pitchfork

"i'm glad they finally kicked that horse, i was really tired of it just laying around all dead and stuff for the last few years" (xpost)

another thing i like about the article is that it admits, without ever quite saying, that online music-criticism-consumption has made contemporary music criticism exceedingly cowardly and self-protective. rather than being lost to a past curated only by a few obsessive, ratlike archivists, everything a critic (or person) says online is now made available right there, right now, ripe for mockery in retrospect. this in turn has made most criticism exceptionally dull and safe. it says only that which it believes it will be able to defend from the slings and arrows of wikipedia-armed internet snarkmasters a year or two from now. this is good in many ways, but it's also a bit dispiriting, tending more to snideness and buttoned-down authoritarianism than to wayward, personal self-expression.

i don't know who the piece's audience is because i don't know who reads n+1 and obv for some audiences (this one f'rinstance) it's nothing new, but i think the first two-thirds, where it's just a history of pitchfork, are pretty comprehensive and accurate and sometimes insightful, and then it does this:

+ + +

and on the other side of the pluses it's suddenly attributing the publication of jay-z's memoirs to his attendance of a grizzly bear concert and implying that all indie rock listeners can "go to law school whenever they like"

In the last thirty years, no artistic form has made cultural capital so central to its identity, and no musical genre has better understood how cultural capital works. Disdaining the reserves of actual capital that were available to them through the major labels, indie musicians sought a competitive advantage in acquiring cultural capital instead.

OTM regarless of how stupid the supporting anecdote abt jay-Z and grizzly bear may be. same goes for the bit about the increasingly obvious middle-classness of indie, despite its early, 80s-era pretensions to down and out chic. the author's self-indictment on this score, mocked above, only drives the point home. helps amplify the sharp arguments relating to the political dimension of pitchfork's endorsement of earnest indie pastoralism:

This new interest in pastoral nationalism seemed like a strange fit for indie rock; or at least it made plain that indie rock was in the hands of a new and different generation of fans. At the height of the Iraq war, college graduates poured into cities and took internships at magazines, nonprofits, and internet startup firms. They found themselves drawn, for some reason, to adorable music that openly celebrated our national heritage. They dressed like stylish lumberjacks and watched Sufjan perform dressed as a Boy Scout, and they remembered a disappeared world of the small and the tangible.

another thing i like about the article is that it admits, without ever quite saying, that online music-criticism-consumption has made contemporary music criticism exceedingly cowardly and self-protective. rather than being lost to a past curated only by a few obsessive, ratlike archivists, everything a critic (or person) says online is now made available right there, right now, ripe for mockery in retrospect. this in turn has made most criticism exceptionally dull and safe. it says only that which it believes it will be able to defend from the slings and arrows of wikipedia-armed internet snarkmasters a year or two from now. this is good in many ways, but it's also a bit dispiriting, tending more to snideness and buttoned-down authoritarianism than to wayward, personal self-expression.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Friday, January 20, 2012 11:12 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is silly. the age of instant feedback and scrutiny hasn't stopped critics and bloggers from saying flowery, extravagant, ridiculous things all the fucking time, maybe not in much on music sites as on other kinds of sites but still. and "safe" as pejorative always makes me wonder what kind of "danger" someone is romanticizing, especially a fucking record review.

the worst part abt pitchfork is how they express their ratings out to a tenth of a point, like is that really necessary

and your mom would stick a pitchfork review right into daddy's inbox and dad would throw the garbage all across the floor as we would lay and learn what each decimal point was for

the phrase "the pre-internet-era film High Fidelity" really underlines how most of the lols and total lack of perspective in this article directly stem from the author's age

i had some ideas about this article but it seems painful to even type them into a box on the internet so i admire everyone elses fortitude

At the height of the Iraq war, college graduates poured into cities and took internships at magazines, nonprofits, and internet startup firms. They found themselves drawn, for some reason, to adorable music that openly celebrated our national heritage. They dressed like stylish lumberjacks and watched Sufjan perform dressed as a Boy Scout, and they remembered a disappeared world of the small and the tangible.

massive bullshit generalizations funneled into one specific reference so it'll ring "true".

Those select few who did manage to hear everything—record store clerks, DJs, nerds with personal warehouses—could use this rare knowledge to terrorize their social or sexual betters, as in the pre-internet-era film High Fidelity. Napster made all of that obsolete.

fwiw the year High Fidelity came out i was downloading Kid A on Napster and discussing it on AIM with Ryan Schreiber so it's possibly i'm too close to all of this to have perspective myself, but seriously this is hilarious to me.

In Sufjan Stevens, indie adopted precious, pastoral nationalism at the Bush Administration’s exact midpoint. In M.I.A., indie rock celebrated a musician whose greatest accomplishment has been to turn the world’s various catastrophes into remixed pop songs. This is a kind of music, in other words, that’s very good at avoiding uncomfortable conversations. Pitchfork has imitated, inspired, and encouraged indie rock in this respect. It has incorporated a perfect awareness of cultural capital into its basic architecture. A Pitchfork review may ignore history, aesthetics, or the basic technical aspects of tonal music, but it will almost never fail to include a detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment.

this is key, as much as i want to defend MIA's catastrophe pop. it does a neat job of tying a good point about the basic structure of indie aesthetics (built in from its 80s-era roots) to the way indie tastemaking works online today, in a post-marginal commercial environment. carles uses HRO to make the same point over and over and over again.

fwiw the year High Fidelity came out i was downloading Kid A on Napster and discussing it on AIM with Ryan Schreiber so it's possibly i'm too close to all of this to have perspective myself, but seriously this is hilarious to me.

yeah, but come on, that's early adopter relative to what's going on today, and the culture depicted in high fidelity is clearly pre-internet (the author's point).

massive bullshit generalizations funneled into one specific reference so it'll ring "true".

plus dudes BEEN straight lumberjackin it since nirvana broke!

massive bullshit generalizations funneled into one specific reference so it'll ring "true".

no. i think it's extremely interesting to consider the commercial explosion of gentle, pastoral, nationalistic, nostalgic and overwhelmingly white indie pop in its larger national/political context. it's all but impossible to ignore the connections between 80s rural/small-town pop nationalism and reagan's "morning in america", so it doesn't absurd to draw similar connections wr2 the indie culture of the 00s.

fwiw the year High Fidelity came out i was downloading Kid A on Napster and discussing it on AIM with Ryan Schreiber

(losing my edge joke)

RichBeck Richard Beck
Now an assistant editor for @nplusonemag. That essay/story/thing that's been on your hard drive forever? Let me know about it!
16 Dec Favorite Retweet Reply

grunge lumberjack shit = ragged, smelly, "i don't give a fuck"

subsequent indie lumberjackin = neat, retro-50s, expensive

is that so

I really don't think that indie lumberjackin was 'a thing' in the same sense that grunge was 'a thing'

closing paragraphs are total bullshit tho

like, sufjan stevens only exists as a datapoint cause dude can write some catchy melodies

I really don't think that indie lumberjackin was 'a thing' in the same sense that grunge was 'a thing'

smaller scale, yeah. filson gloves hitting a much smaller market segment than thrift store flannel.

if sufjan stevens couldn't write catchy melodies would this 'indie lumberjack' generation be 'less of a thing'. was there a social demand for a indie lumberjack superstar and he stepped up to fill the role? no, I think that is absurd.

I need to see numbers that prove that the indie lumberjack generation exists and it's not just like, idk, 3 bands that got big cause they wrote catchy melodies. I mean 'commercial explosion'? cmon.

i don't think the fad of dudes living in brooklyn suddenly growing unruly beards should be confused with what happens in the rest of the world that is not brooklyn.

if sufjan stevens couldn't write catchy melodies would this 'indie lumberjack' generation be 'less of a thing'. was there a social demand for a indie lumberjack superstar and he stepped up to fill the role? no, I think that is absurd.

might there be something significant about the rapid cultural ascendancy of nostalgic, folksy, implicitly christian and comfortably middle-class white music that echoes the simplicities of childhood and mid-century american optimism in the wake of 9/11? doesn't seem so absurd to me.

indie beards are probably the LAST thing i'd peg as an exclusively brooklyn phenomenon

'rapid cultural ascendancy'?? again, it's one dude, and he wrote a catchy indie pop album, it appealed to a lot of college kids at liberal arts schools or whatever. that's not a social movement that you can make any real statement about.

if you guys want to seriously argue that the folksy, goodtimes campfire aesthetics/culture of fleet foxes, anco, grizzly bear, sufjan, and bon iver are not a thing of significance over the past decade or so, then have ats. it's not just brooklyn. it may just be liberal, educated, roughly middle-class city kids of a particular stripe, but that's hardly a "marginalized" group.

again, it's one dude, and he wrote a catchy indie pop album, it appealed to a lot of college kids at liberal arts schools or whatever. that's not a social movement that you can make any real statement about.

i think that contempo-indie is a thing that one can make real and useful statements about. sufjan isn't a perfect synecdoche for that, but it's not like he has no relevance to the discussion.

look, almost everyone I know is a middle-class college-educated city kids of a particularly stripe, and some of them probably listen to some of those artists sometimes.

it's not a. a particularly large listening demographic b. a 'movement' c. a trend w/ enough coherence that you can really make a statement about it. when you gotta use anco in your definition of 'pastoral nationalism' you know you're stretching things.

particular stripe*

it's not a. a particularly large listening demographic b. a 'movement' c. a trend w/ enough coherence that you can really make a statement about it. when you gotta use anco in your definition of 'pastoral nationalism' you know you're stretching things.

anco are only one of the links in the chain. pastoral yes, nationalist no. but they're not a perfect synecdoche, either. there is no perfect single-point representation.

and when we're specifically talking about a. pitchfork and b. indie music, then hell yeah, the demographic in question and the trends within it are worth making statements about. some of these bands have had #1 records in the last few years. they're as worth talking about as any music out there.

sure they're worth talking about but when you're making big social statements you need big pieces of evidence and I don't think the small-scale success of a few bands is that evidence. maybe people liked 'my girls' cause it's a super catchy song not because of the american national political/context.

sure, maybe...

the idea that post 2000 indie is in some sense marginal - outside the mainstream, not "worth" engaging in serious terms - strikes me as a weird kind of defensive denial. the neon bible debuted at #2, the suburbs at #1. national public radio (think about those words) has dedicated itself to the promulgation of this music to an audience that will someday assume leadership positions in american culture, business and government. this is the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege, and pretending that it's somehow not central to the narrative of the nation strikes me as bizarre.

hey self, why the scarequotes on "worth"?

In Sufjan Stevens, indie adopted precious, pastoral nationalism at the Bush Administration’s exact midpoint. In M.I.A., indie rock celebrated a musician whose greatest accomplishment has been to turn the world’s various catastrophes into remixed pop songs. This is a kind of music, in other words, that’s very good at avoiding uncomfortable conversations. Pitchfork has imitated, inspired, and encouraged indie rock in this respect. It has incorporated a perfect awareness of cultural capital into its basic architecture. A Pitchfork review may ignore history, aesthetics, or the basic technical aspects of tonal music, but it will almost never fail to include a detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment.

this is key, as much as i want to defend MIA's catastrophe pop. it does a neat job of tying a good point about the basic structure of indie aesthetics (built in from its 80s-era roots) to the way indie tastemaking works online today, in a post-marginal commercial environment. carles uses HRO to make the same point over and over and over again.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Saturday, 21 January 2012 04:34 (37 minutes ago) Permalink

idk as a writer for pitchfork i cant say that the bulk of my writing deals w/ a 'detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment' any more than is necessary to provide context of an existing discussion, and that's rarely the point of what i write

this piece, amongst other problems, has the same issue most pieces critical of the site has, in that it treats many different writers of many different styles approaches & eras as a monolith

I literally can't fathom the obscene lack of self-awareness it would take for someone to turn in a piece of print writing with the word "ILX" in it.

― all shitley (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, September 6, 2011

the other thing is that his generalizations about who the audiences for indie are and how they've changed, while intuitively tempting, don't have any actual evidence to support them, which is really irresponsible writing

when you're making big social statements you need big pieces of evidence and I don't think the small-scale success of a few bands is that evidence.

i can't imagine what kind of evidence one might find that the popularity of an artist or genre is in some way related to national events. when it comes to speculation of this sort, proof isn't really what i'm looking for.

his generalizations about who the audiences for indie are and how they've changed, while intuitively tempting, don't have any actual evidence to support them, which is really irresponsible writing

yeah, that i agree with 100%. frankly, i think the audience hasn't changed much. the difference is that the tastes and attitudes that define that audience have changed. but i don't have any strong support for that point, either.

I don't think fleet foxes are central to the narrative of the nation. the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege is mostly kanye west and jay-z.

again this kinda analysis has no room for separating success that comes from tapping into ~the zeitgeist~ or whatever and success just for writing music that happens to appeal to a lot of people. arcade fire's music is pretty easy to appreciate, hey they won a grammy, really old people vote for teh grammys. so I guess they are big, and if there were lots of other hugely successful bands that sounded like them that might mean something. but with this limited datapoint no, there's just not enough evidence that this 'means something important'.

xp

I mean if you really wanted to make a solid argument you'd have to look at the numbers w/r/t 'white american privilege'. back in the day there was a facebook page that allowed you to see what the top bands were by undergrad college. the beatles were the top band for most ivy league schools. does that mean something about the future of white maerican privilege? I mean I guess it means *something* but it's not a movement, it's just a lot of people who like the beatles.

this piece, amongst other problems, has the same issue most pieces critical of the site has, in that it treats many different writers of many different styles approaches & eras as a monolith

also OTM. piece is waist-deep in unsupportable generalizations, especially as they pretend to specifically indict pitchfork. nevertheless, i agree with what i see as the author's buried point: trendspotting and the handicapping of cultural capital have become a much more visible component of the pop-critical conversation in the internet era (though again, i'd point more to carles and PRR more than pitchfork itself for evidence of this).

he wrote. “We reach more people right now than Spin or Vibe ever did, even if you use the bs print mag idea that ‘every copy is read by 2.5 people’ . . . hell, I should stop caring, get back to work, and let people keep underestimating us.” Then he posted two more times. Then he wrote, “Alright, I will get out of this thread.” Then he posted eighteen more times.

this was the best part of the article imo

back in the day there was a facebook page that allowed you to see what the top bands were by undergrad college. the beatles were the top band for most ivy league schools. does that mean something about the future of white maerican privilege? I mean I guess it means *something* but it's not a movement, it's just a lot of people who like the beatles.

i think it does mean something about the future/present/past of white american privilege. for one thing, it reflects the whiteness of white american privilege. for another, it reflects the durability of that culture's totems. i'd say that "pitchfork indie" is a clear extension of this.

I don't think fleet foxes are central to the narrative of the nation. the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege is mostly kanye west and jay-z.

no. what do privileged white americans listen to that everybody else listens to, white or not, privileged or not? kanye and jay-Z, fine.

but what do privileged white americans listen to that other groups are substantially less likely to listen to? pitchfork indie. of course i don't have the statistics to back this up right at hand. just a hunch...

that's my problem, this needs statistics

I don't think fleet foxes are central to the narrative of the nation.

is any music at all central to the narrative of the nation?

the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege is mostly kanye west and jay-z.

i don't think so.