Cindy Lee isn't a retro revivalist IMO, their previous band Women already had that technique of using 1940s-60s songwriting form and warping it with a noisy, no-wave, DIY sensibility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=673IaJZko9I
Part of that sound was Chad VanGaalen producing Women's two albums, and he went on to produce Alvvays' debut album in a similar DIY, tape-saturated style. Women's other successor act, Preoccupations, pretty clearly shows the post-punk/noise-rock side of Women, so it's kind of interesting to see how the descendants have grown their own roots a decade after the band ended.
Anyway my hot take is that Cindy Lee uses past conventions in an inside-out sort of way as a means to an end, rather than producing a retro-sounding surface as the end goal like Ariel Pink. It's not a style, it's an instrument.
The best and worst thing to happen to the album. It fully deserves the acclaim, but now loads of people are only going to listen to it through the prism of the hype rather than hear it for what it is
See, all of those sound "derivative" to me. Absolutely nothing against Japanese yacht rock/soft funk, but it's silly to blame musicians for using genre conventions when those are inherently part of the musical language IMO. Particularly given Cindy Lee works with 1940s-60s pop genre conventions of girl groups and also performs in drag, it's inherently a kind of music that repurposes familiar elements to say something new.
I've been a fan of Cindy Lee's work since before they started the project and were in the band Women, who're a sort of your favourites' favourite artist. Part of the hype around Diamond Jubilee is the context of that band, and the development of successor bands since.
But part of the hype is also that it comes from a very sincere place - it's a full-on auteurist work, the antithesis of "lo fi chill hip hop beats to study/relax to". It can aesthetically or artistically be your thing or not (it very much is mine), but it's a breath of fresh air to have such a fully-realized artistic statement that isn't a focus-grouped, try-hard Event get the acclaim it deserves.
I'm really happy for you, honestly. It must be amazing to have followed a band for so long and see them "make it", so to speak, like this. I remember feeling the same way having followed Phoenix for years and years before they hit the big time.
I don't have much affinity for 1940-60s pop, outside of The Beatles, Motown, and the Phillu Soul we refer to as Northern Soul here in the UK. Which I guess is probably why Diamond Jubilee doesn't do it for me. It's purposefully derivative, which is fine... it's just not to my tastes.
So I'm keen to hear specifically what you think the Japanese tracks are derivative of, that'd probably be more my style.
It seems like a tricky issue for people without the requisite know-how (and most of all, time), though. I worry that in the future, there might be a measurable decline in attention span and cognitive ability among children from poorer households, whose parents, through demands from long hours, lack of education, and lack of access to premium ad-free services, were unable to provide them with such an environment where they are protected from bombardment from technology. What kind of ready-made, low-information consumer level solutions would you consider important to expand here?
> It is because in practice these are politically motivated trojan horses meant to tear down things like a meritocracy, the very thing that created this great software.
1. Why is respecting gender identity a "trojan horse" - in what way is it deceptive?
2. How is a project a meritocracy if it scares away potentially better contributors with an antagonistic discussion climate?
> tried to do it to a guy who dared to express his conservative views on Twitter in a personal capacity etc..
I feel like you and the Medium post are missing out crucial information here. What were these views? How did they relate to the workplace? The Medium post mentions she is friends with James Damore - who was clearly fired because his manifesto by implication, but unmistakebly deemed women developers less competent than men, thereby creating a hostile work environment, which the author completely glosses over. This leads me to suspect that the "disagreeing with the narrative" is a euphemism for anti-women, anti-minority views and policies.
For #1 and #2, there is a thing called emotional resilience that we have lost today. More importantly, the conversations do not get any less antagonistic in communities with this policies. If anything I have seen them get more vicious towards those in the "out group". In times past it was very rare when people were banned from groups. Today it is a regular occurrence, often made with threats of bringing in the police, ruining ones career etc..
Her post actually does a pretty good job at that. But to summarize, as a women in tech she does not feel that women should be given preferential treatment and she is outspoken against lowering the bar and etc. to increase diversity numbers.
For example with one group they held a hackathon. In most hackathons they focus on tech and participants are encouraged to talk about it. One Women in Tech group however held one for women only and actively encouraged the participants to not talk about tech and focused on identity politics, marketing and celebrity endorsements (I was a volunteer and observed this first hand and actively ignored, went against the organizers wishes with the groups I worked with by encouraging them to explore, talk and learn about the tech). Their mentors, with encouragement from the organizers, even went so far as to discourage participants from talking about the tech because it is "boring". The medium post author spoke up about this and ended up with a big target on her back for daring to suggest that the women should be held to the same standard, encouraged to talk about the tech and level up if they are not their yet.
> Damore - who was clearly fired because his manifesto by implication, but unmistakebly deemed women developers less competent than men, thereby creating a hostile work environment, which the author completely glosses over.
Marlene, the author of the medium post and a women in tech who wants to be recognized for her skill when she's at a job or conference etc. and feels that many of the initiatives that lower the standards etc. work against that goal. She, along with many other women and prominent scientists came to a very different conclusion after reading this. Yet this intelligent, independent thinking woman is ostracized for daring to not go along with the narrative. One of the organizers of these women in tech groups suggested that her husband needed to control her, you can't make this up, and another female organizer who, unlike Marlene, literally had no real tech experience, said that Marlene, an experienced women in tech is being banned from a woman in tech group because her views that are "harmful to women and under represented people".
She is pro-women etc, but if we are being honest, it's because she is not a progressive and is not afraid to speak the truth.
> so humanity will just have to deal with it and adapt over the next century. Shame about the planet and the natural ecosystem, though.
I don't think you understand that efforts to prevent climate change are efforts to preserve humanity - the planet will survive in any case, and just form new ecosystems. It's us who'll be the first victims.
Your comment is exactly the attitude the person you were replying to was mocking. What that person saying is that a lot of reasonably intelligent people who are nowhere near geniuses like to think of themselves as geniuses as a form of narcissistic self-flattery. For people good at math, sciences and computing and other occupations considered "nerdy", capability in these fields and stereotypes of intelligence associated with them become a point of pride and they begin to identify with people far smarter than they are, despite actually being unexceptionally intelligent. HN has talented people, sure, but I think it's definitely fair to say there's a large population of people who flatter themselves thinking they're geniuses who regularly post, upvote, and comment on this kind of article with "me too!" sentiments. Pointing this out has nothing to do with the kids in this article, who are genuinely exceptional and certainly worthy of sympathy and nurturing.
>Your comment is exactly the attitude the person you were replying to was mocking.
What is being mocked is the attitude we should care for people? Think about that for a second.
>What that person saying is that a lot of reasonably intelligent people who are nowhere near geniuses like to think of themselves as geniuses as a form of narcissistic self-flattery.
Yet the parent comment didn't have that in it. How can the grandparent be mocking the parent if the grandparent is mocking those who chime in 'me too' while the parent doesn't do that?
Perhaps, but from a utilitarian standpoint, isn't that ultimately a good thing? If we agree that our society needs to improve the way it copes with and nurtures its extraordinarily gifted, then surely a wellspring of sympathy -- even if initially misguided -- from the merely intelligent is a step in the right direction. "Bright normals" tend to occupy the higher echelons of cultural influence in this country, and they certainly represent well in the higher income deciles. I'd argue they are the perfect advocates for those who may, in fact, be unable to advocate for themselves en masse. (Whether through extremely low numbers in the general population, or through being unable to connect on the same level as the gen-pop average.)
Actually Great GP "mocking" comment would have fit perfectly in a parody of HNers posts/comments. We keep seeing them from time to time, and LOL at them. But not as a top comment on a sensitive article about the problems of gifted children (a minority of a kind).
For that matter, even on posts of mental health issues, people comment and proclaim "me too", do you and GGP think, even there people are just trying to carve out an image out of vanity.
Simple fact is this, GGP's comment angered a lot of people - I too wrote few draft replies earlier and deleted them. But you comment, made me say, what the heck?
Actually, to such low value comments as that of the GGP. May be we should allow reddit like replies. You reap what you sow.
