Friedrich Schlegel on why Joanna Newsom sucks

Naïve is what is or seems to be natural, individual, or classical to the point of irony, or else to the point of continuously fluctuating between self-creation and self-destruction.  If it's simply instinctive, then it's childlike, childish, or silly; if it's merely intentional, then it gives rise to affectation.

Though I hear her new album is supposed to be interesting, and I haven't actually heard the first, only a single live performance.

Comments

[lisa]

She's a harp player.

Not a superstar.

Cut the lady some slack.

Could you do any better?

[standpipe b]

Could you do any better?

It's problematic to assume that harp players should only take criticism from other harp players of equal or better skill. In the end, what moves you to accept the judgment of one of those superior harpists, or even that they're superior in the first place? Either you make up your own mind or you throw up your hands.

[standpipe b]

I don't recommend eating your hands.

[teofilo]

Typical weak-kneed liberal. Have the courage of your convictions!

[standpipe b]

you th my nosema his wi i typed tknow thatoynhterested t be i

[ben wolfson]

This post is currently the topmost result in Google for "joanna newsom sucks", whether the phrase is or is not enclosed with quotation marks.

[ben wolfson]

Incidentally, Schlegel also provides a reply to lisa super:

When an author [or, in this case, a fan] doesn't know anymore what sort of answer to make to a critic [or, in this case, random sniper], then he usually says: But you can't do it any better. That's like a dogmatic philosopher accusing the skeptic of not being able to create a system.

[Armsmasher]

[

I'd hoped to find Barthelme's "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel" to mine it for a joke about Devendra Banhart, but I can't find Sixty Stories, so I'll leave this comment as a placeholder for the joke while I continue looking.

]

I like one of the choruses in the first song on Ys having to do with meteors. But the last time she mentions it, she sings "and the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void/ that lies quiet in offering to thee," and I don't like the image of a void lying (in or on . . . ?).

[Mock Turtle]

Yah, she's a really good harp player. But she's a TERRIBLE singer! I would like her if she kept her friggin' mouth shut.

[tonto]

Joanna Newsom is a fat slut; discuss

[Greg]

Joanna Newsom is not that great of a harp player. Simply playing an unusual instrument does not make one a master. As for her singing and sense of melody, yes, I can do better. She is terrible at both.

[Jeebus Khrist]

Anyone who says Newsom is a "really great harp player" doesn't know anything about the instrument,