pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

https://media.pitchfork.com/photos/5e0e0f17b7c76f0009ccb48a/2:1/w_1600,c_limit/Moby.jpg

onethread

the only time i rate things is movies on letterboxd. i don’t think about it too much and just go with my gut. i tend to rate everything pretty highly and give stuff 5 stars all the time (often to the shock and dismay of my gf who is far stingier)

I rate but eventually calm down

I don't like the aggregators since they pull from a such a limited pool (professional critics on the one hand, internet nerds who watch that youtube guy on the other) and their biases when aggregated turn into a very boring and oppressive consensus

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Wednesday, August 9, 2023 11:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

there's a lotta truth to this but I think if you compare the RYM charts from 10 years ago to the charts now, they're definitely getting more diverse and esoteric

I think in both cases the main issue is these people have to score the album very quickly. when I wrote for The Quietus I'd have to turn in reviews sometimes before the album even came out. there's a lot of hyped up RYM stuff that'll have 3000 ratings within a year but 2500 of them will come within the first 2 weeks. idk I don't think that's enough time to really evaluate music, so many of my favorite albums were things I was lukewarm on at first, while I can think of a number of albums I was really excited about on release that I've cooled on since. I kinda miss those old review sites like Mark Prindle and George Starostin where they're like "I've been listening to these guys for 15 years", because even if you disagree with everything they write you at least know they've been thinking about it for a while.

A rating is always more a time capsule of how you feel about a particular work on a particular day but then, so is a review.

I really enjoy it when I rewatch a film and decide to change my rating on letterboxd, gives me the illusion that I am still capable of growth and change. I don't use RYM but you could do that too.

Left tbf there's a very easy way to access an aggregate that doesn't have the limited pool you mention - it's the charts.

having to choose between the received prejudices of a cultural elite and the heartless whims of the market, the story of my life

I like that concept of a review but it isn't how our grading and canonisation obsessed culture tends to receive them and the aggregators iron any of that out anyway

I still use them because I need some sort of filter but there's a lot you have to correct for and I wish they were treated less respectfully in general

If we're going to start bringing RYM and Scaruffi and Prindle into ILX conversations, you might as well just go full 4chan and post some pics of your "goon cave"

I'll defer to your expertise on the matter.

I come to ilx to avoid discussions of Scaruffi and Prindle!

(Not from 4chan but from musicbook, group chats, places where these people apparently matter)

You folks are intrepid; I've never found good music discussion anywhere online but here.

well quite

Rating things is lame. Zero stars.

if it’s an album I love it gets 5 stars

I can’t really parse much meaningful/interesting difference between 3 and 4 stars, let alone 100 different gradations of rating

Once every couple of years I remember Prindle exists and go look at an artist there. It’s sort of a time capsule of a more innocent Internet. The most recent one I looked up was PJ Harvey and he hated her, that was a shock - the first and third albums are almost universally praised AFAICT.

Did Buddyhead do reviews? Feel like I got them confused with Pitchfork in the early days.

Prindle was a hugely helpful resource for me when I was getting into The Fall (20+ years back). Don’t think I explored his thoughts on other artists too much… funny guy though

that guy really hated women

A year or so ago I was instructed - not asked - by a friend in a gc to stop hating on Prindle. It understandably wasn't long before the chat died, its cosiness slowly evaporated. But it makes me hate Prindle even more.

i was going to say that disliking PJ Harvey doesn't make you a woman-hater (at least for my sake i hope not, although i do have my gf's support on this) but i went to his review page and scanned through it for pages dedicated to female artists and on first pass found Joni Mitchell and Pink, both of whom he dislikes as well, so uh, does kinda seem that way, annoyingly, cos i enjoy quite a few of his reviews

on the flipside he actually really loves a whole bunch of PJ Harvey's music, and Madonna's singles, even if he expresses himself rather um unfortunately when he doesn't. dearie me

some of my best friends are PJ Harvey albums

xxxpost - milo my memory is that buddyhead has reviews for a while at least, but they were pretty short capsule punk zine style

I'd never heard of prindle before this thread, but I looked at his Tori Amos intro and Left is otm. indefensible horseshit

to be fair here Prindle himself now says he's embarrassed by most of his old reviews, finds them too needlessly edgy and confrontational, also admits he wrote a lot of them drunk. idk I think he's a good dude who went through some pretty rough times, luckily he's sober and a lot more levelheaded now. I don't think he'd defend his site more than any of us would, though I do still give it credit for introducing me to loads of good shit back in the day

Maybe he could delete the stuff he says he is embarrassed about

it's news to me that alcohol causes misogyny

like I said, I don't know anything about this guy. but if I had self-published textbook misogynistic bullshit years ago, I'd probably remove it from the public internet lest someone who doesn't know anything about me read it and logically conclude I'm a textbook misogynist. obviously on some level he wants to preserve his legacy

I liked this line in the review of the new PIL album:

End of World is hellishly inconsistent, its mid section adrift in ’80s funk-rock sheen, like INXS being harassed by an angry wasp.

no but alcohol def causes you to turn into an edgelord trying to get a rise outta people sometimes

tbh I don't know why he left that stuff up, I think at some point he wrote an explanation like "I'm embarrassed by it but don't wanna run away from who I was", most likely the reason is there are hundreds of pages on that website and he doesn't feel like crawling through them all. I mean there's all sorts of shit from 2003 internet guys who def know better now that's still up

I remember thinking Prindle was really gross even at the time, but I also happy in those early years to find anyone writing about some of the obscure artists he covered.

I like this line from that same review:

Lydon has always sung because he has to; his singular voice couples acute distress with an almost physical sense of relief.

but anyway the point of this isn't to defend Prindle's website but rather the idea that it's kind of useful to be able to follow *one* critic who writes about a bunch of albums sometimes and get a feel for how they think and what they like because I, personally, have discovered a lot of great music that way. some of those guys knew a ton about prog for instance and when they gave high marks to something in that area you knew it was good. compare to Pitchfork/Rolling Stone today, as much as I applaud their efforts to include stuff from a diverse set of genres that appeal to a diverse set of fanbases I also think this approach can lead to lists which appeal to basically no specific person

Do some of y'all not have posts on this exact website that you're not embarrassed about from 2004? Including sexist ones?

Not excusing bad behavior, but ILX's own archives show behavior as bad or worse, even from those who still post here, and nobody (besides milo) is chasing anybody around with gotcha quotes from 17 years ago.

Shit, cat.

re: ratings, I like Alfred's categories

xp
ilxors can't delete ilx posts though. idk, there's no way to genuinely respond to that Neando without sounding like a smug prick, but fwiw I do not relate to "I used to post heinous shit on the internet, it was the style at the time," and I imagine some or even many ilxors feel the same. like it's not inconceivable that some people weren't sexist in 2004, right? I'm not saying you should feel terrible about it right now and we can't account for how we grew up (I definitely said some heinous shit pre-internet when I was a kid), but I guess I'm wary of implying these things are normal or phases one naturally goes through

I suppose I'm lucky to have been fairly self-conscious & anxious for most of my internet posting life. I'd agonize over posting a blog comment or w/e, lurked for years here before posting, etc. I know there's stuff I've posted on ilx that I'd find embarrassing now, and I can recall specific posts that received deserved pushback for a variety of reasons, but nothing remotely like that Tori Amos intro (which I'm not going to post, it's gross, but maybe read it if you're finding my response too pious). I also think there's a big social dynamic difference between posting reviews and engaging in a forum discussion

maybe to get back on thread track: I think it's good pitchfork deleted their egregiously racist reviews from the early 00s

: ratings, I like Alfred's categories

― Indexed, Thursday, August 10, 2023 11:45 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglinl

That's the stuff.

xpost - yeah alfred that was great, one of the better reviews i've read for a while i thought

could you re-post Alfred?

Wait -- I'm confused.

I think I'm the one confused! what are Indexed and ums talking about?

Your point was sound, solid.

oh sorry we were talking about this PIL review

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/public-image-ltd-end-of-world/

Oh! I agree

gotcha

I think I'm the one confused! what are Indexed and ums talking about?

― rob, Thursday, August 10, 2023 11:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Your point was sound, solid.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, August 10, 2023 11:18 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

heh

I was talking about Alfred's categorical ranking system on HTV. Couldn't tell you what the difference between a 7.5 and a 7.7 rated album is, but I think having some broad categories is helpful for prioritization when you're talking about a site like Pitchfork that reviews 5 albums a day.

lol i assumed that was about a prindle review of pil

first actual prindle review of pil

No hang on that was a typo - I meant that Leonard Cohen HAS a revolting cock. It's withered and scabby with an endless stream of pus and blood oozing out all over his testicles and underpanties.