pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

what even is a blog, anyway

I like that Lana del Rey review. Does Mark Richardson post here? I seem to remember him doing so.

Yeah, I'm with s.clover. The backlash wasn't restricted to Hipster Runoff - there was a widespread desire to take her down, from Twitter to most US critics. Most of her 7 million albums were sold outside the US so it's reasonable to frame a review on a US website in those terms. I think the review's generally OTM.

But then comes “Brooklyn Baby”, a song that references Lou Reed, a rare jazz collection, feathers in hair, the “freedom land of the ’70s,” and “churning out novels like beat poetry on amphetamines.”

L-fucking-O-L

In a new Guardian profile, Lana Del Rey says that the late Lou Reed was supposed to appear on her Ultraviolence track "Brooklyn Baby". Unfortunately, he passed away right as they were set to meet. "I took the red eye, touched down at 7am … and two minutes later he died," she says.

Elsewhere in the profile, she claims that she wants to die. When asked by writer Tim Jonze "if she sees an early death as glamorous," she responds, "I don't know. Ummm, yeah," before adding, "I wish I was dead already." When Jonze tells her not to say that, that she doesn't really mean it, Del Rey responds, "I do! I don't want to have to keep doing this. But I am."

Jonze asks "Do what? Make music?", and she responds, "Everything. That's just how I feel. If it wasn't that way, then I wouldn't say it. I would be scared if I knew [death] was coming, but …"

Additionally, she thinks that criticism aimed at her is "personal" (rather than straight-up sexism) because in comparison to artists like Miley Cyrus, Lily Allen and Lorde, she isn't a "true provocateur." "I don't think there's any shock value in my stuff – well, maybe the odd disconcerting lyric – but I think other people probably deserve the criticism, because they're eliciting it," she said.

Listen to "Brooklyn Baby":

I've always hated LDR because she always felt so manufactured; specifically following American Apparel's branding strategy.

billboards and ads on the back of vice magazine?

I've always hated LDR because I don't think her songs are interesting and I dislike the way she sings.

billboards and ads on the back of vice magazine?

― socki (s1ocki), Monday, June 16, 2014 11:21 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Her music is about as deep as a clothing company trying to reach a particular demographic, and her approach is the same as American Apparel's.

she has a rich dad and she'd rather be a pop star than work in advertising/academia/TV. more power to her. perfect for the pitchfork demographic

find other criticisms plz

"She has a rich dad" Oh wow, game over, killer point.

also... she... like... markets her music!!!

burn all your ramones and dead kennedys albums plz

i love how gang of four and stereolab sound but i don't listen to lyrics

as far as I know, everybody fucking loves LDR.

really?

new dn

by "everyone" people are referring to non-US audiences (SNL appearance less of a factor?) and young, often teenage girls -- the Cedric Gervais "Summertime Sadness" was Top 10, "Young and Beautiful" IIRC just missed Top 20, and you don't get those numbers from hate-listens. you can speculate all you want about *why* she resonates with non-US audiences or teenage girls but the data is there.

that said, there was absolutely a backlash to LDR among "music types," a huge one -- in fact, if you think it's just blog chatter that probably says more about your defining things by blog chatter.

great review, also

seemed to get passed over earlier but holy fucking shit @ professional writer not knowing what anachronistic means

(haven't read the review)

I've read it now, it's alright (that line has been changed btw: "When lines like these pop up on the record, I find myself chuckling, sometimes laughing out loud, which might seem odd on an album about sadness" - to which I would still say "yep, it would seem odd if you were on the album", and yeah "repellant" is a noun, but I guess she's a daft reader who looks for belles lettres in a p4k review). Not heard the album, not sure if I'll bother, but it seems otm to me that her appeal can be both summed up & dismissed as "cool fully formed aesthetic bro"; if you like the songs you'll go along with all the played-out americana. True as well that most ppl, popstars or no, get bored with their one-note sockpuppets after a while, I guess LDR is the waterface of pop

*smiles, sings Video Games at the top of his lungs*

*guitar solo*

i thought you were owen pallett

*takes off Nixon mask, revealing Darth Vader mask*

circles within circles
within other circles
video games

first person shooter

hey now

the only thing i would shoot someone with is my hurmor

humor

I like the review, I said it was mostly OTM and talked about the authenticity thing well.

My ish with the "many people/repellant" line was not its accuracy but its phrasing. That the "people" went unnamed, like, it didn't need to be said. I can't see a writer typing "you begin to remember why many people find the whole project repellant" about, say, Jack White, an artist whose whole project many people find repellent.

Speaking on behalf of other people is textbook abusive-language, even (especially?) when it's a method for framing a compliment. I dunno. Maybe I'm just being sensitive. My post was supposed to actually be in support of the review.

i've always thought that those casual asides are how received wisdom, both abusive and non-abusive, actually gets reinforced, rather than something actually being the subject of a piece, for exactly those reasons

iirc her last album sold 5 million copies worldwide but is just barely platinum in the US after two years, so Katherine otm re: her popularity outside the US.

How does observing that lots of people have a virulent reaction to her reinforce it? That's dumb

That the "people" went unnamed, like, it didn't need to be said.

argumentum ad populum as it were.

If anything the wild success of Lana del Rey pretty much proves that using blog chatter as a metric for anything is totally short-sighted

It shows Lana gallivanting around with an older gentleman, getting into a number of decadent situations. It's very Gatsby-core. Check it out below.

oh god

oh lord pac

they killin the spirit of gatsby

shoulda gone for broke and ditched the hyphen, editorial

i've always thought that those casual asides are how received wisdom, both abusive and non-abusive, actually gets reinforced, rather than something actually being the subject of a piece, for exactly those reasons

otm. Watching American political talk shows it's amazing how Dem and GOP guys will say "We all agree Social Security is out of control and the deficit is a problem" without fear of contradiction.

https://my.secondlife.com/gatsby.core

It's funny how they always stick metal albums in that #5 review slot. Kind of feels like "we hired a couple of reviewers who specialize in metal but now our audience doesn't care about metal as much as they did a few years ago."

otm

It’s alright, ma; they may be only bleeding, but they have a box of Band-Aids handy.
It’s alright, ma; they may be only bleeding, but they have a box of Band-Aids handy.
It’s alright, ma; they may be only bleeding, but they have a box of Band-Aids handy.
It’s alright, ma; they may be only bleeding, but they have a box of Band-Aids handy.
It’s alright, ma; they may be only bleeding, but they have a box of Band-Aids handy.

You can sense that North Carolina rock trio Late Bloomer hears Dinosaur Jr., Hüsker Dü, and Nirvana differently than most revivalists, that they’re doing so without any pretense of sounding cool. In fact, Late Bloomer don’t think of their heroes as "indie rock" at all, but rather as some of the most popular bands of their time, actual heroes who deserve to be spoken of with grand gestures.

A world where Nirvana was among the most popular bands of their time, what a thing to imagine.

Right? I noticed that too.

It's that weird "indie vs. mainstream" mindset that I never have, nor probably never will, understand.

Gotta do some serious crate digging to find out about Nirvana.