pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Most of us remember that it doesn't really matter what you're drinking, as long as you're enjoying it.

Oh good, there was an utterly banal point to all this.

I like how one of the knocks on the stout enthusiast is basically that he’s fat.

I resemble that remark

Is this... “humor”?

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/22-musical-predictions-for-the-2020s/

it sure tries

Apparently: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/tags/humor/

A seldom-used tag, but gold every time

losing my mind thinking about the person on halsey’s team who had to tell her she just called for the collapse of one world trade https://t.co/eJJmK0KyQ7

— ben kesslen (@benkesslen) January 23, 2020

That explains the lingering influence of artists once written off as angry women: Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, and pre-acrobatics P!nk.

Ex-squeeze me(?) Shania, an "angry woman"?

This review is hilarious

Though Manic features Halsey’s take on a handful of different genres—broody pop-R&B reminiscent of her early work; alt-rock-lite that is an aesthetic match to her persona; twangy country-pop sure to find a home on certain segments of pop radio—much of it has the same reflective surface and, at some points, the depth of an oil slick. The Morissette collab “Alanis’ Interlude,” which features a reference to John Mayer’s “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” is almost too irritating to endure: “Your pussy is a wonderland,” the pair warbles, infinitely more times than necessary. It is a low point for someone who is at times a clever songwriter.

There's so much shade in this paragraph that I keep finding albinos under it

There's so much shade in this paragraph that I keep finding albinos under it

Wow <3

The "miserable Lyft ride" dig at Halsey reminded me of this Matty Perps tweet.

Can we give this stuff a more specific genre name, like Ubercore, since it's the music you always seem to hear in a ride share https://t.co/Us03SdPTZA

— Matthew Perpetua (@perpetua) December 31, 2019

wow another strike for twitter embeds

ILM got there first

I typically like their 6.5's better than their BNMs so maybe the Halsey is for me.

pick me up at 6

btw "Alanis' Interlude" is hilarious

I'm listening to the entire Halsey album and so far its biggest sin is... it sounds like all the other music Halsey has released?

Halsey IS...Halsey.

she's certainly the most successful version of the "bananees" and "avocadees" indie-girl voice, correct?

what?

from this: https://youtu.be/8SU0gFPMwP8

oh

isn't that basically just Billie Holliday

(by which I mean a bad approximation likely passed down through idk Macy Gray or something)

there's a whole category of poptronica/spotifycore songstresses who use that vocal mode, but im pretty sure that's a direct reference to cocorosie

who probably copped it from Karen Dalton

idk maybe this calls for an a thread equivalent to the old-man-hat-voice thread

I think there actually is a thread for it?

The real sin with "Alanis' Interlude" is orthographic... If you pronounce the "s" after the apostrophe, write the "s" after the apostrophe! Don't be thrown.

as they say, 0.0 jet reviews can’t melt steel beams

i'm no p4k purist wishng for a return to the olden days, but ... why are they reviewing of Halsey album? does she barely slide in under the imaginary credibility bar they've got over there?

reviewing *A* Halsey album

she has hits

they'll review any major-label pop album regardless of artist credibility or number of hits (incl. if zero) if they can craft a quippy tweet out of it that'll generate lots of #engagement

for example they reviewed the flop/widely-mocked liam payne album recently, i guess b/c they couldn't resist joining in on the fun

presumably they'll limit that somewhat so as not to completely crowd out coverage of 'credible' releases that are (were?) their bread and butter, but as far as what's fair game to cover in the mainstream, it seems to be just about anything short of the most whitebread of adult contemporary artists

a couple things I should mention as correction:

(a) Pitchfork has writers who grew up with 1D as phenomenon. Why would they pitch a review to generate lots of #engagement?

(b) I pitched a review of Liam Payne's album b/c I wanted to know what the one of the lesser known members might come up with.

fair points -- as someone with zero professional/journalistic experience i have no real idea of what kind of consideration goes into ultimately selecting releases to cover

but it does seem more frequent these days that their tweets linking to reviews of mainstream stars' records are packaged with 'shady' one-liners that are sure to be retweeted far-and-wide (including by those who won't even bother to click the link/read the review)

Speaking as a writer and a onetime editor who managed writers a couple decades younger than me, I can assure you the pay is so shitty and their hopes so beaten already that they're not thinking LOL #pitchfork WILL SURELY QUOTE THIS RAPIER OF A LINE AGAINST LIAM. Every writer at every time hopes to be read and hopes to write memorable prose; it's unfortunate how social media has made reviews marketing weapons.

as the asker, i'm just circling back to say: i did a little poking around and my bad, i knew they had started covering most mainstream pop but i guess i thought they still weren't touching *some* stuff ... i seem to recall a Whiney thread about this? ... anyway, it appears i'm wrong and pretty much anything is fair game. which is fine. now i know.

and I don't deny the financial advantages in the last five years to covering most mainstream pop. I'm just saying: the reviewers aren't cynical.

i don't think it's weird they covered her at all, they reviewed her two previous albums. apart from p4k it's generally been critically received well enough and much better than her previous albums so i'm interested in checking it out

there is still some stuff they don't touch but it's generally un-hip major-label pop rock like imagine dragons-esque stuff (though they did review their latest) and twenty one pilots (which feels like a particularly strange omission, they have enough going on that i'd expect a p4k review to be able to have something interesting enough to say about them)

"guoid" and other diphthongizations in popular music

Five separate news items about Billie Eilish winning a Grammy

News about the death of Kobe, basketball player, but not a peep about Sean Reinert, musician

2017:

Pitchfork’s coverage of the 59th annual Grammy Awards yielded the music site’s highest traffic day ever last Monday. With 1.5 million unique viewers, the music site saw a 275 percent increase over its 400,000 average daily unique views.

so sick of all these Bonnie Raitt articles!

The Florida hip-hop continuum—from Miami bass to Trick Daddy to Rick Ross to Raider Klan—has never really fit neatly into the Southern rap tradition.

Without Uncle Luke, Atlanta rap would sound like Arrested Development

well lord it's obvious we got a relationship

Rap-a-Lot (imo)

Atlanta really didn't develop much until later, MC Shy D wasn't very distinctive just influences from NY and Miami

I agree the statement is weird, given that Miami had an identity before what we think of as "southern rap" even existed

I mean if your definition of Southern rap is limited to the Big KRIT definition of “Country Shit” maybe, but all Atlanta rap from ‘87-‘91 was heavily indebted to Luke (who also put out Shy D’s record) not to mention the direct line to So So Def-era bass and then crunk shortly after. This isn’t exactly splitting hairs!

I agree!