pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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.

And anyways, pitchfork only covers funk bands.

whiney otm about p4k's appeal and the 'betrayal' readers feel. this might've been covered but what instigated the change in ~2012? obviously things accelerated after the CN purchase in ..2015? but 2012 feels otm- that was the year of VISIONS, of Grimes emerging and citing Mariah Carey and all these popstars as her main influences/inspirations, I remember that was the year that poptimism really took over and all snobbery about 'the mainstream' basically dissipated.

Ignoring my uncanny ability to distract Frederik from his porn flick of the moment and bring out his inner Scrappy Doo, a lot of those negative-to-middling reviews of Kid A genuinely reflected what many felt about the record the first time they heard it, and for some it still is the way they feel about it even if the record is now considered to be a classic. It was one of the most eagerly awaited albums of the year, yet I knew literally nobody who thought it was the greatest thing ever and certainly not to the level that the person that wrote the Pitchfork review did. Okay, he liked the record, but he was very much in a minority and the review is just word vomit in the worst way. I guess it impressed some spotty pseudo-intellectuals, though.

Ah right, what you guys are really mourning is the death of tribalism.

xp to flappy bird, i guess that's true, but P4K included lots of chart pop and R&B their year-end lists for years and years before that. i think the tides started to turn in 2006, when they gave a glowing review to the JT album and put "My Love " as the best single of the year

I'd go back a little further than that still.

Ah right, what you guys are really mourning is the death of tribalism.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Tuesday, January 9, 2018 1:22 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, what was Pitchfork's very existence if not an exercise in tribalism?

Like, i think it's more a philosopical anxiety

I don't know if people are really *angry* or *concerned* that Pitchfork isn't adhering to some imaginary "we only cover music" mission statement, but I wonder if people are anxious about what it means when the thing they love can't carry a media property anymore

Was 2003 really the year that pop "broke"?

yeah, that happened much earlier on the singles front. But their album year-end list took a lot longer to change.

I've said it before, but no black artist won Album of the Year until Kanye in 2010. So far six out of eight winners have been black this decade.

i was loling at pfork when it started reviewing movies in like 2002.. like "oh how cute theyre reviewing movies"

I've said it before, but no black artist won Album of the Year until Kanye in 2010. So far six out of eight winners have been black this decade.

Interestingly enough, the same could be said about ILM's year end polls, except replace Kanye with Big Boi and not count 2017 yet.

:(

@Pitchfork stop culture vulturing the industry just to make y’all website hot. I don’t fuck with your website and this yall 2nd article on me. Watery dropped and y’all hopped on it on some bandwagon shit.

— King Squid 🐙 (@SahBabii) January 9, 2018

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.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Tuesday, 9 January 2018 16:48 (yesterday) Permalink

happily, I'm not terribly interested in the Blue Nile views of people outside that particular venn diagram.

Incidentally I discovered them at the beginning of 1998, I think through a Glenn McDonald review of Peace At Last, which prompted me to pick up A Walk Across The Rooftops instead. At the time I didn't fancy myself a wannabe music critic but it still struck me as among the most amazing music I had ever heard.

I think deej's analysis is correct, though I'd spin it slightly and say it's perhaps not so much (or not only) that the Blue Nile were always much better than their low profile suggested (this being true of any number of 80s acts who remain obscure), but also/rather that they were so much more singular: I think bands which plot out a sufficient space such that sympathetic listeners can say "this is my ideal sound right here and there is nothing else like it" will always end up garnering a rep - you namecheck The Blue Nile for a certain vibe because the closest analogues (Avalon et. al.) just aren't really that close.

otm

part of why pfork's news looks the way it does aside from conde nast traffic goals (tho it's mostly that) is that they have a lot of young writers on staff now (primarily writing news) who don't remember a pre-poptimist internet. the idea of not treating beyonce and rihanna as canon artists is foreign to them. there's a strand of connection from this worldview to the one that also opens up that canon to prestige tv i.e. stranger things.

"Kendrick Lamar Doesn’t Address Trump at Football Halftime Show: Watch" is pretty funny tho

I think deej's analysis is correct, though I'd spin it slightly and say it's perhaps not so much (or not only) that the Blue Nile were always much better than their low profile suggested (this being true of any number of 80s acts who remain obscure), but also/rather that they were so much more singular: I think bands which plot out a sufficient space such that sympathetic listeners can say "this is my ideal sound right here and there is nothing else like it" will always end up garnering a rep - you namecheck The Blue Nile for a certain vibe because the closest analogues (Avalon et. al.) just aren't really that close.

― Tim F, Tuesday, January 9, 2018 10:03 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im going to waggishly suggest that singular-ness is one major aspect of what goes into them being so much better than other acts & so my logic remains flawless B-)

That's fair, I assumed it's part of what you meant in the first place.

Perhaps stating the bleeding obvious, but:

I think a lot of these "oh you're treating your subjective opinion as objective fact" disputes seem to operate on the assumption that something can either be true for one person or true for everyone, and those two approaches are the only ways to look at it. Whereas obviously we don't have totally atomised or homogenised music tastes, but rather overlapping fields of group behaviour and interests. So the relevant questions that interest me are more: "why is this true for some rather than many, or many rather than a few? How do things change from one to the other?" And of course the answer to that is often tied up in the expression of taste, the fact that even the act of listening to music in the privacy of our own room at night is at least partly performative (even if only to ourselves). But the risk then is to reduce this to a set of demystified social cues, like "oh, x is popular because it's namechecked by y" - that's partly right, but people don't blindly follow and then agree with every namecheck from a trusted gatekeeper, it's also about how/why that music then fits in within the broader context of the person's tastes so that they respond it as much as they do.

To my mind a big factor in making The Blue Nile ripe for greater post-mortem crossover over the past decade has been the critical redemption of monied class marginalia which started gathering steam in about the middle of the last decade - balearic, soft-rock etc. (which extended to a certain kind of eighties pop not necessarily swept up with the prior electroclash / eighties revivals - e.g. stuff like Billy Idol's "Eyes Without A Face"). Although superficially The Blue Nile doesn't seem entirely to fit into that space, I think their combination of smoothness, lushness and sincerity, and their distinct lack of youthful energy, is immediately much more attractive to listeners who are already primed to appreciate the former set of traits and not be concerned about the latter. That environment creates effects in the way that people talk about music that extend beyond the limits of the relevant revivals and the people actively participating in them. A music context in which that lost Lewis album can generate a lot of excitement amongst (a still relatively small group of) critics is a context in which The Blue Nile are more likely to be name-checked in the first place, more likely to end up in retrospective lists, more likely to get reviews on Pitchfork etc. At the same time, because The Blue Nile are not ultimately replaceable or capable of substitution within that field (which I'd argue Lewis is, really), the uptick in their popularity is basically detached from the fortunes of that particular revivalist scene

who would you replace Lewis with?

https://img.discogs.com/6tpu2PK6E-c0haBr3ABw1a-8g1w=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6078906-1410515947-1544.jpeg.jpg

To my mind a big factor in making The Blue Nile ripe for greater post-mortem crossover over the past decade has been the critical redemption of monied class marginalia which started gathering steam in about the middle of the last decade - balearic, soft-rock etc. (which extended to a certain kind of eighties pop not necessarily swept up with the prior electroclash / eighties revivals - e.g. stuff like Billy Idol's "Eyes Without A Face"). Although superficially The Blue Nile doesn't seem entirely to fit into that space[...]

― Tim F, Wednesday, 10 January 2018 13:01

There are a few people making "chilled"/"balearic" compilations for whom it does (example 1, example 2).

(Also, *very* nicely worded explanation of the subjective-objective continuum, rather than dichotomy)

I think through a Glenn McDonald review of Peace At Last

damn, at the heart of all things is glenn