plus its a total auteur-cult type deal that get ppl saying hes still making GENIUS SHIT this long into his career ... i mean seriously
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:00 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm more in sympathy with you three than you think -- most posters here are! But this conversation is akin to sitting in a bar with people whose reactions you can predict to a metronome.
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:01 (fourteen years ago) link
xp yeah i have and tbh it is often difficult to rectify those larger points with the stuff you say post to post
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:01 (fourteen years ago) link
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:00 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
have you listened to Love and Theft?
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Here's two smart Carey articles.
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:03 (fourteen years ago) link
I dont think its ridiculous or challopsy to say 'i wish pfork's albums list had more R&B.'
I don't think it is, or that anyone is really saying it is - it's just that when you start talking about individual records it's hard to give empirical airtight reasons why anything should be elevated above *an entire decade's worth of albums* to this uh hallowed top 20 status, and it's also pretty easy to find reasons why this *shouldn't* be the case
― Vladislav Delap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:06 (fourteen years ago) link
(obv that goes for the stuff that is being polled here [lol remember when this was a poll thread] at least as much as Mariah or whatever else)
― Vladislav Delap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:08 (fourteen years ago) link
I still don't get it, though, deej. I can totally understand saying "Mariah made a great fucking record. More people need to know this." And I can totally understand being uninterested in the Pitchfork list due to different taste.
But I don't get the idea that Pitchfork NEEDS to include this or that album, or that there's something WRONG with the fact that it's not paying proper respect to certain things. I don't see how this would matter to anyone who didn't have some emotional investment in PFork that they now feel bitter about. Or envied PFork's influence. Both of which seem a bit ridiculous to me.
That's what bugs me about the complaints. It's not like PFork = the fucking government or something.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:09 (fourteen years ago) link
Barack Obama uses 'Tom Ewing' as an alias.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:09 (fourteen years ago) link
― Vladislav Delap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:06 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
but ... 'individual records' representing indie made this list, & altho folks nitpick they mostly agree on emgo to a message board w/ ppl talking about rap or R&B and a lot of them will agree on a bunch of records too, including most likely the mariah record
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:10 (fourteen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:02 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
yah i heard it when it dropped, funny old man record no one would have paid attention to if it wasnt by BOB DYLAN
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:11 (fourteen years ago) link
i dont think im saying "what a disaster for pitchfork."
The Lex said something about how it reflects poorly on Pitchfork not to have an album as self-evidently great as Mimi on the list.
In general, though, yeah, I'm with you: it'd be nice to see more R&B on the list. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm also not particularly incensed that it's not there.
― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Plus the ridiculous young vs. old bullshit isn't helping your argument, deej. If that were the case, Pitchfork would have an equal responsibility to pay respect to all kinds of shit it currently doesn't. It's not fucking PeterPanFork.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:12 (fourteen years ago) link
b/c pfork's influence is such that its aesthetic spreads throughout pop culture in such a way that it impinges on the stuff i like? i'm sure deej can tell you about how the internet has ruined hip-hop in some ways, and a whole lot of that is to do with the indiefication of it
and fucking juno won an oscar, etc
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:12 (fourteen years ago) link
It's not fucking PeterPanFork.
can we start a letter writing campaign, plz?
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:13 (fourteen years ago) link
i guess i get that but you should consider practicing steely resolve in the face of these attacks.
no wait i don't get that--how does the aesthetic of a website that doesn't cover stuff you like impinge on stuff you like?
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Wait, "Diablo Cody" is a pen name for Brent DiCrescenzo?
― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:15 (fourteen years ago) link
this is 100% insane.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:15 (fourteen years ago) link
and there's nothing wrong with funny old man records
notice my restraint, however, in not clamoring for it's inclusion in Pitchfork's list
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:16 (fourteen years ago) link
quite frankly I think SouljaBoy and crunk did more to ruin hip-hop than anything else but that's just me
― The Book of Outhere (HI DERE), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:17 (fourteen years ago) link
― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
lol im not buggin out in sal's pizzeria here .... but doesnt it start to get meaningless when yr like, "well, i guess it would be nicer to have more R&B ... would also be nice if i didn't just give myself a papercut" on the spectrum of distaste
at any rate, pitchfork & 'indie' are at some level about whats cool / trendy, i think R&B & hiphop are cool and think they make sense in pfork's broader rubric, in a way old man rock doesnt. i dont know wtf 'peterpanfork' has to do with anything.
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:17 (fourteen years ago) link
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
of course not. but are you seriously trying to compare the entire genre of R&B to the cult of bob dylan
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:18 (fourteen years ago) link
how does the aesthetic of a website that doesn't cover stuff you like impinge on stuff you like?
^this, serious no-snark question - I don't read the damn thing at all regularly (mainly just if someone on here or elsewhere links to it), it may have bled into the various stuff I fill my time with also but I really wouldn't know how I was sposed to tell
― Vladislav Delap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:19 (fourteen years ago) link
i have ably avoided mojo magazine and alternative press for YEARS
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:20 (fourteen years ago) link
i dont think it does & thats not a point i made, but i do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:21 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm just not buying the idea that Pitchfork is this critical snarling despot that owes the poor, trampled R&B legions its beneficence. It's some geeks who like Sufjan Stevens.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:22 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean, its basically the only spot for long-form music criticism read by a wide audience ... they get like 2m readers a month, which i imagine blows any other niche non-gossip music review site out of the water ....
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:22 (fourteen years ago) link
no. i'm just saying, if you ignore the cult of dylan (as i do) you might find something interesting going on in his arrangements, his phrasing, his grizzled voice and his hilarious lyrics. i was mostly responding to this
to dismiss him as old man rock tells me you a) just aren't that interested in rock music and b) you're not understanding that the guy is making great records (note i did not say GENIUS SHIT) almost fifty years after his first one. when mariah does that, be sure to let me know.
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:23 (fourteen years ago) link
do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.
deej, are you getting paid by the word to repeat and write your thesis or are you bored?
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:23 (fourteen years ago) link
pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.
^^^^^^^concisely summing up what kate and i kept saying earlier, which contenderizer seems intent on misrepresenting
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Possibly because I'm British, I actually *don't* think that Pitchfork is as influential as it's being made out to be here. No one here ever mentions Pitchfork in non-critical circles and even in the Brit critical discourse the NME (old and new) and yer Reynoldses and so forth loom much larger.
Look at bands like Spoon, Wilco, etc - revered by the Pitchfork kids but with next to no cultural or critical cache over here. Lex I think you're paying disproportionate attention to the critical discourse in messageboard land at the expense of the professional critical discourse you're actually part of and the market you're writing for.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:24 (fourteen years ago) link
i do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.― deej
― deej
Horrible, endless can-of-worms argument. Pitchfork should receive less attention because it's not aggressively universalist? I just don't see what good can come of this.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:25 (fourteen years ago) link
The only people I ever see giving Pitchfork centrality in the discourse around popular music are complainers on this board who don't like it when their lists exclude women and R&B! No one in my circle ever talks about it, ever.
(I would not be at all surprised if this is a 20s vs 30s divide.)
― The Book of Outhere (HI DERE), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:26 (fourteen years ago) link
Pitchfork should receive less attention because it's not aggressively universalist? I just don't see what good can come of this.
hopefully either
a) pfork becomes more universalist and more representative & respectful of the whole spectrum of popular music; orb) pfork receives less attention
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:27 (fourteen years ago) link
jesus christ dude stop putting words in ppls mouths every time you argue with them xxp to contenderizer
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:27 (fourteen years ago) link
at any rate, pitchfork & 'indie' are at some level about whats cool / trendy, i think R&B & hiphop are cool and think they make sense in pfork's broader rubric, in a way old man rock doesnt.
I don't even like Dylan at all, but to dismiss him as an old man who gets good reviews because of his reputation does him a disservice. It's not like we're talking about Jann S. Wenner giving five stars to Goddess at the Doorway. Anyway, I think there's always going to be older stuff that the Pitchfork audience likes and respects, even if it's just because M. Ward lists them as influences. And Dylan fits into that. I know guys of his generation are never going to be the site's main focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amanda Petrusich or William Bowers or Josh Love all put "Love and Theft" high on their ballot.
― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:28 (fourteen years ago) link
concisely summing up what kate and i kept saying earlier, which contenderizer seems intent on misrepresenting― lex pretend
― lex pretend
Shit, I'm just trying to understand where yr. coming from. And I don't think that deej's argument makes any kind of sense. Essentially you guys seem to be saying that PFork's focus should marginalize it, and that people are wrongly treating it as central. And this is just horseshit. There is no right or wrong in questions like this. No one has an obligation to make sure that the center is centrist.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:28 (fourteen years ago) link
I actually think even Drownedinsound's influence vastly outstrips Pitchfork's in the UK and THAT'S not going to get a thousand-post thread when it puts up it's rubbish albums of the decade list.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:29 (fourteen years ago) link
i dont know why this is such a big deal -- pfork's staff already acknowledge & have actively recruited ppl to make up these deficiencies, from an editorial level ... so its like you guys are defending them from something theyve already acknowledged is an issue back when ryan wrote that funny intro to we are the world ....
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:29 (fourteen years ago) link
getting the uk critical establishment to respect r&b is EVEN MORE of a non-starter and if you get me started on that i may end up stabbing someone UGHHHH critics' stupidity and bad taste is so frustrating sometimes!!
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:30 (fourteen years ago) link
― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
jaymc i never said no one should review bob dylan, just that arguing his later-years records (however good they are) are kind of a ridiculous thing to compare to the central records of the 00s R&B canon when it comes to discussing what was excluded from the list
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:31 (fourteen years ago) link
hahah i think it is a crazy weirdo vs. normal ppl divide.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:32 (fourteen years ago) link
The older records have had the chance to really cement themselves, so initial reviews of say Discovery are not quite as relevant. But how different do you think things would be if a different Pitchfork writer wrote the review for the new Animal Collective and gave it a 8.3? I want a machine that generates outcomes in hypeland based on Pitchfork reviews.
― Evan, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:32 (fourteen years ago) link
and if you get me started on that i may end up stabbing someone UGHHHH critics' stupidity and bad taste is so frustrating sometimes!!
pro tip writing like this is why you catch shit sometimes.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:33 (fourteen years ago) link
pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus
If a reading audience, by and large, including writers and commenters on music in their own right, chooses to limit the vast majority of its music reading to Pitchfork alone, is the fault Pitchfork's for not giving said audience anything and everything or is the fault the audience's for only reading Pitchfork and nothing else and/or prioritizing what Pitchfork thinks at the expense of anything else out there?
Who are you really more disappointed with?
For myself, I assume that whatever audience I have, in whatever venue, reads and reacts to my thoughts as part of a large context. It may be Pitchfork, it may be something else. But I'm not going to waste time chasing down phantoms. There's music to listen to -- like the Lady Leshurr mixtape the Lex recommended a few weeks back, and which is v. good -- and thoughts to consider, and work to do, and life to live.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:34 (fourteen years ago) link
do you catch shit for being fucking dense?
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:35 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm not trying to put words in yr mouth, deej. I'm honestly and sincerely trying to parse the implications of what yr saying. You complain that PFork is "given a lot of centrality" in a way that's "out of whack with its areas of focus".
Okay. This suggests to me that you think that PFork's focus (shmindie) should naturally marginalize (decentralize) it to some degree. And the "out of whack" bit suggests that the "music press" is making a mistake in failing to enforce this marginalization. That's what I took from yr statement, rightly or wrongly.
If my read is way off base, lemme know. If not, I think yr making an indefensible argument about what critical entities should be obliged to do.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:35 (fourteen years ago) link
― Matt DC, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:29 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Well we have a head start, let's make this dream a reality ILM Drowned In Sound Top 66 Albums Of This Decade
― Vladislav Delap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:38 (fourteen years ago) link
If a reading audience, by and large, including writers and commenters on music in their own right, chooses to limit the vast majority of its music reading to Pitchfork alone, is the fault Pitchfork's for not giving said audience anything and everything or is the fault the audience's for only reading Pitchfork and nothing else and/or prioritizing what Pitchfork thinks at the expense of anything else out there?Who are you really more disappointed with?For myself, I assume that whatever audience I have, in whatever venue, reads and reacts to my thoughts as part of a large context. It may be Pitchfork, it may be something else. But I'm not going to waste time chasing down phantoms. There's music to listen to -- like the Lady Leshurr mixtape the Lex recommended a few weeks back, and which is v. good -- and thoughts to consider, and work to do, and life to live.― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:34 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:34 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, 7 October 2009 20:38 (fourteen years ago) link