Sugarbabes

[gumdrops]

Bateman had pretty interesting taste in music actually. He would have made a good music critic.

The most boring and simple response anyone can have to American Psycho - even more than "it is America itself that is psychopathic DO YOU SEE!?!" - is "ha ha lol Huey Lewis & the News suck".

OTM as they say

although saying genesis and phil collins were funkier than michael jackson or prince was a bit ridiculous! i do really love the parts where he talks about his favourite music though. if only because he is so passionate. im not sure what brett easton ellis' own thoughts are on genesis or huey lewis (it does seem like hes kinda arguing against himself in the parts on them and phil collins) but he did say he was a punk fan when i saw him reading from lunar park a few years back.

 

[mms]

i like the way bateman is so passionate and anal in a really confident way it's as much a headfuck to read esp when it's juxtaposed with the horrible violence as well.
that carl craig mix of the sugababes person is poor though, carls hit paydirt a bit i think lately and is running off the major label product mixes.

 

[gek-opel]

Bateman is extremely anal, but in a way which suggests that his views on this music are not entirely his own (I thought THAT was the whole point) implying to my mind that this was some rote music-crit he was regurgitating, as if it was simply "something to know" like the best kind of paper to print a business card on... (like an anti-hipster, actually, tho ironically his taste now coincides with the yacht-rockish end of hipster tastes)

For the record tho, "Sussudio" is a personal favourite!

 

[swears]

...implying to my mind that this was some rote music-crit he was regurgitating, as if it was simply "something to know" like the best kind of paper to print a business card on...

I suspected Ellis had actually reprinted entire Rolling Stone magazine reviews word for word, lol.
Besides, there are loads of these really anal, obvious/factual reviews in contemporary "hipster" writing anyway, look at Pitchfork. Only their subjects are The Hold Steady or whoever.

 

[gek-opel]

Yer exactly- Bateman functions just like the very worst cliche of a hipster (except obviously fixating on objects that are the antithesis of pseudo anti-mainstream culture- instead the hyper mainstream of Whitney or whatever, but the mechanics are identical...)

 

[swears]

Yer exactly- Bateman functions just like the very worst cliche of a hipster (except obviously fixating on objects that are the antithesis of pseudo anti-mainstream culture- instead the hyper mainstream of Whitney or whatever, but the mechanics are identical...)

I think the question to ask is "Aren't the mainstream and underground two havles of the same coin?" Aren't the boundaries blurring so much that the "underground" functions mostly to supply the middleground with ideas to mass produce and market anyway? I remember zhao saying in a thread that he felt like dressing like a hobo because he didn't want to be mistaked for a yuppie trying to look like a hipster, that's the extreme we've reached now.

btw...I don't think Tim F's post was Batemanesque at all, a fine piece of writing.

 

[stelfox]

i really hate it when people reel off bateman's music writing as a tear-down of real-world criticism, just because the piece in question might happen to be longer than you might expect and discussing music that's not often lent that weight of consideration. it's just kind of thoughtless and dismissive and not very cool. also, just for the record, tim happens to be one of the best music critics working today as far as i'm concerned. that piece did little to change my mind.

 

[swears]

i really hate it when people reel off bateman's music writing as a tear-down of real-world criticism, just because the piece in question might happen to be longer than you might expect and discussing music that's not often lent that weight of consideration...

It's not that Bateman's taste in music is lousy (although I do think hip new wave guy Ellis was implying this) it's that his style is so bland: band forms, makes album, makes another one, production is nice, songcraft is good, etc, etc. Plus the way he uses so many cliches about bands "maturing" and "developing as songwriters". He talks about albums in the same way you'd descibe the latest model of lawn strimmer or trouser press. And some of the worst music journalism does tend towards this sort of blank literalism.

 

[stelfox]

i actually did my dissertation on 1980s america as literary dystopia, so i could go on at massive length about this particular book, especially these sections. i just don't want to bore people with it. all the same, the subjects of these pieces are as important as the style. still, you're definitely onto something there as regards the form of the writing, that's what makes it so funny, especially to a music critic. and while bateman's writing may be terrible (sorry tim i don't agree with you), ellis's is astonishingly good here.

 

[Tim F]

Nah I don't really think bateman is a good muzic writer! Was just playing along with sick boy's comparison.

Thanks for votes of confidence though peeps.

Dave would love to know more about your dissertation. And did you read Lunar Park?

(love that the sugababes thread has morphed into a thread about easton ellis!)

 

[gravious]

Whatever, she's lovely.

Correct. Keisha is far from "butters".


The new member that replaced Mutya is comical though. Its as if they just took her picture, ran it thru a photoshop filter that made her 100% hotter and 100% blander, and found someone that looked like the result.

 

[Tactics]

lol

lol

I wouldn't of expected such enthusiasm for the Sugababes from you.

Jokes.

I have many sides lol

Correct. Keisha is far from "butters".

The new member that replaced Mutya is comical though. Its as if they just took her picture, ran it thru a photoshop filter that made her 100% hotter and 100% blander, and found someone that looked like the result.

rah I missed the keisha comment - nah man she's alright

mutya on the other hand...

LOL on that last paragraph