what does this pfm song review thingy even mean anyway?

"WHATEVER, NUTFACE/NUTFACE ABOOBIE/I'm sorry, I have to go take a drug test now." Watch out for those poppyseeds. I'm afraid all the Nyquil [you've] been popping turned [your]pee into Mad Dog 20/20. There's only one way to find out. I.P. Sizzurp. Polka party?

[three stars]

http://www.marchofdimes.com/images/chapters/NY_greater_Chris-Russo.jpg

If it's that easy Jess why was I told after submitting clips that Blender "would have no work to offer (me) but thanks for trying"?

So, for an example, let me load today's Pitchfork reviews.

Okay, the first review I read was the Espers one, and it's exactly what I want a review to be. Great job. High five.

So instead let's look at this one:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/q/quintron/swamp-tech.shtml

Starts off simple enough, but then gets to shit like:

Dumb fun trumps brainy tedium, and if Swamp Tech were an RPG, it'd be all whimsical mini-games, no arduous stat-building.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. The rest of the review is fine.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/n/nadja/truth-becomes-death.shtml

Though timely, Truth Becomes Death risks being a marginal record, if only because it has a nature so huge some might take it as scenery

I'm lost. I understand that it is an experimental album and may not become popular, but how is it's "nature" "huge"? What does that mean? And what does it mean to be mistaken for scenery? Is this just supposed to sound witty? Is the album's sound "large" such as Mogwai (which was cited earlier) songs, and that is why it may become marginal? How does that make sense?

In this barbarously delicate sea, the crashing guitars and horror house vocals of "Memory Leak" wreck damage in some other nearby room.

Oh, another metaphor. Okay, the album's sound is huge like the ocean, and it sounds kind of scary and "barbarous" I guess. Okay, that's nice, but isn't there a much easier way to say that? The review already once cited before how "large" the sound is using allusions to nature.

Nadja's not obsessed or stuck on ideologies, which is why they sound like latecomers.

I have no idea what this means.

So, even if you do think it is only minorly difficult to understand what all that means, my stance is this: minorly difficult is still too difficult. I want a music review. Not creative writing. I'd read something else for that.

big words in the wrong hands = dangerous

Mwahahahaha

Biggest words in Mickey's quoted material (by number of syllables):

ideologies
barbarously
latecomers
whimsical
marginal
delicate
scenery
arduous
tedium

Apart from maybe "barbarously" these are all pretty common words.

But a better retort to Mickey's post might be drawn from his own words: "I don't want to have to think about it." I suppose it's inevitable that there will be people who don't like thinking about stuff; I suppose it's inevitable that some of those people would nonetheless want to read music criticism (without thinking about it); I'm going to try and remain comforted by the idea that this is some perverse minority opinion. It's certainly the first time I've ever seen someone say he prefers writing that doesn't make him think.

Actually, this review totally put me in a bad mood. Mainly because i'm a die-hard (post movie poster) BoYo fan (common ways to say SSLYBY: the actual name, Boris Yeltsin and sometimes BoYo) I like saying SSLYBY (sly-bye) as well.

Let me ask, how would you feel if other product reviews were wrote in a Pitchfork-style? Say you wanted to buy new speakers, looked up a review, and they were described as having the sound of a barbarously dangerous sea. Other nature metaphors were used. Compared to videogames. Less like Mario RPG, more like Mario Kart! Come on, would your response not be "for fucks sake, I don't care about how clever you are or anything, just give me the straightforward information I want"? That's how I feel about music reviews. I don't think it's an unreasonable stance, despite it looking like I'm alone here on ILM.

Dumb fun trumps brainy tedium, and if Swamp Tech were an RPG, it'd be all whimsical mini-games, no arduous stat-building.

I'm reading a record review. Why am I thinking about video games here? Why not just end the sentence with "tedium" (and rephrase it slightly so it makes sense). I don't need a reference to video games to understand that the music is more dumb fun than serious.

My point is not at all that this is difficult to read. It's not above my head, nor do I not like to think. I just don't want any of that when I'm reading a record review, and that's the end of my thesis. Would you want it reading a technical manual? Front page news? TV Guide?

Yes, Mark, it is hard to find the type of review I want. Pitchfork writes them sometimes. The Espers review was perfect. Newspapers write them almost exclusively, but newspapers also don't often review music I'm interested in. I really stopped reading music reviews because they don't suite my purpose. I just scan through pages like Pitchfork and make notes of albums with high scores to check out later.

Haha, "seriously responding." As if my position is so indefensible that it doesn't even deserve a response. I should have expected a reception like this knowing ILM is so full of record reviewers. Next time I'll just keep my mouth shut and let logged out/unregistered person take the ridicule for criticizing PFM.

It's def. the common opinion among the masses. But that only means so much. (Da Vinci Code vs Shalimar the Clown, Pauline Kael vs Leonard Maltin, blah blah blah.)

In terms of crit i read for pleasure (which is almost all the music or literary crit i read these days), it's definitely not the same as what you're looking for.

i basically agree, except i don't see it as a mistake!

i was grooving along here, expecting a zing, but then...

I can't think of any other way to remedy these constant complaints that people can't understand basic literary tactics like metaphor (simile, even!), use of images, personification, and so on.

errrrr, no! surely you mean, if they read books n' shit then they wouldn't put up with such awkwardly assembled prose!

Artistic reviews are "utilitarian" by default; they are describing an artistic endeavor to the reader and offering a value judgement to help said reader form an opinion on the work in question. No amount of "subjectivity!" can alter that.

to help said reader form an opinion

Why do you think this is the only role that writing-about-art has?

Do readers want reviews that just tell them whether it's a worthwhile album, or do they want to have reviews that are worth reading as thought pieces? And more importantly, can we acknowledge that some of the thought pieces are badly written and not just because they transcend the thumbs up/thumbs down level of criticism?