pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

...and you will know us by the Trail of Backlash

Do u think p4k reviews have been losing relevancy/traffic, and they sort of wanted to remind ppl 'hey. we are relevant, controversial, and get ppl talking. Please feel free to re-blog, FB share, and tweet this link'?

it's the dialectic of taste — if u hand out 10.0's to any buzzyband with a cute singer u'll look like an entry-level blog — better to play it cool — 'drive slowly and carry a big stick' — 10.0 is the p4k 'big stick' and they just pulled it out for kanye

BEST COAST WAS ROBBED

best coast -- the new tapes n tapes?

she wishes

"Earl" is better than almost every video in "the top music videos of 2010"

huge oversight IMO

truth

right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMTVV5Lwaw

With Blake, it's like I'd walked into the kitchen and saw a big prickly triangular fruit in the fruit bowl. Didn't recognize it. Didn't know what to do with it. Sniffed at it. Poked at it. Tried it. Liked it. Couldn't stop eating it, and couldn't get the taste anywhere else.

"triangular" makes it

can pitchfork survive after 2010

I don't think so
later, website

i liked that

that excerpt has a nice cadence to it

i guess their new years resolution was to put tons of links in the text of the reviews?

actually very helpful if the links go to music videos.

also, that's every website tho

I was going to say, this is just Pitchfork catching up with everyone else. I'm fine with it, as long as they don't start doing those embedded Google Ads things with the linked text.

hypertext in the tennis review OTM. fuck yeah, link to all possible youtubes alwass, and also to explanatory text when you reference weird nerd shit. this is an entirely new decade of the century.

alwass = swass conception of always

Husband/wife indie pop duo follow a string of well-liked blog mp3s with their nostalgia-soaked, Brill Building-referencing LP

yeah it seems like a good thing--i've enjoyed reading reviews there less since the lala player got killed

http://pitchfork.com/features/columns/7932-out-the-trunk-1/

^cool

why in the "pitchfork is dumb" thread if it's cool?

idk, is there a "pitchfork is cool" thread

anyway, i haven't read it yet so maybe it IS a dumb column, i just think it's a cool platform is all -- these types of columns are often the best thing pfork does

otm re: pfork columns -- t0m ew1ng, nabisco and m4rk r.'s columns should be required reading for anyone looking for smart thoughts abt music. i also usually find something of interest in The Out Door.

I like "Resonant Frequency" a lot

so what you guys are saying is that pitchfork...isn't dumb?

oh it's plenty dumb but it has its smart moments too

Getting rid of the reggae dancehall column was dumb

iirc the dude who wrote that posts here in the rolling thread

Dave Stelfox, who wrote the Pitchfork reggae/dancehall column for awhile used to post here a long time ago. After he stopped writing for Pitchfork (he took a non-music journalism job in the Mideast), Erin MacLeod wrote a few columns. She posted here a few times. But Pitchfork stopped asking her for columns.

best pfork review i've read in some time:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15122-space-is-only-noise

ugh, my least favorite misuse of "time signatures": In this more rhythmic first half of the album, electronic percussion figures in heavily as usual, but also with heightened emphasis on drummer Phil Selway's uneven time signatures

lol jesus

i wonder what the writer thinks time signatures are...?

once saw some review mention the "opening coda" of a song and just sighed so deeply

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcaYhGEzKD8

omg hearty lol @ "opening coda"

also maybe the phrase wasn't meant this way, but "uneven time signatures" could be acceptable if it's referring to stuff like 5/8, 7/8, 11/8, etc. where the subdivision of the macro beat isn't equal for every macro beat

(I should really get TKOL since, you know, I actually like Radiohead)

but the reviewer makes it sound like time signatures are something the drummer can do apart from the rest of the band. you know he really means "syncopated rhythms" or whatever.

btw everything on the radiohead record is in 4/4.

also thought it was weird they referred to "Neil Young-inspired guitar work" on "Seperator." I associate Neil Young with either strummy acoustic guitar or loud fuzzy solos, neither of which appear prominently in that song.

Guitar on Separator sounds Balearic to me. Reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZJy-yQTtI

irrelevant:

that emeralds review from some months back is one of the best i've read, and alone made me buy the album. and then i reread it recently and it sounds fucking ridiculous. comparing emeralds to the bp oil spill? i was a lil more enthused by description of "thrilling, viscous rush" as it's ending line, which you kinda have to forget the oil spill was somewhat of a tragedy of nature before you can appreciate.

dont even know what my point is.

the oil spill not being a "thrilling viscous rush" seems like a good enough point tbh

hahahahahahahahaha @ comparing an album to the bp oil spill o_0

metaphor, you fail at it

that review was by phil sherburne, it was good, it didnt compare the music to the oil spill.