pinegrove: cardinal

yeah i could not parse that article at all

Me neither.

Punks today clearly enjoy their run-on sentences.

https://pitchfork.com/features/article/reckoning-with-pinegrove/

Fascinating. I really enjoyed this.

The world desperately needs fewer bullies.

Awful, irresponsible journalism coming at the worst possible time and way to bury the lede that oh, their record is coming out in 2 days all of a sudden. JP is a great writer but this is really upsetting.

I still don’t trust Pinegrove or Evan, and I can’t see how others can when he can say shit like this: pic.twitter.com/SJxlVjF2ah

— Long Neck 🦕 (@LongNeckLass) September 26, 2018

I saw that tweet. Can someone explain to me what's terrible about his quotes in those screengrabs and why he should therefore be banished from making music forever?

Didn't say that, I don't care about Pinegrove, I think that p4k made a major journalistic mistake publishing this piece the day before what might be the biggest event of the #MeToo era, and that it's a thinly veiled advertorial.

why he should therefore be banished from making music forever?

― alpine static, Wednesday, September 26, 2018 1:37 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think anyone is saying this

whole piece just made me feel weirder about this situation tbh

it is bizarre to read what is essentially a bunch of gossip get seriously reported on and publicly litigated like this.

also throw in a person posing as a therapist for kicks.

yeah

Whole situation is absolutely bizarre. I don't find those quotes in that tweet at all convincingly damming.

it is bizarre to read what is essentially a bunch of gossip get seriously reported on and publicly litigated like this.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, September 26, 2018 5:12 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And monetized!

sorry, y'all are right no one said he should be banished forever. i made the mistake of reading the replies to that tweet before posting.

i just don't understand what more ppl might want from him and this band to try atone for whatever happened. seems to me if the victim is ok w/ this, then that's what matters most. but there are a lot of people on twitter who definitely do not feel that way.

agree the timing is not great, w/r/t Kavanaugh. having a fan of the band do the story seems like a mistake, too, even if her cred is pretty bulletproof.

I should've posted in the p4k thread tbh, those quotes are far from the most galling sections of the piece

because they aren't really galling at all?

I’m shocked by the reaction!

Whole situation is absolutely bizarre. I don't find those quotes in that tweet at all convincingly damming.

Yeah. I found them sympathetic! I suppose I’m missing a lot of context. I didn’t know about this band or story until I read this article.

mostly i feel sympathy for the victim, who said they never wanted all this to be public and that it only happened due to the overzealousness of punk talks

its hard to know exactly what to make of it, but at best the pinegrove guy comes across as creepy and unable to form healthy relationships with women, and at worst, what could probably be termed abusive, so its hard to have much sympathy for him even if this whole ordeal hasnt quite been justice

mostly i feel sympathy for the victim, who said they never wanted all this to be public and that it only happened due to the overzealousness of punk talks

Yeah. Sympathy was too strong of a word. I agree with you.

People dislike those quotes bc it comes off as a wordier "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" not "I'm sorry for doing the wrong thing" --- allows him to maintain idea that he was always acting in Good faith and not predatorily

Stereogum aggregation of the piece has the headline "Pinegrove Address “Sexual Coercion” Statement, New Album Skylight Out This Friday," which pretty much seals why I feel so frustrated by this.

3/4 of the piece is extremely solid reporting, and then the last 1/4 is a handwringing fascination with their new album that makes the whole rest of the piece feel like excuse-making (even though it probably isn't). It's supposed to be edifying and clarifying, but it ends up (imo) just digging the situation deeper through editorial mistakes of context and timing.

I'm still not convinced that anything "newsworthy" actually happened tbh. I'm not a rabid fan or anything (couldn't hum anything but "Aphasia" off the top of my head) but this is maybe the only #MeToo-era "abuser gets outed!" that feels like it could be outright overblown. But again only "feels" because the way the whole thing was handled from the jump and has continued to be written about has made it impossible to say.

At least it's nice that ultimately terms were agreed upon and seemingly honored?

They retweeted quoted lyrics and fan art and endless bedroom-recorded covers of their earnest songs. At least one fan wrote a high school English paper analyzing Pinegrove lyrics. These young people called themselves Pinenuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqqRB0YlZuw

they pesto now

haha i thought of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf-oitGkGEw

Stereogum aggregation of the piece has the headline "Pinegrove Address “Sexual Coercion” Statement, New Album Skylight Out This Friday," which pretty much seals why I feel so frustrated by this.

yes, this is what is so galling about the piece. it's positioned as a mea culpa with a reveal deep in the piece that hey! they have a new album out on Friday! it's just awful journalism, I don't know what's unclear about this.

this isn't p4k reporting on a release, it's a in depth feature!

yeah I hadn't thought of it until I noticed that they "broke" the album release news with that story. pretty dodgy move for a story crying out for straightforward writing

https://pinegrove.bandcamp.com/album/skylight

my position on this has evolved from "... ok" to "no thank you"

fyi I listened to this band's bandcamp page and they are awful

on the contrary, Cardinal is one of the best rock records of the decade

Truth, Alpine

began to read this piece a couple of days ago and got as far as "inchoate meaning" lmao

i'm a skeptic on these guys but giving it a listen and not sure having "shelved for a year" attached to this album is going to do it any favors.

I had a lot of trouble trying to read this & im not sure why

First listen through and I'm a bit meh, though it's probably a grower.

The sub-two minute songs aren't bangers like Problems and Angelina were.

The re-recording of Angelina doesn't add much.

i'm sorry but why is this on streaming

?

I don't understand the question either.

Also unsure

it's just weird to suddenly decide to make money off a record the proceeds of which you were donating to charity

anyway sorry, clearly i'm more mad about this than other people

oh, ok. I wasn't sure if you thought it shouldn't stream in general, which was weird because it streams on bandcamp as well, I think?

How do we know they're not also donating streaming funds?

we don’t. it’d be nice if they said anything

then again maybe the last thing i should expect from this band is a clear statement

Idk "all proceeds" would seem to imply charity will get that $12.50

totally agree, though i think i liked Skylight more than you. (can barely remember Marigold, however.)

the new one isn't Cardinal either, but it's good.

man, did this guy get a raw deal or what? (he did.)

If Pelly's pitchfork piece a few years back is largely correct then yeah, he seems to have.

still think this is a great album

one of my most listened to albums

I re-listened just now because of the revive, and yeah it's lovely. Old Friends is a special song (one of a few on the album). Re-listening felt very comforting.

"aphasia" is my all-time pinegrove fave

10th anniversary of Cardinal's release yesterday

man, did this guy get a raw deal or what? (he did.)

― alpine static, Saturday, October 4, 2025 4:32 PM

good piece about the album and the whole situation in stereogum: https://stereogum.com/2488004/cardinal-turns-10/reviews/the-anniversary

still one of my fav indie records of the ‘10s