pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

kind of like when i visit NYT and i'm looking for videos but i can't find them off the front page, but then i think "i want to see some videos that make me go whoooaaa", which prompts me to click the "whoooaaa" link, which of course leads to a link to the videos

some of you may remember that this form of free association leading to repositories of content categories was a staple of early search engines. instead of searching for "how to clean red wine stain" you'd go for something like "an evening in the balance" and just hope you'd land on the right area which would then lead to the wine cleaning tips

I think the problem here is that there was a section for tracks on the homepage for years, and with that gone and the section not easily findable, it's not unreasonable to assume they're just not there anymore. Plus, if you click on "reviews" in the menu, where you might expect to find them, they're not there, and there is no link to tracks from there.

It's also mad difficult to find the escort classifieds

I think the problem here is the four people on ILX that still visit homepages in 2017

MailChimp has a new marketing campaign where, in a series of websites and videos, they offer “experiences” that rhyme with the company’s name. As it turns out, VeilHymn—the new duo of Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) and Bryndon Cook (Starchild & The New Romantic)—is part of that campaign. (Cook is a former Pitchfork intern.) A MailChimp press release names VeilHymn alongside “MailShrimp,” “KaleLimp,” “WhaleSynth,” and more as “strategically created executions targeting digital subculture.” The duo were prompted by the company to give the project a name that rhymed with MailChimp. A representative for Hynes confirms that their single “Hymn” was created exclusively for the company. The song’s interactive video on VeilHymn.com redirects to other websites created for the MailChimp campaign.

http://pitchfork.com/news/71815-dev-hynes-new-band-veilhymn-chose-name-wrote-single-as-part-of-mailchimp-promotion

thanks to p4k for confirming the meaning behind those stupid billboards and the reveal of these "strategically created executions targeting digital subculture". '

they should cut out the middle man and just start unedited posting press releases in full.

VeilHymn and the other experiences were launched, a MailChimp press release says, “with the intention that people may organically come across one or two parts of the campaign, piquing their interest enough that they would want to dig deeper.” When the song surfaced last month, the “Hymn” SoundCloud bio and premiere post did not address the project’s affiliation with MailChimp. The song’s YouTube description and a press release for the “Hymn” video, sent to Pitchfork on February 8, didn’t mention the company. “With all of the alter egos, we wanted to play it cool at first and let them each create intrigue and interest on their own,” Mark DiCristina, the senior director of brand marketing at MailChimp, told Pitchfork via email.

good to know they didn't want to draw attention to this viral campaign i am reading about on the world's leading music news website

I think the problem here is the four people on ILX that still visit homepages in 2017

Yeah, because there's really an abundance of people lining up to read music journalism in 2017.

HOMEPAGES ARE GOOD

THEY ARE WHERE YOU ARE WELCOME

A rare metal album getting Best New Music that isn't Pallbearer, Baroness or Deafheaven.

especially weird given that it's a straight up 80s revival thrash record

it's weird how The Pitch is gone, and more broadly how that whole era of content has passed. things happen so fast now

This Pitch is gone?
http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/

oh weird lol

i guess i just see less of the '14 era Pitch-style takes floating around

if you want to get to the pitch from the home page, just remember what you're ultimately looking for. the latest. the latest information about music. luckily there's a link called The Latest and it leads directly to another link to the pitch

oof, maybe not the greatest idea to have a dude write the column about whether it's OK for a female musician who's been sexually harassed to punch her harasser. also pretty gross to frame the journalistic recounting of the incident in the teaser as "Last week, Princess Nokia hit a man in the crowd who asked to see her tits." Just because that's the language the guy allegedly used doesn't mean you have to retell it exactly that way.

A rare metal album getting Best New Music that isn't Pallbearer, Baroness or Deafheaven.

Yeah this was cool and unexpected, I was expecting it maybe for Pissed Jeans but not this

I don't get why this got BNM why Vektor didn't? Are they more known or something?

I mean, I listened to it and it seemed good, but Vektor seemed a lot more p4k-y.

I suspect that the Power Trip album will be more accessible to folks who aren't really conversant with the current state of the genre. Terminal Redux is a massive art-prog opus, but engagement with it requires time, strong ears, and a willingness to deal with music that defines its own terms. Nightmare Logic, OTOH, sounds and functions "like metal" (circa 1985, anyway). Catchy chugging, shout-along choruses, perfect for getting drunk and making hair animals.

Yeah, probably. I'd just have thought that art-prog opus was more p4k than metal 1985. But oh well, it seems Vektor got a lot of attention anyway.

In which a critic literally argues in favor of musical ignorance.

that's a pretty disingenuous summary of what that article is about

Not analyzing pop to death can ensure that your favorite songs don’t fall apart, as some inevitably do when placed under the magnifying glass... Trying to figure out what exactly that is probably won’t make you enjoy a pop song more. In fact, it might make you enjoy it a little less. It’s called the secret sauce for a reason.

She sounds like a five-year-old at Disneyland who just saw Minnie Mouse pull her head off and light a cigarette.

lmao, yes, website that once posted a 3,000 word thinkpiece on Soulja Boy, maybe it is WE who are analyzing the songs too closely

still they only like the songs a little less

fucked up that they buried the new Xiu Xiu record at the bottom of the reviews today and gave it a 6.4

agreed, it deserves better. the review seems to acknowledge that it's a really good Xiu Xiu album and then knocks it on a lot of weird little things.

the actual Max Martin interview is way more interesting than the pfork article:
http://storytelling.di.se/max-martin-english/

Yeah, the interview is fantastic.

heres the thing with martin and his ilk

he may have 58 billboard top 10 hits, only more than mccartney and lennon

but, given various definitions of 'interesting', its easy to sound interesting in a world of generic pop songs

none of his songs are interesting from a harmony point of view eg

and they barely break away from standard compositions, which is something popular songs have been doing since the 60s (parts were glued together back in the day, with all parts of the song being moving parts)

hes just good at surrounding himself with the next big pop talent, which is a skill in itself, sure

that pdork writer is not too far off. once you break down the songs to only their skeleton/raw bones, theres just a structure that is indistinguishable from other pop tracks

ie

martin knows what sells and good on him

generic pop songs meaning axis of awesome dudes' 4 chords:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

or

https://qz.com/767812/millennial-whoop/

that 'perfect pop song' that martin wants to hear again and again is just a type of succession of notes that we love to hear on repeat, like some type of drug:

https://aeon.co/essays/why-repetition-can-turn-almost-anything-into-music

that "millennial whoop" piece is terrible and worse than almost anything in this thread

BOOMER: here is a participation trophy
MILLENNIAL: *whoops from fifth note to scale to third and back*

whoop there it is

katherine otm

Explore Elliott Smith’s Iconic Either/Or in 5 Minutes

Explore Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks in 4 Minutes

noticing a trend here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE&t=61s

https://theawl.com/internet-video-is-lies-34ee5b3a4ccb

the beguiling Explore John Cage's 4"33 in 4"36

a new low:

Most crucially, The Sophtware Slump countered the pre-millennial tension of trip-hop, Timbaland, and Radiohead with Y2k’s definitive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ album

the future of music criticism: listicles and emojis

I struggle to understand how this Ian Cohen guy continues to get work

You left out half the sentence, and it's a pretty good description all in all.

All in all, this is as good a two-sentence band summary as can be hoped for, imo:

Grandaddy are still a state-of-the-art 2000 band, the sum of slack-motherfucker indie rock, the mid-fi experimentalism of Sparklehorse, and just enough of Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips’ late-’90s prog sweep. Most crucially, The Sophtware Slump countered the pre-millennial tension of trip-hop, Timbaland, and Radiohead with Y2k’s definitive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ album, speaking to people who came of age during the tech boom and felt like the 21st century could only promise shinier distractions from the same old pervasive suburban boredom.

Pitchfork may be dumb, but this new feature 'Name Dropping' is brilliant. Good idea, good editing, and Michael Bolton is a good sport:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqQYUjAA8kI

Yes, I enjoyed that. Michael Bolton seems like a pretty likeable guy.

Only two reviews today?

also that's not an emoji

haha, that bolton thing has legit funny moments

"Pitchfork to Review Key Albums From the Notorious B.I.G." 👏👏👏