pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Lord Finesse has good boom bap beats, esp on Return of the Funkyman IMO

a lot of it is Diamond D or Showbiz (or Finesse himself)

otm

This is what we talk about now, the music-makers and the music-listeners both. Not the fine details of genre and style — everyone, allegedly, listens to everything now — but the networks of identity that float within them. Maybe decades ago you could aim your songs at a mass market, but music does not really have one of those anymore. Artists have to figure out whom they’re speaking to and where they’re speaking from. The rest of us do the same. For better or worse, it’s all identity now.

imo This says a lot more about the future of music writing than music itself. (I didn't read the whole thing. Was that their point?) It's become easier to promote music with heavy identity-based narrative attached to it, and big business music blogs will continue to encourage writing that covers those artists. But music that hits outside of this bullseye can still be great on its own.

This is what we talk about now, the music-makers and the music-listeners both. Not the fine details of genre and style — everyone, allegedly, listens to everything now — but the networks of identity that float within them.

i don't see how this is all that much more true now than in the 80s (MTV) or the 70s (teen beat, rolling stone). probably before that, too, but i wouldn't know.

allegedly

Pitchfork pans the new Ed Sheeran album but spends the entire review talking only about the lyrics. Like, who the hell listens to music for the lyrics?!

lyrics are important too

see: every rap thread, Bob Dylan box sets

didn't read review, but what would you actually say about Ed Sheeran music other than it is bland and utterly without character? You could take out his vocal, and insert one of 100,000 aspiring pop singers, male or female, and use the tracks as demos to shop. And probably not get signed, because 99,999 other people are doing the exact same thing.

of course lyrics are important, that's the silliest opinion that gets parroted on ilm

obviously they aren't as important as other elements of music, as instrumental music is great without lyrics and it's much easier to be great music with bad music and succeed rather than bad music with great lyrics

but people quote songs all the time, write down lyrics, talk about how much songs mean to them, i think irl people find lyrics meaningful it's more of a rock critic thing or just a thought meme to say they don't

i used to think lyrics aren't important but they are extremely important

snrub provokes much-needed debate

tbf Sheeran's lyrics are so bad it's hard to notice much else

also tbf, I *do* focus on music first -- and in many cases, never actually get around to remembering the lyrics to even some of my favorite songs. But it's because of that stuff like Ed Sheeran is so insufferable. The music might just as well not exist. As a matter of conserving our shared mental and emotional bandwidth, it shouldn't exist. It's a moral issue, really.

(ironically, his song that was accused of having ripped off Marvin Gaye is actually the only way to redeem its music -- by recycling parts, it's at least producing less completely new waste)

if you say 'lyrics arent important' that's just bc you don't listen to much music with bad lyrics

huge part of the craft of lyricism is just not writing anything so awful that will stick out and distract from the music

everyone who says lyrics don't matter gets sentences to a week in the 4 non blondes/edie brickell thread

unless the vocalist doesn't enunciate i have no idea how you can ignore lyrics any more than you can ignore any other prominent aspect of the musical arrangement. they're right there, in your ear.

j.k. i don't even hear lyrics

no idea if the first lines to "juicy" by biggie are "it was a all a dream/i used to read word-up magazine" or "it was poo poo pee/tony danza watermelon mezzanine"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pitchfork even reviewing this shit over countless other deserving obscurities it'll never touch is the true atrocity here

fp

you useless dullard fuck, when will you fuck off forever

"it was poo poo pee/tony danza watermelon mezzanine"

is this lyric on Low-Life or Brotherhood?

lmao

hay guys conservatives and ed sheeran fans have feelings too

why wasn't chaki's milquetoast zing preserved solely for you I ask

you useless dullard fuck, when will you fuck off forever

― an uptempo Pop/Hip Hop mentality (imago), Friday, March 10, 2017 10:21 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

can u just go write another shitty epic novel or something?

at least that would constitute some sort of artistic achievement

Does it matter what you say if you play shoegaze? I'm too dull to make poetry, looking for a loophole here.

you're a fucking plague on interesting discourse. good day

shitting in the corner of an empty room counts as a artistic achievement in certain cases

wait was that last part to me? Because I knew that already.

nah flops and lj are working something out i guess

can you find some other precocious 16 year olds to talk at? sure they would be much more impressed

didn't read review, but what would you actually say about Ed Sheeran music other than it is bland and utterly without character? You could take out his vocal, and insert one of 100,000 aspiring pop singers, male or female, and use the tracks as demos to shop. And probably not get signed, because 99,999 other people are doing the exact same thing.

― Dominique, Friday, March 10, 2017 9:29 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pitchfork even reviewing this shit over countless other deserving obscurities it'll never touch is the true atrocity here

― an uptempo Pop/Hip Hop mentality (imago), Friday, March 10, 2017 10:19 AM (twenty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm no sheeran stan, but these opinions are both bad

Is Dominique specifically referring to those out there that consider American Idol the best way to objectively measure one's quality as a musician? I assume there are a lot of people like that. Is that wrong of me?

xp
nevertheless, it is my opinion. There are doubtlessly lots of ways to write in an interesting way about music that I find bland, though life is too short for me to do more than post on ILM. Were someone to pay me enough to write about my thoughts on Ed Sheeran, it would be hard not to focus on the lack of music character.

I'm not actually referring to anyone in particular -- except that there are at least that number of aspiring pop performers who would love to have an opportunity like Ed Sheeran. Make no mistake, I believe there is a way to be him, and make music that I like/find interesting. What I've heard isn't it.

itt: performative mapping of world ES represents, invokes

pitchfork publishing an earnest takedown of ed sheeran feels like something from the early 00s era

like why bother?

reviews with a score of 2.8 get clicks and shares

RIP pitchfork

what did pitchfork do to suddenly get super super fast pageloads

iirc sacrificial ceremony

You installed an adblocker?

who knows everything seems very fast today, maybe i should sit down

the singularity is approaching

i am/we are pitchfork

what did pitchfork do to suddenly get super super fast pageloads

― j., Friday, March 10, 2017 8:47 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

deleted obscure_bands database ie pages accessed < 4k x/month

they got a hemi

Pitchfork pans the new Ed Sheeran album but spends the entire review talking only about the lyrics. Like, who the hell listens to music for the lyrics?!

a) me
b) most of ed sheeran's fans
c) most fans of singer-songwriter types in general, which is Sheeran's selling point
d) this is a bad take

I thought it was a joke post. It's not?

Mr. Snrub is an enigma tbh