pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Imagine going on this site in 2011 and pointing out that Justin Bieber and Demi Lovato would one day have more hipster cachet that tUnE yArDs

poptimism: where did it all go wrong

i mean the demi lovato album is pretty good tho

I think a way old school former ilxor got the demi lovato hive sicced on him because he was lukewarm on it

yeah they made a fake tweet screenshot of him supposedly crowing about her heroin overdose (that, even in the fake, didn't refer to her) and paired it with other damning evidence like how he once saw Pussy Riot play at a festival instead of Lovato

screaming that they were going to "get him fired" from Rolling Stone for having written one 7/10 positive freelance review

jeez the fake o.d. tweet, fandom is so fucked up now

I've been seeing more and more buzz for Ethel Cain lately, so I was reading that profile. Not sure I'm sold on her music yet, but I'm intrigued by the general vibe and aesthetic, though I kept finding myself doubting that "Anhedonia" is her real last name and isn't just another layer to the character she's creating.

haha I read that yesterday and got intrigued then listened to it and was pretty let down

though I kept finding myself doubting that "Anhedonia" is her real last name and isn't just another layer to the character she's creating.

she's trans & has had a rocky relationship with her parents so i figured she probably just changed it for real

also, she's depressingly on dr. luke's actual label which feels like more of him trying to launder his reputation "look he's signing trans artists how progressive"

oh damn is she canceled already

no it's just depressing

she's trans & has had a rocky relationship with her parents so i figured she probably just changed it for real

That makes sense, it was just such an on the nose fictional name.

This was amusing!

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/best-and-worst-features-young-thug-slime-language-2/

I like Alphonse Pierre a lot

https://cdn.vor.us/event/424740/og/e421819e71d340088bf24b588ef277da.image!png.2791898.png.IGLineUp_Static.png

https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Pitchfork-Music-Festival-2021/424740?afflky=PitchforkMusicFestival&sp=ALTXMW&utm_source=hive&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hive_email_id_66619&h_sid=033a84ad5a-5e32f3a9951ac441df7ef2bf&h_slt=eyJoYXNoIjoiY2JlNjBhYzc1OTlmNWIyIiwiaGl2ZV91c2VyX2lkIjozMzQzODczMX0%3d

How's Erykah Badu live?

prettttttttty gooooood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY2-mrsXgMM

it’s old but the mtv unplugged show is one of my favorite live things ever

a few obvious highlights aside, not a great lineup overall imo, lots of "popular with p4k" acts that are good-to-fine on record but seem like not that exciting to catch live

How's Erykah Badu live?

Fantastic! Though not sure how her show would translate to a festival stage, tbh. Saw her in 2010 at the Chicago Theatre and it was an absolutely wonderful show.

that's otm, i think, tho it's hard to say how good a lot of these newer acts who haven't played for a crowd this size due to covid will do

xp

Of the acts on the bill I've actually seen, the best was Hop Along, just because they had a bit of energy and their songs are very singalongable, but I wouldn't describe that show as particularly memorable.

tbh barely any artists are that good at playing to festival sized crowds, it's pretty much the worst way to see music

unless they are like U2 or beyonce or someone who knows how to handle it

i've seen hop along three times, pretty good each time, but they had by far the most energy when i saw them shortly after the release of painted shut. didn't feel to me like they figured out to summon that spirit when playing the newer songs

festivals are for hanging out with friends and hearing music in the background

i haven't been to a musical festival in forty years

Last time I saw AnCo at P4k they were actually quite good at filling the festival stage. Pitchfork is pretty darn small as far as festivals go. Not everything translates, but more does than you might expect. E.g., Jamila Woods brought the whole church band last time and it was a blast.

i've seen badu at smaller and larger festivals and she's been great every time
she's gonna show up late tho

DJ and Producer i_o’s Cause of Death Revealed

I can understand families not wanting people to assume suicide based on his age (or maybe to raise awareness about a particular disease/illness), but hiding/teasing the real answer behind a click like it's an album cover is pretty weird. (The answer: "The deadmau5 signee and Grimes collaborator died last year from complications caused by Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.")

"Causes of Death for Semi-Famous DJs and Producers (you won't believe #7)"

"complications caused by Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis" maybe a little wordy for a headline, but I hear you on the tease implied by "Revealed".

Here’s Everything that Happened at the Cause of Death Reveal Party

Wow, surprise move for Pitchfork to pull Chicago away from touring with Rick Springfield to headline! (Although it would be awesome to hear Chicago II in its entirety, especially the harmonies on 'Fancy Colours')

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/reigning-sound-a-little-more-time-with-reigning-sound/

First paragraph of this review is ridiculous, calling out Greg Cartwright for once being in a band of alleged "edgelords" who, twenty six years ago had a song with a bad word in its title (a song not written by Greg, by the way). The guy has been releasing records with his own band for two decades. This is the lede? Really?

pitchfork is just following the culture here. stories that drag up old controversies get clicks and drive engagement.

this stuff getting called out 26 years late isn't deal but it's better than not at all. you can't give these bands and their enablers enough shit for this kind of thing

sorry this is a never living it down kind of situation, or should be

* not ideal not deal

But Pitchfork has reviewed the previous four RS albums without even mentioning this quarter century-old gaffe, so why effectively sink an album on the day of its release by dredging this up now?

And the thing is, the review is actually really good, in that it is a) positive (if unnecessarily snarky), and 2) well-written (many writers would kill to have written that cigarette-smoke-and-coffee-steam line). But there's no way this "Oblivians were actually Skrewdriver" angle isn't going to hurt what would have already been pretty meager sales. Not saying anyone should get a pass for using that word obviously, now or ever, but I still feel like it was an unnecessary cheap shot

I assume because p4k came out of the same racist edgelord indie culture and no reviewer thought to bring it up before or it would have hit too close to home

the comparison isn't skrewdriver it's cocorosie or something idk

do they really have the power to sink albums these days

But Pitchfork has reviewed the previous four RS albums without even mentioning this quarter century-old gaffe, so why effectively sink an album on the day of its release by dredging this up now?

Gee I wonder if there's anything about the different reviewers that might clue us in here. Something that unlike the previous two reviewers might make Terry not dismiss the n-word as a "bad word"? Cool to get some white people's thoughts on the statute of limitations on racial slurs though, thanks, there hasn't been enough of that in our public discourse.

This thread's persistent desire to view pfork as some kind of totalitarian culture committee or treeship's relentless need to make a sadface at cancel culture can end up making you look pretty ignorant.

this stuff can sometimes irk but it didn't seem like a bad approach here - "note the offense, note how the artist's approach has changed, then go on to talk about the new record" as is done here seems perfectly fine to me

lmao at getting mad at this review

yeah tbh it strikes me as an extremely fair & broadminded way of handling that, not ignoring, excusing or forgiving that stuff while also not defining him by it. the whole context of how & why its brought up in the review is to talk about the ways in which hes changed. a totally fair cop imo

yeah i didn't think it was unfair

This is like saying no one can ever say "in retrospect, naming a band 'Rapeman' was a bad idea" when talking about Steve Albini

Having checked out the song in question, Terry was, if anything, overly generous: the word's not just in the title, which that review kind of implies is the case

I was struggling to think of a good analogy but Albini is a good one.

has albini talked about that any time recently? i vaguely remember it in Our Band Could Be Your Life, but it seemed to be not much more than wanting to shock people