If you guys are curious to dig into what I'm talking about, I genuinely think the origins of the terms of this conflict can be found in this thread. See arguments from Mark K Punk, Simon, and Tim F, Woebot, others: https://www.dissensus.com/index.php?threads/1143/
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 20:52 (two years ago) link
"Underneath the ill-advised MLK quotes, you’ll find an earnest pop album that unearths the charisma and agility that helped make Bieber a star."
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Tuesday, June 15, 2021 3:52 PM (eighteen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink
7.2 ... so hyperbolic
thank you for pointing me towards this review because it is hilarious
Bieber is not a powerhouse vocalist, but he is a compelling one, casually dropping in a stray yodel here, a Mariah Carey-indebted set of runs there. His voice has a palatable smoothness; he’s mastered push-and-pull dynamics, and he swings effortlessly from a placid chest voice to a zephyr of a falsetto. That litheness and control are on full display across Justice. Even when the songwriting is spiritless and the production rote—and it occasionally is, as on the confessional “Unstable” and the saccharine “Deserve You”—he still sings the hell out of it.
his voice ranges from placid to wispy, I cannot argue with this
― 80's hair metal , and good praise music ! (DJP), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 20:58 (two years ago) link
"casually dropping in a stray yodel here" is also killing me, like does he just go full Lonely Goatherd in the middle of a slow jam
― 80's hair metal , and good praise music ! (DJP), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:00 (two years ago) link
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, June 15, 2021 3:52 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
oh i wasn't commenting on the rating, i just thought that quote was funny
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:00 (two years ago) link
but isn't it true the writers don't determine the actual score
kidding, kidding
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:01 (two years ago) link
hyperbolic love of pop music & being corny about it are signs of being an earnest young person who is new to criticism, not signs of corporate strategy imo. there's some overlap there, but the objections are aesthetic pretending to be ideological, imo
completely otm
Then what's ILM's excuse?
there's obviously a difference between a message board & actual published music criticism
― ufo, Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:03 (two years ago) link
that's right, ilm's where all the money's at
#paymentforposts
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:07 (two years ago) link
like just personally I find the conspiracy theorizing very fucking weird since I started writing for them in 2012, I had almost entirely written about pop music, and that was pre-conde
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:07 (two years ago) link
i think the other thing that rankles about the original tweet is that pure poptimist pop is really at a low ebb commercially right now... olivia rodrigo & doja cat are basically the only two breakout pop stars of the last year and a half, and pitchfork barely covers them, at least from a critical POV. what's driving authentic rock music down and off the review pages is moneybagg yo, lil durk, lil baby, rod wave, polo g etc ... not exactly rich white girls on pills. and of course, pitchfork is actually ambivalent about much of that music as well despite its immense power in the marketplace, while on a daily basis putting its critical weight behind tons of underground rap music that is more artistically pure than the above artists and which would never get any coverage elsewhere. pitchfork was the first/only critical outlet to write about i.e. capella grey "gyalis" which is a great independent song w/ a localized fan base, but of course red scare hangers on have no idea what that song is. so really what you have is culturally out of touch ppl RTing themselves to explain why they don't ideologically align w/ a culture that they don't, in reality, understand
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:07 (two years ago) link
xp -- to be fair I think what people are reacting to are year end lists which do tend to skew more pop. like someone posted a screenshot of the WAP writeup
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:11 (two years ago) link
this is the problem ofc ... people think if you're criticizing The Bad Tweet you're defending Pitchfork
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:16 (two years ago) link
xps eh dua lipa has been a huge success lately both commercially & critically (though of course p4k hasn't been that on board) but i get the broader point
but yeah the problem is the twitter op etc. don't understand shit at all on top of the lazy purely reactionary rockism
― ufo, Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:18 (two years ago) link
this latest poptimism fuss having started from Red Scare should be deeply embarrassing for us all
― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:19 (two years ago) link
xpost - re: Dua Lipa, most artists would kill to be ignored like this
https://pitchfork.com/search/?query=dua%20lipa
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:20 (two years ago) link
It’s hilarious to think of some nerd Walkman fan triggered by the Pitchfork tweet and visits the site for the first time in 8 years and then trying to figure this out https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/rxk-nephew-slitherman-activated/
― bruce spr!ngisH3r3 on broadway (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:22 (two years ago) link
xp p4k covers any pop star these days that has any sort of 'cred' at all
what i meant is they were cooler on the album than a lot of places, didn't give it the fabled bnm etc. when it was quite a critical darling elsewhere
― ufo, Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:24 (two years ago) link
It’s hilarious to think of some nerd Walkman fan triggered by the Pitchfork tweet and visits the site for the first time in 8 years and then trying to figure this out
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/rxk-nephew-slitherman-activated/
― bruce spr!ngisH3r3 on broadway (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 15, 2021 4:22 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
i mean, its a pan, and ian cohen likes it ... not too different from cam'ron era really
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, June 15, 2021 4:20 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
She had one of the biggest albums in the world and it wasn't reviewed, though they did review the follow-up and its pfork-baiting project of club remixes with like, theo parrish on it. She had some stuff on year end lists bc some hits are always on year end lists. pretty modest treatment again imo
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:29 (two years ago) link
not defending pitchfork -- just arguing that these broad characterizations of its pop coverage are misleading
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:30 (two years ago) link
she could've gotten a review if only she'd included some ill-advised mlk quotes
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:30 (two years ago) link
well, pitchfork covers pop stars heavily when it comes to news bcuz news is what drives traffic on a daily basis and you can't employ 50+ ppl at living wages by posting updates on indie rock music. simply put, it's not feasible. the incentive structure as it pertains to that part of the site is pretty clear and unavoidable. but is that what bothers ppl? the news coverage? maybe it is idk. bcuz as many ppl have pointed out on a critical level what the site gets behind has, if anything, retreated further back towards indie rock, outsider type music and away from poptimism
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:32 (two years ago) link
variables:
a) as mentioned there is an impending conde nast strike b) there just was a global pandemic that shut down the global economyc) stan backlash has gotten a lot worse than it was in 2015 so writers may be more hesitant to jump on big pop albums, many writers (who aren't me) have explicitly said this was a factor in declining to write about certain pop albumsd) pop music has kind of diffused into 50 million tiktok kids who may not have "albums" to reviewe) did I mention there was a global pandemic
I really, really would not draw very many conclusions about editorial strategy from 2020-21
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:44 (two years ago) link
xp as you already basically pointed out it's people who aren't really paying attention at all to any of this stuff & as katherine suggested it's probably mostly in reaction to the year end lists etc. mostly because they're what seems to get the most wider traction and has the most people quoting goofy blurbs etc. to mock on twitter
― ufo, Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:47 (two years ago) link
c) stan backlash has gotten a lot worse than it was in 2015 so writers may be more hesitant to jump on big pop albums, many writers (who aren't me) have explicitly said this was a factor in declining to write about certain pop albums
oof this didn't occur to me but of course, not worth the hassle
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:49 (two years ago) link
some kneejerk p4k criticisms also basically boil down to "people shouldn't use fancy words to talk about music"
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:50 (two years ago) link
like so: https://www.tiktok.com/@therealzebos/video/6939212645169908997
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:51 (two years ago) link
several house legends on that Dua Lipa remix project (Mr Fingers, Masters at Work, Moodymann) but Parrish wasn’t among themxps
― ten man poland chasing this means hamsik feasts (breastcrawl), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:51 (two years ago) link
yea philistinism getting traction on twitter is no big surprise, i just think its important to observe there are communities where its been -- to be funny -- manufactured a bit
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, 15 June 2021 21:52 (two years ago) link
several house legends on that Dua Lipa remix project (Mr Fingers, Masters at Work, Moodymann) but Parrish wasn’t among them
xps
― ten man poland chasing this means hamsik feasts (breastcrawl), Tuesday, June 15, 2021 4:51 PM (forty-one seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink
xp my bad yea ... i think i was probably remembering wishing he was lol
xps Fisher is a extremely popular among the edgelord podcast crowd for other work so it wouldn't surprise me if they've inherited his boring views on music as well
― Left, Wednesday, 16 June 2021 00:20 (two years ago) link
i'm sure it's a half-assed regurgitation of his views as well instead of having any thought put into it at all
― ufo, Wednesday, 16 June 2021 00:23 (two years ago) link
well obviously
― Left, Wednesday, 16 June 2021 00:34 (two years ago) link
deej otm
it’s not just ppl who listen to podcasts either, i remember a tweet a while back by OP of this thread saying like ‘poptimism was a mistake other than for the 18 months where timbaland wikki-wikki beats and neptunes were on the charts and that was only good bc it was referencing experimental music’.
poptimism 1.0 won the battle but lost the war
― flopson, Wednesday, 16 June 2021 06:35 (two years ago) link
Also the six weeks when "My Sharona" was #1
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 12:39 (two years ago) link
would love to meet a guy who's a poptimist but only for the one week period where def lep's "love bites!" was number one
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 14:13 (two years ago) link
isn't that just diamond joe biden
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 15:53 (two years ago) link
i missed this article from March but I think the cultural nu-Vice hipster zeitgeist around podcast left / anti-poptimism / et al cultural moment https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/07/business/media/the-drunken-canal-media-nyc.html
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 19:16 (two years ago) link
combine this w the mark fisher thing we talked about upthread ... poptimism was for many ppl a trend after the nerds took over being into cool underground music. .. now it goes the other way etc
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 19:17 (two years ago) link
wish i hadn't read that article and learned that one of the red scare hosts is going to be in season 3 of succession :(
― the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 19:26 (two years ago) link
wau and lol @ that Drunken Canal story.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 19:27 (two years ago) link
great news!pitchfork is unionized (#1 in a series.)
.@p4kunion, @newyorkerunion, and @ars_union are thrilled to announce that after 2-and-a-half years of negotiations with @CondeNast, we have reached an agreement in principle on our first contracts and averted a strike.🎇Here are some of our wins: (1/9)— Pitchfork Union (@p4kunion) June 16, 2021
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 22:05 (two years ago) link
starting to think the pitchfork is poptimist tweet was an anti-union psyop...
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 22:42 (two years ago) link
oh hey the wolf alice review finally arrived and it mostly sucks lol
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Thursday, 17 June 2021 14:26 (two years ago) link
been a while since I've seen a review tie itself in knots explaining its critical position quite this much
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Thursday, 17 June 2021 14:29 (two years ago) link
Ian Cohen shitty review shocka
― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), Thursday, 17 June 2021 15:04 (two years ago) link
the Sinead O'Connor review today is fantastic. I'm not normally a big fan of reviews steeped in biographical detail but I think Sodomsky's done a great job of tying her origins and story to how her music sounds and why it's so excellent.
― boxedjoy, Sunday, 20 June 2021 10:43 (two years ago) link
Yeah it’s so good – and he does it right! He weaves those key details throughout a piece that’s squarely focused on the album. (These Sunday reviews often feel like exhaustive biographical essays with a few paragraphs on the album being “reviewed.”)
― search term: buttrock (morrisp), Sunday, 20 June 2021 17:09 (two years ago) link
dammit he's good
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 20 June 2021 17:25 (two years ago) link
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sinead-oconnor-the-lion-and-the-cobra/
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Sunday, 20 June 2021 17:56 (two years ago) link