pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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

https://cdn.ipetitions.com/user-images/petitions/end-discrimination-against-tattoos-and-piercings/rZ2H6zQCROyjNMJFI6sx_humantats.png

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/brian-eno-here-come-the-warm-jets-taking-tiger-mountain-by-strategy-before-and-after-science

In an otherwise pretty great overview of Eno's four classic art pop albums, Another Green World (arguably his pinnacle) gets half a sentence of space. WTF?

Not sure if it matters, but Another Green World wasn't actually billed in the title of the review.

Fair enough but why the decision to review only three of four reissued albums?

There's a separate, long review of AGW linked in the opening para

Right, but it's written by a different author, which reduces the effectiveness of a critical overview by a single voice. And by giving minimal mention to AGW in the review of the other three, the effect is pretty much dismissive. Was it really a big deal to have more than one opinion of AGW on the site? Apparently so.

fair call. And let's not forget that Pitchfork is dumb, after all.
Of course the best AGW take is from Geeta.

The 33.3 book? Yes, that's fantastic.

Haven't heard the sophie record yet, but I am shocked that pc music are getting bnm's in 2018

Well clearly you haven’t spent much time in the Chari XCX thread

xp “Charli”. Damn.

Haven't heard the sophie record yet, but I am shocked that pc music are getting bnm's in 2018

― josh az (2011nostalgia), Friday, June 15, 2018 5:31 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is such a lame take

So..that Rolling Blackouts review. If i had to guess the score only by the review i would say at least 9. But it's 8.1. I think they just throw random numbers between 8-10 for a "good album"

Maya is such a twisted and inspired record. Too bad the last one was literally made for cash at her admission

this is such a lame take

yeah, the recent KKB stuff has been great too