pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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

Well, you can't argue with that...!

lol

What’s interesting about this to me is that I just don’t understand who listens to Best Coast, or Jenny Lewis. Outside of… ILX, I don’t know a single person who has ever spoken of them in any sort of way. Who listens to this stuff?

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

"Train homage" is fightin' words though

xp- passionate millenial males

xp Hahaha, fair

That Bethany Cosentino review does scan as if she released a book of poetry rather than an album (or maybe that the reviewer is a frustrated poet).

What’s interesting about this to me is that I just don’t understand who listens to Best Coast, or Jenny Lewis. Outside of… ILX, I don’t know a single person who has ever spoken of them in any sort of way. Who listens to this stuff?

Is it so hard to believe that two musicians who make catchy pop-rock that is generally well-reviewed have fans?

I know a lot of normal non Internet damaged ppl who like Jenny Lewis

^one for the sticker

That Bethany Cosentino review does scan as if she released a book of poetry rather than an album

imo this is a thing now and it's honestly a paradigm shift. interviewers will do a whole interview of "this song here says this, can you talk more about that?" in the 90s they barely asked about lyrics at all.

I guess I just think it’s weird that I know not a single person who cares about them IRL, and it’s not like I’m only friends with heads. Lots of more “indie” people in my friend circle, never heard them mentioned in any conversation. Here and music sites are the only reason I have any knowledge of them.

I've met plenty of Best Coast fans around my age & Rilo Kiley fans who are a bit older. I liked Pocahaunted

Omg, I did not know she was in Pocahaunted. Saw them once in a warehouse-type show.

rilo kiley are a canonical millennial band imo…
not very surprising that jenny lewis has lots of fans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0X3RX2dchU

hey JCLC, what you say about what interviewers have focused on over time is very interesting… uhhh…can you talk more about that? In my experience in the 90s, my peers in the music press almost exclusively engaged with lyrics, which was in my view down to these people having no training in music theory or as working musicians, but did have english degrees. Whereas my impression now (which is indeed at a disadvantage, as I have refused to read Pitchfork since its inception) is that there is greater understanding in the (extremely diminished) music journalism sphere of how music works…

I love Best Coast! Her new record, as Lindsay Zoladz pointed out in the new yorker, is almost unusual for being a basic-ass Sheryl Crow record, except (and I don't know what the Pfork reviewer is saying because I don't fuck with no Pitchfork) in fact she uses contemporary colloquial language very effectively and smoothly, when, like Phoebe bridgers or other indie artists are more concerned with being high flown…if the Pfork reviewer is saying this record is like fancy poetry and shit? Yeah I don't know what the fuck they talking about…

as you might imagine I have rather a lot to say about this but I'd be more comfortable going into detail on 77 or in chat or something.

Yikes

Cosentino’s writing about more personal changes doesn’t fare any better. “It’s Fine,” a warm ode to taking the high road, stumbles when Cosentino sings “I am evolved,” on the closest thing the album ever gets to a bridge. The grammatical choices —“am” instead of “have”—come off more like self-help gibberish than a declaration of self-improvement. When we get to the chorus, an airy reiteration that “it’s fine” (what rhymes with “it’s fine?” Well, “it’s not fine,” of course!), her stratospheric belting feels unearned by the flimsy build-up.

I thought it was a reasonable review?

The craw-stuck lyric is not-at-all rhyming “fine” with “not fine”, the lyric is: “it’s fine ‘til it’s not fine” which is… successful at achieving universal relatability? A very good hook? I think so at least

But yeah a curse on anybody that thinks it’s nagl nagl nagl for a musician to be publicly butthurt about a review. That thing took you 40 min to write? (Reads like it, anyway!) An album takes significantly longer to write record mix master release

It’s literally my favourite thing ever when very-good music writers move into publishing after years of panning and praising for websites and inevitably get reviewed for their toiled upon book and take to Facebook to be like “wow I never realized how awful this feels holy shit”

An album could take months to make and still be shitty, I don’t really know how that factors in…

Artists have every right to take issue with criticism they don’t think it’s fair, but there’s a difference between that and say this:

https://i.imgur.io/D0ZsrbK_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

Jokes on Lizzo because I do both and I'm still unemployed :D