The Five Shortest Nate Reviews This Year, Rewritten

submitted by Joe

 

All the way back in August of 2019, during the nascent stages of Record Club, I had an email conversation with my fatter, older friend about his theories on writing album reviews. He had this to say:

"In general, my philosophy on criticism has evolved to the point where the most effective stuff, I find, seeks to understand the work on its own terms. It becomes less about making a judgement and more about engaging with and accurately describing a thing and letting the theoretical reader decide from there if its for them or not. It's not a mark I always hit, but it's the place I'm always aiming for. [...] What really blew this open for me was trying to write reviews without using 'I' at all. Trying to remove myself from my writing really forced me to use a different set of analytical tools. Not like I'm king shit or anything, I am, after all, just an office drone out here bloggin', but the challenge has changed how I think about critique and made writing them more fun for me."

Nate and I have never seen eye to eye on this point (or "I to I," if we're dabbling in puns here). No one is denying that he is the most polished and professional album critic on this blog, and I am continually humbled and impressed that he wants to and is able to schlep around these parts while he has his own blog to run (and also possibly has some paying gigs? I dunno, we've never really talked about this).

 

Still, we obviously approach the art of the record review differently. As Nate said in 2019, he evaluates the album based on whether the artist achieved what he/she/they wanted to achieve, occasionally taking himself (Nate) completely out of the equation. I evaluate an album based on ME ME ME, how am I feeling about this, how does my life refract through this art, how I can relate to this album, and so on. Clearly, one of us knows what he is doing, and one of us has been faking it every week for almost three years now.

So, in honor of Nate pulling double the duty the past couple weeks with his Record Club meta-analyses for other writers, I will choose Nate's five shortest reviews of 2021, and rewrite them in the style of Joe K***, injecting some of that classic sappy emo bullshit, and padding out their word counts unnecessarily. I'm putting the "I" back into his reviews, whether he likes it or not.

 

Nate's Tell Me You Love Me Review

There is a dissonance in communicating pain via channels and methods intended for mass consumption, if not mass enjoyment. Pain is by definition a personal thing; pop music is by design as impersonal as it can be.

 

I understand pop music, because I engage with it as a hobby. But pain? Yeah man, I know pain too.

The first time I ever felt pain was in the schoolyard in fifth grade. Becky was the most popular girl in school. She was so cool. I felt like a chump when I fell for her, because all my friends fell for her too. But one day, we locked eyes. I refused to look away. I was a brash young man, heart intent on the big football scholarship. I wanted to engage fully in life, suck all the marrow from it. I looked at Becky. She looked back. I thought for sure this was it.

But as it turns out, she was making eyes at another. I crumbled. I had said all I needed to say in my piercing gaze—Becky, I love you—but she had not said it back. I all but begged her to tell me she loved me, but she loved some other poor sucker in the schoolyard that day. I felt nothing but pain.

I didn't understand how such a love could remain unreciprocated. I had put it all out on the line, and I had been told in the films I watched growing up that I would be rewarded for it. It was all for nothing. I didn't understand. It felt like there was some growing dissonance, a gaping chasm between what I felt like I deserved and what life was actually giving to me. I feel that dissonance, even now.

 

Tell Me You Love Me grapples with this dissonance, but it does not defeat it.

Nate's From Under the Cork Tree Review

At this point in their existence, Fall Out Boy did not get the credit they deserved as songmakers and performers. That this sparked a rise and peak is not a surprise. What is a surprise is how sophomoric this all seems now in the cold light of the second decade of the 2000s.

 

It feels sophomoric now, today, as I ride around in a golf cart, half-drunk, rather sophomoric myself if you ask me. But don't ask me, 'cause I'm dee-runk, and I'm gonna crash this golf cart if I keep trying to write this Fall Out Boy review, and my cart partner is gettin' worried, he's not liking this album, and he ain't likin' how i'm swervin' all over the road, and now it's on two wheels i'm making a tight turn, and i'm narrowly avoiding the sand trap, my buddy is screaming for his life, little old ladies with their poly performance hats are jumping out of the way and landing hard and shaking their fists as we speed away past hole #8 and caddies are looking on in amazment bc theyve never seena  cart go this fast and now i'm whippin around a tree and now it's all over, the cart goes flying and my buddy goes headfirst into the water hazard and i'm doing tumble after tumble down a steep hill and golf balls and golf clubs and spare bud lights are going flying in every fuking direction and an announcement by some bozo comes over the loudspeaker sayin something like "plz stop making a scene! they are making a scene over by hole #8! we are a country club! stop making a scene!"

 

This ain't a scene, and so forth.

 

Nate's Emphatically No. Review

 

Look, I've already written about Cheekface before, so I'm gonna just post a Simpsons clip and call it day.

 

 

Just kidding, you know I have some more to say. I always do. In fact, this gave me a great opportunity to dive back into the archives of my old blog, Left of the Dial, where I used to write about Cheekface all the time. A younger man wrote the words that I saw on the screen. I liked Cheekface a lot more when I was young. Time is a bitch, and it's getting to me. Every year I find myself becoming more and more jaded. So it was kind of funny to come across a pretty poignant comment from the final post I ever wrote for Left of the Dial, which was titled "2011 Music: The Year so Far." Here's what the comment read:

"Christian Louboutin can be described as shoemaker from France. He's the founding father of the corporation that bears his name. His Christian Louboutin shoes design an incomparable look, the red lacquered shiny soles. It is now his signature style. History about Christian Louboutin shoes He is made in January 1963. He no desire for politics, in the study leave the faculty in a really young age. The Christian shoes claimed which he had enthralled by the shoes he went the G1len national drug eluting stents, one example is art Afrique Oceanie. Daumesnil, located on the street towards monument on his inspiration for that design sketch shoes starting from his teenage time. He's the designer of many with the shoes has stiletto high heel sandals revisit the pop scene in the decade from the 1990s and 2000s, from the turn from the century. As well as always insisted he want to look beautiful and sexy woman. Additionally, the goal is usually to christian louboutin shoes outlet their legs look provided possible for doing that feeling. Design tools in Christian Louboutin shoes A considerable amount of his design features high heels roughly four and a half inches or 120 mm. Few designs have higher heels. Obviously, you cannot assume all the look things about high heeled shoes. He has got a design style top features of time stands. Christian Louboutin brandname shoes specifically for evening wear. Most the look features patent leather developing a bow, feathers, hanging belts plus some other decorative features to ensure they are look different. Many of us purchase a dvd shoes inside a christian louboutin platform pumps outlet from wearing high profile gathering on the celebrity. Louboutin's shoes undoubtedly are a right diamond necklace of design, from other expensive evening dress. Probably the most known brands within the christian louboutin outlet online celebrity clients might be the author Daniel Steel. She's seen to have over 6000 pairs of shoes belonging to the trademark. Fashion lovers of Christian Louboutin shoes She should buy 80 pairs within a single day at a Christian Louboutin outlet. You can identify the Christian Louboutin sale of a volume of shopping outlets across the world. An updated network is anticipated to start in Turkey. Many of us need to know How will i find Christian Louboutin discount shoes, much cash they're able to buy flowers. While it is no easy task to look for brands less, there are several sites online, Christian Louboutin discount shoe sale. In truth, it's the original model of a commercial. It that will help spread its name, but to satisfy the needs of fashion lovers."

Goddamn, that probably says more about Cheekface than I will ever be able to, even if I live 1000 more years.

                                            —Nate

 

Nate's Come On Over Review

At the intersection of cheesy theater and country-as-pop-music lay our dear Twain, whose breakthrough album sounds like it was written to be a jukebox musical before phrases like "jukebox musical" were heavy in the lexicon.

 

So cheesy, yes, and god fucking damn it do I LOVE cheese. I eat so much cheese and know so much about cheese because I eat so much of it that I could probably write an entire Shania Twain review and base it on my favorite cheeses. So let's do that, because I'm bored this week. Here is every song from Come On Over, and which type of cheese it is most like.

1. "Man! I Feel like a Woman!" — manchego cheese — Machego! I Feel like a Woman!

 

2. "I'm Holdin' On to Love (to Save My Life)" — monterey jack cheese — mix either one with hot pickled peppers and you got something spicy!

3. "Love Gets Me Ever Time" — yak cheese — Tibetan communities suck on this cheese for hours, because it's so hard that if you actually tried to bite yak cheese, it would break your teeth. The connection, I think, is self-explanatory.

4. "Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)" — mozzarella cheese — And by "you," I of course mean PIZZA.

 

5. "From This Moment On" — emmental cheese — the Serious Eats guide to cheese describes emmental cheese as a "great melter." I could say the same thing about a good love song.

 

6. "Come On Over" — feta cheese —In order for a cheese in the U.S. to legally be called "feta," it has to be certified as from Greece or Lesbos. To all the feta cheese across the sea, I say to you now: "Come on over!!!!"

 

7. "When" — cheddar cheese — When? Good cheddars are usually aged at least one year. 

8. "Whatever You Do! Don't!" — taleggio cheese — Serious Eats claims that this cheese "smells like feet." I know you wanna smell it, but whatever you do! Don't!

 

9. "If You Wanna Touch Her, Ask!" — swiss cheese — If you wanna touch her, ask! Unless you carry a block of swiss cheese in your car and use it to masturbate while parked next to unsuspecting women in Northeast Philadelphia. That guy sure wasn't asking first!

 

10. "You're Still the One" — chèvre cheese — "Chèvre" literally translates to "goat," and "You're Still the One" is still the GOAT love song.

11. "Honey, I'm Home" — parmigiano cheese — True fact: parmigiano cheese goes great with truffle honey.

 

12. "That Don't Impress Me Much" — cotija cheese — Both are often described as "young, mild, and salty."

 

13. "Black Eyes, Blue Tears" — roquefort cheese — "The blue pockets of mold that dot a chunk of Roquefort are colonies of the mold Penicillium roquefort, found naturally in the caves of Roquefort, France" Mold, not tears. Close enough though. 

 

14. "I Won't Leave You Lonely" — gouda cheese — Sara's favorite song on the album she picked, paired up with Sara's favorite type of cheese!

 

15. "Rock This Country!" — camembert cheese — Both are best consumed deep fried! Yee-haw!! 

16. "You've Got a Way" — white American cheese — c'mon.

Oh god, oh god, I have to stop writing reviews like this. I also have to stop eating so much goddamn cheese. Like writing these unnecessarily long, heartfelt and ultimately empty record reviews, cheese is a delight, but not healthy in great quantities.

Nate's to hell with it Review

Young people have discovered trip hop. Young people have discovered UK garage. Young people have discovered UK grime. Young people have discovered "Born Slippy." Young people have discovered Massive Attack. I have recently discovered that I was adopted.

 

I don't think that it was something that my parents intended for me to find out. Well, okay, adopted parents. Shit, still feels weird saying that. But I was at their home for Thanksgiving and I was thumbing through their mail, and came across a postcard from who I later found out was my biological father. He was reaching out because he was recently diagnosed with stage four, and he didn't know how long he had left before it was too late to make things right.

 

So I left my wife and kids with the parents who raised me, and went all the way out to Cobleskill, NY by myself to discover my true origins. I pulled up to a small trailer by the side of the road, with a homemade address marker indicating that I was in the right place. Tentatively knocked on the door.

 

A man opened the door. He was a stranger, and yet what I saw was strangely familiar. He had my eyes, my nose. My hair, too, though a lot grayer. He welcomed me inside, and we got to talking. Turns out, we had a lot of other similarities too. He occasionally dabbled in blogging. He was the president of the science club at his high school. And he really liked to hell with it by PinkPanthress. "I do too, Dad... is it... is it okay if I call you 'Dad'?" He smiled and nodded, his eyes welling up with tears.

I've gone back to visit occasionally since then. Each time I visit, Dad seems weaker and weaker, as if he is fading away. Finally, this last time, he slumped down on the armchair and let out a big sigh. He appeared defeated. I grabbed him by the shoulders and screamed: "Dad! Dad! The '90s will never die, and neither will you!"