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Ross (3284 KP) rated Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney in Music
May 28, 2020
Rolling Stone's 272nd greatest album of all time
If I had to put money on it, I would have said Sleater-Kinney were a Celtic rock band, along the lines of Runrig or Wolfstone. I was pleasantly surprised to find they're an all-girl punk band. This was right up my street and similar to other bands I had listened to as part of this list - the likes of "X" and Liz Phair. Very angry, angsty and fast and raw. Great album.
CHILLFILTR (46 KP) rated Getting to Me by Caroline Rose in Music
Jul 11, 2019
She pulls us in right away with her working girl narrative:
“Waitress sets the tables
two and four and six
laying placements
knife fork spoon upon napkin ”
— Caroline Rose
There is a very precise pizzicato counterpoint between strings and dirty guitar; it creates a sort of art-rock melodic swell that feels like Feist being dry with a band. I love the songwriting and there's a Liz Phair sort of resemblance both in terms of being punk pretty and having a tell-all feel to the lyrics. Yes, go on, do tell.
Rose's last release has a top single with almost 1 million plays, after just 4 years. I think this next project will get there even faster because it sounds fantastic.
The sound of the tracks that I've heard so far is light and nuanced and smart and funny and could put her right on stage at The Hotel Cafe, circa now.
“Waitress sets the tables
two and four and six
laying placements
knife fork spoon upon napkin ”
— Caroline Rose
There is a very precise pizzicato counterpoint between strings and dirty guitar; it creates a sort of art-rock melodic swell that feels like Feist being dry with a band. I love the songwriting and there's a Liz Phair sort of resemblance both in terms of being punk pretty and having a tell-all feel to the lyrics. Yes, go on, do tell.
Rose's last release has a top single with almost 1 million plays, after just 4 years. I think this next project will get there even faster because it sounds fantastic.
The sound of the tracks that I've heard so far is light and nuanced and smart and funny and could put her right on stage at The Hotel Cafe, circa now.
Anand Wilder recommended Liege & Lief by Fairport Convention in Music (curated)
MelanieTheresa (997 KP) rated Horror Stories: A Memoir by Liz Phair in Books
Feb 27, 2020
I wanted so badly to like this book, I really did. I've loved Liz Phair's music since the 90s, and I was pretty excited when I heard she'd written a memoir. But this.....this is not great.
It's a memoir, I KNOW it's a memoir, but there's no cohesive narrative and it kind of drives me nuts. It reads more like a collection of essays detailing specific pieces of her life, and it jumps all over the place. More disappointing, however, is that she comes across as kind of an asshole. I could forgive that, because hey, listen, we were all kind of assholes in our youth, no? But she seems so completely self-centered, self-involved, and spoiled that it rendered some of this very hard to get through, especially as I'd been fangirling about this book for a long time. I wanted to read about a bad ass indie rock queen, not a jerk who cheats on her husband for no discernible reason, thinks that throwing money at a cultural misunderstanding (that she caused) will make it go away, and whines about how the cute stock boy she's flirting with at Trader Joe's is actually engaged.
That being said, one of the final stories in the book very much got to me: she's at a lecture with her aging parents, and she's noticing how many of the attendees have trouble getting around due to their age and mobility issues. One of the older gentlemen attempts to get up to go outside, and he ends up falling in front of everyone, repeating over and over (with tears in his eyes) how embarrassed he is. She sees this, and once the gentlemen is seated next to her, she goes out of her way to bolster him (tells him he "fell like an athlete," then asks if he ever was an athlete), and holds a conversation with him throughout the remainder of the lecture to get his mind off of the entire incident. This act struck me as so kind that it almost redeems her for everything else in the book. And that is how Liz Phair was nearly able to bring me to tears at the tail end of a fairly lackluster memoir.
It's a memoir, I KNOW it's a memoir, but there's no cohesive narrative and it kind of drives me nuts. It reads more like a collection of essays detailing specific pieces of her life, and it jumps all over the place. More disappointing, however, is that she comes across as kind of an asshole. I could forgive that, because hey, listen, we were all kind of assholes in our youth, no? But she seems so completely self-centered, self-involved, and spoiled that it rendered some of this very hard to get through, especially as I'd been fangirling about this book for a long time. I wanted to read about a bad ass indie rock queen, not a jerk who cheats on her husband for no discernible reason, thinks that throwing money at a cultural misunderstanding (that she caused) will make it go away, and whines about how the cute stock boy she's flirting with at Trader Joe's is actually engaged.
That being said, one of the final stories in the book very much got to me: she's at a lecture with her aging parents, and she's noticing how many of the attendees have trouble getting around due to their age and mobility issues. One of the older gentlemen attempts to get up to go outside, and he ends up falling in front of everyone, repeating over and over (with tears in his eyes) how embarrassed he is. She sees this, and once the gentlemen is seated next to her, she goes out of her way to bolster him (tells him he "fell like an athlete," then asks if he ever was an athlete), and holds a conversation with him throughout the remainder of the lecture to get his mind off of the entire incident. This act struck me as so kind that it almost redeems her for everything else in the book. And that is how Liz Phair was nearly able to bring me to tears at the tail end of a fairly lackluster memoir.
