pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

J0rdan, I was saying all that value neutral, you dickhead

I mean, if finding out about new rap music means following a bunch of IG accounts and YouTube channels and social media accounts, then A) You can understand why guys like Kevin P0well (and me) find the act of "finding out about new rap" somewhat alien these days and B) My point stands somewhat because combing through 7,000 IG accounts still counts as more "work" than turning on Rap City and seeing the Busta video everyone else is seeing.

idk, if you are a fan of lil baby (one of the most popular artists in america) and follow him on spotify and instagram, there's a good chance you'd have heard of veeze. that's only one youtube sub/ig follow there. if you are a bit deeper into rap, maybe you like babyface ray or lucki, who collaborate with veeze all the time (that is two more ig follows/yt subs).

anyway, the point is that more people should listen to veeze

i will admit part of the reason my hip-hop listening cratered is how overwhelmed I got trying to keep up with the scene when the scene firmly moved away from an albums genre and became a mixtape genre.

used to love the goon threads but by the time I'd get around to liking shit everybody'd moved on to discussing Big Uzi Chronotrigga or whatever else was new.

had to remind myself 'it's ok to not know about things'

Rappers that my students talked about today: Veeze, Rio Da Yung Og, Autumn!, MAF Teeski, Peezy, AyooLii, Baby Smoove, Babyface Ray, BabyFxce E, BabyTron, Lil Double O, Young Nudy, GlockBoy BoBo, Heembeezy, Drilla, 22Gz, Juice WRLD, Young Dolph, Real Boston Richey, Young Pappy.

— Joshua Minsoo Kim (@misterminsoo) November 1, 2023

the first time I ever felt "get off my lawn" in my life is when I started listening to rap post Chief Keef, lecturing people about how Big L should have a statue and other boring opinions

xpost Glockin' on Bobo

the 'sounds like greek to me!' response is partly / largely old age BUT

the spotify algorithmic playlist silo way of thinking does tend to make the stupid poptimist vs. underground argument feel extremely obsolete... everyeone likes some stuff thats hugely popular and some stuff thats obscure now...being into 'underground music' (or rappers with <50,000 monthly listeners) is 100% democratized...even a 12CD person of the 90s will listen to some soundcloud artist now that could move an album in the CD era

that could NOT move an album in the CD era...

I mean, to Jordan's point, I'm a grown 44 year old and I'm not going to "follow" literally anyone on Spotify or even use IG or TikTok.

I did spin the Veeze tape tho

Jaymc OTM

jmk def teaches in chicago, right? probably skews it a bit towards drill, plus other midwest stuff

xps

Big L should absolutely have a statue

well, yeah

he does have a street named after him in harlem

as he should

i know this is the pitchfork is dumb thread

but "The Ones" column in Pitchfork is great for discovering new rap stuff

it's old fashioned you can read it and everything

I use Spotify all the time...but I never use playlists. The playlists I made I use for the beach or a BBQ or something.

i use playlists to keep track of what i listen to. too easy for things to get lost (in the digital ether, in the recesses of my mind) otherwise

i know this is the pitchfork is dumb thread

but "The Ones" column in Pitchfork is great for discovering new rap stuff

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 7, 2023 12:43 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I agree ... its so good that some guy responded to jmk implying that it sounded like those kids read pitchfork not realizing its that alphonse does a good job covering what's relevant, not that the kids read alphonse to learn what's relevant

I create my own yearly "202_ Faves" playlist, and occasionally a few other types (e.g., Taylor Vault tracks); but otherwise I mainly listen to albums and specific tracks (of my choosing). I'll check out pre-existing playlists occasionally, but I think they're human-curated and are updated weekly (e.g., "Fresh R&B"). I have no use for algorithmic "suggestions," and turn that stuff off immediately.

yeah I like having a "year listening thread" too, good way to keep track

there are some amazing playlists on Spotify too

-Even just keeping up with my bubble of mostly weirdo dance music and jazz, through Bandcamp notifications and ig/twitter mostly, can feel overwhelming.

-Anytime I step out of that bubble even a little I find an avalanche of new music, say by clicking on a random person's Bandcamp collection (often someone who's bought something of mine) or by listening to NTS, or even just looking at NTS playlists.

-Most friends my age (late 30s/early 40s) complain about not being able to find new music, and I think it's just because they don't have the habit of looking for it or don't know where to begin. When they were younger it seemed to just magically appear, either through radio or friends listening to Pitchfork-popular records at parties etc.

I just go to albumoftheyear.org, look at scores, and just pick decently scored things from genres I like. That gives me all I can handle with new music.

For me it’s a combination of

1. Investigations I actively do in conjunction with music writing
2. Direct suggestions from friends
3. Music encountered in the wild or in movies
4. Facebook feed - I’m connected to people with a wide variety of tastes
5. Pitchfork/The Wire/Stereogum
6. ILM, especially the year end poll

As others have said, there is no shortage of great music being made. It’s just that you have to hunt a bit for what you’ll like.

This goes without saying but as with every imaginable medium, new music is also competing with all the older music that’s also a click away.

ILM's my best resource after my students tbh

The notion of found playlists being the core of anyone is baffling to me, but the world is baffling to me in so many ways, and the world keeps changing.

7. My son, who is into a bunch of rap I don’t understand (but also has interestingly pretty broad taste)

raymond's son post on ilx challenge

How I learn about new music:

1) Emails from publicists, labels, and sometimes artists themselves
2) Twitter (this is my major discovery portal for new death metal)
3) Occasional visits to a few MP3 blogs (they still exist, you know)
4) Checking new releases on Bandcamp once a week or so

For me:

ILM, mostly for rock, pop, and jazz

Glenn McDonald's New Releases by Genre page, mostly for techno, house, other dance, and then exploring things that catch my attention further on spotify

Following a bunch of record label's catalog playlists on spotify

Searching through various other spotify playlists, but that is always a crapshoot

Sometimes checking out things in my bandcamp music feed

I just go to albumoftheyear.org, look at scores, and just pick decently scored things from genres I like. That gives me all I can handle with new music.

― Jeff, Tuesday, November 7, 2023 1:20 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Albumoftheyear.org is my first stop, too. I like that you can sort by publication, too, so you can see (for instance) everything Pitchfork reviewed this year ranked by score.

I learned it by watching you!

Most great new music doesn't even get reviewed though :(

I get many suggestions from Joshua Mins00 Kim, to whom deej linked upthread (Glockboy most recently).

there's gotta be an old thread for this topic.

i use a combination of bandcamp, instagram, DJ sets posted online, spotify, and ILM to find music, almost none of it algorithmic, mostly through specific curators. on IG i follow artists, labels, and record stores, along with curatorial groups that are in some nether zone between label/artist collective/music blog. on spotify i check out new music by artists i follow and i use other people's playlists to find stuff

I check things out if the sleeve art looks cool on discogs

I find it amazing (in the best way) not just that I am constantly being introduced to new (to me, not just contemporary) music, but sometimes entire strains or sub-genres or categories of music that I'd missed. The shame is that I recognize I don't have the bandwidth to give it the attention it deserves, but I like knowing that it exists.

A) You can understand why guys like Kevin P0well (and me) find the act of "finding out about new rap" somewhat alien these days and B) My point stands somewhat because combing through 7,000 IG accounts still counts as more "work" than turning on Rap City and seeing the Busta video everyone else is seeing.

i'm not sure why point A matters. seems like a personal problem and not a cultural problem to me. at what point has contemporary rap ever been concerned with whether 40 year olds were finding the music? that a 40 year old could open XXL or vibe and keep up w/ rap was accidental, basically. and all that access never seemed to convince old heads that the new music was worth a damn anyway. sounds like you tbh!

as for point B, this pretty much has already been said but my point is that if you engage w/ rap culture online (aka being a fan of rap music) veeze's social media ubiquity is essentially akin to turning on the rap city and seeing a new face next to jay z in his videos enough times that you detect the signal that you should be paying attention to this person, eventually you check for the music etc. i would agree w/ the statement that the degree to which rap culture and rap music flows thru IG, tik tok etc is really bad for a number of reasons, but you can still map the rise of a lot of contemporary breakout rappers thru the bigger artist they are attached to. playboi carti's artists are huge right now for example. rylo rodriguez is another prominent example from this year -- lil baby has been posting on his IG story for 2-3 years that rylo was his single favorite rapper. lil baby has 23 million IG followers, rylo had a top 10 album this year. for all the ways things have changed w/ music discovery, the concept of a rapper saying "you like my music, well here are my new artists, you'll like them too" still carries a lot of currency. it's just that the cosign may come first in the form of an IG follow, which is noticed by fans etc. i'm not arguing that the lay person should care about IG follows or that such knowledge is integral to enjoying the music, just that i don't think fan behavior has changed on an intrinsic level all that much, only that technology has.

ultimately the thing i don't get is that you want to stand proudly athwart popular music culture but also, for some reason, are constantly complaining about how it isn't made/marketed directly for your consumption. but that's a separate discussion.

the quietus, RA, foxy digitalis, unperson’s columns, ILM

i also have a filter for bandcamp emails, and i go through those every two weeks or so

the concept of a rapper saying "you like my music, well here are my new artists, you'll like them too" still carries a lot of currency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIV5tkdk64c

I just hallucinate new music, in that you are all a subset of my shifting reality.

i exclusively listen to music ned buys on bandcamp

i have 1 billion songs to go

I just hallucinate new music, in that you are all a subset of my shifting reality.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, November 7, 2023 1:31 PM

i. . . am grateful to be here? in that case. thanks for thinking of me.

With hindsight, it’s clear that Up was a transitional record, the pivot point between R.E.M.’s reign as the biggest band in the college-rock underground and their subsequent act packing arenas.

I might be misreading this but isn't he like 3-5 albums too late with this observation?

otherwise, I'm shocked a reissue of a 2nd or 3rd tier REM album is getting lead review placement on pfork in 2023. As an REM fan I'd be pleased but can't help but feel it's a direct reflection of the decreasing prominence of reviews in their brand

Yeah that’s a weird sentence… Erlewine must know his R.E.M. timeline, so I assume it’s some kind of glitch in phrasing.

I like the review a lot, btw… he makes some nice observations.