pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

i was having a lot of trouble actually expressing how i feel about hats earlier so here's a tim f post that is prob still the best thing i've ever read about the blue nile Blue Nile Poll: A Walk Across The Rooftops or Hats?

like, to my ears, this is at least as close to the album as the xx or Jessie Ware are, even before correcting for ~30 years of changes in production trends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnLNG0WnGsI

sounds a lot like their first two records with the edges taken off

Coldplay sound way more u2ish to me still, i don’t think it’s entiiiirely off or something but

i think he was lol-ing because that was some turrican-level elevating personal taste to the level of objective truth

― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Monday, January 8, 2018 1:53 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This logic, incidentally, explains a lot of the conversations in the rap threads on this board as well

not sure what you're getting at, but ok

In other news, pitchfork does celeb gossip now

https://pitchfork.com/news/lena-dunham-and-jack-antonoff-break-up/?mbid=homepage-more-latest-and-video

Oh wonderful, another Blue Nile discussion.

Turrican doesn't like Blue Nile tho...

― niels, Monday, January 8, 2018 8:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I fully expect the Blue Nile doesn't like Turrican either so it's all good

― ♫ very clever with maracas.jpg ♫ (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, January 8, 2018 8:16 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've never met the Blue Nile and vice versa, but if I did I'd ask them how they'd feel about injecting some excitement into their music for a change. I imagine it wouldn't go down well, but that wouldn't be my problem.

Roxy Music's Avalon has everything the Blue Nile albums but does it so much better that it isn't even funny.

i don't see why it's off the table to suggest blue nile might have been underrated relative to their quality for a long time! except that you think its a Conspiracy that pitchfork likes them now

completely otm

not to derail thread from the topic of Blue Nile, but kinda curious about how the idea of a p4k conspiracy works these days - anyone know if there's a strong editorial team working to make the site appear to favor a certain aesthetics? I know a lot of posters write reviews there and participate in polls, but never got the feeling they were under any obligation to comply with "p4k rules"

A conspiracy that starts with the subtle promotion of the blue nile

I want to believe

haha, yeah

ilx still gonna ilx in 2018

Don't think anyone suggested a conspiracy, just some speculation about what inspired this particular Sunday Review. Idk why it's so strange to suggest that Blue Nile's recent critical re-evaluation might spring from the group's unusual influence on modern pop/indie. I mean, isn't that a major reason why bands' reputations grow over time?

By unusual, I mean "disproportionate influence based on their popularity/critical regard during their own era"

Did ILM cause this Blue Nile re-evaluation?

K3vin went to considerable and admirable lengths tbh

Idk why it's so strange to suggest that Blue Nile's recent critical re-evaluation might spring from the group's unusual influence on modern pop/indie

prob bc i don't know what these acts are beyond jessie ware and the 1975

Here's what it says in the review:

But just as Big Star became a symbol for the fame-averse underdog ideals of ’90s indie rock, the Blue Nile have proven newly influential. You can hear their heavenly chill on recent albums by Destroyer; their lowercase romance in the xx; their intense intimacy in Majical Cloudz. When Buchanan joined Jessie Ware to co-write a track on last year’s Glasshouse, it became clear how his band’s work had been reflected in pop music’s patient, moody turns

ah lol that's right, i def read that review

I definitely remember reading references to Hats in the early 2000s as a masterpiece, one of the best albums ever made etc, I think it's always been the case that people who liked then *really* liked them

Kendrick Lamar Doesn’t Address Trump at Football Halftime Show: Watch

I don't know why people are fixated on pitchfork's quick-hit news writers doing what the quick-hit writers for every single site do

I get the anxiety about the Blue Nile. I can still remember the first time I heard Hats, turning it off after about 30 seconds, finding it unbearably over-produced and 'adult contemporary' (as someone sneeringly said upthread). And, on the surface - because of the stately pace, the production, the sheen - I think they do still feel a little like that: devoid of excess and practically affectless. But having come back to it and persevered (due to, like a lot of folk on here, persistently hearing it spoken of in hushed tones by people I respect) I can see that it comes from a place of absolute sincerity, and that that lack of excess is part of Buchanan's mode of expression. Their sound, that sheen, is oddly a form of austerity, I think. And Buchanan has an older sensibility about him. I dunno, I want to say Edwardian, but that sounds fucking ridiculous.

I'm kinda suspicious of people like Buchanan, mind. Stuart Staples is another one. Like, they seem to live their art, which is fine, but it must be kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? 'Your new boyfriend is him off the Blue Nile? Hmm. Have you been out for a drive yet?'

If only it were 'devoid of excess' and 'austere'… Feels like we're talking about a Rorschach test at this point.

Don't think anyone suggested a conspiracy, just some speculation about what inspired this particular Sunday Review. Idk why it's so strange to suggest that Blue Nile's recent critical re-evaluation might spring from the group's unusual influence on modern pop/indie. I mean, isn't that a major reason why bands' reputations grow over time?

― porg and bess (voodoo chili), Tuesday, January 9, 2018 7:24 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But what caused their unusual influence on modern pop / indie? Some of the biggest fans of them on this board don’t even listen to that shit

(The answer is: their music is very good, better than many of their peers who earned more attention at the time, and ppl are just discovering them because of that)

I don't know why people are fixated on pitchfork's quick-hit news writers doing what the quick-hit writers for every single site do

― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Tuesday, January 9, 2018 9:55 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I only thought it was funny to be suggesting to watch something NOT happen

Their sound, that sheen, is oddly a form of austerity,

otm

"the sincerity of blue nile codes to me as a kind of aesthetic bravery, a vulnerability, which is Cool but often tends to seem so more in retrospect"

i bought the first album when it came out and i have a very clear memory of feeling a little funny playing it alone in my room at home. it felt really naked to me. emotionally. and i guess i wasn't used to that in my new wave. i would have had to think of crooners/sinatra for a comparison but it didn't even really sound like that. i thought it was great though and i played it a bunch. i mean, i was a judas priest and minor threat fan at the time so i was used to operatic declarations of emotion. but the feeling that the blue nile gave me was different. "smalltown boy" was my favorite single by far a year later so i was definitely ready for more opera in my life. and the first this mortal coil album was probably my most played album of 1984. high drama big star was exactly what i needed. maybe blue nile got the ball rolling for me.

i saw the cover art of HATS a million times via surfing ALL MUSIC GUIDE in the 90s

heard it in 04

it's not bad

you're welcome

("starry nowhere" by monochrome set in 1984 too. holy toledo i must have played that song a million times. still probably my fave MS song which is saying something. i guess i was ready for the crooners. then you had the smiths and the floodgates opened. opera 24/7. kinda surprised i never owned more marc almond albums.)

i do have to give ilm major props for turning me on to that Double album. i had no idea. love that thing so much. can't remember who first started hyping that around here.

i mean its one of the reasons that i stuck around ilm so long. that people were fans of stuff like blue nile and double.

I only thought it was funny to be suggesting to watch something NOT happen

― Evan, Tuesday, January 9, 2018 11:10 AM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean sure that headline is pretty funny, not gonna lie, but in general this thread is like an rss feed

we must hold pitchfork to a high high standard tho

I don't know why people are fixated on pitchfork's quick-hit news writers doing what the quick-hit writers for every single site do

― algorithm is a dancer (katherine)

it's just the fascination with watching the gradual homogenization of a formerly handmade website after being bought out by condé nast. but you're right, i don't know why i still take the time to notice; the process is already compete. almost every single web site is filled with rectangular, modular boxes with different versions of the same news that all the other websites with large rectangle news boxes feature. i think i just still harbor some nostalgia for old school pitchfork, which once seemed like a wonderful example of how the internet could work for independent voices.

Music critics have always had an incredible hard on for the Blue Nile since those records came out, and they're still to this day one of those acts that are mostly cited by music critics, wannabe music critics and people who follow music critics. Nobody else actually gives a shit.

As for Pitchfork, I remember coming across it quite early on in its existence and basically thinking "mmmyeah, no real reason to pay any attention to this" - was absolutely stunned when I started coming across people (mostly Americans) who took it seriously.

I definitely remember reading references to A Walk Across The Rooftops in 1989 as a masterpiece, one of the best albums ever made etc, I think it's always been the case that people who liked then *really* got their conspiracy brewing early

ban turrican

I first heard about Pitchfork when artists like Destroyer and Beach Fossils started citing it as an influence

xxpost:

Exactly. I assume any conspiracy exists solely in the minds of those that didn't hear a Blue Nile record until this decade.

some SICK burns on this thread this morning, yeooooowww!

I don't know why people are fixated on pitchfork's quick-hit news writers doing what the quick-hit writers for every single site do

― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Tuesday, January 9, 2018 9:55 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So much of Pitchfork's ca. 2001-2012 branding/reputation – whether put forth by themselves or foisted upon them by the media that covered them so rapturously – presented them as the new force of caring about the real/authentic and helping provide a new audience to go with it. There were various levels of truth and fantasy to the narrative, but they were indeed influenced by and amplifiers of D.I.Y. even if they didn't always adhere to it. But, long story short, everything about them made them seem like they cared about music wat more than the glossy mags.

Things like writing a rapturous Kid A review while SPIN was admitting defeat ("Your Hard Drive") or taking claim for Arcade Fire while the music media was still trying to hold on to the last years of major label bands like Green Day/Hives or w/e. Creating a rating system that allowed for a 100-point scale instead of 4 or five stars. Reviewing 25 records a week. Creating a festival where, like, Silver Jews and Os Mutantes are headliners. They cared!

15 years later, I think it's obvious that no amount of caring, "covering music" is not exactly anything that's going to keep any site afloat: R.I.P. to O.G. Idolator, Paper Thin Walls, Clryvnt, various alt-weekly reviews sections, experiments like MTV Iggy and MTV Hive and the MTV News reboot, Wondering Sound, etc.

Ergo, Pitchfork has to evolve to fit into the new media landscape. They just do! But that first 15 years is still in the rearview for a lot of people. I'd wager for some people that LIKE Pitchfork, it maybe feels like some sort of betrayal? I'd wager for some people who DON'T like Pitchfork, it feels a little schaudenfraudey that they have to just be a normal website now?

Either way,

James Franco wins the Golden Globe for his performance in The Disaster Artist https://t.co/U6PIrCSwa7

— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) January 8, 2018

the Hats conspiracy is clearly corporate-led--note the Nike swoosh on the album cover

xpost,

I mean, the obsession with P4k branching out may just be anxiety that no one is there to gatekeep our little world anymore, and our interests – writing, music, discussion – are dying as they become less profitable for creators who would fill those voids

I'd heard of The Blue Nile but never heard them. Then my definitively non-music critic gf (now wife) turned me on to them via her copy of A Walk Across the Rooftops.

The wordy vomit of that Kid A review still tickles me as much as it did at the time. Back in the day, the site struck me as being a site by young, spotty music snobs for young, spotty music snobs.

https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/9/93770/2364857-snes_superturrican_2.jpg

I don't know what someone's skin condition has to do with anything

Since Turrican is unable to describe music he always resorts to ad hominem attacks.