pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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.

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

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, June 7, 2021 1:41 PM

if any publication can draw valid comparisons to rolling stone, they've officially become indefensible.

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.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 7, 2021 3:02 PM

case in point.

i hope they pay you guys well, because jfc.

That Bleed American review is like a snarky high schooler's attempt at Christgau.

case in point.

i hope they pay you guys well, because jfc.

― things repeat forever and there never is a remedy (Austin)

I'm not sure what this means?

Am I the only one who remembers the Brent DiCrescenzo review actually being fun back in 2000, or am I going to get chased off the board for mentioning that? I mean back then, I was used to reading stodgy Rolling Stone capsule reviews, and that blogger style was pretty new.

That said, I'm pretty sure the Brent review wouldn't have made we want to listen to this album, which the new review definitely did (I was about halfway through it when i realized "wait, this has to be a brad nelson review" and sure enough).

I mean, I'm not 100% sure i was condescending indie rock asshole 22 years ago, but i definitely did enjoy reading their stuff.

if old joke reviews are now up for re-evaluation can one of you pitch a 9.5 sunday review of kylie's fever

but i guess with clarity it was just one from 1999 that got archived away at some point? for quite a while, reviews from 1999 were the oldest ones still on the site but those all seem to be gone now?

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!

I should have said I think an editorial header bringing it up ahead of any modern writer's perspective would be the wrong place too! The major looking-back-at-our-review-history feature that jaymc cited shortly after me had already been brought up, which does seem like the appropriate place to do it.

nobody reading a thoughtful retrospective essay about an old record ought to be told that a snotty joke review was also once published by somebody who hasn't worked there for decades.

my point was not "duuuuhhh you are a dummy jon," it was "thinking of a publication as having a singular authorial brain should not be encouraged. it is good if outlets pay different writers."

thinking of a publication as having a singular authorial brain should not be encouraged.

p4k kind of encourages this though, and there's at least regular enough occurences where the editorial team overrides the reviewer's score leading to a weird disconnect that people online get annoyed & confused about

Not now.

that's certainly an improvement for everyone then

I propose a score, it's usually within three or four tenths of a point. But I don't give a shit about the score: I'm more interested in whether editors understand what I write and when they edit offer suggestions that make me more intelligible to an audience. But that's me.

i think they should let the writers assign the scores

but they should have a rubric that is used throughout the department for summative evaluations

Is it really that big a deal

To me it's redolent of sports bulllshit

the degree to which editorial interfere with the scoring has been greatly exaggerated imo

Maybe this score obsession irritates me because student fight me over two tenths of a decimal point and I'm like, YOU EARNED AN A -- YOU WON.

one i can clearly remember is i wanted to give bieber's purpose a 5-point-something bc it is a dismal and depressing record and it got bumped to a 6.5. which was fine, who cares

well you're on that thread

ohi don't think it's super prominent and i honestly can't think of a case in the last three years? but there used to be the occasional issue where it was noticeable and then the writer would get twitter hate bc no one understands the process

in the era of stan attacks creating fraudulent racist tweets from freelance record reviewers, scores should be abolished

oh yeah ultimately all scores should be stripped from the site imo, i hate coming up with them and i even forgot to assign one to clarity when i filed. it'll never happen

also someone should shut down metacritic

I'm not sure what this means?

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 7, 2021 4:23 PM

jesus fucken christ

and by paying you guys well, i meant i hope you're at least taking them for all you're worth. because they certainly deserve writers of yours and brad's calibre.

and, while i understand their purpose, i absolutely agree that the overall scores can distract from the substance of the review.

because they certainly deserve writers of yours and brad's calibre.

certainly DON'T

Am I the only one who remembers the Brent DiCrescenzo review actually being fun back in 2000, or am I going to get chased off the board for mentioning that? I mean back then, I was used to reading stodgy Rolling Stone capsule reviews, and that blogger style was pretty new.

Yup, I had the same experience. Not with that particular review per se, but when I first started reading Pitchfork in the late '90s, I loved that half of the reviews felt like wacky creative-writing exercises, with albums as prompts. Not really what I'm looking for out of music criticism these days, but it did feel fresh and exciting at the time, IMO.

I also loved it at the time. I subscribed to spin around the same time, and enjoyed reading pitchfork reviews a lot more. I was 17 or so

As an aspiring music critic in ca. 2000-2001 P4k era, I used to see them as amateur hour and never really got over that feeling and thusly sought validation through the traditions of old legacy media. Long story short, Ryan is a millionaire, Pitchfork is the last website standing and I had to learn to code

I remember being actively annoyed by that style of reviews at the time, usually. They weren't always terrible, but those creative writing exercises very often gave little attention to what the record sounded like. There was also a tendency, sometimes, among certain writers of that era that readers had already heard the album and already had more than a passing familiarity with the artist, which came off as a way to prove their bona fides and "right" to write about them, but alienated readers who had little frame of reference.

i theoretically love the ambition of early pfork, it was what attracted me to the site as a kid, but the great majority of the writing did not live up to that ambition

^^^ otm

don't get me wrong, I still read it daily back then.

stating the obvious here but tim f reviews from the late-'00s are roughly 10000x more lyrical and erudite than any of the gonzo pfork stuff

very confused by austin’s moral crusade itt, i mean it’s fine to dislike a website

there's a lot of that here tbh but Pfork's the last monolith standing, I guess.

There was also a tendency, sometimes, among certain writers of that era that readers had already heard the album and already had more than a passing familiarity with the artist, which came off as a way to prove their bona fides and "right" to write about them, but alienated readers who had little frame of reference.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, June 8, 2021 8:43 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i remember this from the mid/late 00's. it created a sort of mystique around the site for me.

that era feels really different from the earliest reviews, which seem like college newspaper reviews, with all the charms and limitations that this comparison entails

one person's mystique can be another person's patina of unearned soi-disant authority tbf

soi-disant, I learned that word from the Silver Jews

hah was gonna comment something similar

why can’t monsters get along with other monsters