Pitchfork review in not getting it SHOCKAH

Ha, Mickey, I think you might be right but you DO understand the meaning of the word "presumably," don't you?

Yes, I do, but I still stand by my critique.

I mean, it's a real short review. Almost half of it is that part I pasted about the lyrical interpretation and then comparing that to the instrumentation. It's bad enough to base almost half a review on a presumed lyrical interpretation, but when that interpretation seems pretty ridiculous, it's indefensible.

The review reminds me of when PFM interviewed Arcade Fire, and there was the one point where they were like, "Hey, your song [whatever], I'm pretty sure it's about this. [Blah blah blah]."

Arcade Fire: "Uh, not really..."

PFM: "Ok, next question."

If you don't like Pitchfork, don't read it.

On what planet is 425 words a "short review?"

It's this thing called the Internet.

Point taken. It is short for Pitchfork, though. There's only one shorter review today, at 401 words. This one is 962 words.

Goddamn longwinded Nabisco...

ihttp://www.membersbenefits.nl/Pics/Branchesites/MemberBenefits/Planet%20Internet.jpg

Try again:

http://www.planet.nl/upload_mm/a/1/0/1987460233_1999999125_planet-logo.jpg

I still fear the day when Scott or Ryan shoots a review back to me with a copy of the word count guidelines attached; writing shorter definitely tops the long list of things I need to get better at.

This Magnolia thing is an EP with a previously-released album track: 425 words is pretty decent!

I mostly just posted to this thread because of the "presumably." The picking on the review seemed like a whole lot of frustration over the fact that, in the end, you don't think he interpreted the lyrics right. Which you may be right about, but I don't think there should be anything so maddening or "indefensible" about it -- he just read a line differently than you did!

nabisco, you're right that his interpretation of a line is the crux of my argument, but it's more than that. He interpretted the entire song wrong, not just one line. And then he used his interpretation as the way of analyzing the song's instrumentation in a way that doesn't even make sense. And that's about half the review, completely off the mark. As to the other half of the review, well, I haven't heard the EP yet.

one dude having a different interpretation without hearing the EP = 13 (now 14) posts = another irreplaceable chunk of a finite and rapidly dwindling lifetime

SHOCKAH

Animal Collective
Who Could Win a Rabbit (single)
[Fat-Cat; 2004]
Rating: 9.2

The Animal Collective sings, "you can win a rabbit, you can rabbit or the fast track or (something something)." Presumably the line refers to the new McDonalds Happy Meals in which one possible toy is a stuffed rabbit. Like the McDonalds Big Mac, the song is a delicious mixture acoustic guitar and percussion, making the most high satured fat song in his recent history. The layers of acoustic guitar are smothered in specail sauce, lettuce, and tomatoes.

-Ryan Schreiber, December 15, 2005

xpost
marc, that song is on the last album. I've heard that particular song many many times.

They give singles star ratings, not points, dumbass.

Hey, look who's back: it's the hate thread about the first review I ever wrote for Pitchfork! Awwwww!

I'll celebrate by answering one of these almost three-year-old charges:

I just never got the impression they were "embodying all things British."

Mr. Matos, I cordially invite you on a leisurely stroll through some BBR song titles: England Made Me, The English Motorway System, British Racing Green, The New Diana, When Britain Refused To Sing... Not to mention Haines's England Vs. America, The South Will Rise Again, "Oh to be in England on a Sunday," etc.

OK, and another one, about how I (horrors) snubbed John Moore: People deluding themselves into thinking that Moore has significant songwriting input in BBR are encouraged to compare How I Learned To Love The Bootboys (The Auteurs, with no Moore in sight), The Facts Of Life (BBR, with Moore) and The Oliver Twist Manifesto (Haines solo): all three albums are completely consistent, all three utilize the same production techniques, the same songwriting tricks (last verses keep getting transposed up a tone), the same instrumentation, the same lyrical obsessions. All three are clearly written by the same man.

owned :(

YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF SHIT BIRDS

THE BOSS OF THIS SITE CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF!

- Bob

http://www.zangerbob.nl

Finally, something to raise the level of discussion around here.

haha I promise that wasn't me

Americans in thinking Britian and England are totally interchangable terms non-shocker!

Oh for God's sake. I'm not even American.

Fine, let's go:

"Do you know the history / Of the British Isles? We are born to be servile / Would you die for your country?"

Is Haines talking about England specifically? Or is he positioning "England" more in relation to the rest of the world (say, France - "French Rock'N'Roll," "New French Girlfriend," those "continental cigarettes" in "Johnny & The Hurricanes," "There were real Europeans in bars across the land" etc), as opposed to, say, England vs Wales?

Here's a relevant interview snippet, too:

[Haines is] at pains to express his oblique liking for England - the country which, after all, made him. But with Black Box Recorder's debut album England Made Me, he reckons the press got it all wrong. "They got this angle that somehow it was a critique of New Labour, but really it was just an affectionate look at the rotten aspects of England that John (Moore) and myself enjoy," he explains. "We would have a game of good thing, bad thing. Lord Lucan? Good thing. Jeffrey Archer? Definitely good thing. You can simplify most things in life and it straddles some areas of bad taste. But we have an affection for the rotten-ness of England that we remember growing up in. I can remember those sorts of things more than anything to do with popular culture."

The kind of incident that influences Haines' writing is certainly not whether Posh'n'Becks have new hairstyles. "I remember the whole Jeremy Thorpe incident with some fondness. And the John Stonehouse disappearance. Those are the kind of things that informed my childhood and they came back on England Made Me," he says. "I'm sure there are other incidences on that album - on Hated Sunday: 'Oh to be in England on a Sunday, dear old dismal England on a Sunday...' That's said meaning we'd rather be here than anywhere else. There are references to English things, but they're affectionate. And if not affectionate then observational."

So it's official - Luke Haines likes Blighty after all. "And the older I get the more I dislike foreign travel anyway. Travel narrows the mind," he offers.

Ryan Pitchfork: sexier than Scooter Libby.

oh come on, there's no way he's uglier than kim jong-il

THAT is even more hater-y than Dr. Morbius on the Tarantino thread

i shudder to think where i'd end up in a similar list

somewhere between donal logue and the giant king mask from the burger king ads

enuf with the sexual fantasies dammit

ok someone do a parody one for jess

PEREZ HILTONJESS HARVELL
Bloggist

Exponentially overhyped gossip blogger whose sense of entitlement far outweighs his actual contribution to society. And, oh yeah, he’s gross, too.

Jokes, bruv.

lol ronaldinho is #55

[55] RONALDINHO
Goal getter

The world’s greatest soccer player is so ugly, even his action figure has buck teeth. Kissing him must be like getting kicked in the face by a donkey.

jess what about writing for an altweekly makes people want to create articles this meanspirited

“It’s like he’s got a lazy eye, only it’s his whole face.”

^^^thats a pretty funny one re: jay-z

lack of pay? self-loathing? alcoholism?

just hitting the basics here

C'mon, Jess, you know alt-weekies are our last lines of defense against tyranny, corporate oppression, mass-culture conformism, not really caring what the owners of random websites look like, and having to book escorts through Craiglist like we don't have telephones or something.

i pay my rent on those tranny hookers, damn you

hi, i'm relatively new to the whole pitchfork sucks thing, so if someone could gimme like a quick breakdown as to why it gets so much flack, i'd really appreciate it! thanks!

BRING BACK BRENT D

STRONGO HULKINGTON RATES THE PITCHFORK SUPERHUNKS

Editor-in-Chief/Publisher

Ryan Schreiber - more shemp than curly joe

Associate Editor-in-Chief

Scott Plagenhoef - young warren beatty/late ned beatty

Senior News Editor

Amy Phillips - 80s mary lou retton

News Editor

Matthew Solarski - tommy chong circa that 70s show

Associate Editors

Jessica Suarez - free to be you and me-era marlo thomas

Catherine Lewis - that girl-era marlo thomas

Mark Richardson - martha quinn/colin quinn mash-up

Assistant Editor

Tyler Grisham - george wendt in mj's "black or white" video

Senior Contributor

Mark Richardson - didn't we already do this guy?

Lead Reporters

Paul Thompson - lead character in big johnson t-shirt line

Dave Maher - reese witherspoon circa election

Senior Photographer

Catherine Lewis - brandy and monica shoved through conan o'brien "if they mated" machine

Associate Publisher

Chris Kaskie - max weinberg

General Manager

Megan Davey - dave foley as man servant hecubus

Senior Account Manager

Nate Hileman - dave foley shilling for espn poker

Contributing Writers

Nitsuh Abebe - martin landau circa ed wood
Zach Baron - jelly roll morton on his death bed
Tom Breihan - manute bol just after blowing 91 playoffs
Stuart Berman - chuck close painting
D. Shawn Bosler - mayor mccheese after inauguration
William Bowers - tv's matlock
Sam Chennault - salacious crumb
Martin Clark - pete best
Liz Colville - kennedy after getting chewed out at mtv movie awards by ed wood-era martin landau
Jason Crock - lil jon in that infamous high school yearbook photo
Grayson Currin - sly stone on 2006 grammys
Chris Dahlen - mr. peanut
Drew Daniel - august "kid creole" darnell
Stephen M. Deusner -
Ryan Dombal - flashman from megaman 2
Tom Ewing - orson welles as harry lime
Tim Finney - george clooney
Jess Harvell - the mother in what's eating gilbert grape
Eric Harvey - dave mustaine
Marc Hogan - orko from he-man
Brian Howe - mel gibson mugshot
Joshua Klein - burgess meredith as the penguin
Matt LeMay - drunk brandon frasier
Dominique Leone - natasha leone
Marc Masters - amy winehouse pre-coke
Rob Mitchum - amy winehouse post-coke
Adam Moerder - turbo teen
Matthew Murphy - jeff koons painting where he's fucking his wife
J. Niimi - bun e. carlos
Nate Patrin - one of the soggies from 1985 cap'n crunch ad
Amanda Petrusich - justin timberlake in nipplegate photo
Mark Pytlik - dave thomas (pere ubu)
David Raposa - dave thomas (wendy's)
Julianne Shepherd - dave thomas (sctv)
Philip Sherburne - michael anthony from van halen
Dave Stelfox - david yow's penis
Brandon Stosuy - post-op genesis p-orridge
Joe Tangari - joe tangari
Stephen Troussé - the evil pieman from strawberry shortcake
Carl Wilson - dr. fad
Douglas Wolk - too $hort

News Team

Matt Amis - pele
Mairead Case - miles davis circa 1972
Kavitha Chekuru - the members of the bay city rollers in aggregate
Jonah Flicker - burl ives
James Gregory - frances bean cobain
David Nadelle - lala telletubby
Zach Vowell - professor griff

(with all due deference and respect to nitsuh, who first figured out how much fun it is to write nonsense after the pitchfork staff list)

manute bol otm

nitsuh otm. i could do that all over again.

Ryan Schreiber - male
Scott Plagenhoef - male
Amy Phillips - female
Catherine Lewis - female
Nick Sylvester - furry
Kristin Sage Rockermann - genderless ancient wiseperson
Mark Richardson - regulation-size football
Jonah Flicker - online picture-hosting service
Kati Llewellyn - female (sex change following "People's Court" stint)
Catherine Lewis - female (though "Lewis, Catherine" is male)
Nitsuh Abebe - turtle (unsexed)
Zach Baron - royalty
Tom Breihan - tall
William Bowers - woodsman, scholar
Cory D. Byrom - female
Martin Clark - fake
Jason Crock - fake
Chris Dahlen - Marissa Marchant
Drew Daniel - robot
Stephen M. Deusner - hermaphrodite
Brent DiCrescenzo - fake
Ryan Dombal - anthropomorphic tooth
Will Dukes - royalty
Sean Fennessey - single-malt
Jess Harvell - female
Marc Hogan - male
Brian Howe - shortstop
Michael Idov - entrepreneur
Rachel Khong - "makes no sense"
Matt LeMay - cannibal
Dominique Leone - hot French chick with big tits
Alex Linhardt - fake
Johnny Loftus - James Dean in hiding
Peter Macia - barn
Rob Mitchum - kind of like that evil brain-thing the Ninja Turtles fought
Adam Moerder - orc
Matthew Murphy - colorless, odorless liquid
Amanda Petrusich - "world's tallest woman" of internet fame
Mark Pytlik - Canadian
David Raposa - Connecticutian
Julianne Shepherd - superintelligent bangs with opposable thumbs
Philip Sherburne - eunuch
Dave Stelfox - fox
Brandon Stosuy - collaborative
Joe Tangari - bioluminescent sea creature
Sam Ubl - female, nee Maselli
Jonathan Zwickel - male, former editor of The Onion

-- nabisco (nabisco), Monday, January 9, 2006 1:46 PM (1 year ago)

can you believe that's not the first google response for "superintelligent bangs with opposable thumbs"?

Jess, I'm pretty sure the last list was on the same thread where we decided Richardson was the official hunk of Pitchfork.