pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Daffy-Duck-masturbating.jpg

"Not since Jonathan Richman has there been a songwriter so willing to convey honest and deep feelings through the most basic pop syntax, and Owens also shares Richman's desire to use familiar song forms to get these essential messages across."

really pitchfork? not since jonathan richman? also, please be more into line-editing

"He has a preternatural gift for turning clichés into into deeply affecting songs, and as they jump from one style to the next, from delicate acoustic balladry to noisy rave-ups, Owens' voice and point of view ground the record and make it distinctive."

I love rave reviews that are basically just "it's good because it's good, and it's just so good at that, y'know?" over and over

as opposed to those quiet rave-ups

Okay, so I can't remember if or where there's been a thread where we pull up embarrassing reviews from the archive, but I was googling reviews of Dark Magus just now and came across this absolute winner from Jason Josephes:

Good old Japan. We bomb them, so they horde this Miles Davis gem, available in the US for the first time. It's the best $27 spent outside of the massage parlor in eons. Yeah, I buy CDs sometimes, too. Why? Friggin' label won't send 'em to us. I'm willing to look the other way this time, because this 2 CD set, to put it simply, rules.

I'm not standing up for the girls review, although I don't think it says "it's good because it's good" over and over, and in a way, even if it had, I don't think I can ever expect much more than "it's good because it's good" or "it's bad because it's bad," as if there were an underlying logic to something being good or bad, unless a critic were to write about something other than the goodness or badness of a work (and this is something I don't think pitchfork reviews do often, except in an intermittent, half-assed way, because it's not what their readers are looking for).

i've always said maybe if pfork didn't insist on these 1,000-word reviews of indie rock footnotes, people wouldnt be always filling them with sprawling, masturbatory prose.

Yeah, it encourages compression, which makes the writing sound unnatural.

I love rave reviews that are basically just "it's good because it's good, and it's just so good at that, y'know?" over and over

― some dude, Monday, September 12, 2011 8:13 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

v. good summation of the problem with that band--if you're not *affected* by the guys voice/lyrics/whatev there's no reason to care about them, and if you are there's no intelligent way to talk about it.

The ineffability of their appeal really works against them. Common problem.

this band, to put it simply, rules

y? because they rule

This is every language problem.

Pitchfork writer Mims

don't really feel like bam or cad really got what i was saying

Lbh ner fb arkg yriry

xp i got what you were saying and was kind of using it to jump off to another point.

this is not the right thread but whatever i'm not going to wade into the girls thread or anything.

"Not since Jonathan Richman has there been a songwriter so willing to convey honest and deep feelings through the most basic pop syntax

lolololololololololol

this looks like an Onion headline, for serious -

http://pitchfork.com/news/44129-own-a-piece-of-unwashed-clothing-worn-on-stage-by-a-member-of-sigur-ros

when did pitchfork start going link-crazy in the reviews? same time as the redesign?

this is like old-school pfork-level ridiculous, reads like a bad press release: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16038-the-9th-inning-ep/

i think that's only weiss' third review so far but he seems like a shitty writer.

lol

not gonna read that, but

conjure Nate Dogg at a séance

. . .

i'm sure the hip hop dudes will mock me for this but as someone who follows the genre pretty superficially i have enjoyed the end-of-the-year best-of comps on passion of the weiss - assuming this is the same dude

Gonjasufi invented intelligent demon music

... I made it exactly one sentence

that's as far as I made it as well

a glass pyramid breaking under the weight of his psychedelic bombed squad

Young writers should experiment but editors should intervene to tell them when the experiment's gone horribly wrong.

assuming this is the same dude

It is.

From the first words of The 9th Inning, we're sucked into apocalypse. Industrial noises clank like robots led to the guillotine.

:o

why do people who write purple prose never realise it themselves? do they not read their work back? well i don't always read my work back but STILL you'd think they'd notice

Sufi sounds like someone who attempted to conjure Nate Dogg at a séance and received a demented ghost from a nearby dimension.

Liked that one, but yeh some real clangers in there.

hey i write a lot of purple prose and totally realize it

this review is pretty terrible though yeah

Based in "the Mojave," the desert-dwelling prophet

nooooooooooooo

actually kinda refreshing that they'd let this one through in 2k11

Yeah has that old-school PF hyperbole vibe. Feelin' it.

brent dicrescenzo is dead/long live brent dicrescenzo

yeah i liked that review, it was funnie

Let's be honest, Weiss was probably stoned when he wrote it.

good work weiss

a glass pyramid breaking under the weight of his psychedelic bombed squad

Young writers should experiment but editors should intervene to tell them when the experiment's gone horribly wrong.

― Science, you guys. Science. (DL), Tuesday, November 15, 2011 12:58 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

you mean tell them when the glass pyramid is about the break

about to break

This artcile is just tortuous to read.

"Would not the fun/ Look too expensive!"
– Emily Dickinson, poem 338

stopped reading right about here, tho i have no problem with ED

i lol when people complain about pitchfork getting a more generic "voice" over the years because the alternative was william bowers

i've recently spent a lot of time on ILX grumping about the absence of "personality" in pfork's criticism

i now see that "less of you" is sometimes a really good thing

fucking lol, cad beat me to it

lol does Mark still post here? I would like WORDS

"There are now many historians who study popular culture, lowbrow entertainment, and the people of the streets, but I am always dismayed to find that they treat every saloon, high-heel shoe, or rock song as something else. If they are sympathetic to the people who consumed them, such things are remade into 'resistance' against oppression or 'collective alternatives' to capitalist individualism. God forbid they could be simply and only 'fun.'"
– Thaddeus Russell, A Renegade History of the United States

"Would not the fun/ Look too expensive!"
– Emily Dickinson, poem 338

"I don't think anyone could describe a Liturgy show as a fun experience."
– Liturgy's Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, "Show No Mercy: Death To Black Metal"

That whole shit of "Look how well read I am, and look how playfully I contrast it with something a band has said!" is the single most irritating meme in music writing. It does not help or inform the reader; it is only showing off for the sake of it. It screams self-regard. This person, sadly, is not alone in thinking it is clever.

is there a good bit to this eventually? has anyone made it all the way through?

do like the russell quote