Critcs Best of 2010

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i feel like i want to hear that xiu xiu album now for all the wrong reasons, and i don't even know what that means.
 
New Xiu Xiu is okay. Mine came with a t-shirt sprayed with Jamie Stewart's blood. Very weird. Listen to A Promise.
 
NSFW video for "Dear God, I Hate Myself" (not for the squeamish!!!):

New Xiu Xiu Video – “Dear God, I Hate Myself” (Stereogum Premiere) - Stereogum

i do hate how i know i'm falling into the trap either way with whatever i might have to say about the video. if i say 3 minutes of watching someone force themselves to puke is the most moronic thing i've ever seen in the name of "art," 1) i'd probably be forgetting all the other times i've ever said that about something just because this is the most immediate thing in my memory as i just saw it. 2) is kind of the point. it's supposed to disgust you. if i say something positive about the intended irony of him slightly off-camera eating while she purges, then i'm a pretentious idiot who is just calling it cool because i think it makes me cool, gives me some kind of indie cred, or deluding myself that i'm part of a special club of people who are edgy and artsy and shit.

i do think it's a stupid video, and i don't really care that having an opinion on it=the band is laughing at you. but i really, really like that song.
 
There was a lot of...emotion stirred up by that video. The Xiu Xiu blog has removed much of it and the band's response (things got pretty heated), but Angela's remarks, which allude to some of the wild accusations which were thrown about and problematically but genuinely attempt to explain the reasoning behind the video, remain:

The video was my idea. Jamie didn’t exploit me or coerce me or anything like that.

Although this was a while ago, I grew up around a lot of people who were bulimic. Well not just bulimic, but had a lot of various issues with self hatred that were expressed in a million various ways, including cutting and drug use. Although I still encounter all various sorts of self-loathing, perhaps because bulimia was the most visible, prevalent, and even normalized form of self-destruction at a very impressionable age, I will always think of it as a major form of self-hatred. There is also something very physically torturous and viscerally disturbing (aka gross!) about the act of vomiting that strikes my fancy, I guess.

I remember one night that one of my friends was completely fucked up on a few different drugs. Then she went through the pantry and fridge eating all kinds of shit. She’d then throw it up, eat more, throw up, eat more throw up. After a couple of hours of this, I told her that she was fucking stupid and dumb and left. I never saw her again, but found out she died a couple years later from overdose. I felt stupid and dumb for calling her pain stupid and dumb.

So yes, me vomiting my brains out on video was gross as hell and it made me feel like shit afterward. Those tears and the “what the fuck is going on” look is sincere. But just because I look like shit does not mean that I didn’t have a choice in doing that.

I don’t know why so many people are assuming that I didn’t have any agency in making of this video. I guess because I’m a young Asian female? Or perhaps some people don’t understand that one can voluntarily choose to hurt themselves physically. Maybe some think it’s just so stupid and dumb that one had to have been forced to do it?

I apologize for the rambling, but I guess I’m just trying to say, please don’t attack Jamie for anything. It was my idea and I chose with full agency, undrugged, uncoerced, to do it. Also, I guess I am trying to explain a little bit why such a gross and stupid act is my way of showing self-hatred — but then again, when is an act of self-hatred ever not gross and stupid?

oxoxoxox
please direct personal attacks, reproaches, unfounded racists/sexist comments, exclamations of outrage to xiuxiuangela@gmail.com
 
I would never have heard of Xiu Xiu if not for Gareth Campesinos! namedropping them constantly. I still haven't heard any of their music, but I know who they are and how their name is pronounced.
 
ok, so they're not laughing at me? that was interesting, at least.

i've seen a lot of references, here and elsewhere, however they've never been in any context that made me too curious about the band. i admit i really only finally felt compelled to check them out because while i was scrolling through the tiny mix tapes list, i liked the title "dear god, i hate myself." no real reason other than that.

yeah, i'm pretty much loving that song now. and the stuff that IYS posted is damn good. more music i need to hear more of, and more cds for me to track down.
 
A Promise > Fabulous Muscles > Knife Play > (Women as Lovers = The Air Force = Dear God, I Hate Myself = La Foret)

Just know that even on an essential Xiu Xiu recording, there will be at least one song which is so dreadful , upsetting, and powerfully off-putting that it will turn your stomach. You've been warned. I'm looking at you, "Walnut House" and friends.
 
So I've finally gotten around to listening to Twin Shadow, and the album is quite strong. It sounds like a mixture of Grizzly Bear, which might not be surprising given Chris Taylor's involvement, and circa-1982 Depeche Mode.
 
So I've finally gotten around to listening to Twin Shadow, and the album is quite strong. It sounds like a mixture of Grizzly Bear, which might not be surprising given Chris Taylor's involvement, and circa-1982 Depeche Mode.

It'll be cracking my top 15 or so. Chillwave with a backbone: sounds pretty good to me.
 
A Promise > Fabulous Muscles > Knife Play > (Women as Lovers = The Air Force = Dear God, I Hate Myself = La Foret)

Just know that even on an essential Xiu Xiu recording, there will be at least one song which is so dreadful , upsetting, and powerfully off-putting that it will turn your stomach. You've been warned. I'm looking at you, "Walnut House" and friends.

warning taken, although i get that impression from the 20 or so songs i youtube'd. yeah, they've got some intentionally fucked up shit. if i am capable of being disturbed or upset, this might actually be a good thing. honestly, "frankie teardrop" is the only song that's ever come close to truly scaring me and that was cos i did exactly what you're not supposed to do--listen to it in a dark room, alone, with headphones--back when i might have still had some semblance of a soul.
 
My roommates are watching Road House right now. I dunno, I just thought you should know
 

1. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West.
2. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
3. This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
4. The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe
5. High Violet by The National
6. Teen Dream by Beach House
7. Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty by Big Boi
8. Contra by Vampire Weekend
9. Brothers by The Black Keys / Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter / Have One on Me by Joanna Newsom
12. Before Today by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
13. Body Talk by Robyn / The Monitor by Titus Andronicus / Swim by Caribou
16. The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens / Hidden by These New Puritans / Sigh No More Mumford & Sons
19. Treats by Sleigh Bells / Thank Me Later by Drake / Teflon Don by Rick Ross / Plastic Beach by Gorillaz
 
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