S. says Karl's statement on RA wasn't convincing. How well does he know Karl? Why wasn't it convincing? I was convinced. I don't think Karl Hyde is in the game of deceiving interviewers to sound more respectable. The RA interview was great, but it didn't help with Sherburne's preplanned thesis on his UW piece, so he said he didn't believe the quote. Lazy and self serving.

The thesis of this piece could have easily been: UW once were on top of the world (dubno/trainspotting etc) but are now satisfied with a much quieter existence, happy to experiment and do things their own way with no regard for sales figures, the antithesis of a "brand". Sherburne off the mark again.

Then he quotes an idiot: "Their polarizing abilities are evident in the comment from an eMusic subscriber who complains about the site's categorization of their iconic album Second Toughest in the Infants as house and techno: "Do you need help classifying music? This is not house. This is ambient."
- why quote an idiot P.S.? cuz only an idiot would agree with your preplanned thesis? if you put weight on a statement from a retarded moron who thinks STITI is ambient, then you're a fucking tool, even duller than once thought.

The single most ridiculous and heinous part of Sherburne's piece was this chestnut: "Second Toughest feels more like a cut-and-paste job, a collage of pieces that don't really have anything to do with one another. "Confusion the Waitress" is the only track that retains the restraint of the earlier album; the rest feels either frantic ("Pearls Girl") or affectedly slack ("Stagger")."
- no comment necessary. this is so laughable we don't need to list the hundreds of reasons he's wrong. clueless coked up asshole, should have been my quote earlier.

Now for the good bit. He concludes pretty much on target:

"With the benefit of a whole lot of hindsight, A Hundred Days Off sounds less like the contractual obligation of a group past its prime and more like the blueprint for what could be the best work of Underworld's career. With a lightness of touch you don't often hear in main-stage techno, the album reclaims the balance of Dubnobass and redefines the terms for any "take 'em or leave 'em" scenario. With a new album reportedly due by the end of the year, let's hope Underworld's low profile continues to prove as inspiring as their fall from grace did"


this leads me to believe Sherburne is really a fan, but a fan who had to write a specific word count and couldn't be bothered to do a decent article. he does get UW, but his view of STITI is ignorant and offensive.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

get a life, people

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

agent provocateur :p

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

I find it interesting that he mentions the riverrun stuff, but has he even listened to it? There's a whole bunch of new music to talk about and we end up with a reviews of albums that have been out for a while. AHDO is not a pointer to the future, riverrun and the latest live stuff is.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

in the time you (and others) wrote all that stuff you could've done much more useful things. seriously, i have some essays due in january....wanna write them for me?

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

.... watched telly, played scrabble, ate mince pies (again) chatted online. boxing day is bloody boring! I like something to make my brain work when I am on holiday. :D

Excellent point. Which goes back to my theory about lack of knowledge and/or research. Lazy journalism imo.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

bla bla bla

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

substance, what?
where?

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

Show me the substance in Kid Cue's first two posts, then we have the substance of a discussion.

Q.E.D

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

this is such a straw-man argument it's actually (just mildly) depressing. 'Ivory Tower'? i am talking about being willing to accept a given piece of writing as intelligent and worth engaging on its own terms, without bashing its use of vocabulary, or cringing at the possibility of overanalysis. this is hardly Derrida or Zizek (neither of whom i have even read). this is the basis of a discussion!

the great irony of your (self-styled, snug, holier-than-thou) rant is that it's as much a knee-jerk reaction against fictional people ("me", Philip Sherburne), whose one goal in life is to look & feel smart, as are the lamest knee-jerk reactions against an article like Sherburne's. you are embodying exactly what i am criticizing! this is the #1 thing preventing people from having a real discussion on this forum! and then you tell me i'm not capable of having one, as if it's only a valid serious discussion in your eyes if i'm some kind of mild-mannered, pandering, colloquial girl-next-door!

it says a lot about how the tone of the forum has shifted, when 3/4 of the most interesting & popular threads on dirty.org (before you were here) used to be based on hotheaded arguments (serious ones, but ones that you would no doubt frown upon), and now it's always "duckie is a big bad troll, up to his usual antics again". come aahhhn!

there was no ha-ha-ing, either. you like to think you're good at seeing what's really going on, don't you? that what's really happening is that duckie is thinking "ha ha what a bunch of morans!!!!!!!!!" to himself instead of thinking "god wtf !@!$@$!$!!!!" and yet i've clearly never expressed any sentiment but the latter (that being, frustration).

i wouldn't be frustrated if this forum actually were populated solely by people who work in McDonalds (in which case i suppose i'd understand any lack of, i dunno, stimulation--but isn't that itself elitist? and yet it's the basis of your rant), but i'm fairly certain that everyone here is capable--if not willing--to have a discussion "of substance".

(i'm going to skip the confusing treatment of "form" vs. "substance".)

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

can we just get into a heated discussion please? i layed out my issues with the article. tell me how i'm wrong. or agree with me. let's discuss UW's shift from Festival Headliners to artsy autuers. anything. something. please.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

i think he was saying that Karl was probably trying to preserve the image of the band, avoiding an image of 'falling from grace' or whatever. i don't agree or disagree, but it's true that Karl is almost always the spokesperson for the group, and he definitely does tend spin things in a very PR-friendly way (i hope he's not reading this!).

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

i still disagree w/ you about AHDO. what about it makes it quintessential UW? how come Sherburne is suddenly an UW fan who 'gets' UW just because he likes that album?

to me AHDO is much more a case of UW self-consciously consolidating what defines their sound, rather than channeling anything fundamental about them.

his praise of AHDO also seems to be based on how much it resembles the minimal he's into, not how Underworld it is.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

I have no desire for you to be either mild-mannered, pandering or girl-next-door. What bugs me about, in particular, your second post here is that instead of adding anything intelligent to the discussion, as Dubman did, you chose instead to criticise the other posters. You seem to be gifted in bringing a discussion down to personal attack with amazing ease.

As I said hours ago, if you want to sneer at people it is up to you. Just don't expect me to sit here and be a "pandering girl-next-door" and not call you out on it.

Or are you the only one who has the right to criticise other posters here?

Live by the sword...

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

god you just go in circles. is that a personal attack? oh god, i'm sorry.

Re: sherburne on underworld
 

... whereas you just go off at a tangent when someone calls you out, in an attempt to justify why it was you mocked people for not responding in the manner you consider to be a correct treatment of the subject matter (although you knew very well, as you have said yourself, that you would provoke precisely the kind of response you did from a number of the members here by posting the article in the first place).

Backpedal all you like, mate. :)