I do that with ILX.
― Manchego Bay (G00blar), Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:01 (fifteen years ago) link
I think that REGULARLY is probably key here.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:04 (fifteen years ago) link
I would assume that the bulk of Pitchfork's readership in those early days was regular.
― nabisco, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Really? Why would you assume that?
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:09 (fifteen years ago) link
I found all their digressions stupid and irritating and signs of bad writing more than anything else
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:13 (fifteen years ago) link
cf wizard's cap
Even if you were a regular reader, i.e. clicking on the site every day/week (it wasn't always daily updated was it? I can't recall now) I think how invested even a regular reader was, probably had a great deal of variance.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:13 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost - It was a small unpublicized sometimes-amateurish site with a niche audience and a lot of voice/style involved; its selling point was regular coverage of music that wasn't covered a ton of other places online; it eventually put up a reader-mail page that usually contained missives from people who seemed to follow the site. It seemed like the sort of site that people would either click across once and forget, or else start reading regularly because it covered stuff they were interested in (what review outlet isn't kinda like this?), and hindsight/history seems to confirm that this was the case. I'm not sure how, at this point, to imagine some kind of shifting/sporadic readership in those days, but maybe you know something I don't.
xpost - okay, we're either talking in circles or you're just disagreeing with things for the sake of it, given that my whole point was that pretty much anything I read repeatedly over the course of more than a few months will prompt some kind of "I wonder who's writing this" curiosity
― nabisco, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:20 (fifteen years ago) link
(I'd note also that people still engage in lots of weirdo imagination of who the site's writers are or what they're like, though it's very, very good that no multi-paragraph review intros are answering those questions)
― nabisco, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:24 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm sure there were plenty of people who read the site obsessively and wondered "who's writing this", but I think there were also plenty of people who clicked on the site, checked if anything looked interesting, glanced at a review or two, and then went on their merry way (hell this is how I still read the site and many others). They didn't care whose name was on a review and they didn't give much thought to who the writers were than I did above.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:37 (fifteen years ago) link
I don't think I've ever read a music review
― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 3 December 2008 23:41 (fifteen years ago) link
Alex in SF you are obtuse.
― BIG WORLD HOOS. WEBSTEEN. (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 4 December 2008 01:47 (fifteen years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Triangle-obtuse.svg/460px-Triangle-obtuse.svg.png
― k3vin k., Thursday, 4 December 2008 01:49 (fifteen years ago) link
When I wrote this:
Do we need to go back to those PFM reviews that start out with awful academic presumptuousness and opening sentences like "Poor black Americans in 1973 thought that Nixon was..." and other shifting viewpoints and strawmen?
When I wrote that a few weeks ago I had no idea it was such a close parody to an actual PFM review opener. That is, until I saw Shakey Mo's Motown excerpt upthread.
Again, the real thing.
it's instructive to realize that what we figuratively consider "the sixties" is roughly the period from 1965 to 1973, when the United States was embroiled in the Vietnam War and undergoing the paroxysmal changes that made it into a true democracy for the first time in its history.
― Cunga, Thursday, 4 December 2008 04:04 (fifteen years ago) link
I totally want to avoid getting all Captain Save-a-Prose on this or any other thread, but Cunga, can I just ask what's bad or incorrect or non-illuminating about that statement (the 60s one)?
― nabisco, Thursday, 4 December 2008 19:16 (fifteen years ago) link
Some will quibble about "true democracy", I suppose. And the "now I'm going to teach you kids a lesson about this" tone never seems to make friends around here.
Somebody was saying something about comma placement.
― contenderizer, Thursday, 4 December 2008 19:29 (fifteen years ago) link
load all messages nabisco
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 4 December 2008 19:38 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh right, I forgot we went over that. But I get the feeling that Cunga's objection to that sentence is not the same as Shakey's. Cunga seems to feel there's something horrible about it as a sentence (?), whereas Shakey was just making a substantively questionable nit-pick about what constitutes a "true democracy" (a nit-pick I still find completely baffling and silly, sorry).
― nabisco, Thursday, 4 December 2008 19:46 (fifteen years ago) link
pitchfork was a pretty special place for me in the late 90s, and as a teenager then i thought i stumbled upon a pretty awesome little corner of the web.
you were going to this random bit of internet you'd found where people shared opinions about music (many of them amusing or strange or half-assed) almost more as a form of shit-shooting entertainment than anything else
^yea this gets at what i liked about the early site.
i do cringe now at some of the old reviews (the coltrane one upthread is pretty awesome) but i think those reviews had a lot to do with why i liked the site then. as some have alluded to, that kind of amateurish, but very enthusiastic tone kind of paralleled how my friends and i talked about music at that age. i hadn't heard of a zine at that time and pretty much read about music in spin, so to find the site at that time was pretty cool.
― mark cl, Thursday, 4 December 2008 20:06 (fifteen years ago) link
It's weird for me to think about how upset I used to get about Pitchfork reviews in 2000-2002. Now it is one of the blandest websites I can think of, and I miss all those old wars.
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Friday, 5 December 2008 06:47 (fifteen years ago) link
It's like Pitchfork's been soft ever since Snoop came through and crushed the buildings.
― Ringtone Tycoon (The Reverend), Friday, 5 December 2008 06:50 (fifteen years ago) link
LOL at this - I don't think Marissa'a PR company could have licked her colon cleaner:
Hells Yeah, New Marissa Nadler Album!Blonde Redhead, Beachwood Sparks members guest Sub-zero temperatures, snow quietly cascading onto barren branches, and Marissa Nadler playing on the stereo; some things were just made for each other. Hopefully snow will still be falling on some parts of the world come March 3, as that's when Ms. Nadler's due to drop her fourth full-length, Little Hells.
The follow-up to 2007 breakthrough Songs III: Bird on the Water and likely little bit o' heaven, Little Hells collects 10 new tracks and features production from Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, !!!) and contributions from Blonde Redhead's Simone Pace, Beachwood Sparks' "Farmer" Dave Scher, and Black Hole Infinity's Myles Baer. Kemado will have the pleasure of releasing it.
And just in time for this chilly season, relatively new Kemado offshoot Mexican Summer (named after a Marissa Nadler jam, no less) issued Marissa's debut album, Ballads of Living and Dying, on vinyl this week. Swap out "stereo" for "creaky turntable" in the scenario above, and you really have some things that were made for each other.
In other Marissa rumblings, the lady has a new original track due on a forthcoming compilation to benefit the Save Darfur campaign and the World Food Programme, and a cover of Judee Sill's "The Kiss" is set to appear on another upcoming comp. Nadler notes that the Sill cover will be credited to Marissa Nadler & Black Hole Infinity and marks her first "attempt at electronic drum beats." Nice.
I can't wait until this album comes out so I can forget all about killing myself.
Also LOL at 'attempt at electronic drum beats' garnering a 'nice' from Pitchfork - if Rivers Cuomo or Ryan Adams said that shit they'd open up a can of nerd whoop-ass to beat the (Beta) band.
Oh, hilarious, increasingly ridiculous Pitchfork.
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Friday, 5 December 2008 20:59 (fifteen years ago) link
tbf, given the way they used to gather their news, Marissa Nadler probably wrote that item.
― Manchego Bay (G00blar), Friday, 5 December 2008 21:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh, hilarious, increasingly ridiculous Pitchfork
― beyonc'e (max), Friday, 5 December 2008 21:07 (fifteen years ago) link
Hilarious, increasingly, ridiculous, gay, homo, awful, Pitchfork, media
― Peter "One Dart" Manley (The stickman from the hilarious 'xkcd' comics), Friday, 5 December 2008 21:09 (fifteen years ago) link
For those of you nostalgic for odd tangents in a review lede, I recommend checking out today's Cat Power review. The critic's sister just had a baby!
― post-schadenfreude (fukasaku tollbooth), Monday, 8 December 2008 11:49 (fifteen years ago) link
That's not at all irrelevant to the review, though.
― jaymc, Monday, 8 December 2008 13:43 (fifteen years ago) link
dude it was a pretty lame review
― With a little bit of gold and a Peja (bernard snowy), Monday, 8 December 2008 13:46 (fifteen years ago) link
is it really that hard to just write "this Cat Power record, like all Cat Power records, was boring"
― With a little bit of gold and a Peja (bernard snowy), Monday, 8 December 2008 13:48 (fifteen years ago) link
no, but they won't pay you for a review less than 20 words long unless there's an accompanying dog or monkey-related visual.
― Freedom Passantino (some dude), Monday, 8 December 2008 14:01 (fifteen years ago) link
what about a picture of chan marshall's bush
― With a little bit of gold and a Peja (bernard snowy), Monday, 8 December 2008 14:09 (fifteen years ago) link
or a lolcat power
― With a little bit of gold and a Peja (bernard snowy), Monday, 8 December 2008 14:12 (fifteen years ago) link
"I can haz cumpleet silenz wile I restarts song fiev times?"
That "Blind" song they named song of the year is a piece of shit.
― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 18 December 2008 00:12 (fifteen years ago) link
blind is awesome imo
― K DEF FROM REAL LIVE (deej), Thursday, 18 December 2008 07:36 (fifteen years ago) link
HOMOPHOBE!!!
haha. anyone who hates hercules and love affair= homophobe. i think we established that over on the NME best of poll.
― psychgawsple, Thursday, 18 December 2008 08:24 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah I saw them on Sunday and all of a sudden regret not hanging out in the VIP all day in case Nomi came out for a cocktail
― Iconic Erection (sic), Thursday, 18 December 2008 11:09 (fifteen years ago) link
though Erlend Oye did come out and dance with me during H&LA
― Iconic Erection (sic), Thursday, 18 December 2008 11:38 (fifteen years ago) link
Three years passed between the Austrian electronicist's landmark Endless Summer and 2004's relatively underwhelming Venice.
Nuh Uh.
― Girlfriend, you've been scooped like ice cream (mehlt), Friday, 19 December 2008 14:43 (fifteen years ago) link
Venice was pretty good.
― ilxor, Saturday, 20 December 2008 06:15 (fifteen years ago) link
I'd say it's roughly on the same level as Endless Summer. Granted Endless Summer came out 3 years earlier.
― Girlfriend, you've been scooped like ice cream (mehlt), Saturday, 20 December 2008 14:08 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/148213-pitchforktv-usa-for-affluence-ft-tim-harrington-moby-andrew-wk-will-sheff-fred-armisen-carl-newman-and-many-more-beardo-episode-5-cash-for-christmas-video-mp3
I had the misfortune of watching this. It doesn't work as a song. It doesn't work as an ironic anti-song. The level of wealth, complacency and self-satisfaction evident in that video is not as far from what you would get if you put a random selection of Chase employees in a room (a few wealthy ones like Moby, a few middle-management types like the relatively successful of that bunch, and a few mailroom types like the "struggling" of the musicians) as what the people in the video would have you believe. I think the movie The Distinguished Gentleman has a deeper political critique than this song. And that movie was actually funny.
NB I haven't eaten in the last 48 hours.
― Shh! It's NOT Me!, Monday, 22 December 2008 01:49 (fifteen years ago) link
Ugh,that was excruciating. I've seen a lot of funny stuff about the recession and this is not it. Although, it probably is the best song Excepter's ever made.
― throwbookatface (skygreenleopard), Monday, 22 December 2008 16:12 (fifteen years ago) link
^that didn't need a comma.
― throwbookatface (skygreenleopard), Monday, 22 December 2008 16:13 (fifteen years ago) link
Someone explain this sentence pls:
One of the most dynamic singers ever to put his stamp on the pop charts, Redding consistently emphasized song over performance, which means each take is singular and unrepeatable.
― Gorgeous Preppy (G00blar), Tuesday, 6 January 2009 10:53 (fifteen years ago) link
Tried. Only way I could decode it was if the writer was making an error. If he emphasized performance over song, then each take would be singular and unrepeatable. If he emphasized song over performance, though, presumably each take would be exactly alike because he'd be executing the same platonic ideal of a song (and not paying attention to the particular moment/performance the song was occurring in). Of course, assuming it's not a mistake... it makes no sense.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 6 January 2009 10:57 (fifteen years ago) link
Each take is always singular and unrepeatable no matter what. (A repetition is obviously a new take.) So the consequent of the proposition
(consistently emphasized song over performance) => (each take is singular and unrepeatable)
is true, and the basic theory of logic tells us that the entire proposition is then true whether the antecedent is true or not. QED.
― anatol_merklich, Tuesday, 6 January 2009 11:05 (fifteen years ago) link
gotta ask what the point of this is http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/149449-video-gucci-mane-stoopid
granted im kind of protective of gucci and concerned w/ how he is portrayed on the internet but it's the first time pfork has ever mentioned the dude and we get some condescending nonsense like
"Bolstered by snare taps and synth stabs, Mane declares the stoopid-ity of his chain. Then he runs for mayor, repping East Atlanta. "I'm not very articulate," Mane says"
what is this ''adding to the conversation''? the post is written like pfork readers have an intimate working knowledge of gucci's music, and by not explaining at all why anyone should care about gucci or what makes him great all this serves is to get pfork readers to laugh at this "dumb" rapper. well, i guess it says gucci's not stupid. that's something!!
― Funky House, M.D. (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, 3 March 2009 17:41 (fifteen years ago) link
gucci mane is stoopid (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)
― go to club ban with me pls (some dude), Tuesday, 3 March 2009 17:46 (fifteen years ago) link
complaining about pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)
― ilxor, Tuesday, 3 March 2009 17:54 (fifteen years ago) link