Clipse en Español/Obligatory Destroyer Gush

I wish this article had been better than it is. After trying to trudge through Rising Up and Rising Down unsuccessfully, I've had this deep ugly pit in my stomach that says William Vollman is playing the part of the alien whose weird brand of naif-libertarianism has made more excuses than answers. And shit, I watched The Man Who Fell to Earth last week, and Vollman's not it.

Still, after all the ponderous nights and anxiety I got out of coke rap this year, I'm excited by the subject of narco corridos: drugslinger legends played out in song.

This article on the BBC was a lot better and more informative, particularly the near-perfect resonance of marketing's rhetoric:

"Mariluz Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for LA-based Fonovisa Records, which represents Los Tigres and several other narco corrido stars, said: 'They are not glamorising the drug dealers' lives, they are simply telling a story. They are not promoting it.'"

Endless return!

Somehow, it makes me both more queasy and more excited that this is such a vibrant trend elsewhere; I wonder if we'll get Pusha on some Los Tigres Del Norte tracks until Hell Hath No Fury finally shows up.

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Also, it's tough to hold back the flood of feeling with regards to Zoilus' ruminations on Destroyer's Rubies; I'm reviewing it for Stylus in February, and it seems gross to spoil it all here. I will say that I'm largely in accordance with the post, though I can't help but adding a few things. I think Bejar has fully problematized himself: the relatively straightforward "musicality" of the record belies a kind of coming to terms with formal cliches; he actually sounds like he's making indie rock and not MIDI-theatre or conceptual rock*, but his lyrics sound more polarized than ever, bumping bitterness against redemption in the same verse.

(*I'm invested enough to think that This Night's exaggerated looseness is there for a reason and that Streehawk: A Seduction is purposely and purposefully sloppy and one-dimensional, especially after the relatively composed and smoothed-out arrangements of Destroyer's Rubies.)

In the end, I think it's a more optimistic record, but only if you buy Bejar's criticisms that "A life in art and a life of mimicry" are the same thing. When you get down to it, it's plain Warholian - Bejar's gesture of originality being a partial rejection of the concept's primacy to begin with - but OH NO! I can't dork out for long on that without posting my undergraduate thesis, which would surely be a hoot.

(Also, if you thought this post on Destroyer was too concise, allusive, and clinical, here are my earlier thoughts on the record from a couple weeks ago; like most things infantile, they're ill-informed, brutish, expressive, and expansive.)