Jay Reatard: Lets All Drink To The Death Of A Clown

2010 is not the future anymore.  There are no flying cars and the world is not existing in some post apocalyptic condition. It’s ordinary, boring, and painfully up to date. The new decade will render the relevant irrelevant, and new assholes will come out to play. I know that I will hate the new ones as much as I hate the irrelevant ones. Irrelevance always occurs through compromise and laziness. Five years ago, Jay Reatard and the Black Lips were untouchable and infallible forces in music. Nowadays, Reatard is a tantrum prone buffoon who pimps family friendly retreads of his older material just so that he can get his ego stroked by tin eared music “journalists” and to make a few bucks.  Do not get me wrong. Getting critical praise is not a bad thing and making actual money from your music is definitely not either but you do not have to reach to the bottom of the shit barrel to achieve these.  Reatard is doing what many musicians do when they attempt mainstream success, they pander to their new audience’s stupidity. Let’s face it, the general public is stupid. It doesn’t know what it wants. That’s why there are media outlets like Fox News and MSNBC to dictate their politics and places like Pitchfork and Vice for their musical taste.  The Williamsburg bohemian is just as square as the elderly
Fox News viewer. They are presented one perspective and that one viewpoint is groomed and pampered by the sources until it looks like the end all be all of anything.  Sure, Retard still looks like a maverick to the music press, but then again, anyone can look badass when Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend are considered the cutting edge in today’s music culture.  What is really hilarious is how the press treats Reatard.  Pitchfork, which is half a tabloid and half a Lester Bangs clone job, praises Reatard for his lo fi, garage punk roots and what ever other crap Matador pays them to write. Take any article on Reatard and count how many times the writer gushes about his “lo fi garage punk” and you will see how many times that person pats themselves on the back. Every review for Watch Me Fall followed the same formula. First, we get to hear all that shit about Reatard’s “roots”, which I doubt anyone reading gives a shit since they are getting a music recommendation from Entertainment Weekly and they are most likely forty something squares looking for credibility within their midlife crisis. Second, we get to hear about his new album which, compared to Blood Visions, is like the Stones going from Exile on Main Street to Goat’s Head Soup. Its not completely awful in the traditional sense but rather a symbol of what he has become.  All the good things are gone and everything else is exaggerated to the point that any moron looking to be cool can grasp onto it. But almost every music journalist idiot that reviews the new record disregards that and instead gives the tired cop out remark that he is “incorporating more pop”. Bullshit. Blood Visions was a pure pop record that didn’t use bullshit techniques to justify it’s pop status.  Most rock bands that use the pop tag usually forget that pop music is in the music, not the studio magic. Making your sound squeaky clean will not make your riff any catchier. That is something Retard forgot when he was getting his nose froze on Matador’s money.  The money is good, the coke is great, the music is not. You could have all three Jay. Fuck, what am I talking about? Of course you can’t!

The Black Lips on the other hand, I don’t know what to say about this group anymore. They were so close to rock n roll Valhalla with Let It Bloom and then they piss it all away with that goddamn Vice record. Why are you lowering your standards? There is no way that Good, Bad, Not Evil was the logical next step after Let It Bloom. I know that and I know fully well that the Black Lips knew that. The album after that one? Who cares? I know I didn’t when it came out. They fucked up so royally that I am not even interested in them redeeming themselves because I know they will not do it. There is nothing about them that is remarkable anymore. They are destined to fade away, all in the name of “respectability”. I don’t know what possessed the Black Lips let alone Jay Reatard to lower their standards to meet their new audiences’ standards.  What a bunch of wimps. You’re the fucking band! You set the standards, not the fucking audience!  If you treat your audience like morons they are going to remain morons. Now it just seems that the Lips are just another face in the crowd. I get as excited about them now as I ever did about Grizzly Bear. Damn, its really sad I could make any sort of comparison of the Black Lips to Grizzly Bear. Five years seems like a long time now. 2010, no Black Lips, no Carbonas, no Jay Reatard.