what does this pfm song review thingy even mean anyway?

big words in the wrong hands = dangerous

Mwahahahaha

Biggest words in Mickey's quoted material (by number of syllables):

ideologies
barbarously
latecomers
whimsical
marginal
delicate
scenery
arduous
tedium

Apart from maybe "barbarously" these are all pretty common words.

But a better retort to Mickey's post might be drawn from his own words: "I don't want to have to think about it." I suppose it's inevitable that there will be people who don't like thinking about stuff; I suppose it's inevitable that some of those people would nonetheless want to read music criticism (without thinking about it); I'm going to try and remain comforted by the idea that this is some perverse minority opinion. It's certainly the first time I've ever seen someone say he prefers writing that doesn't make him think.

Actually, this review totally put me in a bad mood. Mainly because i'm a die-hard (post movie poster) BoYo fan (common ways to say SSLYBY: the actual name, Boris Yeltsin and sometimes BoYo) I like saying SSLYBY (sly-bye) as well.

Let me ask, how would you feel if other product reviews were wrote in a Pitchfork-style? Say you wanted to buy new speakers, looked up a review, and they were described as having the sound of a barbarously dangerous sea. Other nature metaphors were used. Compared to videogames. Less like Mario RPG, more like Mario Kart! Come on, would your response not be "for fucks sake, I don't care about how clever you are or anything, just give me the straightforward information I want"? That's how I feel about music reviews. I don't think it's an unreasonable stance, despite it looking like I'm alone here on ILM.

Dumb fun trumps brainy tedium, and if Swamp Tech were an RPG, it'd be all whimsical mini-games, no arduous stat-building.

I'm reading a record review. Why am I thinking about video games here? Why not just end the sentence with "tedium" (and rephrase it slightly so it makes sense). I don't need a reference to video games to understand that the music is more dumb fun than serious.

My point is not at all that this is difficult to read. It's not above my head, nor do I not like to think. I just don't want any of that when I'm reading a record review, and that's the end of my thesis. Would you want it reading a technical manual? Front page news? TV Guide?

Yes, Mark, it is hard to find the type of review I want. Pitchfork writes them sometimes. The Espers review was perfect. Newspapers write them almost exclusively, but newspapers also don't often review music I'm interested in. I really stopped reading music reviews because they don't suite my purpose. I just scan through pages like Pitchfork and make notes of albums with high scores to check out later.

Haha, "seriously responding." As if my position is so indefensible that it doesn't even deserve a response. I should have expected a reception like this knowing ILM is so full of record reviewers. Next time I'll just keep my mouth shut and let logged out/unregistered person take the ridicule for criticizing PFM.

It's def. the common opinion among the masses. But that only means so much. (Da Vinci Code vs Shalimar the Clown, Pauline Kael vs Leonard Maltin, blah blah blah.)

In terms of crit i read for pleasure (which is almost all the music or literary crit i read these days), it's definitely not the same as what you're looking for.

i basically agree, except i don't see it as a mistake!

i was grooving along here, expecting a zing, but then...

I can't think of any other way to remedy these constant complaints that people can't understand basic literary tactics like metaphor (simile, even!), use of images, personification, and so on.

errrrr, no! surely you mean, if they read books n' shit then they wouldn't put up with such awkwardly assembled prose!

Artistic reviews are "utilitarian" by default; they are describing an artistic endeavor to the reader and offering a value judgement to help said reader form an opinion on the work in question. No amount of "subjectivity!" can alter that.

to help said reader form an opinion

Why do you think this is the only role that writing-about-art has?

Do readers want reviews that just tell them whether it's a worthwhile album, or do they want to have reviews that are worth reading as thought pieces? And more importantly, can we acknowledge that some of the thought pieces are badly written and not just because they transcend the thumbs up/thumbs down level of criticism?

I'm a music critic because I like writing about music, and some people like reading what I write. I'm not gonna pretend I have any interest in technical music analysis - in my own writing or others', - and while you see to think yours is a "ZIng! Ho-ho!" kind of observation, I don't find it particularly interesting.

Did I say that was the only role? I'm pretty sure I said that was the primary role.

Do readers want reviews that just tell them whether it's a worthwhile album, or do they want to have reviews that are worth reading as thought pieces?

I find this question mind-boggling, although it does explain why a good 90% of modern music criticism sucks.

Do readers want reviews that just tell them whether it's a worthwhile album, or do they want to have reviews that are worth reading as thought pieces?

I find this question mind-boggling, although it does explain why a good 90% of modern music criticism sucks.

it's funny, i think that by FAR the majority of published music crit (ie, 99%+) falls well away from "thought pieces", and is the reason why I find it so dull.

-- Dan (You Aren't Writing An Essay) Perry ([email protected]) (webmail), January 6th, 2006. (Dan Perry)

OTM

(xpost: Tom is OTM; the ridiculous binary is what I'm primarily reacting to up there. I've lauded oblique reviews in the past when I've thought that I had a good idea of what the music was like and whether or not I would like it, especially the Nick S. Pitchfork reviews I've read, so I'm not advocating a strict binary as much as forcefully asserting that reviews have a primary purpose at the end of the day and that primary purpose is not to satirize government or to paint poetic images.)

There is nothing wrong with music writing that makes you think. There is nothing wrong with reviews that make you think. But if you're not interested in performing the basic functions of describing and evaluating, you are not writing a review.

All that said, as I think some people have agreed above, this particular review does fulfill all the functions of a review while also being well-written and thoughtful, which is why it's a very good review.

I dunno, it just seems like reading a review isn't like driving down a road--if there's something you can't get through, you can always skip it, it's not like you're just stuck there, unable to go on. Half the things I read I end up skipping things, and that's cool.

Prefuse has always been scattered by design, interrupting his grooves with bouncing shards of jazz pianos or light static. But once upon a time there was a method to it, a dude who loved rap paying tribute to it by freaking its conventions. Somewhere along the line, his switch got stuck on autopilot, and now we get stuff like this, a couple of seconds of flipping-stations noises mutating into a half-realized lope, its backwards synth-tones paying no attention to its blip-drums, its non-sequitur Spanish guitar making no attempt to interact with the zip-blurp sound effects. This is not music, this is dicking around-- and I'd actually put some mud in my mouth if he'd stop. [Tom Breihan]