pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

ty maura

Oh sorry, I meant a hyperlink via a "title" to help google-proof it

xp maura - sorry about that, thanks for letting us know. and it was unhelpful of me to say their review was "awful" - rather, i thought it was dismissive and made some assumptions about the band that i disagreed with. i still don't like the review much but EE are a polarising band and i can see why someone would think that way

Back in the American suburbs

― Bittern Storm Over My Hammy (morrisp), Friday, July 7, 2023 9:40 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this wrt to Huskers is annoying as hell, they met when Mould was at Macalester College in St. Paul, the very definition of a very international, diverse, very liberal, artsy private college. The band was formed in the city. They weren't a suburban "garage band" by any stretch they were an urban band and very much part of the urban punk scene in the Twin Cities.

sorry every american town not named ny, l.a., or chicago (maybe) is the suburbs

Back in the Merica burbs
You don't know how lucky you erb

I don't know--these are some pretty suburban lyrics:

Something I learned today
Yield to the right of way
Stopping at a four-way sign
Someone else's rules, not mine, not mine

oh god the amount of 4 way stops in minneapolis and st. paul with four minnesotans all having a standoff by refusing to take the right of way

lol yes

I am not that far from the downtown of my midwestern city and I was showing another ilxor where I live on a map and they were like "so it's a suburb?!" because it's mostly residential, houses with yards, etc.

tbf my neighborhood looks like those built in a similar era in minneapolis

when I was growing up in the suburbs I appreciated "Books about UFOs" because I often sat on the roof reading.

i love that image

I am not that far from the downtown of my midwestern city and I was showing another ilxor where I live on a map and they were like "so it's a suburb?!" because it's mostly residential, houses with yards, etc.

Reminds me of when people were listening to NWA and imagining some urban hellscape because they'd never actually seen photos of Compton.

Compton is a suburb, too!

It's interesting how the city with more autonomous neighborhoods model contrasts w/cities with boroughs, cities where it's more of a county-level (or multi-county) government like LA where it's really a cluster of cities

Even if you read "Many of indie rock’s major players came out of suburbia, itself a hotbed for whiteness and heterosexuality" as meaning that some of them literally grew up in the suburbs, and did their earliest home recording there (which is def true for some major players that come to mind), it's not really saying anything other than the tautological "these are largely straight white guys/ gals from the suburbs." And, yeah, then they ended up actually playing shows in cities & college towns, because that's where the community was – same as for any music scene.

Btw, I think the Magnetic Fields get no mention – maybe they're not "secret" enough for the secret history(?), but seems like an oversight (sorry if someone mentioned this already, I can't easily re-load the above comments without freezing my browser with the entire thread).

It's such a funny fucking conceit because like 90% of "indie rockers" who grew up in the American suburbs would probably tell you that they found living there oppressive and *leaving* the suburbs was a top priority

^^^^

I don't know if i'm going to get over the "correction" of

"Arcade Fire’s 2010 album The Suburbs — which includes string arrangements from a queer artist"

"An earlier version of this piece misstated the number of people of color who have appeared on Belle & Sebastian record sleeves"

"Some of my best string arrangements are gay"

No mention of Thalia Zedek

The way the article sort of leaps from B-52's and Pete Shelley to Pansy Division felt like maybe there might be some more secret history the writer might have missed

Stephin Merritt releasing, in 1995, an entire album of indie-rock "stars" singing his lyrics is probably a more on-target example of "queering indie rock" than, say, the aesthetic of a major-label band coming out of a college town in the late '70s (not that the B-52's aren't great & worth writing about!).

Describing suburbs as “a hotbed for heterosexuality” is very hilarious to me, such a stupid phrase. Makes the suburbs seem a lot sexier than I think the writer intended. "Heteronormativity" is maybe the more apt word there

I remember my youth in the suburbs… a HOTBED of heterosexuality, it was. Every day at 5pm sharp the dads would all get home from work, and the heterosexuality would start spreading like wildfire… you could hear the indie rock for miles around, some nights…

Give John Cheever the news.

roll over Beethoven

When a son reached a certain age, his father would take him to his wood shop in the garage and give him an issue of The Big Takeover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRQ7ecvU56k

a hotbed for whiteness and heterosexuality

isn't this the by-definition coldbed

I saw Hotbed of Heterosexuality open for Corrosion of Conformity... it was a pretty sick show.

Lol morrisp

J Hus review is like a real live "Goop on Ya Grinch"

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/j-hus-beautiful-and-brutal-yard/

Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s best-known revelation after a decade of exile and imprisonment was that “the line between good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.” J Hus seems to have had a similar epiphany after 27 years of London, and eight or so navigating the music industry. On the cover of his third album, Beautiful and Brutal Yard, there are two houses: one engulfed in flames, the other smothered in bright blooms. Smoke and petals intermingle, and the whole thing takes the shape of a human heart.

........

Thumbed, hall party highlife basslines are refigured for a new generation—though some of the more choice lyrics about “the finger blaster” and sticking a “thumb in your anus” might raise more than blushes among the aunties and uncles.

lol I meant to post this quote after reading it this morning:

"Like Solzhenitsyn, J Hus is just as concerned with unpicking the knots of his own humanity as he is the societal structures and injustices that have shaped it."

Pfork says the Barbie soundtrack is one of “8 New Albums You Should Listen to Now”; but essentially drags it both in its own blurb and a neighboring blurb, and links to a 5.4 review (also published today). Are they being forced by a partnership or something to begrudgingly include the album in their weekly rundown?

(The review is unreadable, btw, IMO)

One of the six paragraphs on the review is just a recap of a scene from the movie.

of the review

And Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” is a serviceable Future Nostalgia retread that’s partially redeemed by its inclusion in an exuberant dance sequence,

how crass for Dua Lipa to contribute a Dua Lipa track

This in the intro text that always accompanies that weekly feature:

With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services.

The first sentence sort of implies that the list will be composed only of "good music," but the second takes a slightly different tack by focusing on "significant" releases. I'd say that the soundtrack of perhaps the most-anticipated film of the year, featuring songs from some of today's biggest pop stars, counts as a "significant new release," regardless of its quality, and perhaps even worth listening to for that reason alone.

kinda depends on how much one cares for pop music of course

!

https://i.imgur.io/SMH9lrq_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

having said that
i’d s a d to get BNM

— jenny lewis (@jennylewis) August 3, 2023

you hear that Alfred?

I'll tap my finger once again at the poster I had printed of Brian Gray Howe's low-key misogynistic review of Edith Frost's (to date) final album, which she said on Twitter was a contributing factor to her quitting music. I'm a fan so that particular one sticks in my craw.

I think there are a lot of bad reviews of that kind from the oughts though, pitchfork having had its fair share and fortunately they have a better approach now with the reviews, that specific kind of thing I doubt would fly now.

I didn't think I was at all cruel.

unless she specified i doubt she was calling out your review

but jlew has been through the pfork ringer multiple times between rilo kiley and her solo work, and i remember many of these reviews being kinda idk unfair. on the other hand lindsay zoladz basically canonized rk forever with a pfork piece. ultimately pfork is as varied as the ppl who write for it

i think she's talking about the bethany coast review from today

that was my suspicion

It's a negative review, but not particularly "scathing" IMO

Cosentino had an even better take:

Love how my pitchfork review is like, “there are grammatical errors in the lyrics” as if it’s a 9th grade English paper, yet no one took the time to proofread the review to make sure my last name is spelled correctly throughout.
God. Bless.

— Bethany Cosentino (@BethanyCoast) August 3, 2023