Do we have a PAZZ AND JOB 2009 thread yet?

It's funny watching AC haters frothing at the mouth isn't it?

I don't ever really feel hatred of music any more, if I ever did (and always it's been more a dislike of certain types of fandom/criticism - e.g. I was very annoyed back in 2000 when all my friends loved Travis but I was indifferent to Travis mostly and even rather liked a song or two), so I simply don't understand that kind of froth reaction and, for that reason, vaguely respect it (what annoys me rather is when I see people let their hatred of stuff cloud their vision and their logic, leading them to say stuff the obvious wrongness of which they would jump all over otherwise).

re: singles - i like that these polls are open to "tracks", just because a track can so often function as a single without ever getting an official release as one. voting for deep album cuts if they don't make sense in isolation is missing the point though, yeah. contra jaymc i don't trust artists or record labels to pick the right singles in the slightest - though i think indie acts are actually way better at this than r&b or pop acts these days, weirdly.

I think a bit part of it is also cultural perception. Indie has becomed perceived to be "educated" music

think this is otm, sadly.

good thread to catch up on!

For a change it's nice to see artists that DON'T sell millions of records top the poll, if you want to see rich people who sell millions of records and put out mediorcre albums, watch the grammy's. You'll be surely happy there....

ah youth

What music crit about which music would make me think "gee, 20-something paralegals in omaha are getting into this and this makes me feel like I click with them and understand what they feel" - or even some non-joking version of same...

what i mean -- and this is a phenomenon of the internet, which i think is what "pitchfork" is really being used as a stand-in for here -- is that a lot of this music seems exist almost in some virtual realm. the indieverse. it moves from myspace pages to small music blogs to big music blogs to pitchfork or whatever (passing through ILM and such places on the way), achieving a sense of ubiquity and significance within a densely connected but actually relatively limited sphere, and an awful lot of the writing about it doesn't manage to look very far outside that sphere. (neither does a lot of the music, for that matter.) you could argue that this is all just a digital version of the college radio-zines-clubs world of our band could be your life, and obviously it serves a lot of the same purposes (including helping bands find living-room floors to crash on), but there's a step of removal from the "real" world that i think has a real and insulating (and in a lot of ways deadening) effect on how the music is received and talked about.

and btw i like a good handful of animal collective albums, just not the awful cluttered overstuffed recent ones. which is neither here nor there, i don't care that i don't like mpp, i'd just like to read more considerations of it that give some sense of its cultural location outside of six blogs.

animal collective is that band i saw twiddling dials at south street seaport with people standing around distractedly, yapping into their phones? That's the animal collective that's causing all this commotion? OK, there were a dozen people up front feigning enthusiasm. Maybe they write all the reviews.

Ha, I was a 30-something paralegal in Richmond, Virginia, when I started listening to Animal Collective.

to complete the loop, our publisher was a 20something from Omaha when he started listening to AnCo. chris k + mark r = that comment.

there's a step of removal from the "real" world that i think has a real and insulating (and in a lot of ways deadening) effect on how the music is received and talked about.

I ask again, to anyone: What don't we cover that is so great in the real world? Is it John Mayer? Is it BEP? What are we missing that is so good that appeals to "the real world"?

One thing your comment does highlight however Tipsy is how hermetically sealed off part of the real world are. Williamsburg/Greenpoint is like a freakin' snowglobe, and here in North Chicago-- and in college towns, hoods in large U.S. cities-- the stuff in bars, cafes, shops, boutiques, restaurants that is played is "stuff Pitchfork covers" whether it's Spoon or AnCo or Kanye or Lily Allen or Grizzly Bear. Or classic rock. One of the two, and that's it. This IS our real world.

look at it another way:

There are a few big, decent superstars around-- beyonce, rihanna, jay-z, kanye, gaga-- i.e. they are also the superstars we cover, i.e. the ones that make our year-end lists, i.e. the ones everyone likes.

Then subtract the obvious dreck from the charts, the real crap.

The next biggest-selling pocket of music left would be cult or established hip-hop/R&B acts - rae, cudi, mos def, maxwell, which we cover. And make our year-end lists.

And next, I would guess is...top-tier indie-- Neko, Phoenix, VW, Spoon, AnCo, A Bird, Grizzly Bear, which is selling between 150-500k basically, a pretty solid 'real world' return these days

What else is there in the real world? What is selling more than 200K that Pitchfork a) doesn't cover and put into year-end lists, and b) is good?

As I've said before I don't think we're an indie mag, we're an independently run general music mag. And rock is as large a part of our pie chart as it was for other general music mags. The difference is that rock-as-marketing-term is indie these days, if only by default. In another day a lot of these bands would be on Sire or Columbia and just be called rock bands.

"I don't ever really feel hatred of music any more… so I simply don't understand that kind of froth reaction and, for that reason, vaguely respect it."

So true. I've used up all my hatred on more deserving targets. Whereas a film, like Taken, can still enrage me for reasons which click with things that enrage me in the real world, the most I can muster with records now is "I don't get it."

I, for one, would laugh my ass off at a Ke$hastravaganza in Pitchfork.

well that's an interesting way of putting it, and i think it reflects some of what i'm talking about: that it is possible at least some places to consume and consider all of this stuff in a limited virtual realm, and then to go "out" mostly to bars/clubs/thrift stores/etc that serve as basically an extension of the same realm. and yes of course there's always an insularity to any scene or genre or whatever, but i think the internet (and in the case of "indie" in particular) has given that a new dimension.

What don't we cover that is so great in the real world? Is it John Mayer? Is it BEP?

sure, why not? i think there's plenty of interesting things that could be said about either of them. ("covering" =/= "liking" or "approving of.") but even just within the parameters of GAPDY, i think there's a lot of other ways to write about it than the ways it tends to get written about (anywhere, this isn't by any means a pitchfork-specific issue). like i said, i have very little sense of what it means that mpp is the "best album of the year." the voice essay goes a little way there by hooking it up to spike jonze, but settles for a sort of vague psychological gloss -- "coming to terms with being an adult" -- that doesn't say anything very specific about the culture and sensibility that produced both works. why does mpp sound like it does? what does that sound mean? what does the indie arrested-development sensibility of the past 15 years or so signify about the economic situation of the american middle class? i think there's a connection between animal collective, a flat wage curve and 10 percent unemployment, but the music rarely seems to be talked about in any terms outside its own aesthetic. and i think it's hard to consider that aesthetic in any really insightful way from the inside.

(oops, that needs an xpost -- the first part of that post was coming off of "This IS our real world.")

That's an interesting thought. Some albums are so much easier to hang sociopolitical significance on, hence endless essays on how MIA reflects The Way We Live Now, or what [fill in major 00s indie album here] tells us about 9/11. But MPP comes from the same cloistered psychedelic universe as, say, The Soft Bulletin and that's harder to analyse outside of its own terms. I don't know enough about the US middle class to know if your hypothesis is right but it sounds worth exploring.

scottpl, you're pretty much begging for a list thread of great records and contemporary artists that PF has never covered. and it would be a very, very long list.

don't get me wrong, PF covers a whole lot of music of a pretty wide range, but saying that there's no worthwhile non-indie you don't cover is like people who go "I listen to every genre, but only the good stuff."

What else is there in the real world? What is selling more than 200K that Pitchfork a) doesn't cover and put into year-end lists, and b) is good?

I'm not even going to get started here. (See, I do have self-control, after all.)

i don't get people who can't hate music passionately

i find bad music personally offensive, no hyperbole

I never would have guessed!

^_^

I think my inability to feel hatred of music extends to art and books and films too actually. Everything exists on a continuum of "bored" to "passionately in love".

A bad novel can still throw me into a rage - I guess because it's taken up more of my time, and a bad sentence is offensive whereas a bad lyric just strikes me as funny. A book or film can convey a whole worldview that I find aggravating in a way that a song can't.

But all power to you, Lex. It's bracing precisely because I don't share it.

I sympathize with Lex. It's so fun to hate!

As scott no doubt remembers, what distinguished Stylus from its competition was taking Lee Ann Womack and Nickleback seriously. I couldn't predict how or if PFM's hit count would increase if it started reviewing these artists, but I'd like to see a publication with PFM's clout and its ratio of good writers seriously wrestle with lots of mainstream artists who sell bucketloads more than Vampire Weekend ever will.

xuxhk, if i start the thread idea i mentioned, you'd fill it up, right? I'm counting on it (also what would be a fair timeframe, scott? since 2003? 2005?).

i'm not saying that Pitchfork SHOULD cover everything (or anything) that they don't already, obviously they need to make choices. but the implication that there's nothing good and popular that's escaped their notice is insane and needs to be challenged.

don't get me wrong, PF covers a whole lot of music of a pretty wide range, but saying that there's no worthwhile non-indie you don't cover is like people who go "I listen to every genre, but only the good stuff."

of course there is, but I didn't say that.

I was only specifically addressing popular artists. And I do think we could better with the sort of mixtape rap that gets around the sales I was thinking of, i.e. boosie, etc. we used to do a bit better there than we do

I'd like to see a publication with PFM's clout and its ratio of good writers seriously wrestle with lots of mainstream artists who sell bucketloads more than Vampire Weekend ever will.

Sure YOU do. But like I said upthread nobody cares. Not in any substantial numbers. The number of people hungry to read about Nickleback and Leann Womack the way you want them covered is miniscule. Hell, unless there are tons of them not adept at locating pockets of the internet that share their interests, you could probably name a lot of them.

It's the same reason we don't cover BEP, to answer Tipsy's question: Almost nobody cares about anything to do with them that isn't their music or their celebrity. And only two of them are even celebrities really. So it would be a waste of resources and manpower; it would be, for the most part, a dishonest engagement with them that only serves to tell our readers what they already knew by listening to their two godawful radio singles from the new lp; it would be us moving from being a publication that sets its own editorial agenda outside of the machinations of the music industry to one that covers shit just because it's popular (i.e. one that turns its back on its own principles/integrity/honesty).

A lot of the reasons may seem abhorrent to some people I guess, if you actually think the monied interests of the major labels and dollar votes should determine what you critically engage with, but I think setting our own agenda and maintaining a level of self-policed integrity/standards is working out OK for us.

it would be us moving from being a publication that sets its own editorial agenda outside of the machinations of the music industry to one that covers shit just because it's popular

Does anyone else immediately start looking for ways to deflate this type of statement whenever it is written?

I couldn't predict how or if PFM's hit count would increase if it started reviewing these artists

You really can't predict that?!? It would go down. Way the fuck down. Because nobody cares, and we'd be seen as another bullshit corporate magazine that just covers what is popular solely because it's popular. Are there any music media outlets of any note that give a shit about Nickelback? So why would you think that's some kind of food for hitcounts?

and we'd be seen as another bullshit corporate magazine that just covers what is popular solely because it's popular

dude, hate to break this to you, but your decade in music piece was sponsored by an ice cream company

not really the same thing

i was talking about the corporate part

I don't see how having advertisers is the same thing as being independently owned and being willing to ignore platinum artists and cover niche artists. Nobody is denying we are a small business.

scott the part you quoted was a comparison, not me interpreting your words to mean just that. but seriously, name your terms for my thread, just so I can be fair about it: over 200k sales, in the past how many years?

2005-, and I think I said over 200K sales, didn't make a year-end list (miranda lambert did btw) or get reviewed.

I bet I agree with most of them too. No doubt we miss things. Actually most of them will be regional hip-hop artists plus whatever some people here want to cover in Alfred's Nickleback Contrarian Daily magazine. ;)

I sympathize with Lex. It's so fun to hate!

And I know the first thing you thought of as a reference point too. (Just like I did.)

A peek into the past: Neil Tennant on the power of hate

Alfred's Nickleback Contrarian Daily

Any ideas for which advertisers I should hit?

ben and jerry's

^^indie rock of the ice cream world

Any ideas for which advertisers I should hit?

You'd have to ask business not editorial, but I do know you'll need readers first.

The number of people hungry to read about Nickleback and Leann Womack the way you want them covered is miniscule.

Unless "on Pitchfork" is inserted somewhere in that sentence, no, that is not true.

I will tell you where I would hope to find an intelligent, critical, well-written article on Nickelback, why they're big, who likes 'em etc: a newspaper or something like the New Yorker. Or Rolling Stone even! Or Salon! Pitchfork shouldn't be expected to cover everything just because long-form generalist writing has collapsed elsewhere, surely?

I do think P4K should have reviewed "The E.N.D." but then I liked both the singles a lot. And obviously I didn't think so strongly enough to pitch it or anything!

great popular (and semi-popular) albums of the past 5 years that Pitchfork didn't review

wasn't there an article about re-evaluating nickelback on slate or something and it was pretty much retarded?

I could see that for an aggregator like allmusic (esp one w/factual and biographical info; one who reputation isn't built on what it covers), but I think Alfred is talking a pub that works more as a filter. And I don't think I could name any of those covering Nickleback with any degree of success.

It's weird to claim that excellent writers tackling major artists would be a turn-off. I don't know if P4K covered the Brad Paisley album - and it's not my cup of tea at all - but the way Jody Rosen writes about it on Slate is eye-opening and compelling, and I can't see why there wouldn't be room for that anywhere. Obviously you'd have to be selective but come on, there's great stuff to be written about the Black Eyed Peas, from all kinds of angles. P4K has a phenomenal talent pool and I don't think that more astute engagement with pop would diminish the site's other role as an agenda-setter. Unless the readership is in fact the close-minded indie Taliban that its detractors claim.

Obviously, I'm not sure what the practical limitations are here. I thought the advantage of a website over print was that you weren't so restricted space-wise and therefore could throw in a Black Eyed Peas review without it squeezing out a Liars one. I can understand more if it's simply a budget issue.

Pitchfork shouldn't be expected to cover everything just because long-form generalist writing has collapsed elsewhere, surely?

of course not, it's entirely up to pitchfork how they conceive their mission and their audience, and scott's being pretty straightforward about that. it still doesn't get to my desire for writing about any kind of music -- whether it's vampire weekend or susan boyle -- that thinks more broadly about how and why culture works, how it happens and what it all means (man). a new vampire weekend or animal collective album is a chance to do all of that, but for the most part what we get is "the lads've done it again!", or "bit of a sophomore slump there, boys." which i realize is really a complaint about the quality of critical discourse more broadly. and i also realize that one natural response to that is, "well if you're interested in that, why don't you do it?" which is fair enough.

xpost: yeah jody rosen is a good and rare example of how to do that kind of thing well.

OMG! What'd I miss?

tipsy, you know I love your 1940s-film-lovin' ass but I think your, at best, indifference to The Animal Collectives (in mpp form) is putting up some blinders. You say you want a sense of how "20-something paralegals in omaha getting turned onto mpp at some 4th-of-july cookout." You want writing on mpp that doesn't feel "sealed off," that discusses "how or whether the music engages with anything outside of its own hipster-runoff universe."

But when confronted with a piece which does exactly that, you switch the terms of debate. Now you want a piece about what "the indie arrested-development sensibility of the past 15 years or so signif[ies] about the economic situation of the american middle class." Well, I could argue that Mike Powell's perfectly fine hymn to mpp in the Voice addresses the latter concern. But it quite obviously does discuss "how or whether the music engages with anything outside of its own hipster-runoff universe." You mention the Spike Jonze reference but completely ignore the heart(s) of the piece - playing the music for his parents. He details the how (dad's curiosity; in the car with mom after a movie) and the whether (kind sorta for dad; hells no for mom). And while the fact that dad was even curious to begin with and the movie he saw with mom was Where The Wild Things Are may speak (rather petulantly, I'd say, but voila) to his parents' own hipster proclivities, Powell is still trying to engage with the album outside of his own hipster-runoff universe (the parameters of which are what exactly? do we think we know Powell so well that we can paint that universe in any useful detail?). So why would the 4th-of-july cookout be necessarily more compelling (or real?) than a car ride with mom? And why would 20-something paralegals have a corner on that (or any) reality?

Also, with all due respect to Le Tigre, we have to stop thinking of "myspace pages to small music blogs to big music blogs to pitchfork" as somehow not real or less real than "the college radio-zines-clubs world" or even Scott's smart acknowledgment of "bars, cafes, shops, boutiques, restaurants." Not only do the interwebs produce myriad real effects but there's a reality (a corporeality, if you will) to how we engage with them. Furthermore, all their inequities or shortcomings were/are present in the "more real" public sphere, e.g., face-to-face communication can throw up smokescreens; trolling existed well before the interwebs; etc.

if you'll allow me to be glib for a moment, techno was always already the first indie manifestation in dance music. Which is why this "takeover" has been so subtle and so successful.

You may be using "indie manifestation" in a way different than I can imagine at the moment but this is patently incorrect. There was always a disco underground on independent labels running parallel to (and sometimes in tandem with) the mainstream hits/lifeworld, esp. fertile in the early 1980s when disco "died."

The chuck eddy essay is the most annoying thing I've ever read.

But annoying is fun, cf. Alain Robbe-Grillet.

wasn't there an article about re-evaluating nickelback on slate or something and it was pretty much retarded?

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 22, 2010 10:41 AM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it was about Creed btw

ah dammit you're right. could have probably written the same essay abt nickelback though.

Four hours late but re bands p4k doesn't cover: Fall Out Boy, Green Day, Paramore, etc.

theres a thread about this