So, what is the worst music review ever then?

OTM.

Where once tread singles dealing with sexism and identity named "Just A Girl" and Sunday Morning" now laid only ineffectual dancey fluff with titles like "Hey Baby" and "Hella Good."

I didn't mind that last record (what I heard of the singles anyway) but to be totally dry, how on earth did he miss the lyrical content (sexual politics re: male/female imbalances of touring musicians) in 'Hey Baby'?? It's not THAT subtle.

You know this really isn't worth your time because you're just going to hear it anyway, over and over again, whether you want to or not.

He has a point. Not totally related to this record alone but still valid.

It's pop... and this is about as good as it gets

Then he blows it with a mega-rockist generalisation.

http://www.dorfdisco.de/cds/1104en.phtml#sylvie

All of those reviews on that dorfdisco page are pretty appalling.

Apparently unironic use of the word "pimpalicious". (Not that using pimpalicious in an ironic fashion would make it acceptable.) ("It'll make you wanna dance and fuck at the same time. A pimpalicious freak-out fest for all the creatures of the night.")

"They're a band I haven't heard of, but they're on Sub Pop, a label that was really big in the 1990s during the whole grunge thing, but that I haven't heard much about lately." Really keeps his ear to the ground, this one.

Whatever this is supposed to be, whether or not it's for real (and it's probably not), the concept is so well developed, the execution so crisp, that unless you're some total jaded hipster douche bag, you're gonna love this one all the way through till the very end. But what if I am a total jaded hipster douche bag? Damn. SOL.

Dick Cheney=scumbag
Conor Oberst=douchebag

highlights from their "top albums of 2004" feature:

on !!!:

"An eclectic album filled to it's gaping lid with trumpets, weird a capella 'doo doo doo' noises and astral space-jazz from the planet Funkatron 47. The singer's got the worst haircut since the eighties ended, but this bass-heavy punk-funk velociraptor deserves to have pride of place in your record collection, next to your now-made-irrelevant Chili Peppers collection."

on Interpol:

"I think contemplation comes to mind the most when listening to Interpol. Antics gives the listener time to just stare off into space. It’s nothing really to think about, but just time to daydream for a bit."

on Morrisey:

"Besides the political talk, Morrissey still is able to belt out a good tragic love song. In his pin-stripped suit and very old sex appeal, Morrissey still has the ability to melt the hearts of his old fans as well as capture the eye and love of his new. What else would he want? Maybe a love to keep him warm at night. Nothing really special, just someone who will love him for who he is: a rock star."

wow.

Check out this Comets On Fire review:

http://www.dorfdisco.de/cds/1104en.phtml#comets

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000690OJ.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

hahahaha

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/musicreviews/w/woven_hand.htm

(And I'm not religious either.)

my head hurts.

http://www.freep.com/sports/albom/mitch20_20030720.htm

Maybe they should stop smoking pot as well, in order to keep motivated, to keep moving forward. Otherwise, they'll be stuck in the 60s and 70s forever - an unhealthy thing for five young dudes in a band in the year 2004.

http://www.musicdish.com/mag/list.php3?author=3

I still respect him as one of the great musicians of late '90s, but I have very little respect for him as a person.

That said, Halfway to a Threeway succeeds where Eureka failed. (Maybe Jim actually took my advice.)

And Jaymc's post on the thread frank linked!!

Her misguidedness notwithstanding, Bridgewater's writing style smacks of high-school journalism. I expect the review to end with, "All in all, it was a pretty good gig, and if you're looking for something different, you should definitely check them out."

FORCEFIELD
Load Records
Roggaboggas
17 "songs"

"Load" records, indeed. This is some haw-haw collective of performance-art types, wearing throw rugs and mop-wigs on the cover, playing oscillators, loops and video game sound effects, and it sucks harder than a two-dollar crack whore. The first "number" is a one-note synth fart, held for a solid minute. And it's the best thing on here. There are long stretches that sound like leaky faucets, tests of the Emergency Broadcast System, and elderly people coughing up hairballs. Six tracks and twenty minutes in, you finally hear a beat, not that a beat could redeem this catastrophe. Almost looks like they're selling it as a sci-fi concept album, but there are no vocals or liner notes, and even the press sheet is one big, pointless Fuck-You to the general public. They list fake names (smart move), and thank a buncha people with fake names too. These guys should learn that the bigger the in-joke, the less funny it is. To think that they actually sat around attaching song titles to this puddle of misery is mind-blowing. Someone sank big money into the thing, but there's no way that even the band members listen to it. Helen Keller could make a better record in her sleep, and she's dead. Honestly, these people should be ashamed. (Joe Coughlin)

ROCKISM AT WORK

NEPTUNE
Intimate Lightning
10 songs

Neptune is a band with a shtick---every instrument played on this disc was made from scrap steel by guitarist/vocalist Jason Sidney Sanford. And that's a pretty cool shtick, if your band is going to have one. But the reality of the effect this shtick has on the music is that... well, the music sounds like it was made on instruments made from scrap steel. In other words, if you're looking for hum-along melodies or familiar guitar chords, you'd best be looking elsewhere. Neptune's songs have a distinctly atonal, rather experimental feel to them, calling to mind at various points the more drunk-sounding efforts of Tom Waits on Rain Dogs, or the less radio-friendly songs of early Sonic Youth, and at times verging on industrial territory. Now, I have a strong suspicion that these guys could play pretty, melodic music on scrap-steel instruments, if they so desired---I'm not faulting them as musicians. This kind of avant-whatever stuff just isn't my cup of tea, you know? It is rare that I enjoy music made by clever people, and Neptune simply comes across as being more clever than most. But if you're clever, too, you should probably get this, and leave me to listen to Motorhead or something. (Tim Emswiler)

...

VINCEBUS ERUPTUM
Load Records
Vincebus Eruptum
8 songs

Ah, further muck-metal ramblings from the bowels of Load Records. On their self-titled debut, Vincebus Eruptum do their best to pummel the listener with a combination of high-velocity drums and howling guitar parts, tempered with slothful, growling bass and guttural screeching. This combination, while it might sound like a recipe for motion sickness, actually works quite well. Combined with their extensive use of distortion, on guitars and bass, they create a sound that is at times reminiscent of early grind-core acts such as Napalm Death. Given a bit more time with their instruments and in the studio, I imagine Vincebus Eruptum will grow well beyond the local scene. However…

While the music itself holds up well enough, the vocals---and more specifically, the lyrical content---do little to maintain one's ability to take the band seriously. If a band is going to put the effort into releasing a debut CD, theoretically in an effort to get their perceived audience to take them seriously, they'd be well advised to leave out songs in which the vocalist screams, "Who farted?" (Josh Witkowski)

...

KITES
Load Records
Royal Paint with the Metallic Gardner from the United States Helped Into An Open Field By Women And Children
10 songs

(Sigh) Yep, that's really the title. Probably not a good sign when the press sheet looks like one of those letters from Son of Sam. Anyway, after enduring the ass-reaming agony of the Forcefield record, I had to see if these, er, Load label people maybe had a single, unfortunate lapse in judgment by releasing that full album's worth of head-splitting feedback and synthetic flatulence. But no. In fact, I'd swear this was the same band. I hate even using "band" in this context. The idea that a single word, thought, or cent is ever exchanged between actual humans over this nonsense just blows my fuckin' mind. If infants could talk, they'd ask you to turn this off. I'm all for the DIY thing, and if someone enjoys it, God bless 'em. But if you care about little things like melody, a beat, any discernable sense of purpose whatsoever, and not having to see if your stereo's broken, keep lookin'. To quote an old joke, this record wasn't released, it escaped. (Joe Coughlin)

I'm having a hard time concentrating. What is happening all around me? Is this music? It seems like noise, like the sound of a thousand fax modems and printers and scanners all fighting one another, or maybe making love to each other in some sort of digital orgy. It hurts. I want to stop, but I can't. I need more of this, I need to listen, to see what happens, not only in the music, but to me. I can't seem to focus on the task at hand. Even the most mundane details are tripping me up. I don't know if I'll be alright. I love this album though. I want it all the time. I don't care what it does to me, I must listen.

Okay, there, I've turned it off, now I can try to put everything is perspective. Techno? Not really, but sort of by default. This is more like a hyperactive Merzbow, or a non-linear digital Lightning Bolt, and musically, it makes no sense whatsoever. But I have been deeply affected by this record, and I doubt I'll ever be the same. (Jesse Thomas)

Yeah! Nah, I just have to stand up for the Noise, home-town rag and all. As local zines go they're actually a good read, and Crispin Woods of the Bags has a terrific comic strip in there.

Anyway, it's not in the paper, but I have a sorted list of the 10 worst Pitchfork reviews by our g(s) grounding term sum metric. We also have Amazon and AMG reviews in our DB but I had already done the PF numbers, so here they are. Note that this isn't writing ability but rather music "describability:" how well can the human/computer predict the contents of the audio after parsing the review? People here probably different ideas about what makes a good review.

The short of it: to get these scores, the computer listened to about 300 albums worth of music, and tried to find out which terms used in the corresponding reviews were best at describing the music. "Funky" does well, as does "acoustic" but "girlfriend" doesn't do so good. Then we take those predictive scores for each term and average them over a new review. If the review uses more musically-descriptive terms, it'll have a higher score.

"Worst" 10: Artist/Album, Score, Reviewer

./Arovane/Tides/ 0.862 Paul Cooper
./Juno Reactor/Bible of Dreams/ 0.866 James P. Wisdom
./Stereolab/Dots And Loops/ 0.892 James P. Wisdom
./Beck/Midnite Vultures/ 0.91 Brent DiCrescenzo
./Morcheeba/Big Calm/ 0.95 James P. Wisdom
./Gorky's Zygotic Mynci/Spanish Dance Troupe/ 0.95 Brent DiCrescenzo
./Swervedriver/99th Dream/ 0.97 Brent DiCrescenzo
./Sleater-Kinney/All Hands On The Bad One/ 0.97 Brent DiCrescenzo
./Herrmann & Kleine/Our Noise/ 0.97 Paul Cooper
./Dr. Octagon/Dr. Octagonecologyst [Dr. Octagon]/ 0.97 James P. Wisdom

Brian, have you seen Pitchformula? That guy didn't analyze relevance, but he found some interesting results on sexism and use of cliche.

"He starts by reciting some of the most embarrassing lyrics ever committed to an indie rock album, the kind that even twits the size of Conor Oberst or the folks in Arcade Fire would have the good sense to balk at."

Song after song, Currie's trademarked sick wit is nowhere to be found. "My Sperm Is Not Your Enemy" is a vintage Momus title, but it's hung on a predictable and humorless ditty; the same goes for "Beowulf (I Am Deformed)", and whatever hilarity could be gleaned from "Electrosexual Sawing Machine" comes from the posh way Momus pronounces "seks-you-al."

Hope is momentarily rekindled with the arrival of "The Last Communist", an energetic number with an actual melody, rather than a half-assed waltz or polka pastiche. Alas, the song is quickly exposed as a third-rate Auteurs ripoff, the kind Luke Haines probably writes in his uneasy absinthe sleep. The lyrics are an embarrassing laundry list of lame Russki clichés ("Drinking vodka through a straw/ Looking for the visions Lenin saw"), which is more than a disappointment from the guy who wrote "Trans-Siberian Express"-- a cruel, precise, and terrific poem that deserves a place in any number of modern literary anthologies.

That was old Momus, I guess, unencumbered by tabloid infamy and money concerns. The new Momus is the kind of guy who stoops to include a minute of silence as the 16th track on this disc and titles it "A Minute of Silence". If that's not enough, he follows it up with an instrumental reprise of the album's second track-- rendered in telephone ringtones! Oh, the fun!

Awful as it might be, Oskar is not easy to dismiss because awfulness has always been a part of Momus' gambit. The man's main fallacy, however, is that his laboriously cultivated image of a postmodern ponce is binding and irreversible. Behind the moniker of the Greek God of Ridicule, Nick Currie is an erudite man who consigned himself to powdered-wig naughtiness and endless intimations of buggery. This kind of stuff gets old-- even for the joker-- and there's nothing to kill a comedy routine like a whiff of noblesse oblige.

This is a good joke. Bravo!

>Anyway, it's not in the paper, but I have a sorted list of the 10 >worst Pitchfork reviews by our g(s) grounding term sum metric. We

Grounding term sum metric. That's fucking great! You are the man with the plan, the supplier of the unified field equation for the evaluation of prose and music criticism.

>Note that this isn't writing ability but rather >music "describability:" how well can the human/computer predict the >contents of the audio after parsing the review?

Yes, we are all human/computers. IBM, UBM, we all b.m. for IBM. And it's not reading. Reading connotes things that are not quantifiable, not sufficiently machine-like. Human/computers should get that through their thick wafers and motherboards. It's parsing, dammit, PARSING!

>The short of it: to get these scores, the computer listened to about >300 albums worth of music, and tried to find out which terms used in >the corresponding reviews were best at describing the music.

Did the computer listen to death metal for twelve years olds, too?

> "Funky" does well, as does "acoustic" but "girlfriend" doesn't do >so good.

How 'bout "dog" and "shit" or "dogshit"?

>Then we take those predictive scores for each term and average them >over a new review.

And attempt to demonstrate how to nail jello to the wall.

You've become slow-witted from too much drinking of your old computer machine sack.

HOW DROLL

that's how you get to be The Dean (TM) i guess

Not the worst, but pretty boneheaded and offensive:
http://cdn1.libsyn.com/dsco/GJ1.jpg?nvb=20090306220633&nva=20090307221633&t=0bdaa3cb8017b456322dc
http://cdn1.libsyn.com/dsco/GJ2.jpg?nvb=20090306220958&nva=20090307221958&t=03eebebb3cb9f3490dbb3
http://cdn2.libsyn.com/dsco/GJ3.jpg?nvb=20090306221035&nva=20090307222035&t=05287b557abc3888ddd48

meant "allusions" obv

Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth

?!

― straight up, you're payin' jacks just to hear me phase (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, 6 March 2009 21:14 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Guess that's what they call a humjob.

>>Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth

Love to know what kind of research the Dean did for this one.

Although I think it's outside the OP's intentions to include Rate Your Music reviews, this one did cause some mirth last night:

I'VE NEVER BEEN ONE FOR ALL THE HAIR METALS. I DON'T SEE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROCKING THE FABIO LOOK OR BANGING ONE OUT TO MEGADEATH. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS LOOK AT MY PROFILE PICTURE TO SEE I LIKE THINGS SHAVED. HEH. ALL THINGS! HEH. SERIOUSLY GUYS ALWAYS SHAVE DOWN THERE, YOU'LL THANK ME LATER HEH WOAH! FORGOT I HAVE AN ALBUM TO REVIEW HERE. LIVE ALBUMS ARE ALWAYS HIT AND MISS, BUT HOLY COW IF THIS ALBUM DOESN'T KEEP THINGS GOING. PUT 12 OF THE MOST PUNISHING RIFFS OF ALL TIME BY THESE LEGENDS ON ONE DISK AND LET EM' PLAY. I LIKE TO KEEP MY LIFE ORGANIZED AND PEACEFUL NOW IN DAYS (BEEN WORKING ON MY ZEN GARDEN LATELY, HEH), BUT EVERY NOW AND THEN I LIKE TO PULL OUT THIS OLD CLASSIC AND WHIP OUT SOME OF MY OLD GEAR FROM THE 80S AND ROCK ONE OUT TO "THE TROOPER" OR "RUN TO THE HILLS". JUST MAKE SURE GRAMPS ISN'T IN THE ROOM YOU'LL SEND HIM TO AN EARLY DEATH. HEH!

I'VE GOTTEN A LOT OF MAIL SINCE I STARTED REVIEWING ON THIS SITE (MOSTLY FROM LADIES ASKING IF I'M SINGLE...ANSWER STILL TO COME, HEH!) AND A LOT OF PEOPLE POINTED OUT I OFTEN TALK ABOUT MY SMOOTHIES. HELL, I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE HONEST! HEH. GUESS IT SHOWS YOU WHATS ON MY MIND ALL THE TIME. I DON'T CONSIDER MYSELF A BUSINESS MAN BUT A SMOOTHIE MAN. YOU COULD TAKE AWAY MY BUSINESS AND I'D STILL TALK ABOUT ALL MY FAVORITE SMOOTHIES (BUT MAN WOULD I BE PISSED!) ANYWAY, I THOUGHT IT'D BE A COOL IDEA TO COMPARE THE ALBUM I REVIEWED TO ONE OF THE SMOOTHIES ON MY MENU. DUE TO THE INDULGENT, EVIL NATURE, AND GUILTY PLEASURE THEMES OF LIVE AFTER DEATH, I'M GONNA SAY THIS REMINDS ME OF MY PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE SMOOTHIE. THROW SOME BANNANAS, CACAO, AND A SPECIAL NUTRITION POWEDER AND YOU GOT YOURSELF SOMETHING THE FUFILLS AND FILLS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. ALRIGHT, THANKS GUYS FOR BEING SO SUPORTATIVE OF THE REAL IRONMAN. MAYBE THEY'LL MAKE A MOVIE AFTER ME YET, HEH!

As far as I know Pitchfork have yet to file an ALL CAPS gonad-obsessed "concept review", but this could serve as a good template.

It had me at "I've never been one for all the hair metals."

Since I've got my Rolling Stone cover-to-cover fired up and my screen capture up and running, I might as well post this one as well. One hopes these Rolling Stone reviewers eventually completed their comp lit PhDs and got the respect they so clearly craved!
http://cdn3.libsyn.com/dsco/Auto1.jpg?nvb=20090306223606&nva=20090307224606&t=09ffeab57f47ac9ad651e
http://cdn4.libsyn.com/dsco/Auto2.jpg?nvb=20090306223719&nva=20090307224719&t=01b1750ff4e10e57d9efb

hahahaha the Walkmen hahahaha
― Matos W.K., Friday, March 6, 2009 8:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I don't get it

the name is indeed funny..

I don't mind that Grace Jones review. Who do you find it offensive? But that Mendelsohn Kraftwerk one is pretty awful. I'm mildly stunned RS ran ersatz Meltzer that late in the game.

WHY do you find it offensive?

Jealous of your ImageCapture (sp?) for sure.

The Kraftwerk review obviously missed the point as they would go on to become legends. But as a negative review, I think it was well written and funny.

hahahaha the Walkmen hahahaha
― Matos W.K., Friday, March 6, 2009 8:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

still don't get it

never could forget how dumb this review was:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17348-east-river-pipe-the-gasoline-age

"What kind of music is this anyway, space-country?"

were the grace jones and kraftwerk reviews cut and pasted from the archives of readers digest (circa 1950)?

i don't mean bcoz of content, i didn't read them tbh, just the look of them.

leave John Mendelsohn alone!!!

"disco music for people who never went to discos"

hahah, perfect.

(hey guys, funniest does not equal "worst")

I really do want Matos to explain the "hahaha the Walkmen" thing.

I'VE GOTTEN A LOT OF MAIL SINCE I STARTED REVIEWING ON THIS SITE (MOSTLY FROM LADIES ASKING IF I'M SINGLE...ANSWER STILL TO COME, HEH!) . . . I DON'T CONSIDER MYSELF A BUSINESS MAN BUT A SMOOTHIE MAN

Stay classy.

I really do want Matos to explain the "hahaha the Walkmen" thing.

Me too!

Aletti = one of the great music writers

OTM. Give or take Michael Freedberg, probably the greatest disco critic ever. (Wrote some excellent disco liner notes in the late '70s, too.)

hahahaha the Walkmen hahahaha

Also OTM.

So it's like a fancy-music-critics-got-each-others'-backs thing? Because that review is fucking garbage, regardless of whether or not you think the band is funny or whatever. Weak, fellas.

what's offensive about that grace jones review? that critic did good stuff in the voice's late 70s heyday. traditionally most RS writers do their best work elsewhere.

mendelsohn is a contender for worst RS critic ever...

i accidentally Matos's whole Walkmen post. Hahahaha!

accidentally what?

do ppl still write abt music?

lol @ "fancy"

I made fun of the Walkmen because they, uh, suck. Not that hard to figure out.

i have a hard tiem remembering what "muckraking" even means

still don't know what makes the walkmen so obviously, uh, sucky

They record boring albums.

ok thanks i understand now

The actual closing line from the Pitchfork review:

Far from trailblazing, Passover nevertheless implies that the Black Angels like to blaze until they see trails.

I made fun of the Walkmen because they, uh, suck. Not that hard to figure out.

I could make up better zings with a dick in my mouth.

great thread so far

I could make up better zings with a dick in my mouth.

― Shannon Whirry & the Bad Brains, Monday, March 9, 2009 12:20 AM

like that one!

Geeze, This is what I keep for sleeping in all weeked.

I find the Rolling Stone Grace Jones review boneheaded and offensive because it's unfairly dismissive of the album for the sake being too-clever-by-half, and it does so with more than a whiff of homo/disco-phobia.

As for the Autobahn review, the editor should have cut everything after the first graph until the last line. The album as its subject matter analogy is clever enough (and as a reviewer’s self-indulgent conceit, it’s certainly handled more deftly than the Grace Jones review), but the last line of the review is all we need to get it.

Yeah, I copied both of those from the Rolling Stone Cover-to-Cover dvd set. Although it looks now as if the links are broken.

I think James Wisdom's reviews are awesome.

It all comes back around:

https://defector.com/a-notorious-pitchfork-reviewer-was-my-biggest-musical-influence

There’s a 2005 I Love Music messageboard post titled “So, what is the worst music review ever then?” One poster, Brian Whitman, believed he had an answer....

(Mr. Wisdom, who posted last on this thread, is interviewed for the story and there's more besides.)

so long...

not like "goodbye". so long as in "wow that thing is long".

i don't know a lot of the non-ilx pitchfork people. i thought brent d. was funny. most of it seemed pretty samey though. 1996 they started? sheesh. i had no idea.

was pitchfork making money before conde nast took them over? why don't all these online places just stay independent? i don't get it. they want to get "BIGGER"? is that the thing? so stupid. owning your own thing is where its at. it never ends well when rich people get involved.

my understanding is that conde nast offered them money

God, that Sleater-Kinney review is abysmal— All Hands on the Bad One is an excellent record.