pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

golly pfork revising their own history to appeal to the current market!!??!? shockedpikachu.png

I'm not suggesting they don't, but there is a transparent way to do it and a disingenuous way to do it and they chose the latter. I'm arguing that it's not a great look.

they chose the latter

shockedpikachuenlarged.png

i'm genuinely unsure as to what ppl's expectation of behavior is here, aside from 1. me writing about the old brent di review in my piece, which, honestly, no fuckin thanks 2. pfork putting out a press release with a sunday review admitting they were wrong and they were sorry or something

maybe not being a bunch of liars?

omg calm down

Rolling Stone has changed their outlook on certain bands or albums for decades

brad otm

it's pretty easy to find the old bad rolling stone reviews though, no?

pfork putting out a press release with a sunday review admitting they were wrong and they were sorry or something

Why is this so inconceivable? "Normally the Pitchfork Sunday Review is for an important album we've never reviewed before. This week, it's being given over to an album we did review when it was new, but that review sucked because we were a bunch of self-fellating assholes back then. Enjoy!"

personally thrilled to erase a bad review from the internet, and pitchfork now is so different in both staff and taste from '99 pitchfork that it's like being accountable for a past life

we did review when it was new, but that review sucked because we were a bunch of self-fellating assholes back then


who is the "we"? how many 99 pfork ppl still even work there?

brad can u redo frances the mute as well

who is the "we"? how many 99 pfork ppl still even work there?

Is there any other institution you consider no longer responsible for its history just because the same people no longer work there?

prog will always be unfashionable and you should like it that way xp

Thanks Brad for providing some Clarity

lol

Is there any other institution you consider no longer responsible for its history just because the same people no longer work there?

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, June 7, 2021 4:48 PM (two minutes ago)

lmao the original review is imagined dialogue between slobodan milosevic and a military commander we're not exactly dealing with the new york times coverage of WMDs here

who is the "we"? how many 99 pfork ppl still even work there? Maybe that doesn't mean us?

Is there any other institution you consider no longer responsible for its history just because the same people no longer work there? Wait for something better?

1. me writing about the old brent di review in my piece, which, honestly, no fuckin thanks I shouldn't, it's not enough

2. pfork putting out a press release with a sunday review admitting they were wrong and they were sorry or something Pull one excuse from another

believe in what you want, evan

*joke post, those are clarity lyrics

who is the "we"? how many 99 pfork ppl still even work there?

Is there any other institution you consider no longer responsible for its history just because the same people no longer work there?

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, June 7, 2021 3:48 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm still mad at the CIA for their review of The Real New Fall LP

jfc I should know better than to even dip a toe in this damn thread. to be clear, i love Brad's review and I'm so grateful that they got a platform to share a much, much better and far more thoughtful review of the album. and none of my problems with Brad in the least!

all I was saying was that I can understand why an artist might be a little annoyed (not egregiously so) to see them pretend like that original review never happened. I just think a slight tweak to the Sunday review header, like unperson suggests, would right the "wrong" and be transparent. of course reviewers from decades later are going to have a different perspective on an artist and album and are free to share those! it just feels like a disingenuous way to pretend a shitty, probably more than borderline offensive review never got published.

i mean, whatever, i'm not mad and it's stupid to even care. but this rings a little hollow after just publishing a review taking an artist to task for using derogatory words in the past. they were right to do so, but if you are going to call out others for bad behavior from decades ago, maybe be transparent about your own?

if i sold tens of millions of records, i probably would not get super worked-up about a bad review from 22 years ago.

the original review wasn't derogatory it was just plainly stupid from a conceptual POV, barely made an argument about the music, and had a low score. they just ran a huge feature last week on the history of the reviews section including several entries about bad past reviews. the idea that they'd need to send out a press release (lol...) or publicly apologize any time they write about an album previously covered by a dumb brent dicrescenzo review intended for an audience of hundreds during the infancy of the internet is ridiculous

speaking of clarity, they should do a sunday track review about the zedd song

i would understand ppl caring, maybe, if there was anything to actually engage with in the review. instead it's about american troops using the album as a torture weapon against slobodan milosevic. it's completely meaningless

I thought the Panama Papers cleared that up...?

jfc does anyone actually read my posts? or just make wild ass assumptions? i have never suggested a press release or a formal apology, just a minor tweak to the review header that they have to rewrite when publishing anyway.

that seems like a fair suggestion

and, yes, I do hold a publication owned by Conde Nast to a slightly higher standard than I would Joe's Reviews Blog or whatever, yeah.

anyway, it's a great review Brad! my nitpicking about the editorial staff's inconsistency isn't meant to take away from how much i enjoyed reading it. in a better world, we'd get a Taylor Swift style day filled with your thoughts on the other JEW records.

lol listen, i do get it myself, i actually do not begrudge a musician for still feeling negatively about a negative review they got twenty years ago, as someone who often finds themselves feeling sensitive and defensive during the editing process bc one or two editors were mean to me once 5-10 years ago. also as usual i think ppl are overfocused on the score—which calls attention to itself by nature—and are not really talking about the content of either review

i'm not sure changing the sunday review boilerplate would've been enough for some ppl, afaict one of the blessings of writing for pfork is that everyone on the internet reads your stuff through their amassed pitchfork baggage. (not talking about anyone in here.) regardless thank u for the nice comments jon

It's not the first time they've done a Sunday Review on an album they'd reviewed before. DiCrescenzo also reviewed Tortoise's TNT when it came out, and that's now been replaced by a more thoughtful Mark Richardson Sunday Review. Same score, though!

I will admit: when Pitchfork pitched me their first review several years ago, I pitched albums by artists whom the site had treated with contempt at some point. I think I came across Pitchfork for the first time at the dawn of the '00s googling "Pet Shop Boys." I read their horrible review of Nightlife, which treated synthesizers and gay men like malaria. I didn't read the site for years, well into the 2000s.

Lol this is basically just erasing shitty Brent D reviews

xpost - yeah, i'm totally fine with albums being approached again by new writers, it's a good idea and there have been some really terrific Sunday Reviews. one of the more recent features that i unreservedly love.

look i don't think Brent D reviews need to be preserved in amber (or anywhere at all really), don't get me wrong. however, i'd be more impressed by Pitchfork acknowledging and grappling with their problematic past instead of pretending it never happened - esp if they are going to hold artists they review to their problematic pasts.

One thing the Brent D review did get right is that emo sucks ass

and yeah, i know they threw a nudge nudge wink wink to that infamous Jet review, but i'd rather see them own up to that shitty, racist Coltrane review instead.

I much prefer them taking the garbage reviews off the internet so they can't use longtail to monetize controversy unlike, say, the websites that are like "THIS ARTICLE IS OVER FIVE YEARS OLD AND IT WAS COOL TO BE RACIST AND TRANSPHOBIC THEN"

i'd be more impressed by Pitchfork acknowledging and grappling with their problematic past instead of pretending it never happened

if a newspaper discusses an old record, the writer of the new piece is not bound to account for every opinion that any other writer has ever expressed about the same record in its pages

haha this is still on the site tho

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/4261-bleed-american/

Plus, their acronym is JEW. That's funny!

That aged like an egg on a hot sidewalk

i wouldn't be the least bit surprised if after this the Sunday Review boilerplate *does* change as Jon suggests. i know if i were in charge of it i'd strongly consider it.

i just took the word "always" out of a corporate communication for exactly this reason.

I think it's quite obvious that anything in their archive means anything in their current archive of things live on the site

On entirely unrelated note: this piece has "$xxx at Amazon" buttons for Sonos speakers which either aren't sold (new) on Amazon at all, and/or aren't available for the low price seen on the button (used, new, or otherwise).

however, i'd be more impressed by Pitchfork acknowledging and grappling with their problematic past instead of pretending it never happened - esp if they are going to hold artists they review to their problematic pasts.

There was some acknowledgment of that in the feature that accompanied the Reviews Explorer launch.

Since Pitchfork has been publishing for so long, it’s easy to forget just how humble its beginnings were, and how the norms of its early period differed from those of the present day. Pitchfork was founded by Ryan Schreiber in his suburban Minneapolis bedroom, and emerged from zine culture and the strident language of the rock press and alternative newspapers. It took a while for Pitchfork to catch up to the writers and editors who were several steps ahead in alt media, those who realized how much work needed to be done to make the music press aware of its biases and prejudices. For a large swath of time, the site was run mostly by middle-class white guys in their 20s and 30s, and a decent chunk of the taste and writing reflected that limited perspective.

We mention this not to disavow the work created during the site’s freewheeling early years, which was often incisive and entertaining and which remains an essential part of Pitchfork’s identity. But there’s no question that Pitchfork has grown and changed—we think for the better. Nowadays, Pitchfork’s writers, editors, and contributors take the site’s mission to uncover and explore crucial music wherever we find it more seriously while knowing that good, critical conversation is at its best when it’s fun, too. We expect that the longtime readers will have noticed that steady evolution, in both voice and scope.

if a newspaper discusses an old record, the writer of the new piece is not bound to account for every opinion that any other writer has ever expressed about the same record in its pages

This is where I can’t tell if people purposely read my posts in bad faith or what, but I specifically said this wasn’t Brad’s issue to resolve! Of course I don’t think the writer of the review needs to speak for anyone else! That would be dumb!

that would be dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Maybe they'll do a Sunday review some day where they only give Kid A a score of 9.0.