Why Don't I Like This?
An Investigation Into Art I've Tried But Not Enjoyed Lately
I go into most every experience expecting or at least hoping to enjoy it. There are exceptions of course (job interviews, shitty chores, hard conversations, funerals) but on the whole I suppose I'm a fairly optimistic person, at least in this respect. This is especially true when I'm seeking out consumable media. If I am going to spend time listening to an album or watching a movie or especially committing to an entire tv show I want it to be good. I go into almost every album expecting or hoping to like it. Ironically watching terrible movies has never made much sense to me because I haven't seen a ton of movies and would rather spend two hours watching something I might love than something I will not. The idea of watching a television show that I go into expecting not to like is completely asinine to me. So, despite my pretentious taste and general disdain for large swaths of pop culture, I do press play hoping to enjoy the thing in my headphones.
This does not always pan out obviously or I would have the brain of a golden retriever. It is important to not like things just as it is to like things because the lack of distinction flattens out all meaningful experiences into one dull hum. In keeping with the last two posts, I will now go into listicle mode and talk about some stuff I haven't liked lately.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure
I had never seen this movie before but had heard great things. I know people who rank this among their all-time favorite movies; some even call it their absolute favorite. At one point in my life I had read the two sentence Letterboxd synopsis of the movie but when I sat down at the Hollywood Theater for a sold out 35mm screening it had left my mind and I was essentially going in completely blind. From the jump, it was pretty apparent this movie was not exactly my thing. This was put into hyper-focus as the crowd roared into a frenzy at nearly every possible moment they could set their vocal cords to. People were crying laughing at what I would charitably call jokes for babies. Now, in fairness I was one of the youngest people in the crowd and seemingly one of maybe just a handful who hadn't seen this movie a million times. Nostalgia is a very powerful thing but I'm not sure that a pancake getting stuck on the ceiling is a gag that should make an adult fall out of their seat laughing because it makes them remember watching it in their parents house. I watched Peter Pan and The Phantom Menace hundreds of times when I was a little kid but I can't imagine myself going to the movie theater to see those. If a friend had either playing at their house I would not sit down enraptured, I would ask them if they were ok.
I want to be clear that I did not hate the movie. I thought it was completely ok and there were multiple moments where I exhaled out of my nose sharply and possibly one where I briefly laughed out loud. The practical effects are impressive but as I have said before the technical ability of the filmmaking is not enough to carry a movie on its own. If someone's first defense of a movie or an album is ~The Craft~ then the movie or album isn't actually very good.
Chris Farren - Doom Singer
I have been vaguely aware of Chris Farren for maybe a couple of years. I recognized his name and due to context clues (which accounts posted about him on twitter) I deduced that his sound could be at least tangentially related to pop punk. This turned out to basically be correct though I am not nearly familiar enough with that genre and its offshoots to accurately place this album into its respective micro genre. His appearance on the Hollywood Handbook podcast promoting his music video made by Clay Tatum convinced me to give this album a try. Both the podcast episode and the music video are really funny and Chris seems like a cool guy so I was excited to listen to the album.
The album is bad to me but not excessively so. Pop punk/power pop is just not my thing; Blink-182 has never at any moment of my life sounded good to me though they have some songs that are fun to do at karaoke because you can do the insane WHERE ARE YOU voice so I'm not gonna spend any time bagging on them. I feel bad for pop punk/power pop bands who reach a level of success that keeps them together into their forties because then you're spending your major artistic endeavor, your life's work, singing to drunk kids about how it's not fair that mom makes you clean your room. I would resent that so much if I were them—a perpetual cycle of angst. I do not recall any particular song on this album other than Cosmic Leash which is the one they made the aforementioned music video for. I'd recommend watching the video because it's funny and unique even if the song is just completely fine.
Parquet Courts - Content Nausea
I've been doing this thing lately where I pick a band or artist and binge through their whole discography in a day or two. This idea started with The Beach Boys and that took me a lot longer than a couple days because they've made a million albums and the first 10 or so are all the same and it made my brain feel weird to hear that many songs about driving daddy's car to the hamburger stand now in such quick succession. Turns out The Beach Boys only really have four good albums but two of them are completely perfect and there are plenty of fantastic songs scattered throughout their discography to make that time investment worth it.
But anyway I ran through the Parquet Courts discography last week because I hadn't listened to them in a while and was not even sure I'd listened to all their albums. Turns out I had a higher estimation of the band than I actually hold of them in practice. Wide Awake is a fantastic album but is an anomaly within their discography both in terms of sound and quality. They had leaned much punkier/grimier to that point to varying degrees of success and then followed that album up with Sympathy for Life which is a whatever album. I like Light Up Gold. Sunbathing Animal passed in one ear and out the other. I can't recall if I even listened to Human Performance though I know I've listened to that record at least twice in my life.
But ultimately Content Nausea stands out as a real stinker. The best songs on there are ones that you forget as soon as they stop and the bad ones linger too long after. I stopped listening halfway through their cover of "These Boots Are Made For Walking." If you're going to do a joke song it has to be funny and sound good.
James Blake - Playing Robots Into Heaven
Obviously, Kanye West's downfall is more depressing in every single sense of the word, but it bums me out to no end how badly James Blake has fallen off. James Blake was my guy. I fell in love with his music my freshman year of college (2013) and was completely obsessed with him until 2020 when he started making some real doodoo dog ass music. This was a remarkably sudden crater in quality and with each passing release it appears to just be who he is now. I am really happy for him though. He fell madly in love, started making really bad music, but is now more traditionally successful than he's ever been in his career. That's the dream. I only listened to this album once and cannot recall a single memorable moment and I am not going to do the journalistically prudent thing and re-listen to it because I am neither journalist nor prudent. I can’t believe he dropped this song and never made anything remotely like it again.
Now that I’ve complained for 1383 words I’ll give you some stuff I’ve liked recently:
This is a playlist I made. Yes it is on Apple Music because that’s the streaming platform I use for valid reasons I have talked about on here before. It is 34 minutes long so you don’t have any excuse not to listen to it save for the aforementioned platform situation. I can almost guarantee you have not heard at least one of the songs because most of you are not freaks.
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/noisy-nectar-vol-4/pl.u-aZb0aL0TN4q7Ab
Kale was playing a 2manydjs set when we were hanging at his place over the weekend and I later found out that there is a relatively new Youtube channel archiving a lot of the 2manydjs/Soulwax stuff. This is my new Library of Alexandria. This set below is one of my all-time favorites and I did not realize it had been removed from Soundcloud but here it is in all its two hours and fifteen minutes of glory. I’m seeing them next weekend and I am going to have so much fun :D
I saw Sorcerer in theaters on Sunday night. I had been wanting to see this movie for years and was waiting for an opportunity to see it on the big screen for my first time. Shoutout to my friend Jack from Twitter who I met for the first time there. The movie absolutely whipped and the Tangerine Dream soundtrack is fantastic.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/sorcerer-music-from-the-original-motion-picture/1444085103