pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

BOOM

What was that incredible album again?

The Hairy Unicorns

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19685-the-unicorns-who-will-cut-our-hair-when-were-gone/

"vintage synthesizers set on “fart”

Guys guys youre both beautiful

stay gold ponyboys

why are mom and dad fighting

anyway by pitchfork's count the best four albums of the last two years have been a a compton rapper's concept album, a fashion designer's political noise rap record, a gay R&B singer's magnum opus and one incredible album (vampire weekend) that is a reminder that judging music on what is the most "forward thinking" is perhaps not the truest rubric, so i think they're doing ok

― le goon (J0rdan S.), 29. juli 2014 07:19 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's right (and their 2010 favorite was rap as well), which makes it even more weird that no raprecord has been bnm'd. Like, what happened this year? How come that other compton rapper's concept album, this time with innovative beats, couldn't even get an 8.5?

Also, I'd claim that tracks like Ya Hey is pretty 'forward thinking' for an indie record in it's incorporation of manipulated voices. Vampire Weekend are hardly Mac Demarco. I'd also say the most innovative liveshows I've seen these last few years has been loop-indie like tune-yards and owen pallett. And again, no dice this year.

makes it even more weird that no raprecord has been bnm'd

the only rap album from this year that deserved a BNM was YG and i bet that gets rectified on the year end list

Nah, it's the way art develops. Otherwise you end up with fucking Fleet Foxes as album of the year. And really, the concept is that something that is new is all things considered better than something we have heard a thousand times before.

this is actually not the way art develops. the process is closer to a constant repurposing of old material/old techniques via new technology, and it isn't a linear progression.

xp

a compton rapper's concept album, a fashion designer's political noise rap record, a gay R&B singer's magnum opus and one incredible album (vampire weekend)

i know jordan's not some corny indie fuxxor but this just reads so funny. all these descriptors for the other albums plus one great album . "there was a rap album, another rap album, an r&b album, and one incredible album"

also who's the "we" in that last sentence, not everybody has heard the same things a thousand times before, especially young people, which are the core of pop music's audience.

xxp

hey, i have an awesome dollar bin column in the new issue of The Pitchfork Review. which is the fancy print magazine Pitchfork is putting out. you should buy it! (also has a 7-inch with local - local to me - bands king tuff and the lentils! go brattleboro!)

your pal, scott :)

sorry, scott. by extension, you are now dumb.
[also, i have a new column up on pfork today - http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/412-invisible-hits-peter-laughner/]

cool tyler!

A recently surfaced 1969 tape of Mr. Charlie, Laughner’s high school band, playing in Bay Village, Ohio, shows that he was an extremely early adopter of the VU aesthetic.

lol, bay village ohio is actually my hometown

haha, nice -- it was home to one of the cooler high school bands i've ever heard, that's for sure.

great read tyler, as usual, he's one dude i've never investigated as deeply as i should.

thanks, man. i might even say laughner's slightly overrated (in some circles) but when he's good he's good!

the only rap album from this year that deserved a BNM was YG and i bet that gets rectified on the year end list

― le goon (J0rdan S.), 29. juli 2014 17:45 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, looking over the list of above average garage-rock which has been bnm'd, deserve's got nothing to do with it. I agree that YG is the obvious no-brainer, but arguments could have been made for Future, Common or (especially!) Shabazz Palaces, and p4k chose not to and instead focus on slightly rawer versions of Black Keys. It seems like a change in focus for me.

not really. only a few rap/r&b albums per year get BNM anyway and 2014 has undoubtedly had only a very very select few rap or r&b albums that have brought even core rap fans together, so it's really not a surprise that it's turned out this way.

But, like, what's most annoying me is that they don't argua against the rap-albums either. It's 'yeah, this is prob the most sonically interesting rap-music around this year, and the lyrics are great, but come on, that does still not mean it's as good as these here guys playing pavement covers slighly more melodically than usual'

you're saying that you're surprised that pitchfork is favoring indie rock

agree that there aren't a lot of obvious rap BNMs out there besides YG (Honest doesn't deserve it, imo) but the fact that they skipped over Shabazz Palaces def seems beyond weird and into some 'everyone's gonna love this, everyone's gonna expect 9+/BNM on this, let's pull back a bit' territory

I count 8 rap-records on the best of 2013. Pusha T, ASAP Rocky, Run the Jewels, Drake, Earl Sweatshirt, Chance the Rapper, Danny Brown and Kanye West. I think it's weird going from a year with 8 favorites, to seven months without one. And you might say that rap usually does better on end of year charts than BNM, which is prob true, but kinda weird as well...

They seem to be doing less BNM overall-21 so far this year, 30+ at the same point in 2013.

music must be getting worse

Pitchfork is amazing and vital pt 414141431431

everyone knows there are exactly 20 Best Albums released a year

i really do love how every six months someone cryingmilhouse.gif's in here about what the completely arbitrary "BNM" tag means for a website with rapidly decreasing influence in the age of Spotify; and then ILXors earnest engage with said argument like having that conversation at all in 2014 isn't as embarrassing as shitting your pants in school

but caring about their coverage of skrillex, that's not embarrassing

croup he's the schoenberg of our era, didn't you know

honestly i feel alienated from pitchfork with their "these young guys remind me of these old guys" bullshit AND rolling stone's lets-move-things-forward EDM coverage

real talk, the message board/twitter/blogger/writer theme of being a 30-or-40-something who hates Skrillex/Bassnectar/"brostep"/millennials and writes funny deadmau5 haha joeks, but engages earnestly with the output of the hold steady and the national and the walkmen is like — congrats, not only are you exactly what you promised yourself you wouldn't be (old), but you're gonna on the wrong side of history

If you say so Dad

B-B-B-B-BUT TEH BROS ARE LIKE THE KIDS THAT BEAT ME UP IN HIGH SCHOOL LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE STONE ROSES

Skrillex/Bassnectar/"brostep"/millennials and writes funny deadmau5 haha joeks=I like to dance at shows
the hold steady and the national and the walkmen=I don't really like to dance at shows

real talk, the message board/twitter/blogger/writer theme of being a 30-or-40-something who hates Skrillex/Bassnectar/"brostep"/millennials and writes funny deadmau5 haha joeks, but engages earnestly with the output of the hold steady and the national and the walkmen is like — congrats, not only are you exactly what you promised yourself you wouldn't be (old), but you're gonna on the wrong side of history

― dilligaf escape plan (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, July 29, 2014 2:22 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark

who are these people, honestly

oh yeah whiney is young forever and on the right side of history

Baroness is Kurt Cobain wearing a dress to the Headbanger's Ball. Baroness is the night that Alice In Chains had to choose being Mother Love Bone over being Queensrÿche. Baroness is Faith No More photographed in their underpants (but not the Red Hot Chili Peppers photographed in their underpants). Baroness is Madonna giving the Deftones a record contract. Lewis Largent or (Jackie Farry!) would have have loved to introduce Baroness. Baroness are shoo-ins for the Judgment Night 20th anniversary soundtrack (we recommend Big K.R.I.T.). Baroness are The Breakfast Club where Butt-Head and Daria are Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy.

nope no nostalgic alt-mush for this guy

Oh go tell us abt how great Blink 182 are again

Can't believe I was wrong about the band who got in a horrifying bus accident that sidelined them for a year at the peak of their success

like having that conversation at all in 2014 isn't as embarrassing as shitting your pants in school

― dilligaf escape plan (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, July 29, 2014 1:11 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think talking about anything is as embarrassing as shitting your pants

dude i'm not judging your ability to gauge their commercial prospects

lol that's basically morbs calling out all the supposed apatow groupies. real talk if you like this subset of shitty retro rock bands or that subset of shitty retro rock bands it doesn't put you on the right or wrong side of history (how corny indie fuxxor is that btw), it just means you like shitty retro rock bands.

Have you ever actually done it? Surprisingly chill, if done in right circumstances

And somehow they've upped their jubilation game without making too many sonic changes since 2005's self-titled debut. For those listening closely, there are fewer of those gimmicky-yet-resourceful "bass bombs," wherein everyone slaps their floppiest string to thunderous effect; there's a little more Vernon Reid–style shreddage, which sounds like a happy modem warming up; and there's a slight pop-punk edge, like the Obsessed signing their '94 Columbia Records contract using Green Day's blue hair dye. Harmonicraft is business as usual for a band in the business of bliss: the good-vibration harmonies of the Beach Boys, the bad-vibration sludge of the Melvins, melodies that set the controls for the sun of the heart. It's important not because Torche have changed but because metal has changed so drastically around them.

^^from review of a band that basically sounds like Foo Fighters of metal

thread for when we have become the thing we hate

oh at their best i'd say torche are downright jawbox-like

Whiney in rhetorical inconsistency shocker

jawbox owns