pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

there's a lot of shit you can say about christgau, but i always appreciated a 2 or 3 sentencer. even if it didn't quite make sense without hearing the record, it at least stoked some curiosity on what he was going on about

I think all you need to do avoid the "Goop on Ya Grinch" effect is just not try to make it sound politically progressive

― JRN, Saturday, August 8, 2020 10:16 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

bingo

― Paul Ponzi, Sunday, August 9, 2020 7:49 AM (one hour ago)

what's politically progressive in the Goop tweet?

I read it as trying in vain to suggest via academic jargon some profundity and / or wokeness in music that clearly does not merit such examination

xpost Christgau often doesn't make sense after you've heard the record either

Pitchfork, 1981: “By fantastizing about driving his truck through a racist bar in his new single “Rapp Dirty”, Blowfly perfectly encapsulates the frustrations of the Black community of today (10.0)”

Wow I thought I was the only one who read Hardwax reviews. TIP!

wait what’s offensive about the thick brown thing? do metal bros all pluck now?

thick brow*

Go beyond the low and the high brow, embrace the thick brow or, better yet, the unibrow.

The album was released in the last gasp of the monoculture

I have no idea what this means.

When I hear 'thick brow' I think skull shape, not eyebrows. Did he mean eyebrows?

Battle revealed the extent—chronologically and geographically—to which none of us live with dignity.

lol I was 14 when it came out and had no inkling as to its political touchstones aside from a vague sense that they were telling figures of authority off via sick raps and bad-ass riffs. That Twitter rando who bitched about how Tom Morello 'spoiled' RATM's music with his verbal agitprop was no anomaly.

wait what’s offensive about the thick brown thing? do metal bros all pluck now?

He is implying that they are, er, Neanderthals.

anti-racist phrenology

I mean, I was 12 or so when it came out and I totally got the political message of the music. They were the only band that me and my skater friends could agree on for many years.

But I also had been listening to them since their first record— one thing that the Crow OST was good for, in my case at least, was making me seek out records by the groups that I liked.

That said, none of my skater friends appear to be radical leftists, and here I am still.

I got lost somewhere in the third paragraph. I mean, at least I could tell Sam1r's old review was about music.

i've bitched about this before, and it's a tiny thing, but the fact the 'here's what ... is listening to know' interviews are never with musicians baffles me. speaking for myself that seems like a group of people who might actually have interesting answers to that question!

to now* obviously

They do run those features where musicians talk about the music they were into at different stages of their life (5-15-25... or whatever).

and the quietus's baker's dozen is the gold standard there, anyway

Terrible flashback memory to a Mustang convertible filled with (white) (polo shirt-clad) bros yelling along to "Killing In The Name Of" driving in front of my high school.

i know, and i enjoy them, but i guess i'm interested to hear what new music people are listening to; in that it is quite possibly quite different from what is being covered usually i.e. from the depths of bandcamp / soundcloud

i also am not a child and so don't care about netflix actors, so maybe i'm just no longer a target demographic

Didn't realize Netflix is only for children, thanks for warning me!

Pitchfork must do extensive A/B testing. I guess devvine's version has Netflix children's show actors instead of a comedian/writer for Desus & Mero, an actor from I May Destroy You (please don't show that to your children), and Kelly Reichardt?

It's cool that Masha and the Bear are into Ethio Jazz though

Pitchfork must do extensive A/B testing. I guess devvine's version has Netflix children's show actors instead of a comedian/writer for Desus & Mero, an actor from I May Destroy You (please don't show that to your children), and Kelly Reichardt?

― rob, Tuesday, 11 August 2020 18:19 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think i was just remembering a stranger things kid tbf

The “Here’s What [Celebrity] Is Listening To” articles clearly only exist so they can take advantage of the strings they’re able to pull with notable figures in the non-music wings of showbiz in a way that still ostensibly fits the site’s core mission, ie “our readers will probably click on a headline with Marc Maron’s name in it, and he at least listens to music, right?”.
It’s basically a snazzier version of when they try to rationalize some reason why a midday article about the Clone High revival or w/e qualifies as “music news”.

It's kind of like the "STARS: THEY'RE JUST LIKE US" of the music world imho.

They should do it from the POV of fictional characters. I want to know what Wendy and Lucy were jamming before Wendy's car shit the bed.

https://oct.co/essays/wye-oak-jenn-wasner-no-horizon-interview

This interview, published on October, a beer publication, and linked to on Pitchfork, includes two questions about alcohol. The interviewee responds to each of those questions making brief and vague references only to wine. Beer is mentioned one time by the interviewer and zero times by the interviewee.

There should be at least 2 questions about hops in each interview

has the beer site now lasted longer than the dissolve

well, there's surely more to say about beer than about films

"Let's talk wine barrels. Wye Oak... why oak?"

wow i totally forgot about the dissolve

mentioning the dissolve reminded me of their vertical (not sure if that's the right term) for more experimental/fringe stuff ... way back in the early 2000s, I think? what was that called?

Altered Zones? That was 2010-2011ish.

Also, in my mind I always think of The Dissolve more as an AV Club spinoff than a Pitchfork spinoff, which it actually was.

Dissolve was an AV Club spinoff published by PF

it read a lot like the av club which was a problem

yes, Altered Zones ... was it really that recent??

https://pitchfork.com/news/j-balvin-and-roddy-ricch-drop-out-of-2020-mtv-vmas/

Seems weird to write this news article without a mention that j Balvin is recovering from covid

Nirvana drops out of 1994 VMAs

Today’s throwback review (of Miranda Lambert’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) is well-written, but it’s an extreme case of the usual problem — by the time Sodomsky gets around to actually talking about that particular album (for a paragraph or two), it’s startling/amusing to recall that a review of that particular album is what you had clicked on.

Keep in mind: it's only been the last few years that Pitchfork's paid attention to Lambert, therefore context is more important than usual. I didn't mind it here, in large part b/c Sodomsky's one of my favorite working writers.

Mine too, but it could have just as easily been labeled a review of Kerosene!

Kerosene’s the better album

I've leaned that way for a couple years