Red Mosquito

I'm rather surprised this album hasn't leaked yet...multiple listening parties, a 500-theater run, cheesy digital marketing, and probably everyone who's ever met Ed, I mean, this thing is clearly out there. Someone of slightly lower moral character has to have had access...

tragabigzanda wrote:

tommy wrote:Trag has made some good points, but he's also made some pretty unhinged posts. His intense hatred for Andrew Watt is truly strange.

I estimate him to be a creative predator who assumed a disproportionate degree of control over this project to advance his own career / fulfill his teenage dreams.

Do you consider this album elder abuse?

tragabigzanda wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:did my pointing out Trag's laughter get deleted? cool, cool

no we just don't care about your posts

get fucked

just shits and giggles!

Ms Harmless wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:did my pointing out Trag's laughter get deleted? cool, cool

no we just don't care about your posts

get fucked

i still don't see how this is an insult.. don't people like sex?

tree_ wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:did my pointing out Trag's laughter get deleted? cool, cool

no we just don't care about your posts

get fucked

i still don't see how this is an insult.. don't people like sex?

clearly Trag can't be satisfied with it anymore unless it's over a mixing desk

tragabigzanda wrote:

tommy wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

tommy wrote:Trag has made some good points, but he's also made some pretty unhinged posts. His intense hatred for Andrew Watt is truly strange.

I estimate him to be a creative predator who assumed a disproportionate degree of control over this project to advance his own career / fulfill his teenage dreams.

Do you consider this album elder abuse?

Here's the thing: I'm guilty of similar behavior, albeit on a small and much less successful scale. But I definitely worked with artists who were looking for direction, and I'd do things like say "Try it my way and it will sound awesome..." Lacking technical prowess and/or creative confidence, they'd follow my lead. Today I feel real guilt about my role in those projects.

I view the role of a producer like creative surrogacy. It's one things for an artist to say "there's a sound in my head, can you please help me realize it," and for the producer to say "sure, here are some things we can try." It's another entirely for them to say "Just give put yourself in my hands and I'll mold you into something successful and well-received by the audience." Just gross collaborative behavior, IMO.

How do you know Pearl Jam didn't go to him because they wanted to put themselves all up in his hands?

tragabigzanda wrote:It's another entirely for them to say "Just give put yourself in my hands and I'll mold you into something successful and well-received by the audience." Just gross collaborative behavior, IMO.

Ahh yes, the George Martin approach.

STIP, IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: WHICH IS BETTER LIGHT YEARS OR DARK MATTER? AND WHICH IS BETTER BREAKERFALL OR NAIS?

No one here knows what happened in those studio sessions because we weren't there. This amounts to taking some pre-existing biases and generated a whole fiction story out of it.

Guys, it’s Jorge

Monkey_Driven wrote:My favorite part of a new song's release is being able to predict a user's reaction almost to a T.

Ok go

tree_ wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:

Strat wrote:

RockPusher wrote:tree, if you were actually listening to me, you'd understand that I am not asking for an echo chamber at all.

Nobody has said "how can you like this"

That seems to be how you interpret someone else not liking it and discussing why they dont like it.

this is just patently false Strat, over and over again we've been told we must have impaired hearing and mental capacity for enjoying these songs

If this is in fact so, why do you give it any weight? Why not just say "I disagree" or ignore them?

Why couldn’t the people making flippant comments on the other side observe equal restraint?

Strat wrote:But anyone that disagrees with you, harmless, is bullying. So, done chatting about this stuff with you.

This isn’t true; I have expressed my distaste for the production on “Dark Matter” as resolutely (if not as frequently) as Trag has, and have not once been accused of “bullying.” There have absolutely been moments over the past few weeks where MH has been on the receiving end of unkind comments that went simply beyond “disagreement” (i.e. the whole thing about listening to music through phone speakers), and sometimes even the “disagreement” is pointed and blatantly disrespectful (i.e. “you sound like a lunatic,” “stupid harmless,” etc.). Other remarks have just been pointlessly jerky (“how do you have time to post elsewhere, you already post 12k times per day here,” etc.). The fact that, at least once, these comments were characterized as “respectfully pedantic” suggests that perhaps the radar for this sort of thing around here isn’t quite as fine-tuned as one might hope.

Resiliency is a good quality, and disagreement is not bullying. But there is an expectation, especially online, that any time a person feels hurt or disrespected, it is inherently their fault for not being better at being disrespected. This is a really shitty way to treat people.

tragabigzanda wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:It's another entirely for them to say "Just give put yourself in my hands and I'll mold you into something successful and well-received by the audience." Just gross collaborative behavior, IMO.

Ahh yes, the George Martin approach.

Not even remotely true. Sir George acted more as a liaison between the staff and the BBC who developed innovative tech to capture the sounds the band was trying to achieve. He was more like a 5th Beatle, IMO.

He played on the record, suggested changes to melody or progressions, and sent them home with “change this song so that it does (x) to make it more marketable…” assignments on the first two songs they recorded with him. Later, as he saw that they were growing into a confident songwriting team with clear creative vision, he changed his approach and his role.

There isn’t a lone “correct” approach to being a producer, and the others are wrong.

tragabigzanda wrote:

bluestate wrote:No one here knows what happened in those studio sessions because we weren't there. This amounts to taking some pre-existing biases and generated a whole fiction story out of it.

You are correct that it's purely speculative, but it's not based on nothing. It's based on the common narrative that Wotman is very hands-on with his rock band rehab projects, and the fact that this current rehab sounds wholly different from every record they've made before. So either they said "Make us sound totally different, really modern," or they said "Do your thing, we trust you completely." It very well could have been the former, I'm just skeptical.

In this context, probably more so Ed saying "I was happy with the results for Earthling, let's do a similar thing for Pearl Jam".

bluestate wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

bluestate wrote:No one here knows what happened in those studio sessions because we weren't there. This amounts to taking some pre-existing biases and generated a whole fiction story out of it.

You are correct that it's purely speculative, but it's not based on nothing. It's based on the common narrative that Wotman is very hands-on with his rock band rehab projects, and the fact that this current rehab sounds wholly different from every record they've made before. So either they said "Make us sound totally different, really modern," or they said "Do your thing, we trust you completely." It very well could have been the former, I'm just skeptical.

In this context, probably more so Ed saying "I was happy with the results for Earthling, let's do a similar thing for Pearl Jam".

Bingo