pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

lol I remember the Pixies influence on Nirvana being a thing mentioned often at the time--as if the Pixies were some obscure '60s group and not a going concern back then

There was a little cognitive dissonance when I first realized the first Pixies album came out a year before the first Nirvana album and they were contemporaries at the time of Nevermind. Not saying the influence was absent but it was more like the influence of MBV on Smashing Pumpkins than the influence of Black Sabbath on Soundgarden.

I'm from Ireland, and have thus been exposed to considerably more of Enya's music over the years than I might ideally have wanted. The sight of Pitchfork trying to turn her into some sort of Delia Derbyshire figure is absolutely hilarious.

yeah Trompe Le Monde in rotation with Nevermind for sure

maybe it's common knowledge, but is the line from "Trompe le Monde": "We went to the store and bought something great
Which samples this song from Washington state" a Nirvana diss? Or does that not even line up chronologically?

P4k are years late to the Enya party!

https://thequietus.com/articles/14120-enya-watermark-review
https://thequietus.com/articles/19296-enya-interview-roma-nicky-ryan

maybe it's common knowledge, but is the line from "Trompe le Monde": "We went to the store and bought something great
Which samples this song from Washington state" a Nirvana diss? Or does that not even line up chronologically?

― tylerw, Wednesday, September 16, 2020 12:22 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

wiki says TLM and nevermind were released on the same day!?

i can't imagine pixies worry a whole lot about bleach era nirvana

i think the pixies thing is overstated. they were just as much influenced by wipers, melvins, husker du. Pixies didn't have a copyright on creating the quiet LOUD quiet LOUD thing. Nirvana just polished up a combination of underground sounds with some particularly catchy melodies and a very pretty dude at the front?

Circling back to the Stones review —

“Criss Cross” is the sort of cowbell-clanging boogie that Royal Trux spent half of their existence chasing

– this is a good jam, but I don't particularly hear a lot of Trux in it... or even any cowbell (unless I'm going deaf).

yeah idk about that but I did read somewhere in the past that goats head soup is Neil and/or Jennifer’s favorite stones album

i think the pixies thing is overstated. they were just as much influenced by wipers, melvins, husker du. Pixies didn't have a copyright on creating the quiet LOUD quiet LOUD thing. Nirvana just polished up a combination of underground sounds with some particularly catchy melodies and a very pretty dude at the front?

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Wednesday, September 16, 2020 1:11 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've read the band was more concerned that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was pretty much exactly the riff from "More Than a Feeling" by Boston

The rhythm and first two chords are similar. The third and fourth chords are totally different, though.

you know who also did the quiet/LOUD thing before Nirvanna?

Beethoven

*leans way back in chair*

so did my man JEHOVAH tbrr

I’m just so glad that review highlights the brilliance of “Lime House”-maybe the best song Kim Deal has ever written

Agreed re: Limehouse, god I love that track, even its problematic lyrics.

Beethoven was my fav grunge act aside from Mudhoney

“Criss Cross” is the sort of cowbell-clanging boogie that Royal Trux spent half of their existence chasing

I wonder if Stuart Berman actually meant to reference "All the Rage" (the preceding track)? That one sounds more Trux-ian, and has audible cowbell.

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https://www.seattlesymphony.org/~/media/2021-event-images/banner/2021-1017-ad-880x399.jpg

haha jesus christ

I mean the Pixies thing stems in large part from Kurt specifically saying he was trying to rip them off when he wrote SLTS, but maybe he was trying to throw people off the scent

He also said

“It was such a cliched riff,” he said. “It was so close to a Boston riff or ‘Louie Louie.’

Kurt was pretty generous about pointing out his influences

Hey, what if there were multiple things that influenced him? Like has anyone here said that song absolutely was in no way influenced by Boston?

This whole teasing out of just what exact % does each possible influence contribute to this or that song is ridiculous.

xp

Success has a thousand fathers, but TAD is an orphan.

This whole teasing out of just what exact % does each possible influence contribute to this or that song is ridiculous.

Hm? I wasn't doing that. I was making the same point as you, that multiple things influenced him, and also the video in the link is hilarious.

Well + that he wasn't trying to throw people off the scent.

Fair enough, I don't know why this particular topic agitates me. For some reason, the topic of Pixies influence on Nirvana is fraught. Not sure if it's Frank Black backlash or what. I think that the influence is extremely obvious, but of course there were many other influences as well. For some reasons these discussions quickly go from "Nirvana had many influence" to "actually Pixies weren't really a very significant influence. X, Y, or Z were much more important." That to me is just silly, especially when it involves parsing out to what extent multiple records featuring Kim Deal that came out in a span of two years had more or less influence.

wow this album rules

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/numun-voyage-au-soleil/

Sounds cool. I wonder if the title was meant to mean 'journey to the sun' or some such? As it stands, it's more like a 'sunlit trip'.

ou est le soleil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Qknahm4UM

Dans la tete.
Travaillez.

wow this album rules

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/numun-voyage-au-soleil/

― unpaid intern at the darvo institute (Simon H.), Thursday, September 17, 2020 8:48 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, goddamn this is so good, a couple songs in right now....

partly reminds me of if Macha were Deadheads

Mina Tavakoli's write-up about Beverly Glenn Copeland is generous and great <3

Shockingly, Reed’s liberalism still feels progressive. The one exception is on the taut, distorted “Good Evening Mr. Waldheim,” about Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, and an incident in which he referred to Jews using the ethnic slur “hymies.” Reed was understandably offended, but he peppers his song with ripostes that have aged poorly, notably interrogating Jackson’s belief that U.S. leaders should meet with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

They ordained the Trumps
and then he got the mumps
and died being treated at Mt. Sinai

xp (btw – Jackson’s stance on the PLO was already a moot point by the time the album was released, in Jan. 1989... the '88 primaries were long jn the past, and Reagan had opened dialogue with the PLO a month earlier.)

Back in 89 songs weren’t generally released the same week they were written

Sure, that's my point. That particular line had already "aged poorly" by the time the album came out. May have been an interesting point for the reviewer to make; instead, he uses it as a fulcrum to say that other stuff in the song has also aged poorly, without explaining what.

(or not so much "aged poorly" as been rendered irrelevant by recent events.)

Well Reed was likely complaining about Jacksons hug with Arafat in 79, not some recentish thing

It was a topic in the ‘88 campaign. Btw, Jesse’s “Hymietown” interview was in ‘84... I don’t know/recall how much it remained an issue in ‘88 (tho it was obviously still on Lou’s mind).

I also don’t know if the Waldheim affair was actively in the news in ‘88/‘89 (though he was still president of Austria)... seems like Lou was sort of pulling various threads together.

Yes to more coverage of Black indie, but this guy has to be the worst music person on Twitter. Whines about absolutely everything while stealing money from bands on his label.

For example, Pitchfork passed on serious coverage of all of our releases from black artists this year due to not being relevant enough. Some were at least lucky enough to get filler pieces and mentions in round-up articles. Meanwhile, serious coverage was given to... https://t.co/2kgaQRYjvD

— Don Giovanni Records (@DonGiovanniRecs) September 29, 2020

stealing money from bands on his label

Is that documented anywhere? Sucks if true. The only artists I know on his label are Moor Mother and Mourning (A) Blkstar, both of whom have been on the cover of The Wire.

wow, weird that p4k reviews albums by whites like Carly Rae Jepson, Yo La Tengo and Built to Spill. Seems off brand.

Don Gio guy isn't necessarily wrong, but it's a really weird way to make the point. Is there more about him stealing money?

there's kind of a secondary factor: if an album is not a huge release that obviously is going to be covered -- by any site, not just pitchfork -- then its coverage is mostly up to writer interest. if nobody pitches it, it doesn't get covered.

which is not to say that there's no racism involved, obviously what gets pitched is not a random impartial choice, but also has factors like "did the writer get her shit together before release date"

Huh?

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Pitchfork won’t run a review if the release date has already passed?

Pitchfork editors just passively wait for pitches to come in, and never ask writers to review something?