Arizona’s Willie Bloomquist is small (5-foot-11, 185 pounds) by current MLB standards, his baseball skills are limited, and he plays hard. He is, according to the vernacular, “scrappy.” Many fans love him for this. They watch Bloomquist, and what they see doesn’t seem so far removed from their own perceived level of ability. It is conceivable to watch him and think, “I could do that,” in a way that it is not possible to watch Justin Upton and reach the same conclusion. This makes it easier for some folks to root for Bloomquist than for Upton despite the latter’s superiority at baseball. I haven’t read the original research, but psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman references work done in this area:
Researchers Penelope Lockwood and Ziva Kunda at the University of Waterloo found that stars whose success was relevant to people and seemed attainable to them evoked inspiration. In contrast, if the star’s success seemed unobtainable, some subjects reported that they felt deflated.
This could be a factor in Bloomquist’s popularity. And in Pavement’s.
Perspective is everything. What inspires endearment in some may inspire resentment in others. You might think it’s great that a player of Bloomquist’s caliber can survive in the big leagues with such a limited skill set. Or you might wonder why he is taking time away from more talented individuals who are languishing in the minors.
In Pavement’s case, the band had trouble writing cohesive melodies and recording them without falling apart in the process. Depending on your perspective, you might think it’s cool that people lacking basic musicianship skills can succeed in the business, or you might be annoyed that they have a recording contract when people who write songs and play instruments with some proficiency are struggling to support themselves and their families.
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1. Roger Freed Is Ready Posted: February 07, 2012 at 11:24 AM (#4055398)I know, right?
Obviously, I'm no Repoz ...
The problem is that this is simply wrong. Pavement had solid "musicianship skills", in that all of them could play their instruments competently (except Bob Nostanovich, but that's why they had two drummers). Gary Young was a good drummer, he just looked sloppy on stage because he constantly threw his drum sticks all over the place, the guy who replaced him was solid, Mark Ibold was a solid bass player in a you-don't-notice-him sort of way, and once you've got a competent rhythm section you're a competent rock band. There were a million bands in the 1990s that couldn't play their instruments and plenty labels and fans that fetishized this, but all Pavement has in common with them was that their first couple of releases weren't of the highest recording quality. What Pavement did was to choose to be sloppy and not to play at the edge of their skills but rather well under them and lazily. Sure, Malkmus is more vocalist than singer, but Lou Reed had been putting out records for 25 years when Pavement's first album came out, so that's neither here nor there. Pavement were just a band that made some aesthetic decisions. If you want Bloomquistian untalented-but-scrappy from that era you should buy yourself something from Beat Happening's oeuvre.
EDIT: And I'm not now and wasn't then especially a Pavement. I was more into the people who couldn't play!
EDIT EDIT: What I'm saying is that Pavement were like Ichiro -- they could have written cohesive melodies and kept together while playing them if they'd wanted to.
But I have never heard of Pavement. So I got nuttin.
This is because, like me, you're an intelligent and handsome individual.
"Gold Soundz" is about as a perfect a two-and-a-half-minute pop song as you could imagine; concise, melodic, and without a note wasted or out of place.
I remember once being part of a Maxwell's late nite rolling rock drinktank about Pavement...and someone (might have been Chris Stamey) said that Malkmus could have rolled out pure pop hit after pure pop hit but much like Chilton, he'd rather "drag a rake over the recording" to give it lasting quality. Or something.
And I never listened to Archers of Loaf but I really like Crooked Fingers. Is AoL anything similar to what Bachmann was doing in Crooked Fingers?
Malkmus during his Pavement days was a genius of melody.
This
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