pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

hot take alert

hey not to change the subject but i have to acknowledge Meaghan Garvey's great piece on the new Taylor Swift song:

Ultimately, there is something undeniably sus in Swift’s petty glee at dragging a mostly-forgotten beef into a dramatic album rollout a year later, despite still not having found the time to address any of 2017’s more urgent sociopolitical issues to her 85.4 million Twitter followers. Mostly, “Look What You Made Me Do” feels like a sad and, one would imagine, ultimately successful, attempt to inoculate herself from any real criticism, as though even the most valid attempts would’ve made a dent in her Teflon brand.

further to the talk upthread

Andre Rieu was named the biggest international classical artist, with nearly 2.3 million album sales - and 11 albums in the chart in total, the most of any artist.

He said: "Ever since Forever Vienna became my first UK number one album eight years ago, the support from the British public has been incredible. I could not ask for more enthusiastic and loyal fans."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41076483

Guess I missed the A&M discussion, but I have spent a lot of time trying to find more records that sound like Chris Montez' A&M work.

What was the scuttlebutt earlier in the thread about Pitchfork contorting themselves into bizarre shapes to cover something other than music
https://pitchfork.com/news/netflix-acquires-documentary-about-jim-carreys-intense-andy-kaufman-method-acting/

There's not even a perfunctory embedded video of the REM song

i'm sure there is pressure from conde for them to cover more stuff that has potential to hit big. music is the worst seemingly major vertical to translate to online

You guys seem to be one of the progenitors of a growing trend of corporate patronage, with brands like Converse, Red Bull, and even Sour Patch Kids offering logistical and financial support to artists with various conditions.

...

The idea of “selling out” might be almost obsolete, but even so, no one seems to levy such accusations at Adult Swim, despite the corporate overlords.

great questions
https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/meet-jason-demarco-the-reason-adult-swims-music-is-so-good-interview/?mbid=homepage-more-latest-and-video

not that anyone has a problem with something, but even if they did, you're not part of the problem anyway, right?

idk about this article https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/black-musicians-on-being-boxed-in-by-randb-and-rap-expectations-we-fit-in-so-many-things/

it's general thrust is inarguable (the music industry is racist and slots artists into categories based on race = duh) but it seems to jumble up a bunch of received wisdom and ignore a bunch of exceptions/outliers that kept occurring to me as I was reading it. obviously people could - and have - written volumes on this subject so maybe I'm expecting too much from such a short piece.

ok, credit where due: them reviewing the new Shania Twain album is a genuine surprise

Yeah, I was pleased to see that. I remember back on the GAPDY thread when old p4k dude categorically said, "Pitchfork does not cover Country."

Still waiting for the day when they give a bnm to a country album though. Now that'll be a doozy.

Rolling Stone did a weird combo review of the new Shania Twain & Miley Cyrus albums.

they missed their easy country BNM shot with Miranda Lambert

many xposts to the brief conversation about the onetime ubiquity of herb albert: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/every_crate_diggers_nightmare_record_store_has_whipped_cream_and_other

haha

it's not as ubiquitous in denmark though, I was fairly happy when I found a decent copy of this ALL TIME CLASSIC

Live out your goth dreams with our new Goth Face Filter on Facebook.
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— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) October 25, 2017

great content

The most trusted voice in music

gothsface fillah

lol

They sure know how to keep the pace up:
https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/these-are-the-songs-we-want-to-soundtrack-stranger-things-season-2/?mbid=homepage-more-latest-and-video

ok so it's a small thing but misquoting a lyric that you're using as the lynchpin of the opening graph of your leading review (julien baker) I feel like could have been avoided somehow

(also, their jump from 7.0 to 8.6 between albums is a classic Pitchfork overcorrection)

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/stranger-things-2-is-as-uninspired-as-its-pop-soundtrack/

Pitchfork brought you into this world and now it's going to take you out, Stranger Things.

The *same writer* called the cornball-ass anachronism-ass burger king commercial-ass Stranger Things Season 1 soundtrack part of "a renaissance in music supervision"

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1300-tvs-best-music-supervision-in-10-shows/

k

2016: The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” makes its first appearance in the scene above, when Jonathan plays it for Will. But the song becomes a recurring theme of the series, a sly comment on the experience of getting stuck between two realms.

2017: With lines like “oh, she’s a little runaway,” Bon Jovi’s “Runaway” makes a thuddingly obvious accompaniment to Eleven’s Chicago trip, and wastes an opportunity to play something legitimately rebellious.

burger king commercial?

I can't find the one I remember but this does the job

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

https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/45449/melt-with-you/ritz

So that automatic p4k radio pop-up player thing is fucking annoying.

Tru

yeah they've done that before, it went away after a day or two though, that shit better not be permanent

hate it

would be better if they auto-played a video with sound at the same time, which they also do on occasion

Did they ever do another episode of that video series where an artist listens to songs that mention them by name? I loved the one with Michael Bolton.

Watch Seth Rogen Recite Leonard Cohen’s “Field Commander Cohen”

now why tf would i want to do that?

*seth rogan laugh*

"For a decade, almost everyone agreed on Taylor Swift."

Pretty good explanation for waiting until 2017 to review one of her albums.

swish!

most of these aren't bad but man there are so many things that could/should have been taking up the BSS slot

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-year-in-protest-music-2017/

How are they so naive as to put that Jay-Z song with the anti-Semitic line in there? Like I know that there's a lot of other critical stuff going on in that song but that line really ought to invalidate its place here

What are they doing, really, when time and again they endeavor to reinvent themselves, if not trying to remain fashionable — or, more precisely, to stave off obsolescence?

and here i thought pitch4k worshiped the ground radiohead walks on

If you're feeling a sort of wistful, 19th-century melancholy right now may I suggest perusing an in-progress snapshot of the sort of people who will ask Pitchfork questions about their year-end list on Reddit:

http://web.archive.org/web/20171212211338/https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7jds7r/were_the_editors_of_pitchfork_we_just_finished/

questions should come in the format of post-game interviews with the winning team

after an epic year of writing, features, and great music, you've just delivered your long-awaited list of best songs and albums. what was going through your mind as the list went live?

p4k has been around basically 2 decades and half the questions are still "how do you come up with the rating" "why was this rated 8.4 but it scored higher than that which was rated 9.0"

Were it a '100 Most Important/Influential/Timely/Impactful Songs of 2017' list, I'd be all in on Bodak Yellow at #1. But as many have said, the list is the 100 BEST songs. I know ranking music is inherently subjective, but did Pitchfork really conclude that it was the absolute highest quality song that was released?

yes

we polled everyone on the planet who could hear, 40% of deaf people and four space aliens; apparently "bodak yellow" is definitively the best short form composition of the year in ever conceivable genre

manthonyfantano 3 points 6 minutes ago
How does it feel to live with the duality of presenting yourself as cultural mavens who care about the social issues of our time while you actually curate and manipulate any form of relevant youth culture in order to sell very expensive ad space and create synergy for the PR campaigns of your parent companies?