>barely June >Already AOTY

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>Speaking as a Straight White Male music listener, I'd say, generally speaking, that the Straight White Male is the last voice of "cultural relevance” that I'm actively looking to, or sympathetic to, in this particular cultural moment. Just, who cares, you know? This obviously creates a problem for the Straight White Male artist who still desires to make relevant art - do you attempt to gentrify the landscape, White Savior yourself, and demand through inference or testimony that your voice is that of a leader for these times, when your phenotype is culturally inert if not malignant, and that even presuming to have something genuinely important to add is arguably an invocation of privilege? This approach seems like a fool’s errand to me. I instead mostly took the tack that I was using my particular set of cultivated talents to make a Use Object, something useful, a balm, something experientially or aesthetically moving, a reprieve. If you think I should be trying to muscle my way into a position of cultural relevance that I don't deserve, in a culture that is currently filled with far more interesting and sympathetic perspectives than that of the Straight White Male, then I can't really help you, because I am a little too self aware to have tried to do that. I can still comfortably and with a clear conscience make music that is beautiful and useful to people who are receptive, but I don’t do so from a sage-like position at all. You obviously care enough about music to place musicians in positions of veneration, and I do too, but I’m sooner doing so with Frank and Kendrick and Solange at the moment than I am with any straight white male artist currently in the landscape, and obviously (duh) I’m not alone in that, as they are enormously successful, beloved, and influential artists.

>>73332948
Robin been giving out them good ol' shekels, ha?

On Another Ocean (January/June) is easily SOTY

>>73332966
Did he really write all that....

>>73333068

Yes, but it was a BTFO of some shit stereogum (or something) review

And also, he's right. He's not shilling SJW shit, or saying that being white is bad. He's actually being pretty culturally observant on the state of art and personal expression today. He's mostly using the "Straight White Male" label to explain himself in the context of the lens it may seem modern culture views him through.

>>73333068
yes, there's more but that's the crux of it. he was responding to a negative Stereogum review of Crack-Up.

>>73333237
>And also, he's right.
No he is not. He is stifling himself because he does not want his music to overtake the current culture of black music. I'll say again, you cannot create equality through inequality. I also think it is hilarious that he thinks the current culture isn't just white people making black music with black artists for white audiences to consume and appropriate it. He is acting like it is progressing the black community as a whole, which it really is not.

>>73333268

That's not at all what he's saying.

The review basically shat on him for being too esoteric and for not addressing socio-political issues of the time.

He basically responded that he doesn't feel like it is his place, and within his artistic identity, to focus on things like that. That he would rather touch upon his own experiences, and how he personally interacts with the world, rather than to approach songwriting from the level of addressing, or speaking for, an entire community or group of people.

>"I can still comfortably and with a clear conscience make music that is beautiful and useful to people who are receptive, but I don’t do so from a sage-like position at all. You obviously care enough about music to place musicians in positions of veneration, and I do too, but I’m sooner doing so with Frank and Kendrick and Solange at the moment than I am with any straight white male artist currently in the landscape..."

>"That said, this record is more present-aware than you’re giving it credit for, it’s just more from the perspective of an observer, or participant, than it is from that of one sent from on high."

tl;dr, He doesn't feel like he has anything useful to contribute to the conversation, so he's not going to try. Especially because the position of a straight white male is much harder to speak from than that of, for instance, a black male; it's a lot more ambiguous of an experience, especially since white people tend to identify more individualistically than as a member of a community. He just wants to focus on what he wants to focus on, and on what he understands, knows best, and can speak to with accuracy and clarity - himself.

No need to turn this into another race-bait thread.

>>73333590
Well fuck any music reviewer for shitting on an album for not being a political activists anthem.

>>73333661

Yeah, I agree with you 1000% on that

>>73333590
Well...yeah, I read the review. I'm commenting on that paragraph and not the other parts Tom Breihan wrote directed towards him as a person and his pre-album life narrative. That part fits in his comment as a whole but I also think it quite easily stands alone.

>He doesn't feel like he has anything useful to contribute to the conversation, so he's not going to try.
I don't think he has to. Did he have anything "useful to contribute to the conversation" back in 2008 or 2011? No.

>He just wants to focus on what he wants to focus on, and on what he understands, knows best, and can speak to with accuracy and clarity - himself.
That is completely fine...but you are watering down what he said. He is clearly stifling himself. Crack-Up was clearly made with the current "relevant culture" in mind and how to respond (or not respond) and be influenced by it. He said this:

>If you think I should be trying to muscle my way into a position of cultural relevance that I don't deserve, in a culture that is currently filled with far more interesting and sympathetic perspectives than that of the Straight White Male, then I can't really help you, because I am a little too self aware to have tried to do that.

now, he is allowed to feel and react however he wants to but I am also allowed to critique him. I don't think he should have to "muscle" his way into cultural relevance. He should just make music as he wants to, whether that becomes relevant or not. However, he is not doing this. He is stifling himself because he seemingly believes the voices that are more relevant than his own should not be impeded on by a Straight White Male. A culture forms on its own. I don't disagree that at this point in time artists like Solange, Kendrick, and Frank are all more culturally relevant since Fleet Foxes had its explosion back in 2008.

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who recently posted quite a long post on here praising Crack-Up.

soon the reviews will roll in lads. AOTY

>>73333004
this

>>73333970
I agree. 2017 has been extremely underwhelming but Crack-Up has to be the first satisfying record I have heard this year. I don't think it's perfect but it's still a very strong record.

>>73333590
Also, I am seriously not racebaiting. People like to act like Beyonce and Solange are saying so much and are so important. Their music is literally made by heaps of white people and the consumers are largely white people who a majority of end up appropriating black culture. I live in New York and I know a white guy who works for the site Genius and acts like he is black. He is not a minority. This cultural shift is not progressing the black community as a whole. Not to mention you have publications like Pitchfork who have a racist agenda. You cannot create equality through inequality. You cannot strengthen race relations in this country by supporting one community and isolating the other and labeling and engendering them and their culture as irrelevant. That should be obvious and yet it is not.