pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

you and katherine otm

"would more people read me if I were on Twitter? would more pitches be accepted/considered?"

1. no 2. maybe but not worth it

I don't think Twitter's ever done a damn thing for me professionally. But my first paid byline was in 1996, so I'll defer to others who've grown up neck-deep in shit.

as a non-writer and less-interested reader these days, I tend to read articles and reviews shared by friends or friends-of-friends more often than I just browse around sites

just to give a small example, I released a creative project the other day and I am fairly sure 80% of the people who have seen it saw it via twitter. (not necessarily my twitter, but RTs)

idk the last time i used twitter (2015?) i basically came to the conclusion that it's worthless for self-promotion unless you're already established. ymmv. so much noise

I don't read much music criticism anymore but my impression is that, at the most prominent publications at least, it's generally pretty nice? I mean, isn't that one of the big complaints you hear about criticism nowadays, that pubs have such little leverage with artists that you rarely see truly scathing reviews anymore because it might jeopardize their ability to have future access to that artist or even a whole label?

That's not to say I don't regret things I wrote when I was younger that were snide and flippant and dismissive, and I think trying to meet an artist on their own terms and take them seriously is always the best approach, I just feel like that IS the approach most of the better critics take these days, and that wasn't always the case.

Unless this all just about random dickheads with shitty blogs and readerships in the triple digits.

Link pls!

Off topic but Twitter and Facebook and any site that presented “user specific” content is terrible for ones mental health; I’m trying to stick with newspapers and “clicking every thread on ILX” methods to let my brain expand outside of internet echo chambers

Oh that was xp to Katherine, I’m off Twitter

if you want to get people to read your critical work, I recommend having maura retweet or post on facebook

(sorry maura)

I don't read much music criticism anymore but my impression is that, at the most prominent publications at least, it's generally pretty nice? I mean, isn't that one of the big complaints you hear about criticism nowadays, that pubs have such little leverage with artists that you rarely see truly scathing reviews anymore because it might jeopardize their ability to have future access to that artist or even a whole label?

yeah, the examples they chose were a 2005 Simon Reynolds piece and a review that got yanked from publication at XLR8R, which are not that representative of reviews today. or if they are, the piece failed to show that

xp the pitchfork is shitty thread isn't really the place for it but it's on facebook

I've got to be honest, way before Facebookgate what pushed me away from that platform was too many of my friends self promoting. I mean, I get it, and I like their work (writing and whatnot), but a lot of it felt sort of obligatory and impersonal, like a press release crossed with clickbait. In the case of several writers I know, they definitely were getting pressure from editors to self promote.

yeah, another side effect of sites no longer prioritizing landing pages/repeat subscribers/etc. is that writers have to make up the slack by self-promoting. it sucks and most people hate it but so it goes

i have a few friends who have gone dark w/their personal Facebook and have instead shifted into their professional self-promotion Facebook pages, which means i have no idea how their kids are but hey, i've learned a bit about how i can make my business work for me or how to make a hibiscus cocktail.

Wrongest thread for it but congrats on this and your previous XYZZYs Katherine I had no idea! I’m a big fan of IF but haven’t been keeping tabs on new work over the last few years

I've got to be honest, way before Facebookgate what pushed me away from that platform was too many of my friends self promoting. I mean, I get it, and I like their work (writing and whatnot), but a lot of it felt sort of obligatory and impersonal, like a press release crossed with clickbait. In the case of several writers I know, they definitely were getting pressure from editors to self promote.

― Josh in Chicago

Totally understand this, and I've had to readjust my own sense of what's proper self-promotion vs shamelessness. It's hammered into you as a journalist. But, to quote Aladdin, it's a whole new world.

Returning to actual Pitchfork content for a second, there's so much stretching going on in today's review of the new Gas album that I worry the writer may have sprained something.

7.8 for mary lattimore is tooo low

that record is fucking amazing

(going back a bit but i really disliked that janelle monae piece because it - like the syd piece the author wrote a year or two back - was rooted in the writer engaging way more with her wanting a mirror for her own (recently realized) queerness than with the things monae was saying. which seems like the blinkered narcisissm that the dazed author decried elsewhere in their piece!)

nobody wanted my mental health awareness week pitch about paying freelancers on time x

— Joanna Jo-Jo-Joanna (@FUERTESKNIGHT) May 17, 2018

Garvey's Kanye review is great but when there are tons of records with really enthusiastic reviews getting the same score it kinda just backs up the weird idea people have that anything under an 8.0 or whatever is bad

they def got the score wrong on that one

there was a time when pfork wasn't terrified of giving a failing grade to an album made by a brilliant pop artist who refused to stop talking out of their ass:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14434-y/

the silent admission here is that ye isn't too far from tlop, which i'm sure they feel they overrated (jayson greene's personal enthusiasm aside), or at least can't be extricated narratively from the new one

giving this a 7.1 is such a cop out

should've given it a 6.9

Even “free-thinkers” know nothing really comes for free.

p4k so trenchant

there was a time when pfork wasn't terrified of giving a failing grade to an album made by a brilliant pop artist who refused to stop talking out of their ass

That time being February 2018 when Justin Timberlake released Man of the Woods.

this album is sooooooo much worse than TLOP, which was bloated for sure, but as I said elsewhere, you can make an awesome 7 or even 10 song album out of it.

I haven't listened to it yet so I can't compare it with Man of the Woods (which I made it about 75% through and yeeesh). But I wonder if the discrepancy is because Justin Timberlake is not from Chicago and they are afraid of running afoul of the local boy done good?

Well it did take them to only just a few weeks ago to apologize for having R Kelly headline Pitchfork Fest in 2013.

The album is 24 mins.? LOL

the album is actually the extended, fixed version of Wolvesp

damn typos jumping into my bad jokes

lmao

is p4k even still that conscious of their Chicago roots? they're primarily based in NYC yeah? in the WTC

I haven't listened to it yet so I can't compare it with Man of the Woods (which I made it about 75% through and yeeesh). But I wonder if the discrepancy is because Justin Timberlake is not from Chicago and they are afraid of running afoul of the local boy done good?

― how's life, Monday, 4 June 2018 16:55 (fifty-seven minutes ago) Permalink

Keep reading those tea leaves ..

MAYA >>>>> Ye

yeah M.I.A. was vindicated with most of what she was saying on that record iirc, not a fair comparison at all

there was a time when pfork wasn't terrified of giving a failing grade to an album made by a brilliant pop artist who refused to stop talking out of their ass

maya was a good record at the time, and that review was garbage at the time

sorry, i'm v tired, i also meant to imply these things are still true

clicked that link specifically in search of the cheap spectacle of presnowden cultural sophisticates sneering at m.i.a.'s saying google was "connected to the government", while declining to specify in exactly what way the "issue" was more "complex" than that, but i was wrong. what the issue is is nuanced:

Sugu's intro track "The Message" is the worst thing on an album of failed experiments-- a bad demo with a simplistic, paranoid rap that's as rhetorically effective as someone in a dorm room ranting about the C.I.A. inventing A.I.D.S. It's not the best idea to kick off your politically charged album with a song that demolishes the possibility of addressing a serious issue about privacy with any degree of depth or nuance.

We could have ended up talking about redneck rock or progressive country or even armadillo country, after the tenacious rodent that became the movement’s unofficial mascot.

armadillos aren't rodents

stopped reading.

guess the conde nast umbrella doesn't get them any of the crack new yorker fact-checker time

dillogaze

purest armadillotantism

Man, when I read stuff like the YOB review it really ticks me off that they generally only hand out, on average, one metal BNM a year. (They already gave one to Sleep so I guess that's their quota reached.)

and none of their metal writers are as high up as stosuy was so the chances of any of those being another deafheaven are... hmm