Wow. what a lot of vitriol from the AICN guy. To write like that he must have had a strong reaction to the film. He's probably just trying to be hip -in-reverse.
Jeesh - I just finally noticed that and clicked the link. Some quotes follow:
"I listened to the music and I found it underwhelming in the extreme. There’s a kind of paranoid schizophrenia, one of whose symptoms is the sufferer’s repetition of the same melody over and over without change, and, I’m no doctor, but DJ probably has that condition: to say his song structures are “static” is to bend over backwards to be polite."
That's a valid critique of a thankfully tiny percentage of Daniel's songs, but like the NYT guy, I'm flummoxed as to how these people come to decide they can critically analyze a musician's entire ouvre using only the tunes they heard fractionally used in the background of a film!
"His lyrics are the kind that are either artless and brilliant, or just artless, and to my way of thinking they’re the latter (though Funeral Home is better than most of them, though it’s basically nicely decorated self-absorbed teenage morbidity). "
Daniel does in some specific cases insist on intentionally being artless (or more accurately "craftless", if I'm following this guy's meaning at all) in favor of words and phrases that come "naturally". Overall, though, this statement is just plain dumbfounding in its ignorance... and WORSE, the guy wasn't even cognizant enough to nail "Funeral Home" for being a shame-less, one-joke Springsteen rip-off!!!
I was personally amused with the "reviewer'"s use of the phrase "dime-store Salieri" - but only because in my song "Artist Inside" (which is partly about Dan and partly about myself), I refer obliquely to my 'Not Daniel' persona with the chorus:
Talent is a gift, God-given,
And to steal it is a crime,
But don't you know that everybody
Is someone's Salieri at some time...
I'm really only on nodding terms with Harry "Ain't I Cool" Knowles and his cronies, but I may have to give HK a ring and ask whazzup with this Skulldrek yoyo. He's like an old Film Threater with the incisiveness replaced by aimless vitriol.
- NotDan
If anyone cares, here's the entire lyrics to my song I mentioned:
ARTIST INSIDE
There is no date of expiration,
On a feeling pure and true.
You're seeking sex and inspiration -
Must be an artist inside you.
Don't need to understand the question
To know just where the answer lies.
If I may make a brief suggestion -
Take refuge in the world behind your eyes.
You know your mind is something precious, and to waste it is a shame,
But don't you know that everybody is slowly driving someone else insane.
I think I need a tape recorder.
I'd take it with me everywhere I go.
Not that I think that I'm a genius,
But when the Great Thought* hits, you never know.
I mean, what if you came up with a plan for World Peace,
And then forgot it cuz you didn't write it down?
But then again, someone'd just probably shoot you
Before you could even hand your notes around.
Talent is a gift God-given, and to steal it is a crime,
But don't you know that everybody is someone's Salieri at some time.
There is no date of expiration
On a feeling pure and true.
You're seeking sex and inspiration -
Must be an artist inside you.
(Copyright KWL 1990-ish)
*(this is a reference to Dan's concept of the Great Tune, which comes down and bestows itself only on the one Artist who has perservered beyond all others in his quest for it)
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