pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

gotta say p4k pretty much nailed it

Part of that is inevitable since any record that starts with "It's Time to Party" and "Party Hard" doesn't leave much room to build on an upward trajectory. But while "Party Til You Puke" is the culmination of I Get Wet's "Party" trilogy, it's also the tipping point where the thought of past, present, or future partying becomes unbearably oppressive. The sheer velocity of its call and response vocals renders it a monolithic yell of "CHUG," and immediately afterwards, "Fun Night" is that guy handing you a rally beer at the toilet when all you can say is "not now, bro." "Got to Do It" is "Girls Own Love" seen through the eye of a tiger, and though I've owned this record for nearly a decade, to this day I still can't remember what the title track sounds like

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16836-i-get-wet/

I'm sorry, but if you know this album well enough to be pretty OTM on "Party Til You Puke" and "Fun Night" then how on earth do you not know that "I Get Wet" is the greatest Andrew WK song ever.

pitchfork doesn't get wet (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

yah title track is A++

from first paragraph of menomena review

On 2010's Mines, not much was going right for Menomena-- Danny Seim and Brent Knopf had just gone through divorces, and Justin Harris had seen a therapist for the first time. The band was hardly talking, their inability to communicate in a civilized fashion meaning that the record took over three years to complete. But as everyone knows, suffering can make for great art, and although Mines sacrificed some of Menomena's trademark compositional weirdness for comparatively melodic rock songs, it contained some of their most moving material to date. Opener "Queen Black Acid", written by Harris, was among that year's most devastating songs: "You're five foot five, not a hundred pounds/ I'm scared to death of every single ounce," concluding, "You bring me down... So down."

from willamette week interview linked in the review

Listening to Mines, it’s clear the past few years have been rough on the band. Both Seim and Knopf struggled through divorces, and Harris says he saw a therapist for the first time. Mines opens with Harris’ “Queen Black Acid,” a leisurely paced slow-burner that’s the most devastating song in the band’s catalog. “You’re 5-foot-5, not 100 pounds,” Harris sings, pausing a measure to catch his breath. “I’m scared to death of every single ounce.” The song’s chorus is similarly heartbreaking: “You bring me down/ So down.”

rip pitchfork

when will the "institution" crumble?

things like that make me glad i have a tendency to avoid reading other press about an album i'm reviewing

Wow I cannot believe they trashed "I Get Wet", that's the best track on the album!!

I think Snapes's review walks a dangerous line but doesn't veer far enough into plagiarism for me to seriously take issue with it. NAGL, tho.

i just think it's funny that she linked to the source!

If that was being assessed as school/college/university work, that person would not be getting awarded any marks. That is quite clearly plagiarism.

Yeah, it's obv plagiarism.

did anyone compare it to the band's press package? My impression of most reviews is that 50-75% of the background information is lifted directly from materials provided by the bands.

OK but even the hackiest lazybones reviewers tend to have the presence of mind not to use the exact same turns of phrase in the same order as the press release

just checked; press release doesnt have that stuff in it

i tried to find the mines press kit (cause the article is from 2010) to see if it originally came from there but could not do so

I'm appalled, frankly, that this bastion of music journalism has sunken so low.

I'm appalled, honestly, that this stalwart of music journalism has sunken so low.

can't believe the dudes from Menomena got divorced.

rip divorces

They made a cute couple

Damn yo

Does NOONE AT ALL read/like Killscreen articles? Lonely out there

I'm appalled, frankly, that this bastion of music journalism has sunken so low.

― Trip Maker, Thursday, September 13, 2012 6:16 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm appalled, honestly, that this stalwart of music journalism has sunken so low.

― Listen to this, dad (President Keyes), Thursday, September 13, 2012 10:27 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haw that totally went over my head before

wut

http://pitchfork.com/features/ordinary-machines/8980-cold-facts/

a little much but also kinda feels inevitable. or maybe just a throwback to the brent dicrescenzo era.

killscreen is just so painful. my fav embarrassing killscreen moment were the awkward interviews with southern rappers in which the interviewer would typically seem confused they played madden instead of [insert indie game here].

brent d. should really reunite, i think enough time has passed that he could headline coachella if he got back in the game today

just read three paragraphs about someone's facebook history and had to stop before i killed myself :/

Ooh! I'll read it later

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BNDA2NTg2NjE4Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwMjYxMDg5._V1._SY317_CR0,0,214,317_.jpg

I remember with stinging clarity the night I first made a Facebook profile.

nope!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD7LNDLKfWY

I can't believe that's the first sentence

the guy who tells time with a pocket watch
oh that guy

While not as overt about siphoning prior goodwill as Cuban Linx Pt. II, Iron Fists does recall the last truly great Wu-Tang group project helmed by RZA, the Ghost Dog OST.

lol gtfo

I actually thought Zoladz's piece was nicely written, even as I'm not sure what its ultimate point is (other than "the Internet has changed everything!"). It also made me feel old.

From their review of the Interpol reissue:

In retrospect, 2002 may have been the very year that we stopped talking about how music sounds, and started talking about what other music it sounds like.

So no one ever compared one band to another before Interpol?!?

Yeah it was never a thing ever before that.

2002: The year smilie broke.

Smilie or simile?

:)

crap. 2012, the year my mental spellchecker broke.

i would think pitchfork is responsible for a lot of that

I sort of love that line for its ballsy, full-on wrongness.

http://s3.vidimg.popscreen.com/original/14/eGtxZTNzMTI=_o_saturday-night-live-david-spades-hollywood-minute.jpg

“I saw Stone Temple Pilots this weekend. I liked them better the first time around…when they were called Pearl Jam.”

"we" is a bad idea in music reviews, period

it's fine if you're telling an anecdote about yourself and your friends

or if you are royalty

In retrospect, 2002 may have been the very year that I began listening to, and thinking about, music.

But the early-aughts New York of Turn on the Bright Lights is not the young, vibrant, and impossibly cool place of cultural myth. It is a darker and more complicated place, fraught with disappointment and disconnection. It is a crushingly real place, rendered in such vivid emotional detail that it rings true even to those who have never set foot in the city.

If anything, I'm guessing people who've never set foot in the city have an easier time believing this.