The Dirty Projectors Are Not Good

Saw them by mistake. Wye Oak was opening and that's who I wanted to see. No preconceived notion of who or what this band was. I left about half way through the third song. To me it was unlistenable. I have a pretty wide musical pallet and will give almost anything musical a try but if this is experimental music I'd have to conclude the experiment failed. I will give the band props for being competent musicians.

I understand what you are getting at Paul, but there are moment's when Dirty Projectors can sound really inspired.They definately are a 'difficult' listen.As someone who listens to alot of Prog Rock.I'm used to 'difficult' listens though (especially the more experimental end).Find there is quite alot of groups in the new bread of American 'so called' 'Indie' ? (such a confused area of music these days) groups are experimenting in similar ways that proto-progressive groups did in the late '60's / early '70's.Always a bit hit or miss but quite a satisfy listen all the same.Most people who appreciate the talent (disagree with there being no substance) of David Longstreth / Dirty Projectors has though, although quite often un-focused & a bit of a mess at times.Agree with you about Stereogum / Pitchfork should stop over hyping him / them.Until Longstreth comes up with something more cohesive anyway.

umm ... why does the guy call the band "pretentious" and then name drop some of the more difficult reads of 20th century french theory? 

Please, do not forget the 8-inch they put out which had a  lyrical translation of "Gun Has No Trigger" IN FUCKING SUMERIAN.

who are you that you would claim to know the motive behind david longstreth's creativity? i've heard this argument a million times, that the band is just "pretentious," etc. i find it rather pretentious and presumptuous on your part to say that. maybe if you were a musician you would understand. what i look for in music are melodies, harmonies, chord structures, and compositions i haven't yet heard before. that's what DP does. at his best, longstreth is a composer. then a guitarist, and maybe then, a songwriter. just because some people may find it too inaccessible and foreign, and thus label it as fake, posing, pretentious, etc. doesn't mean it is... what about phillip glass? is his music exactly "accessible?" it's art. it's not supposed to always go down easy.

The article is a hatchet job... but god damn it's funny. 

And based on the reviews I've read, and what I've heard by them, the Dirty Projectors seem overrated... so maybe some balancing of the books was in order. 

OH.  Right.  Why are they overrated?  Because everything I hear seems unfulfilled.  There are some moments where I say "This is pretty good."  But that's as far as it goes.  I'd never say "great" about anything I heard by them.  Nothing stands out very much.  

They seem to do some things well, and have good ideas, but it just doesn't come together as something I'm going to want to listen to very often.  And I don't find their music to be terribly thought provoking either.  It's just seems kind of random.  

You could claim it's because it is kind of experimental and I don't get it.  But I don't need to get it. I just need to enjoy it.  And I don't enjoy it enough to want to keep listening.  Thx.

My favorite thing about this post is that it doesn't really say anything specific about why they are bad, it is far to general with its complaint. Basically you've imitated the style you think you are criticizing. The article really didn't do anything beyond simply saying "The Dirty Projectors aren't doing anything." Ironic.

What is the point of just labeling something bad? Can't you say you don't like it, and then give actual reasons (perhaps specific to the music and not broad culture) for the distaste?  The one paragraph that is vaguely talking about the music simply employs a long analogy to a car passenger in order to eat up word count and avoid actually discussing the album in musical terms.

I think your dislike is valid, and its not that I think that you "don't get it," but I'd like to actually hear some musical criticism.  I assume you have real opinions about the the music the DPs put out, and it would be a lot more constructive to everyone to read them than to read lazy cultural criticism that boils down to name calling  (especially as you criticize pseudo-intellectualism).

Also, for transparency's sake, I guess I'd be one of those 15 lionizers.

Damn.  I listened to Bitte Orca on repeat for a couple of years.  I thought I was loving it at the time. If only I'd read this piece back then, I could have saved myself the trouble and done something useful like learn which Lisa Loeb pictures date from which stage of her career.

Repeat after me, "Ad hominem attacks are not a substitute for reasonable discourse. Ad hominem attacks are not a substitute for reasonable discourse. Ad hominem attacks are not a substitute for reasonable discourse." Got it?

Your article would have more merit if it didn't engage in the exact sort of culture-debate that you're complaining about and instead focused on the music you're supposed to be critiquing.

i met a gal from the band in chicago one night a few years ago when my band was playing down the street from her band.  she seemed nice on the street.  if she reads this, i am saying hello.  i also love the article.   made me happy, so i am saying hello to the writer if he reads this.  i was once in LA and met a fellow named Kevin Bronson.  he was so nice (he bought me a drink!), and i heard he writes about bands in LA.  if he reads this, i am saying hello.   i think most people are really nice.  i am not a professional critic, but i think the article was a super fun read.  i might just have to listen to the gal's band sometime.  if they are as nice as her, i think i would hang with the band.  if the band is reading this, i am saying hello.  if any of you come to pennsylvania, i will go out to dinner with you.  but you must come to a food stop near me.  i live near gettysburg.  thank you so much for allowing me to get these thoughts out.  this was almost as fun as reading the article.  but the article trumps most everything that happened to me today.  most everything, yet not everything.  cheers!

first, you set up your article by saying that people who enjoy the music of the DP are followers. sure, that may largely be true, but to generalize completely, saying that anyone who enjoys a thing is therefore brainless is a weak and timid method of proposing an argument. and I agree that there is something wrong with an interview when the question provides an intendedly eloquent answer so the interviewed party may simply reply with "yes." the point of an interview is to open up the interviewed to expose their character and nature to the light of the readership or audience. but I am not writing to comment on the nature of journalism- not even yours here- but rather to make my argument for why I appreciate Swing Lo. as I'm sure other commenters have and will post, there is a musical complexity that longstreth strives to maintain. listening to the album is jarring and foreign. it uses many time signatures and chord structures that popular music is devoid of and which are really largely uncommon in music as a whole. the argument against longstreth that I would accept and I have considered posing is that he simply uses these sounds and rhythms as a means to be strange and to showcase his musical theory knowledge irreverently. but I have refrained from making this argument because the end result of his self-indulgent almost masturbatory music is something that requires the listener to actively gain access to the musical vernacular he employs by decoding the beats, opening your mind up from the all-to-common common time, therefore freeing your ears to enjoy something fresh and unexpected. and to compare the album to an AM/FM radio scan is absurd, because no compilation of radio plays could ever sound like a dirty projectors album.

This article is how I feel about The Shaggs  (but have always been afraid to tell anyone.)

So, I agree that the press has probably gone too far. Swing Lo Magellan at best peters out halfway through, with none of the songs after the one with the opening focusing on the lady vocals (I can't remember the titles anymore, it's been a good minute since I listened to the album.)

But, having seen them in concert, I'm going to defend them as a band. They're definitely not "awful." The ladies have brilliant harmony and vocal blend, and the drum work is often great stuff. "About to Die," "Gun Has No Trigger," "Stillness Is The Move," these are good songs. And they put on a pretty darn good live show.

Should they be held up as the "saviors of independent music?" No, almost definitely not, or else things are more dire than I realized. But if they're "awful," there's a nigh-on-comical amount of music that would be insufferable to you.

This article is more whiny and full of shit than anything I've heard in a while. I don't even like the band and can't stand this pathetic undeserved pedestal you've put yourself on. What a fucking joke of an article! Who the fuck hired you?