pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Pfork's abiding love for emo, post-hardcore whatever (ie guitars drums screaming about being angry n sad etc) is so weird.

like these genres that are aesthetically frozen are somehow more "vital" than other aesthetically frozen genres (take yr pick) because they feature idk sweaty young ppl

Was it always like this? It seems like a few years back, they decided that actually emo was one of the most vital things that happened in the 00's, instead of all that boring dancepunk and freakfolk that they hyped at the time

their current stable of writers is younger/more attached to that scene. cf. me

as a genre however it was stuck in the 7.0s until 2017 or so, so yeah i guess “few years back” tracks

overlooking/skewering emo was a critical mistake in the 00s from a hardline poptimist perspective. by the same token doing revisionism now is good. not sure about rating third-wave emo revival. i like some of the brad records a lot, dislike most of the ian ones

i like how the ian records sometimes actually sound like they come from an uncool place to me. like, if there are people listening to this stuff, he must be doing some kind of journalistic service.

brad obviously can't help but be cool as a cucumber.

if there are people listening to this stuff, he must be doing some kind of journalistic service

lmao ice old

no i mean i like to check some of it out!! but it does seem like some of it might be being boosted by him out of more of a, well, like ol alex in baltimore would often be boosting the mainstream rock hits alongside the actually interesting music he repped, maybe out of personal affection but somewhat on the principle that popularity is popularity

FWIW i discovered the glass beach album via ian so I will always give his hype-picks at least one listen.

do people still pay attention to Appleseed Cast? I saw them at a punk fest thing at this farm in Iowa and they were way different, kinda synth and proggy and mathy....way different than I remember...I was super messed up at that point though

their most recent album is great and your impression of them is correct

I haven’t heard their latest but they are great musicians

i'm finally hearing the code orange, not sure why it merited that review at all but i am a nu-metal fr34k

I guess GC just felt like swimming against the tide of The Discourse, which has been generally pro-Code Orange. Can't run the risk of sparking any "Rawk is Back!" meta-narratives, after all.

it's especially funny coming so close after their rave for Loathe, who sound so much like Deftones at times that it's uncanny. but they nod at emo and not industrial so of course.

I didn't realize Wayne Marshall was writing for Pitchfork these days. That "Funky Kingston" review is great.
(but to nitpick: it would have stuck the landing better without that meandering last sentence)
Also refreshing to see them refrain from giving a 10.0 to such a stone cold classic... must have been tempting.

Agreed on both the review and the final sentence (where's an editor when you need one)?

sad lol that their Kenny Rogers obit ended with a Seinfeld reference

it’s sad because his restaurants were pretty good. I mean, I was like 12 at the time but

A casual observation: it seems that every single jazz album reviewed on Pitchfork never gets more than 7.0 and never less than 8.0.

...unless it's a jazz reissue, in which case it gets between 8.4 and 10.0.

(for the record, I think that reflects the curation of what they're willing to review more than anything else)

they gave a new release jazz album BNM back in january! it's very rare but it does happen, though this one was jeff parker from tortoise so he has indie cred. looking through their archive, the only new release jazz album to get BNM that's not kamasi washington (an obvious outlier) or a crossover act like thundercat or esperanza spalding (at least on the album she got BNM for) is A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke by Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith

Makaya McCraven / Gil Scott-Heron was categorized as jazz as well.

For a while they were reviewing everything Vijay Iyer released. It seems like Shabaka Hutchings is filling his slot at the moment.

And TBF their jazz reviews aren't idiotic; they've got good writers doing them. But they're too infrequent to feel anything but tokenistic, with particular artists receiving favor for a year or so then vanishing.

Yeah, it's not a genre they really have a take on. It's a bit like metal or 'global'. But it's not particularly awful either.

they gave a new release jazz album BNM back in january! it's very rare but it does happen, though this one was jeff parker from tortoise so he has indie cred. looking through their archive, the only new release jazz album to get BNM that's not kamasi washington (an obvious outlier) or a crossover act like thundercat or esperanza spalding (at least on the album she got BNM for) is A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke by Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith

I had a look at the last 20-odd jazz albums they reviewed.

8.0
7.9
8.0
7.8
7.9
7.8
8.0
8.6
7.4
8.4
7.9
7.2
7.5
8.0
8.0
8.0
7.5
7.7
7.7
8.3
7.8

And I only stopped going back further because I've stuff to do in the next few minutes. That is remarkable uniformity, isn't it?

Actually, as it happens, the very next review is 5.9 (for Robert Glasper's mixtape thing). But then it's back to 8.1s and 7.6s.

It’s a bit like reviewing poetry books—why even bother unless you like it

my sad terrible superpower is usually being able to predict Pfork scores for marquee releases within about .2 of a point just based on the surrounding narrative/buzz.

Best new mutant

The Pearl Jam review is well-written.

Sodomsky's one of their best writers.

especially in 2020, when they remain the last band intact from their particular scene.

https://assets.blabbermouth.net/media/kingbuzzosolo2012_638.jpg

6.2 means it's good

Back in the day when I had a blog I was probably guilty of this often, but 10 years later it gets my goat when a writer describes a group as practically "making a pop record" when said group is NOT REMOTELY pop. Like, adding vocals and making songs under 5 minutes does not mean Windy & Carl is close to making a pop record.

That was my first thought after reading that review and clicking on the embedded track... in what sense is this pop?

I mean, the review does say, "(don’t worry, it’s not that close)" -- but yeah, that is an old saw, so to speak.

That is one of those parentheticals where the act of writing it is an indication that you should just delete whatever came before.

(It’s like seeing “no pun intended” in print—there was a moment in the editing process where you could have removed your unintended pun, but you didn’t, so the pun was intended.)

The subject of the lead review today is, wait for it, a reissue of the Paris Hilton album from 2006.

I appreciate everything's ground to a halt and there's nothing happening, but . . . come on.

Stars are Blind does hold up tho.

Was that an album that was beloved on this site upon it's release or mocked? Sometimes I can never quite tell how strong the forces of poptimism are. Especially when I still remember AllMusic's infamous 4.5/5 rating for it.

This was released slightly pre-poptimism iirc. If it was released today by whoever her modern equivalent is it'd be a BNM and we'd be hearing her "break down" every song on the album and learning about her favorite IPAs

Agree Stars Are Blind is dope in that "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" kinda way

PARIS HILTON - PARIS

had forgotten about all her racist shit

review is really weird, sort of like....why do this?

especially when you're giving it a 5.2 and not even making the case that it's worthwhile

esp in the current climate I don't really find a rich kid's vapid bullshit real interesting right about now

http://i.imgur.com/UYjQD1l.png