I refuse to believe October is still a going concern
― Number None, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 20:20 (four years ago) link
I love the write-up about Buckingham Nicks fwiw
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 20:23 (four years ago) link
I'm not talking about it being a problem or that they shouldn't agree to it, I just was thinking about what it's like to talk to October. Wondering what the conversation/interview is like. If it feels different and more phony. If they keep trying to abruptly shoehorn beer into their line of questioning so they can force a personal story that becomes one of those annoying headlines.
xps
― Evan, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 20:47 (four years ago) link
only talk about your new album about your mom dying and see how they fit lagers in there.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 21:07 (four years ago) link
I've read exactly one October post (with Chris Cohen) and it was so uncomfortable.
― Lactose Shaolin Wanker (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:12 (four years ago) link
Guns N’ Roses Settle Lawsuit Over Guns ‘N’ Rosé Beer
should have been a https://oct.co/ feature imo
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:28 (four years ago) link
how can october thrive when it's competing with the motherlord for the best alcohol+music-related stories
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:30 (four years ago) link
from memory, that chris cohen october post was titled something like "Chris Cohen Doesn't Care What You Think" or something similarly needlessly intimidating, especially for a guy like chris cohen
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:33 (four years ago) link
ok, which title is worse
Chris Cohen Doesn’t Want to Bullshit YouChris Cohen Doesn't Care What You Think
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:34 (four years ago) link
Another review which basically doesn't mention the actual music at all. (Apart from a very brief reference to "sublime minimalist production" right at the end. Must be extremely minimalist, by the sound of things, amirite?)
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/georgia-anne-muldrow-dudley-perkins-black-love-and-war/
― does it look like i'm here (jon123), Thursday, 15 August 2019 08:04 (four years ago) link
you're not wrong but this is a good record & honestly pitchfork is just going with the general critical flow by placing the music in tertiary-at-best focus
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 15 August 2019 08:49 (four years ago) link
I've heard some of Georgia Anne Muldrow's stuff in the past and quite liked it, so I'm sure it's a pretty decent album.
It just irks me when reviewers do this. It's as if all they did was peruse the lyric sheet without listening to a single second of the record itself.
― does it look like i'm here (jon123), Thursday, 15 August 2019 10:40 (four years ago) link
god, words suck, why would anyone care about those
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Thursday, 15 August 2019 12:55 (four years ago) link
(conversely it irks me when reviewers clearly have just listened to a record as background music and not engaged with, you know, what the artist is actually saying, a critical part of the work in question)
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Thursday, 15 August 2019 12:57 (four years ago) link
If a review doesn't tell me a single thing about what the record actually sounds like, it's effectively useless.
― does it look like i'm here (jon123), Thursday, 15 August 2019 13:21 (four years ago) link
yeah... gotta have a balance at least.
― Stub yr toe on the yacht rock (morrisp), Thursday, 15 August 2019 13:22 (four years ago) link
This is great: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/various-artists-jambu-e-os-miticos-sons-da-amazonia/
the music is uniformly thrilling, blending the syncopated shuffle of carimbó—a beat, originally played on hollowed-out tree trunks, that’s part galloping horse, part drunken stumble—with trance-like woodwind melodies, throaty sing-alongs, flickering rhythm guitar, and the overdriven sonics you might expect from a genre whose pioneers ran their electric guitars through church PAs powered by car batteries.
― Stub yr toe on the yacht rock (morrisp), Thursday, 15 August 2019 13:27 (four years ago) link
There's got to be at least one review of an instrumental album that doesn't discuss the music at all.
― pomenitul, Thursday, 15 August 2019 13:28 (four years ago) link
Now that's more like it.
― does it look like i'm here (jon123), Thursday, 15 August 2019 13:31 (four years ago) link
That is a perfectly written review!
― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 15 August 2019 13:50 (four years ago) link
That's a great review not only because it provides vivid descriptions of the actual sounds, but because it avoids wide-eyed "world music" clichés, too. There's no suggestion that listening to this music will in any way improve you as a person - it's just awesome music.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:06 (four years ago) link
otm
― pomenitul, Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:06 (four years ago) link
AND it made me listen to the album, which is the point.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:15 (four years ago) link
Yep, good review of something I've never heard of but now want to check out. Reviews like that one only reinforce how crappy the others are.
― Paul Ponzi, Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:25 (four years ago) link
This was last week or whatever, but I guess Yoni Wolf can't catch a break. You figure they would throw them a 6.8 or whatever by way of apology for past pans, because who cares anymore, but nope.
New review: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/why-aokohio/Old review: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17136-mumps-etc/
The only time me or anyone I know pay attention to @pitchfork is when we hop back in a time machine and head back to Y2K. They get so much wrong it’s comical. It is literally the Fox News of the music industry. They only get clicks by people like me tweeting negatives like this.— Yoni Wolf (@YoniWolf) August 7, 2019
Also, @mehan_j you are a dick and you haven’t really listened to my work. You have only read the press release, which you have thoroughly regurgitated in “your” poorly written slander piece.— Yoni Wolf (@YoniWolf) August 7, 2019
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:29 (four years ago) link
Too bad this follow-up tweet is kinda daft... I doubt Pfork’s mediocrities are due to Big Rockcrit conspiracies
The formerly respectable blog called @pitchfork is nothing but a tool for their big 10 corporate parent to promote work owned by other big music corporations and squash real independent artists. Swim in your coin you sold out washed up shill. Guess what, we aren’t going anywhere.— Yoni Wolf (@YoniWolf) August 7, 2019
― Stub yr toe on the yacht rock (morrisp), Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:42 (four years ago) link
Poor Pitchfork! They sucked when they promoted The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, they suck now they're corporate Trumpist shills!
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:44 (four years ago) link
"The only time me or anyone I know pay attention to @pitchfork is when we hop back in a time machine and head back to Y2K," says guy from Anticon
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:48 (four years ago) link
that god awful site did same shit to both of us this year. trashed albums that clearly hadn't even been listened to. same incredibly creepy girl did both, she even got lyrics wrong repeatedly when quoting them despite having lyric sheets for both, somehow. among many other issues— WILL GOD FORGIVE US??? (@fugazi420) August 7, 2019
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Thursday, 15 August 2019 14:51 (four years ago) link
Reading that Why? review and LOL'd at this patronizing line:
There’s also an accompanying visual album, made in partnership with — no joke — a director who randomly DM’d Wolf on Instagram
Whoaa, seriously no joke? This artist made a creative connection on social media? Let me sit down while I process that, how crazy!
― “Hakuna Matata,” a nihilist philosophy (One Eye Open), Thursday, 15 August 2019 15:15 (four years ago) link
Hmm "incredibly creepy" might be over-egging the French toast in that author's case, but I can think of other music writers for whom it absolutely applies. Yoni's point that "the artists are not going anywhere" is pretty apt, you can whack-a-mole a Tim Kinsella all you want but he's still getting his 76 years of life, it's better to keep the reviews ad rem
― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 15 August 2019 15:55 (four years ago) link
god bless all of y'all who still write about music critically, I know I couldn't handle it in this world where an artist can just broadcast themselves taking a shit on you for thousands of their fans.
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Thursday, 15 August 2019 17:58 (four years ago) link
xp but
― does it look like i'm here (jon123), Thursday, August 15, 2019 9:21 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
no, it's not, because this is 2019 and I can easily find out what a record sounds like by, you know, listening to it
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:25 (four years ago) link
also if you're going to criticize someone for "getting lyrics wrong repeatedly" then you should at least do the arduous research of going to his twitter profile, which will tell you that he is a man and not a "creepy girl"
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:31 (four years ago) link
and not the same reviewer, even
― untuned mass damper (mh), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:37 (four years ago) link
that tweet was by someone else, who apparently runs a label or manages artists? idk.
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:38 (four years ago) link
I think he was talking about reviews of two of his artists, but idrc and I'm not defending him
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:39 (four years ago) link
that makes more sense but I'm still stuck on "creepy girl"
― untuned mass damper (mh), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:41 (four years ago) link
this is 2019 and I can easily find out what a record sounds like by, you know, listening to it
So what do you want from music criticism? Because the writers that avoid or eschew musical description, in my experience, replace it with some combination of parsing-of-the-lyrics and discussion of the artist's romantic life/commercial ups and downs/political statements, if any/relative degree of "cancelled"-ness. Do you - specifically you, katherine - consider that good and valuable critical discourse? If so, why? I'm genuinely interested because that's 180 degrees from what I want from an album review.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:42 (four years ago) link
Oh, apparently that's Ricky Eat Acid's twitter account (or one of them).
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:50 (four years ago) link
He (Sam Ray) is speaking about Arielle Gordon (a girl, can't speak to her creepiness) and the album reviews to which he's referring are the most recent American Pleasure Club album and his wife Kitty's most recent album, both of which (numbers-wise) didn't crack 6.0, and both of which are imo excellent albums
― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 15 August 2019 21:55 (four years ago) link
I didn't realize that Kitty album had come out, will check it out.
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:02 (four years ago) link
It's called Rose Gold and I think it's terrific
― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:10 (four years ago) link
feel like music description serves the same purpose as describing a scene in a film or a book which i guess you could just watch or read. also sometimes in the act of description you uncover ideas about a song or a record. it’s not either/or, it’s as much the text as the lyrics, no rigorous criticism should exclude one to prioritize the other unless the music at hand is instrumental or very about conveying something through its lyrics. but then when streaming seemed about to take over everything i read a lot of critics who thought descriptive criticism in the consumer guide sense would be useless in an age where you could just queue up any record. i disagreed then and i still do but also i write a lot of things that people don’t read so ymmv
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:23 (four years ago) link
It's entirely possible that the "purpose" of writing about pop music is not the same as what I think the "purpose" is of writing about what I write about (jazz, mostly). But for example, when I reviewed the new Slipknot album it was way more interesting to me to talk about how different the music sounded from their previous albums (very different!) than what Corey Taylor was yelling about (mostly the same shit he's been yelling about since 1999!).
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:26 (four years ago) link
This is a prickly discussion because discussing your strategems do nothing except expose yourself. Suffice it to say that each publication will have its own standards, and shrewds critic usually bends those standards to their will.
When writing blurbs I tend to emphasize description because the well-chosen word will explain things to the non-crit listener, i.e. most people; also, explaining how this harmony complement that organ line and why it affects me is what I hope connects with readers, for it's what connected me to my favorite writers as a young man ("Yes! She hears what I do!").
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:29 (four years ago) link
Ignore those typos.
what Corey Taylor was yelling about (mostly the same shit he's been yelling about since 1999!).
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, August 15, 2019 3:26 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
i don’t think this is true at all, the new slipknot album is very obviously about divorce
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:30 (four years ago) link
The problem with artists crying bullshit about criticism and the incompetence or ignorance of critics is that those same artists hedge their complaints when the coverage is positive. As if those positive pieces are not written by the same purportedly ignorant, incompetent critics.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:31 (four years ago) link
You may be right; what registered most with me were the usual misanthropic slogans. I find his lyrics for Stone Sour much more interesting than his lyrics for Slipknot, generally.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, 15 August 2019 22:34 (four years ago) link