pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

whiney doesn't have time to kill he has zings to make goddammit

Another good example of what I'm talking about: http://www.avclub.com/articles/how-homestar-runner-changed-web-series-for-the-bet,104146/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Default:1:Default

http://www.theonion.com/articles/internet-rocked-by-blogger-with-sarcastic-sensibil,34212/

yeah this relentless mining of everything that ever happened or didn't happen in pop culture ("splitsider presents a look back at the roles bob odenkirk didn't get!") is just so exhausting

it turned that into a series of web shorts that pointed the way forward not just for the legions of web series to follow but also a host of TV shows, from Adventure Time to Bob’s Burgers, from Community to Parks And Recreation.

Did Homestar Runner influence all of those programs? Most likely not

how is it not incredibly sad to write 3000 words about a web cartoon no one has cared about for 9 years and come to this as your strongest conclusion? like, why would you do that to yourself?

Should I have written this article? Nah, I guess not.

it turned that into a series of web shorts that pointed the way forward not just for the legions of web series to follow but also a host of TV shows, from Adventure Time to Bob’s Burgers, from Community to Parks And Recreation.

Did Homestar Runner influence all of those programs? Most likely not

how is it not incredibly sad to write 3000 words about a web cartoon no one has cared about for 9 years and come to this as your strongest conclusion? like, why would you do that to yourself?

― call all destroyer, Monday, October 14, 2013 3:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also i like how we're reached this point where the idea of actually doing any kind of journalism and actually, i don't know, ACTUALLY ASKING THE FUCKING PEOPLE THAT MADE THESE SHOWS is completely out of the question. like just speculate and then say "neat think piece huh? i mean, it's not actually true but sounds good :)"

yeah thinkpiece has kinda come to mean "i googled a little but i didn't dare go anywhere in person or interview anybody"

it amazes me how those onion "inventory" lists (like "14 tv characters who should have been fired from their jobs" or w/e) always have half a dozen or so credited authors.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/we-burned-down-their-city-hall-14-epic-rivalries-b,103974/

Eakin &
Handlen &
Harris &
McFarland &
O'Neal &
Ryan &
Semley &
Vago.

inventory something where they clearly exhausted the premise for the feature many many many years ago. that homestar runner thing is kinda hilarious, that sort of feature can be worthwhile if you're treating whatever you're examining as a model organism and saying something larger about the medium or the time or ascribing some sort of historic import to it but, again, none of the above occurring here. like you could very easily come up w/ a thinkpiece on jennicam or whatever and then use jennicam as a means of examining the internet then, the internet now, the internet in general, hey maybe even something larger than the internet, but this avclub approach has generally been to not go beyond 'man, remember jennicam' and maybe you stretch that out but you certainly don't develop it. and now post-phipps they can't even be bothered to come up w/ an idea, however trivial or whatever, for a feature, they just have 'watch this' or 'listen to this', makes buzzfeed look like harpers.

i don't like the angle that the new Tim Hecker album was "recorded live". from that Spin article (and from listening to it) it sounds like it was labored over in the computer as much as anything else, even if it uses more identifiable instruments as a starting point.

the press material for it says something to that effect so (w/o having read the review of which you speak) I suspect someone has taken that as gospel. it struck me as perhaps a liberal use of the term as well

its pr bs yeah, hecker labored over live orchestral sessions w/ a computer

Though it's rarely noticed, the publicity one-sheets for his albums read like Andy Kaufman-esque pranks lobbed at lazy music writers: The promo material for 2004's Mirages reads, "Hecker solves the Rubik's cube and penetrates the liquid magma, revealing the truths of dirty sodium light pollution, love on the rocks, and toothhunting in the garden of evil."

its pr bs yeah, hecker labored over live orchestral sessions w/ a computer

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, October 15, 2013 11:36 AM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sometimes fictional food is a pleasant pause in the action; sometimes it’s crucial platform for exposition. And sometimes it’s Uma Thurman’s $5 milkshake—a telling detail about a person. Sitting down to do what pretty much everybody does at least a couple times a day can advance the plot of a movie, show, novel, or serialized streaming dramedy—and occasionally the food itself takes center stage. Possibly because we’re kind of hungry at the moment, The A.V. Club has decided to spend time looking at some memorable foods in storytelling.

For the record:

http://no-trivia.tumblr.com/post/64660558089/wondering-what-happens-behind-the-scenes-at-p4k-i-knew

I also thought it was weird how album scores were delivered to HQ by Andrew Fastow in a wax sealed envelope with prominent Masonic square and compass. Just being real about my time at p'fork.

...BREAKING...

http://thedissolve.com/features/performance-review/231-reassessing-the-best-actress-of-2001/

scott p left?? remember fondly when he'd show up to defend p4k in ilm best of 20xx threads

I like that No Trivia piece a lot. One thing though - in my experience music publications don't micromanage reviews to remotely the same extent as P4K seems to. Q, for example, has given even its cover stars 3/5 reviews on occasion.

are people surprised that pitchfork manages scores on big albums? what year is it right now

also if you're reviewing a niche album that's in your wheelhouse -- i.e. basically every time i reviewed a rap mixtape -- no one questions your score

don't follow it closely anymore but scottpl must have a claim to having molded P4K's current ~aesthetic~, at least the more ILM-acceptable pts of it

that old skool P4K best of the 1990s someone posted in another thread, which ws presumably mostly ll cool schreibs, was laughable

Brandon is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

lol https://twitter.com/nickminichino/status/392700551265533952

I like the "I'm not as valuable as animal collective" realization. It must be torture to view every company expenditure as an insult.

hahahaha

headshot

The main damning thing in that post is his assertion that Pitchfork pays its writers a quarter of what equivalent sites pay. Anyone know if there's any truth to that?

no but my friend at tiny mixtapes showed me his brand new rolex submariner the other day

sounds pretty dope

have asked this on ilm before but whats the going rate for a record review?

xpost think he said sites with equivalent traffic

a review copy of the album in question or alternatively a link to a torrent that contains said record xp

haha tbh i have never really envied pitchfork writers much of anything except for the pitchfork ftp that supposedly exists

the pitchfork advance layout & interface is really weird

The main damning thing in that post is his assertion that Pitchfork pays its writers a quarter of what equivalent sites pay. Anyone know if there's any truth to that?

No, but it seems more damning on those other sites if true. WTF are they doing paying so much at this state in the game?

how is that damning

(I'm not going to get into this for obvious reasons, but the "quarter of what equivalent sites pay" bit can be debunked pretty quickly by going on Who Pays Writers or asking around.)

I assume he's talking about Grantland or Slate, where an individual writer's byline can be more of draw.

someone just spill it how much do they pay, what are you gonna get sued or something

http://whopays.tumblr.com/tagged/pitchfork

also, today (this is more "what people pay in general" but: http://scratchmag.net/free-preview-issue/web-editors-roundtable/ )

Yeah, "damning" was probably overstating it. It just seemed like the most legit grievance in the piece, moreso than "PItchfork editors get defensive when criticized!" or "They paid a performer their asking price for a festival concert!" or "They favor strong editorial control, and sometimes that trumps the opinions of individual writers, even when the writers are experts!"

Of course, now I know that 1/4 figure is a gross exaggeration, so basically nothing "damning" at all in the piece.

as a freelancer i always found the raw dollar amount to be a bit overrated anyway. pitchfork pays on time every month without fail and has a lot of work available if you're proactive. both of those things are as important + sometimes more important than the fee itself.

also the platform is important! as a music critic, pitchfork is pretty much the quickest way for people to become familiar with your writing. everyone grab your barf bag, but it's undeniably very good for your Personal Brand. you get twitter followers, you get more work etc etc. this is how it works now. so yes maybe you take a little less than you could get somewhere else because you want a specific piece to be seen. these are the things that you weigh as a freelancer. pitchfork isn't victimizing anyone.

also an important point -- talk to any writer and you will hear at least one and probably multiple horror stories of people who got very impressive commissions that they're still waiting (after years!) to be paid a cent for