pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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

still recall sometimes the authenticity wars of the pc music thread, and how completely fucking idiotic it all was

Aren't most authenticity wars idiotic?

well yeah

I am shocked that pc music are getting bnm's in 2018

― josh az (2011nostalgia), Thursday, June 14, 2018 10:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they’ve always liked them

i think it’s rich to characterize that convo as “authenticity wars” but ymmv

Well, why do I like it as music, then? I think it's gorgeous.

― the discussions, the slanging matches, the banter, the lot (imago), Wednesday, June 10, 2015 11:14 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's spelled "bourgeois"

― lil dork (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, June 10, 2015 11:50 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they’ve always liked them

Have they? I mean they've promoted them and written articles about them, but aside from a few Sophie tracks, they've never really given the stuff Best New Music.

I just feel like Pitchfork's response to PC Music was more muted than one would expect.

i just feel like the trajectory was pretty apparent. also charli counts

Pitchfork showed considerable enthusiasm about PC Music for the first few months of their breakthrough in 2014, then soured pretty hard around the same time things got contentious on ilx. Now all that discourse(tm) has cooled and some PC acts have legit pop credits to their name, they’ve come back around. Seems pretty straightforward.

Also haha I thought someone was quoting Whiney as an example of how absurd the discussion got but no that was just Whiney going “this was my take” like yeah, I could’ve guessed he was in the fray

lol Whiney

Sophie’s album is amazing, Sasha’s review is amazing, I have forgotten what is PC Music or my feelings about them

The “Liner Notes” clip for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain claims the LP was titled in homage to Purple Rain? LOL, I’ve never heard that...

https://pitchfork.com/tv/56-liner-notes/explore-pavements-crooked-rain-crooked-rain-in-5-minutes/

The whole video is just bad.

i remember reading that on the wiki page for crcr. citation needed?

I only remember them ever saying it was a a David Berman thing.

OK, fine, I guess —

MALKMUS: Album titles are hard, and I came up with [Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain] somehow. I don’t really know. It’s kind of like “Purple rain, purple rain” in my mind. And it rhymes in a really ridiculous way, a double rhyme. I don’t know. “Crooked rain” is kind of poetic sounding, and then just doubling it with an absurdity double and the veiled Prince reference, at least in my mind. [sings: “Crooked rain, crooked rain.”] It just came up at the end. I had lots of other titles, but that one, much like Wig Out At Jagbags, it comes to be seen as the best one.
https://www.stereogum.com/1629101/the-oral-history-of-pavements-crooked-rain-crooked-rain/franchises/the-anniversary/

Still not as cut-and-dried as Pfork makes it sound!

I take it Slanted and Enchanted was the Berman-inspired title. I mixed those up on another thread here recently.

can someone explain to me why we need a vehicle to explore a 40-minute album in 5 minutes?

yeah I really wonder why online media outlets seem to favor short videos

these videos are one of the few things people who otherwise dislike p4k seem to broadly like ime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJP-Ilw_xaY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekg45ub8bsk

https://pitchfork.com/news/eminem-to-critics-of-his-shows-loud-gunshot-sound-effects-you-shouldnt-be-here/
Headline pretty heavily misrepresents what’s amounts to a pre-show disclaimer (if still a rather noncommittal one).

What's the misrepresentation exactly?

The “Eminem to Critics” part - as if this were, like, an open letter specifically addresssd to people pissed about the gunshot sounds.
And, like, I’m not especially compelled to stump for Eminem or anything. You could take his manager posting the message on Instagram as subtextually being a message to those people, maybe, linking sensitivity over the noises to Eminem’s history of getting in trouble over his lyrics. But that’s several layers of inference, even if plausible inference, past what’s literally just a pre-concert disclaimer.

“Does this merit posting in the Pitchfork thread,” I wondered, and well, here we are now.

Yes, I guess it would be more accurate to say that the message was aimed at ticket buyers rather than critics

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/50-songs-that-define-the-last-50-years-of-lgbtq-pride/

this is good; hi alfred