pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Reminds me of when I played some highlife comp for a friend of mine in the peace corps in Ghana, and she told me it was absolutely unlike what she knew as highlife.

I had a Jamaican friend of a friend tell me once that dancehall was for Jamaicans, and dub was for white people.

Putumayo’s distinctive CD covers feature the colorful art of British illustrator Nicola Heindl, whose folkloric style illuminates the company’s mission: to connect the traditional and the contemporary through music and art. By combining appealing music and striking visual aesthetics with creative retail marketing, Putumayo has developed a unique brand identity, a rarity in today’s artist-based music industry.

These distinctions are so fascinating to me. I mean, in my older daughter's class last year there was a girl from Israel and a girl whose parents were from Ireland. Literally nothing in common at all except that both might be categorized as "white." I think encountering things that are different from me is part of what makes life interesting. That any particular genre, however amorphous, is considered more one thing than another is almost beside the point, imo.

in my older daughter's class last year there was a girl from Israel and a girl whose parents were from Ireland. Literally nothing in common at all except that both might be categorized as "white."

And there was a time, possibly within my grandparents' lifetime, that neither Irish nor Jews (nor Italians, for that matter) counted as "white."

Also, since I said "journalism ethics" and the supreme assholes of gamergate have forever tainted that phrase

― intheblanks, Sunday, March 29, 2015 8:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is still such a thing as journalistic ethics. the idea of a concept like that becoming "tainted" by a movement as idiotic as "gamergate" -- don't even like typing it -- is distressing.

it is unethical of pitchfork to retract things without mentioning it

where's PRR bro when you need him

i think he's working at Halliburton or Rap Genius now?

he died

I will note that while that list of recent BNMs contains a decent amount of women and men of color, afaict it contains no women of color.

Twigs the last one there I think. Richard and Sullivan were both put into the 8.0-8.1-almost-BNM tranche. They gave Tinashe 7.5 and Azealia 8.0 but both ended up in the 2014 Top 50.

i'm fine w/ looking at what a site reviews highly and observing trends or tendences, but the fact that people are always pulling their hair out over what is or isn't a 'BNM' seems like just buying into the site's branding way too much for me. it might as well be a smiley face icon that appears over certain reviews or a little cartoon red pepper with a word bubble saying 'this is a HOT one, baby!'

The fact that anyone thinks this is about Pitchfork covering more "world music" or B&S putting sitars on their records is kind of lol but mostly sad.

my main problem with the article was that it drew sinister implications from the Taco Bell/Pizza Hut guys having trouble shaking the "joke rap" rep

The guy has had two Das Racist albums, a couple of solo mixtapes and the Swetshop Boys EP since Combination Pizza Hut / Taco Bell but the main issue, as Alfred's link states more clearly, is that the Pitchfork reviewer lacked the ability or willingness to engage with the core theme of the album. It's not necessarily sinister but it's a failure.

yeah i've never understood the prominence people place on it but it seems like more of an indication of the site's branding than anything else. official seal of approval rather than just one writer who likes an album.

also when it comes to core "indie rock" (that this piece addresses) BNM still has an ability to shift an artist's career. pitchfork might not "make" bands at the scale that it used to but for a whole lot of music it covers it's still a pretty important signifier.

what actually is the BNM deal anyway? is it one per week or anything that gets over a certain mark or more arbitrary?

Clearly it indicates the best new music, duh. If it does not get BNM, it is not the best new music and you should look elsewhere for the best new music. Pretty scientific, imo.

yeah but hasn't there been a lot of gnashing of teeth over two albums getting the same numerical score but only one of them being 'BNM' and what that could mean

it has to do with the branding of the site, which covers a broad range of music but whose brand identity is tied up with this idea of "indie." artists associated with this sensibility we call "indie" are more likely to be white, so white artists are over-represented in the "BNM" section of the site. problem solved

whew that's over let's get coffee

every publication has a demographic/genre slant of some sort, whether or not you want to look at it through the lens of race or indie vs. mainstream. PF is no exception, and that's okay and inevitable, but the perception both inside PF and among some of its readership that it covers 'everything that truly matters' encourages this expectation of fair and comprehensive coverage that other publications aren't really held to, for better or worse.

The paradox is that Pitchfork is's covering mainstream musics in a way that would've been unthinkable in 2007 opens the door to even more criticism about what it's omitting or getting wrong.

*Pitchfork's

BNM is like, "Yeah, I know we gave 8+ rankings to these metal albums and Jazmine Sullivan, but you--our core audience of indie folks who follow our breaking news stories about Arcade Fire covering this or that song--are REALLY gonna dig this Courtney Barnett or Tobias Jesso album."

two albums getting the same numerical score but only one of them being 'BNM' and what that could mean

Well, clearly it means both albums are very good, but only one album is the best. Like first and second place in "American Idol" or, I dunno, "Highlander."

http://www.clickhole.com/article/all-my-equally-perfect-daughtersranked-2159

what actually is the BNM deal anyway? is it one per week or anything that gets over a certain mark or more arbitrary?

― lex pretend, Monday, March 30, 2015 9:41 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but hasn't there been a lot of gnashing of teeth over two albums getting the same numerical score but only one of them being 'BNM' and what that could mean

― some dude, Monday, March 30, 2015 9:56 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

BNM I think has been described as when an album is notable for both being solid and something that can be appealing to broad demographic that may not necessarily be invested in the genre/styling/scene that artist may be attributed to.

Whether we like it or not, BNM results in higher sales of records and more overall talk about that artist. And it's successful because it allows casual readers to see "highlighted" albums and songs among a sea of reviews, and simultaneously creates a perception shift through hype that you might see if you gave a completely random wine a little flag with red lettering that had a score of "93" in a store and watched it sell more and receive praise from consumers as a result.

BNM is like, "Yeah, I know we gave 8+ rankings to these metal albums and Jazmine Sullivan, but you--our core audience of indie folks who follow our breaking news stories about Arcade Fire covering this or that song--are REALLY gonna dig this Courtney Barnett or Tobias Jesso album."

― Is It Any Wonder I'm Not the (President Keyes), Monday, March 30, 2015 10:18 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep

Whether we like it or not, BNM results in higher sales of records and more overall talk about that artist.

no yeah we know this obv, which is why a) i asked whether they were awarded based on anything concrete or just arbitrariness, and b) because this is the case, as silly as the BNM concept is, this is why their narrower focus is more of an issue in the context of this discussion

Right a perfectly solid metal album might not have enough crossover appeal in their opinion.

xp

so it's a separate metric from the actual mark out of 10 based on commercial potential then

makes me wonder even more why people are invested in it tbh

yeah lex the second part of my post there was addressing some dude who was asking why anyone should care about BNM overall:

i'm fine w/ looking at what a site reviews highly and observing trends or tendences, but the fact that people are always pulling their hair out over what is or isn't a 'BNM' seems like just buying into the site's branding way too much for me. it might as well be a smiley face icon that appears over certain reviews or a little cartoon red pepper with a word bubble saying 'this is a HOT one, baby!'

― some dude, Monday, March 30, 2015 1:33 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm guessing some people don't read all their reviews and just click on the Best New Music tab

Me, I only listen to music awarded BNM, exclusively. Because there are only so many hours in the day right?

Right, and to reiterate my wine store analogy it creates excitement for readers in a subconscious way. An extra filter that they give to albums they already feel are going to have broader appeal.

So the tag stands out and filters the noise of daily reviews and generates hype all at once. People feel like they have a pulse on up and coming artists by following the tag, but it's because they feel that way is what actually makes those artists popular, not because the artists necessarily already were going to be popular.

xp

I'm guessing some people don't read all any of their reviews and just click on the Best New Music tab

yup

I'm guessing some people don't read all their reviews and just click on the Best New Music tab

― curmudgeon, Monday, 30 March 2015 14:47 (27 minutes ago) Permalink

sigh

the kids do this all the time. That's how my students know I@n's name.

BNM is huge 1) because it has a landing page 2) because they don't award that many BNM albums or tracks, that landing page doesn't turn over nearly as fast, so it's surfaced for much longer, with anything else on a website, once it drops off of the main page it's already gotten probably 75-80 percent of the hits it will ever get

sufjan for the win

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20218-carrie-lowell/

this is a HOT one, baby!

lol at that last paragraph

The second-half of my argument against quantitative "objective" metrics is that it's terrible not just for music but for music writing and writers

Honestly, 9.3 is too low.

Don't call it a comeback. On his new album, Sufjan Stevens makes the tears rain down like a monsoon...

9.3 BNM

what would Stevens' mom award it

(Alfo she's dead that's the point of the record)