Toby waxes about critique, reviews Toro Y Moi's new album
Lately the critique seems to have fallen out of favor. Then again, criticality has never been popular to begin with—someone is always on its receiving end. In 2016 we reached peak left critique, a variety of criticism comes directly from Marx and is the essence of leftist thought and theory. With the embarrassment leftists experienced during the election, we've seen much less of this method since. I myself let one good essay go unpublished because it employed a postmodern writing style and typical academic-left lines of attack, which afterwards seemed dated. On Are.na I am collecting resources around a critique of this critical theory. The same struggles appear to be going on in different cultural spheres (the last few weeks have also seen battle over the validity in criticism in the digital design world).
While certain formats of critique may exhaust themselves, criticism is inevitable and its value and importance is not up for debate. Criticism is an essential function of society's dialog with itself. It is a cultural phenomenon as much as an individual one. Criticality, the attitude of maintaining a critical stance, can be applied to as wide a range of topics as economics and literature. Perhaps unintuitively, developing a critical eye toward one topic increases one's ability to critique another. Mark Fisher, whose short book Capitalist Realism is one of the most precise and concise critiques of 21st century capitalism, cut his teeth on music criticism in his 20s. Criticism is a skill of its own, separate from the production of things that are critiqued. Contrary to its detractors, criticism is not purely negative; it is crucial to developing discernment, a pillar of personal vision.
It is also important to learning what one likes, and what one doesn't like, important aspects of self-awareness and agency. I encourage you, readers, to practice short-form criticism yourselves. When something captivates you, explore its beauty and find the words to explain it to those around you. When something angers you, don't avoid that anger or second-guess your judgment; use it to fuel the most precise and direct critique you can muster (and protect yourself by calling it a Roast). When something has good and bad, or when it is mediocre, understand why and clearly present its successes and failures. Most importantly, don't focus too much on the negative lest you become jaded. Engaging beauty with an attitude of sacredness, celebrating it with sincerity, is restorative and energy-generating.
Practice on something today. Even an album is a worthy target.
..
Toro Y Moi has a new album out, 7 years since Causers of This helped pioneered the chillwave microgenre. I remember hearing "Low Shoulder" on Evergreen State College's radio station (89.3 KAOS) and turning up the volume in the car right away. It was a very new sound at the time, but I was bored of the style by the time Anything In Return came out, and I even passed up a chance to see Chaz live when he played at Vassar in 2011 or 2012. The major reason I lost interest in Toro was that although he clearly had a talent for hooky instrumentation ("New Beat" and "Say That" being good examples) most of his songs didn't live up to the catchier tracks. It's not that I demand catchiness from every track. It's that most of the songs on the first three albums simply had too much going on. Too many background synths, too many vocals, melodies that sound great in the chorus but are forgettable in the verses. To this day I can't remember more than a couple songs and vocal lines from each album.
2015's What For?, on the other hand, blew me away. Chaz has always move his style forward on every album, but not only was What For? a straight up indie rock album, but the songwriting was better his best yet. Every single track on What For? is memorable, and the melodies are near-perfect. They're melodies that stick in your head for weeks (and you'll be able to pick them up years later and sing along without any problem). It's hard to pick a single song to serve as an example because every one shares these characteristics. In What For? Chaz perfected his pop songwriting. With this being last album, I was excited to see what Boo Boo had to offer.
The first thing I noticed about the new album is that Chaz has obviously been listening to the same Japanese 80s pop ballads I have for the last three years. Vaporwave exposed so many great 80s artists—Takako Mamiya, Makoto Matsushita, Hiroshi Sato—these are just a few whose stylistic influence comes through on Boo Boo. Toro Y Moi songs have always had a bit of funky bassline influence and heavy drums but the tone and cadence have never been more unapologetically 80s than on this record. The album's single "Girl Like You" is probably the best example of 80s pop writing and follows the style of Phil Collins. And the opener, "Mirage," could have come straight from a Rah Band album (especially in its 4th-wall breaking moment "oh hello, I didn't see you there" at 3:26). I've been on this bullshit for about 4 years and it's really fun to hear it how the influences come through in a modern album. Frank Ocean's influence is also audible on the track "Windows," and "Embarcadero" is unmistakeably a vaporwave track.
In a way though, Boo Boo is a return to the form of his previous albums. It's electronic pop music in the style that Chaz has always made, and although the instrumentation is a bit tighter than it's been in the past, it suffers from some of the same problems I previously identified. It doesn't feel like the popwriting skills exhibited on What For? translate back into his original style. Aside from "Girl Like You" and "You and I" the melodies are for the most part unmemorable. Just like his older albums, Chaz submits to his tendency to just sing what sounds merely good over the backing tracks, sticking to a few notes for the whole song instead of constructing narrative arcs. I couldn't help but wonder what it would have sounded like if George Clanton wrote the melodies for this album instead of Chaz. What's especially disappointing about the album is that a lot of the songs show moments of brilliance, especially in the intros and outros. This is where the 80s influence is most abundantly clear. The intro to "Labyrinth" is glorious, the end of "Mona Lisa" is one of the most interesting moments on the album (it should have been a whole song), and the secret track "Be" on the last half of "W.I.W.W.T.W" should really have been given more attention.
Regardless, this a fun album. It's certainly more fun listening to through headphones than on a speaker system though. I keep hoping that Chaz can bring the level of songwriting he seems to only be able to unlock when making indie rock, and one day, he might.
..
Until next time.
While certain formats of critique may exhaust themselves, criticism is inevitable and its value and importance is not up for debate. Criticism is an essential function of society's dialog with itself. It is a cultural phenomenon as much as an individual one. Criticality, the attitude of maintaining a critical stance, can be applied to as wide a range of topics as economics and literature. Perhaps unintuitively, developing a critical eye toward one topic increases one's ability to critique another. Mark Fisher, whose short book Capitalist Realism is one of the most precise and concise critiques of 21st century capitalism, cut his teeth on music criticism in his 20s. Criticism is a skill of its own, separate from the production of things that are critiqued. Contrary to its detractors, criticism is not purely negative; it is crucial to developing discernment, a pillar of personal vision.
It is also important to learning what one likes, and what one doesn't like, important aspects of self-awareness and agency. I encourage you, readers, to practice short-form criticism yourselves. When something captivates you, explore its beauty and find the words to explain it to those around you. When something angers you, don't avoid that anger or second-guess your judgment; use it to fuel the most precise and direct critique you can muster (and protect yourself by calling it a Roast). When something has good and bad, or when it is mediocre, understand why and clearly present its successes and failures. Most importantly, don't focus too much on the negative lest you become jaded. Engaging beauty with an attitude of sacredness, celebrating it with sincerity, is restorative and energy-generating.
Practice on something today. Even an album is a worthy target.
..
Toro Y Moi has a new album out, 7 years since Causers of This helped pioneered the chillwave microgenre. I remember hearing "Low Shoulder" on Evergreen State College's radio station (89.3 KAOS) and turning up the volume in the car right away. It was a very new sound at the time, but I was bored of the style by the time Anything In Return came out, and I even passed up a chance to see Chaz live when he played at Vassar in 2011 or 2012. The major reason I lost interest in Toro was that although he clearly had a talent for hooky instrumentation ("New Beat" and "Say That" being good examples) most of his songs didn't live up to the catchier tracks. It's not that I demand catchiness from every track. It's that most of the songs on the first three albums simply had too much going on. Too many background synths, too many vocals, melodies that sound great in the chorus but are forgettable in the verses. To this day I can't remember more than a couple songs and vocal lines from each album.
2015's What For?, on the other hand, blew me away. Chaz has always move his style forward on every album, but not only was What For? a straight up indie rock album, but the songwriting was better his best yet. Every single track on What For? is memorable, and the melodies are near-perfect. They're melodies that stick in your head for weeks (and you'll be able to pick them up years later and sing along without any problem). It's hard to pick a single song to serve as an example because every one shares these characteristics. In What For? Chaz perfected his pop songwriting. With this being last album, I was excited to see what Boo Boo had to offer.
The first thing I noticed about the new album is that Chaz has obviously been listening to the same Japanese 80s pop ballads I have for the last three years. Vaporwave exposed so many great 80s artists—Takako Mamiya, Makoto Matsushita, Hiroshi Sato—these are just a few whose stylistic influence comes through on Boo Boo. Toro Y Moi songs have always had a bit of funky bassline influence and heavy drums but the tone and cadence have never been more unapologetically 80s than on this record. The album's single "Girl Like You" is probably the best example of 80s pop writing and follows the style of Phil Collins. And the opener, "Mirage," could have come straight from a Rah Band album (especially in its 4th-wall breaking moment "oh hello, I didn't see you there" at 3:26). I've been on this bullshit for about 4 years and it's really fun to hear it how the influences come through in a modern album. Frank Ocean's influence is also audible on the track "Windows," and "Embarcadero" is unmistakeably a vaporwave track.
In a way though, Boo Boo is a return to the form of his previous albums. It's electronic pop music in the style that Chaz has always made, and although the instrumentation is a bit tighter than it's been in the past, it suffers from some of the same problems I previously identified. It doesn't feel like the popwriting skills exhibited on What For? translate back into his original style. Aside from "Girl Like You" and "You and I" the melodies are for the most part unmemorable. Just like his older albums, Chaz submits to his tendency to just sing what sounds merely good over the backing tracks, sticking to a few notes for the whole song instead of constructing narrative arcs. I couldn't help but wonder what it would have sounded like if George Clanton wrote the melodies for this album instead of Chaz. What's especially disappointing about the album is that a lot of the songs show moments of brilliance, especially in the intros and outros. This is where the 80s influence is most abundantly clear. The intro to "Labyrinth" is glorious, the end of "Mona Lisa" is one of the most interesting moments on the album (it should have been a whole song), and the secret track "Be" on the last half of "W.I.W.W.T.W" should really have been given more attention.
Regardless, this a fun album. It's certainly more fun listening to through headphones than on a speaker system though. I keep hoping that Chaz can bring the level of songwriting he seems to only be able to unlock when making indie rock, and one day, he might.
..
Until next time.
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