pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I really enjoyed that review but there's so much great stuff modern Pitchfork ignores that would've deserved that review slot more than Maneskin. not a fan of this mentality that because something is popular it needs to be covered, even if it's not good. there's a similar issue going on right now in games with the new Harry Potter thing--some saying it's irresponsible to write about it because Rowling's a TERF, others saying it's irresponsible to not write about it because it's going to be a big hit, and then others arguing it's a waste of time and space to write about a sure-to-be-forgotten tie-in game that's already sold millions of copies before release. all are right but only one isn't wrong.

it's fine to have the occasional negative review of unhip popular albums. it'd be boring if they focused on that too much but not covering those at all has sometimes in the past lead to weird blindspots in music criticism more broadly.

wrt games writing - what is definitely irresponsible is all the uncritical garbage reviews of hogwarts legacy that are the only type of review out there right now because the publisher only sent review codes to outlets they knew would not seriously engage with it - most comical is the ign review which is actually fairly critical but still gives it a 9/10 with very weak justifications. serious criticism of it is good to have especially to counterbalance the many many garbage reviews that do exist.

It is a rock album that sounds worse the louder you play it

a+

I haven't read it, and I'm not gonna link to it, but apparently one of the Dumbest Motherfuckers on the Internet, Freddie deBoer, has weighed in on the Måneskin review, and used the phrase "woke poptimism" with a straight face.

didn't he say he was going to fuck off from the internet after lying about Malcolm Harris

it's really quite a thing how every american leftish influencer from the mid 10s is just openly reactionary now

Follow the money. They sure did.

I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who has been interested in following FdB's work and I am unsure if I would understand them if I did

he was on the bernie side of the centre left culture war so a lot of people who should have known better were for a time

he was always pretty conservative so it doesn't reflect well on that subculture that he was ever a thing but he's far from alone there

Ugh, and I just got a "Hey, you should read this Freddie DeBoer thing!" email from Ethan Iverson (not personally; it's part of his own email list). Iverson has been outing himself more and more as a small-c conservative lately, usually through aesthetic pronouncements. He knows a lot about jazz history, which is great, and I've had enjoyable conversations with the guy, but it's like...I know you're a middle-aged white guy from rural Wisconsin, could you try a little harder to not act like it?

and used the phrase "woke poptimism" with a straight face.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, February 8, 2023 5:00 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I won't link to it either but unless I am missing it the phrase "woke poptimism" does not appear

unless I am missing it the phrase "woke poptimism" does not appear

new board description

maneskin are very confusing to me because their two modes as a band seem to be lukewarm imitations of rhcp and franz ferdinand? and then occasionally they Rock Out more too. that's just quite an odd combo

the phrase woke poptimism doesnt appear, but the concept clearly does lol

deboer's terrible attempt at music writing is still probably an improvement from his usual shit

the deboer article sucks and is obnoxious. pitchfork has always been unfairly maligned. at the end of the day, they review a wider variety of music than any other publication. and they very often elevate relatively outre stuff to BNM status. a site like pitchfork is never going to align with one's personal taste and that shoudl just be fine.

Pitchfork stopped being a music site long ago and became instead a series of instructions for how to carefully position yourself in contrast or complement to the people around you in a way that maximizes your personal brand and demonstrates that you’re the most specialist boy or girl of all.

like this is just not true. and if it wasn, it wouldn't even be a bad thing.

i *wish* there was still social currency in having unique taste. but increasingly this isn't the case anymore. everyone is just drowning in their feeds, they know they are one click away from virtually any music that might catch their interest.

the hipster is dead. freddie is beating a corpse.

also, like, there are limits to the kind of formal analysis that is possible in a popular journal. readers want context, they want narative. and freddie himself makes his living as a cultural gadfly. it's ignorant for him to pretend that such discussions have no place in "reviews."

do not give him this amount of oxygen imo

no one knows who that guy is or cares what he thinks

There are two things going on at once:

1) DeBoer, as always no matter the topic, is asserting that everyone else on Earth is writing based on some hidden agenda, often one based on maintaining in-group status (the fact that said in-group has thoroughly and repeatedly rejected DeBoer has nothing to do with it, and how dare you even imply such a thing), and he is the one brave truth-teller who can see through everyone else's hypocrisies and social positioning

2) Like every writer who spends most of their time writing about politics, his taste in music is absolutely awful

third thing is that he demonstrates he has no real idea what he's talking about (as with pretty much everything), his criticism isn't even coherent

do not give him this amount of oxygen imo

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, February 11, 2023 9:11 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no one knows who that guy is or cares what he thinks

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, February 11, 2023 9:12 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

so otm

i will just say that i'm on this thread, i suck at new music but i still read reviews and listen to what you all say, and i have never heard of deBoer until he came up here, which led me to seek out this person to learn the context of how bad they suck, exactly. i am very willing to admit that, like pauline kael and film criticism, i'm just missing some easily well known figure in the field and i am a complete dumbass for not knowing, but on the other hand, maybe i pay more attention to music than most people and yet miraculously don't know who this dumbass is, perhaps because they suck so badly

it could be a number of things going on really

deboer is not a music writer, he's a politics writer and you should be glad to have never heard of him. one of the many supposed 'leftists' who've become increasingly openly reactionary cranks, that whole terrible niche.

i am very familiar with the guy and he was a fucking reactionary a decade ago

i mean maybe it’s a greenwald situation where the confirmed worst person on the internet just got worse and worse but i can’t emphasize enough how the only context in which i am familiar with deboer’s work is mercilessly making fun of it with other catty bloggers a decade ago. no one actually read him. if he has somehow managed to acquire an audience via substack well that sucks bc he’s just an awful writer and thinker. but this is also the first time i’ve heard his name in like ten years

I'm in the same boat. His name surfaced in 2015 (?) over drivel he'd written about poptimism.

Teedra Moses today!

There's this thing that happens when I read pieces like the DeBoer essay. I initially agree with the opening points, but then find myself disagreeing so strongly with the supporting arguments, to a point that I no longer agree with the opening points at all.

i mean maybe it’s a greenwald situation where the confirmed worst person on the internet just got worse and worse

yeah it's this. having gotten a much bigger audience because anti-woke "left" is an in-demand niche these days has made him a fair bit worse than before

could it be that this dude is a braying moron AND pitchfork is a commercially-driven enterprise whose reviewing range is quite broad yet whose vaunted Lists (and BNMing) are in some non-negligible sense a brand positioning exercise? from what little attention I pay I've noticed them shove loads of great stuff into the 8.0 non-BNM pocket

sure, it’s a publication. thank u for the contribution

lol, fair

my main incentive here is not siding with a prick so happy to yield

not to repeat myself, but to repeat myself, but shouldn't it be disqualifying from anyone ever taking him seriously for anything ever if he FALSELY ACCUSED ANOTHER WRITER OF SEXUAL ASSAULT and ADMITTED TO IT???

i mean the worst thing about these woke poptimism pieces is they might be close to highlighting a real dynamic if they didn’t get there through bad faith and relentless projection

this week i personally have beef with bands getting demerits for clunky political lyricism if they’re not making the “right” kind of rock music, which just makes me want to rate on a 10 point scale any paragraph of music criticism that says anything along the lines of “in these chaotic times” etc. etc.

re: my first point, iirc i think whitney’s poptimism 2.0 thread >>>>> any poptimism exposé

yeah I reread that thread recently and it's prescient & otm despite all the pushback Whiney gets at the start

I only know of FdB from him getting relentlessly clowned on tiger beatdown 10+ years ago, so it's surprising news to me that he's known as a "leftist" (not that I'm disputing it, just have no context for it). I don't know what incident Murgatroid is referring to, but yikes

I'm a look-to-the-language person, and if a writer makes reductive, contorted arguments I will mostly find a reductive, contorted person who traffics in bad faith.

any paragraph of music criticism that says anything along the lines of “in these chaotic times” etc. etc.

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I guess some readers must dig it…

It's therefore no surprise for a writer who falsely accused a person of sexual assault can also write badly more banal things.

this week i personally have beef with bands getting demerits for clunky political lyricism if they’re not making the “right” kind of rock music

feeling useless behind this computer rn

DeBoer, as always no matter the topic, is asserting that everyone else on Earth is writing based on some hidden agenda

unperson otm. the brief bits I read from FdB years ago always left me wondering who the hell he was referring to

This review made me think of brad’s comment above… is it a record review, or literary criticism(?)

definitely not a fan of reviews that focus on lyrics above all else, even in genres where they're more of a focus

It's just one paragraph though

I'd say that my overwhelming preference is for music without vocals, but I think lyrics should definitely factor in when evaluating a record like this one. I mean it's not Cocteau Twins

i think lyrics are absolutely fair game but are also an easy target, and i’ve come to think over the years that lyrics do not need to be traditionally “good” writing to be effective or inhabitable

i’m not familiar with the quasi record so i’m just gonna talk about paramore:

paramore lyrics are always v plainspoken and sometimes more ungainly than elegant/eloquent but they often still pierce the heart of their subject matter, e.g. “crave,” a song that captures the difficulty of living in the moment as well as any i’ve heard

“the news” is the track that gets reamed in the pfork review and while i don’t think “every second our collective heart breaks” is like fantastic writing i think the song really effectively portrays what it’s like to be constantly aware of every horrible thing in the world and the feedback loop of helplessness and powerlessness this creates in one’s mind. it is also clearly uh in the lineage of hüsker dü’s “turn on the news” which has one of the most earnest and doofiest lyrics ever and that’s why it’s good