pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Three years passed between the Austrian electronicist's landmark Endless Summer and 2004's relatively underwhelming Venice.

Nuh Uh.

Venice was pretty good.

I'd say it's roughly on the same level as Endless Summer. Granted Endless Summer came out 3 years earlier.

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.

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.

^that didn't need a comma.

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.

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.

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.

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!!

gucci mane is stoopid (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

complaining about pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Drake sold you ringtone boys out.

i know right

autojudas

anyway stephen it's not dumb to complain about pfork, nor do i think it's dumb to demand that if they are going to cover things that they don't 'need' to cover that they do it well and not condescendingly or lazily

i wish there was a way of subscribing to the finney/ewing pfork pieces but NONE OF THE REST OF IT* - as it is i just end up missing their stuff b/c i refuse to take the chance of accidentally encountering bullsh like that :(

*dunno who else is writing for it these days. deej is, you say? ok his too

it would be nice to have author-specific rss feeds or something

it would be nice if their search function was as decent as it used to be

it would be nice if most of their authors were as good writers as tim and tom and david q. drake esq

"authors"

critics

i dont know how the forkcast blog works but there are actual rap writers working for the site who could've written this. if marc hogan proposed this i wonder why nothing was said about the song beyond that it has synths and drums and isn't a stupid song

it would be nice if their search function was as decent as it used to be

― go to club ban with me pls (some dude), Tuesday, March 3, 2009 1:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^this

i dont know how the forkcast blog works but there are actual rap writers working for the site who could've written this. if marc hogan proposed this i wonder why nothing was said about the song beyond that it has synths and drums and isn't a stupid song

― Funky House, M.D. (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, March 3, 2009 6:10 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dude it's a little blurb the accompany the video... i wouldnt get so worked up

granted im kind of protective of gucci and concerned w/ how he is portrayed on the internet

jordan have you heard 'shopaholic'? i love it so much

i suspect that you : gucci :: me : nicki minaj though

haha yeah - and "shopaholic" is great

kudos to nicki for the benzezez/yenzezez/lenzezez/sensitive/tentative rhymes (though possibly someone should...tell her that china isn't where they have yen) on that, also bobby v's plaintive vox even as he hands over his credit card

it would be nice if I could load their site without overloading my laptop's puny cpu

granted im kind of protective of gucci and concerned w/ how he is portrayed on the internet

― Funky House, M.D. (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, March 3, 2009 6:15 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

is he your baby brother or something?

twin, actually

HE CALLED HIM MANE. THAT'S STOOPID.

Jordan S. Mane

rappers getting referred to by their fake 'surnames' is one of the best running gags in music writing/reporting

like what? calling soulja boy Boy?

Mr. Pop

anyway stephen it's not dumb to complain about pfork, nor do i think it's dumb to demand that if they are going to cover things that they don't 'need' to cover that they do it well and not condescendingly or lazily

No you're right, I was just kidding. I'm not sure "demand" is the right word, though...

i think the more stupid thing about this is dude just has bad info -- that song is like a year old & the video was released by Big Cat which isnt even Gucci's label anymore, its the same label that has been capitalizing off his old shit for the past 2 yrs by releasing unofficial singles & albums

actually im more mad i didnt get to break gucci over there ;_;

Wow: I feel like I'm prose-stanning here, but I don't get what's particularly condescending about the quoted bit, which seems to me like just a description of what's in the video being presented. Like most other videos that get teased/linked in the Forkcast section:

The clip for this electro-pop slow burner finds the French singer looking more like a Cali beach bum, playing a white grand piano while the tide laps at his feet and some blue-skinned honeys from the Star Wars galaxy keep him company. Then all of a sudden, he's riding a horse across a girl's backside.

In this strange, CGI-heavy clip ... Tim Exile's heavily treated vocals dance around his stairstepping techno beats, while a school of leopard-print fish dart around greenscreened cityscapes and rural highways.

Bolstered by snare taps and synth stabs, Mane declares the stoopid-ity of his chain. Then he runs for mayor, repping East Atlanta.

^^ The only rhetorical thing I see happening here is that a lot of the imagery in music videos sounds kind of funny when you describe it, so it's tempting to say things like "oh and then he rides a horse across a girl's backside."

yah seems like a pretty silly method of coverage considering folks can watch the vid imo but whatever -- not to speak for j0rdan but im sure its also got more to do w/ the fact that the guy has been recording music for years & was the biggest rap artist of the year last year & this is the first coverage hes gotten so it seems kinda ... slight. i think way more bothersome is the simple misinformation about labels & lead singles etc that i just mentioned

I feel like that's been changing lately, which is kind of nice -- there used to be a lot more "new video from X, involves horses, good one!," but more of them lately have packed interesting thoughts or bits of micro-criticism into those few sentences.

kudos to nicki for the benzezez/yenzezez/lenzezez/sensitive/tentative rhymes

^^def official

nabisco you're probably right about the (non-)condescension - but mostly my beef is w/ the fact that the video is just presented as is. i think that's an appropriate thing to do when fleet foxes or fever ray videos are being posted, but with gucci mane the non-post post (aside from having its facts wrong like deej says) is just pointless and disappointing. there are plenty of interesting things to say about gucci, and i wish this post would've just said something.

Yeah, sure, that's fair. Haha I'm sure you'll be totally looking forward to an LP review on the site

& was the biggest rap artist of the year last year

By what measure?

buzz, # of tracks released, amount of actual rapping on his records (sorry kanye)

Yeah, that struck me as weird, too, Jay. I've never had anyone irl talk to me about Gucci or heard anyone irl play his music.