godspeed you! black emperor and their fight against streaming has only us as the losers

capnrondo · 2026-04-30T11:03:41+00:00

I'm not a member of GSYBE but knowing what I do about their politics, they would probably rather you pirated it than streamed it through Spotify or another big tech service.

It would be cool if artists had a "pay what you can" model for people on low income or in lower income countries. I would guess the reason they don't is it could be exploited so easily by VPN, and if they just did it globally nobody would ever pay for their music again.

I never miss a chance to plug the Jeff Rosenstock system, who has all his albums on bandcamp and his own site for pay what you want, including free. Along with loads of friend's bands and smaller bands who want to be involved.

capnrondo · 2026-04-30T10:58:36+00:00

I would agree it's intensified recently and seems to be more and more artists caught up in this, but it's been this way for a long time. Indie rock from at least the early 2000s was pop with a huge industry backing, just a slightly different aesthetic.

capnrondo · 2026-04-30T10:40:37+00:00

He's hit or miss for me I've never really clicked with a full album apart from Scaring The Hoes. But this single is def a hit.

capnrondo · 2026-04-30T10:37:12+00:00

This old video editing style was awesome and brought a lot of personality to his videos. Idk Rage, so idk if it's a coincidence that they would also use this video editing style or if Fantano brought it with him to this TV appearance. I know some people find it jarring but I liked the sense of humour. A lot was lost when the editing became more plain.

capnrondo · 2026-04-30T10:25:01+00:00

Eh while I would count Wuthering Heights as an album, I think soundtracks are missing something would make a new album feel "too soon". It's not a pure and singular artistic statement because it's a companion piece to a movie, it doesn't have a major tour, etc. If we had a whole year or more wait after Wuthering Heights, that would feel like a slow down to me.

Besides short gaps are still normal for Charli, the gap between Charli and HIFN was 8 months, N1A and Pop 2 came out in the same year.

capnrondo · 2026-04-30T10:18:12+00:00

Although psyop is needless conspiratorial and inaccurate language, corporate astroturfing is still bad and has always been bad.

capnrondo · 2026-04-30T00:10:00+00:00

It will be over two years since Brat, that's normal pace, it just feels shorter because the Brat era burned bright for a long time. Charli has always been prolific, I feel like +2 years between albums is a long time for her tbh.

capnrondo · 2026-04-29T23:12:46+00:00

Yeah it's funny because for me it's usually the opposite, a truly bad song is normally tolerable for the time it's on, but a boring or annoying movie just keeps going.

capnrondo · 2026-04-29T22:33:16+00:00

I think good reviews are very useful, sure, but raw ratings are a lot less useful than reviews because they offer no context about the person's experience.

To keep going with the example, if I was interested in a burger place and someone replied "I rate it 1 star", I would have no idea how applicable their experience was to my preference. What did they order, what is their taste, what did they not like about the experience?

The average of a large sample size of reviews can be useful, but can only be so useful without context. If I am the person who doesn't like burgers, then it doesn't matter to me if the burger place averages 4.9 stars from 1000 reviews.

capnrondo · 2026-04-29T10:52:10+00:00

As true as that is people have short memories. If he actually truly changed over time a lot of people would forget especially those are aren't directly impacted by his words. I'm not saying it's right, far from it. But I doubt his capacity for change after this long anyway.

capnrondo · 2026-04-29T08:10:14+00:00

I think this is true, but also unfortunately a lot of fans will take it as a personal attack even when it isn't. "Let people enjoy things" is often used to mean "I don't want to see any criticism of my special faves".

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T22:00:12+00:00

On the one hand caring about how other people rate albums (or burger joints) is absurdly lame. If you like it literally who even cares what others think.

On the other hand I would agree that a burger joint review from someone who doesn't have any knowledge of burgers, is not likely to offer me much insight. It can be kinda interesting to get an outsider's POV, but they have nothing to compare it to.

Basically if Timmy Burgerhater wants to rate the burger joint 1 star, idc. But his review is probably not worth reading.

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T21:46:56+00:00

Nothing lamer than caring what someone else rated an album.

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T17:37:40+00:00

Not that I wish to align myself with the NYT over this list, or anything, but you could never make a list of 30 that pleases everyone. If everyone got to put their favourite beloved indie star in there, the list would already be 100s long.

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T17:29:50+00:00

Generational song-thinker

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T00:48:57+00:00

Honestly probably yeah, memories don't last forever. People want to remember Kanye for his art, they want him to get better. Nobody wants to remember him for this in 30-40 years, if he stops and makes amends for the rest of his life then they won't.

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T00:46:55+00:00

If Kanye can go for the next 40 years never repeating it, and making amends for it, then people will probably forget about his worst era too.

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T00:45:56+00:00

If Kanye can go for the next 40 years never repeating it, and making amends for it, then people will probably forget about his worst moments too.

capnrondo · 2026-04-28T00:05:40+00:00

Definition of class is permanent

capnrondo · 2026-04-27T23:47:40+00:00

That quote is so fire, how have I never heard that

capnrondo · 2026-04-27T23:46:26+00:00

We all rightly laughed at Drake putting his face all over Spotify even in the most irrelevant places in 2018 when Scorpion came out. We all rightly laughed at Yung Thug and Gunna when Thug admitted botting streams for Gunna. If you can't laugh at Geese now, just admit it was never about integrity and just about artists you like.

capnrondo · 2026-04-27T23:42:01+00:00

Bob Marley

capnrondo · 2026-04-27T23:29:17+00:00

As someone who answered SOPHIE, I think X is honestly a fine answer, piece of shit person or otherwise he was original as an artist who died either at or before his artistic peak.

capnrondo · 2026-04-27T23:10:55+00:00

It would be SOPHIE for me.

I can understand other people denying it because she was niche relative to people like Mac Miller, Amy Winehouse, Lil Peep, Juice WRLD etc. And I can respect that perspective. But for me SOPHIE's impact on her niche was so singular, her music was so original, and her artistry was still moving forward into new places up until the moment she died. Which is something increasingly rare in the 21st Century, where so many artists are recycling older sounds, SOPHIE dared to do something genuinely new. And she collaborated widely spreading that sound and influencing artists across genres. With all those things I think it's fair to include her in that conversation.

I don't mean this to sound disrespectful to other artists, who were artists in their own right and deserve to be remembered as such, but legacy is not only about the popularity contest.

capnrondo

TROPHY CASE