If we’re going to keep talking about Odd Future, you should probably read this piece by Ann Powers, which is excellent and thoughtful and nuanced about art that depicts unpleasant things:
Not all art that claims to be transgressive is worth caring about. But you can’t tell the bullshit from the real by setting moral standards. You have to set artistic ones.
Yeah this Powers piece is great, as is the discussion spinning out of your post. This is dashed off quickly and maybe I’ll write something more thoughtful later, but in the meantime…
What I crave right now as far as writing on Odd Future, and Ann touches on this a little, is some kind of criticism happening at a closer proximity to the content of the music, if not from the “inside” then at least from less of a remove. It’s easy for critics writing about Taylor Swift or Animal Collective or Kanye West to take what is interesting about the music and apply it directly to the writer’s own experiences to see how it translates and what it might mean; with Odd Future, revulsion causes writers to move away and observe from a distance. This is why they do these things instead of this is why I find these things interesting. And I feel like the writing has less insight because of it.
In other words, I think it’s possible that people—often kids, but adults, too—are drawn to things like Odd Future and Eminem because they know what it’s like to have terrible things run through their heads from time to time, repulsive images that pop up in the flow of consciousness and are immediately ignored or dismissed because that is all they are—thoughts. Odd Future take those thoughts and build songs around them. Whether or not it makes for good art I am not sure, but I feel like that is a significant part of the appeal. And it’ll be interesting to see if anyone decides to engage with it on that level.
Reblogged from barthel|75 notes