The Album Review Club - Week #145 - (page 1923) - Tellin' Stories - The Charlatans

FogBlueInSanFran said:
But I didn’t describe you nor your review as harsh, mate. At worst I intimated that the record wasn’t supposed to be deep or important — in fact I wrote that it was effectively meaningless in my review. Here’s my thing: I can like records that are deep and meaningful or records that aren’t. My collection is filled with both. I can even like records by artists who think what they’re writing is deep and meaningful when I think/know it isn’t. I can even like records that are deep and meaningful when that’s not the artist’s intent (my second fave record of all time is one of those).

This may not be you and it doesn’t have to be you, but I guess I’d question why. That’s not a criticism — it’s a real question and I can think of a few good answers, some of which you’ve given regarding your respect for musical talent and complexity.

But I am much less interested in ANY of these if there aren’t any hooks. And when there aren’t hooks, what I want is sonic experimentation — which is why there is prog and discordant alternative I like quite a lot. Like some of the Fripp/Eno collaborations, and Sonic Youth, e.g.

Leonard Cohen’s record has none of these things. None. All I have are his words, no hooks, no sonic experimentation. I listened to his words and described quite carefully my thoughts about them in my review. It doesn’t mean I have heard much of his catalogue or that I might not like others of his records. But I detested that record for very specific, defensible reasons. He’s a poet whose poetry I didn’t like in that instance.

Also the adulation of the genius thing is not and never will be me so “world-renowned singer-songwriter” doesn’t mean anything to me if the singing, playing and songwriting has no visceral appeal. And that’s what I’m trying to get people to understand by offering this lightweight bubblegum record (using others’ descriptions). Why can’t I or anyone else enjoy it AND enjoy deep, meaningful records too?

And with that I’m going to listen to Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” which, when it popped up on my Spotify in my car yesterday, set my 15-year old daughter all a-giggle. “Dad!” she shrieked. “That’s a MEME SONG!!”

Best piano hook of the last 20 years, my dear.
Click to expand...

And not Bruce Hornsby which it surely is half inched from?
 
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