pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

That seems nit-picky. "Tumbling Dice" isn't as well known as their best known songs, yes.

ha, I was all ready to say "I have never heard this song before in my life" and then it got to the "baaaby" part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sh-fMOecSE

Are those Playboy dice?

I have never heard this song before in my life.

(I mean, maybe I have. The "baby" part does sound familiar, but I don't know if it's actually familiar or just familiar-sounding.)

I've never pegged you as a Stones fan.

i think it's true -- in all my days as a classic rock radio-listening pre-teen/teenager, Exile songs were *not* the Stones songs they played on the radio very often. to this day, i bet there are at least 15 Stones songs more likely to be played on the radio.

"Tumbling Dice" never got as much play as the sixties stuff, the Some Girls threesome, and "Start Me Up," but I heard it enough. Its chart position is exactly right: big enough.

Opening "ooooooh-oooooooh" of the background singers in Tumbling Dice always hits me like a greeting from a great old friend.

actually, the one I feel like I've heard the most is "Beast of Burden," which seems kind of weird. but this is just my experience ...

That's totally weird.

In my last town I think the classic rock station played "Beast of Burden" every day.

Yeah, the last time I spent any significant amount of time listening to classic rock (lol 1987) "Beast of Burden" was played a lot.

might just be that it's the stones ballad of choice -- Wild Horse is a little too draggy for classick rock stations, probably.

96 Rock in the ATL played "Tumbling Dice" all the time; it's a pretty southern rock-y single, which the Stones don't really have very many of, given their fixations---there's "Brown Sugar", and not many others.

This is my kind of Pitchfork thread! (I mean the Stones part.)

I've never pegged you as a Stones fan.

I'm not. But I just looked at this list and can count about 15 songs that I instantly know how they go, which means there's probably also a handful of others I might know if I heard them.

I was jokin'. Beast of Burden is a very, very famous song by the Rolling Stones.

http://www.rollingstonesnet.com/images/BeastOfBurdenPS.jpg

Although when I image searched it, I came up with a bunch of Magic: The Gathering cards.

http://twitter.com/pitchforkmedia/status/15357256549

pretty thrilled they've started having entire news items that quote stuff like Colin Meloy weighing in on the MIA saga via Twitter

You're being ironic, I hope.

ugh that Andre 3000 "song" is so sad

like, this is what yr wasting yr time with dude? really?

http://pitchfork.com/news/39014-echo-chamber-colin-meloy-vs-mia/

^ SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO

also: zzzzzzzzzz

Sorta half serious question -- it feels around ILX like though Pitchfork often covers the albums that get a lot of discussion, it's kinda a closed circuit. Outside a few columns (specifically Why We Fight, Poptimists, stuff like that), they review an album and then outside this thread or others like it there's no relationship to the review. I assume a good Pitchfork review can still help sell a record, but has their critical impact waned at all (I mean, more than the general critical impact of music writing has waned)? I can't even remember what they wrote about any of the albums that I'd consider interesting this year -- even stuff that formerly would've fallen into their critical context (like Vampire Weekend or Sleigh Bells). Is this anyone else's experience or am I totally off-base?

always hear "beast of burden" as "pizza burger" as in "i'll never eat your"

Super lol btw at Colon Meloy taking a shot at M.I.A. After this fiasco - http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-11-07/music/taynted-love/ - you'd think he'd have some empathy for musicians getting into embarrassing fights with critics.

read that cee oh tee tee piece as sophomore in college. embarrassing for everyone involved

I've seen a few people suggest recently that it's in some way mean or cowardly for Pitchfork not to allow people to comment underneath its album reviews, as if (a) this is some entrenched right of the modern internet user and (b) P4K comment boxes wouldn't attract the worst people on earth

Oh man, Chris Ott is terrible.

Maybe that is axiomatic here at ILX.

(b) P4K comment boxes wouldn't attract the worst people on earth

Instead we just let them gather on ILX, amirite?

I assume a good Pitchfork review can still help sell a record, but has their critical impact waned at all (I mean, more than the general critical impact of music writing has waned)? I can't even remember what they wrote about any of the albums that I'd consider interesting this year

Seriously though -- I think Pfork does help to sell albums. Here in ATX, for example, if I walk into Waterloo Records ~1 week after a Best New Music review hits the site, that album is almost *always* in the store's top 5-10 albums of the week, sales wise. Not really a big deal for something that would sell regardless of Pfork acclaim (say, Vampire Weekend, or the National), but for something like Flying Lotus to hit the top charts at a store that caters to a large crowd of people into local Texas musicians, folk, country, run-of-the-mill indie and other similar stuff, I think it's telling for things like FlyLo that are more "difficult" to grasp are selling so well. And of course, Pfork still has the power to move a decent # of units for bands that were previously off the radar completely to the casual record store goer (e.g., Male Bonding, Fang Island, Delorean, the Morning Benders).

Personally speaking, I've still managed to pick up on an album here and there by checking the Pfork site. Most recently, I checked out the review for Cave's new EP (I think?) based on the blurb on the main review column a few weeks back, then backtracked to the Psychic Psummer review, listened to the album using the embedded Lala player, and presto! they've got a new fan. Meaning, the next time I order stuff from Important Records, I'll probably shell out $10 for the Cave album. So, yes, Pfork does get me to buy the occasional album I may not have found immediately otherwise.

As for what Pfork's saying about stuff I already enjoy, I'm often curious to check out the reviews, but I couldn't really care less whether I'm in agreement or not. It's just one more voice in the general critical discourse -- not some almighty tastemaker.

From what i gather from my friends who work at record labels and are in bands...

a "Best New Music" does help sell a few records, but the other reviews on the site are usually just internet background noise that just work in tandem with the NY Times/Brooklyn Veg/ILX/Village Voice/etc swarm of titter

i've had so many friends fall in the dreaded 6.0 to 8.2 zone!

NY Times/Brooklyn Veg/ILX/Village Voice

Not sure I'd put ILX in the company of those widely read pubs...

i would! i'm just saying "other places ppl read about music." The music hivemind is usually a snowball that creates itself via everything from the smallest blog to the biggest magazine. We're a very small part of it, but certainly part of it

sounds almost mystical tbh

everything from the smallest snowflake.. to the most massive galaxy

we're all one cosmic snake eating its own ass

A Best New Music certainly sells records. You should see how it affects Insound, who have a direct link on every Pitchfork review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyzIau5dBao

the dreaded 6.0 to 8.2 zone!

Ha, I'm not sure I'll ever entirely understand the dread. Hell, some folks seem surprisingly pissed that they have, say, released a record that was deemed notable, found worthy of coverage, and given a generally positive review on a well-read music website. I understand that people are going to think their records are 9.9s -- that's awesome, that's just believing in your work and caring about what you do -- but I don't know how mad anyone should get about press that says "this band's work is fairly good!"; your problem there isn't the press, it's that you're in the midst of a shuffle of SO MUCH other music that you were hoping for something more.

He was pretty obviously using some dramatic exaggeration re: "dreaded." But to be honest, I so rarely see PF give an indie record of any particular significance less than a 6 anymore that I can see a 6 seeming like a pan in that context.

In addition to Best New Music, I think P4k--which I admire and respect, obviously--would be even better if they had some designation for really out there kind of shit that was still solid but probably wouldn't appeal to the totality of their ideal readers like, say, the Tame Impala record theoretically would.

And, yeah, I think even a 7 is seen as a tepid review at this point, tbh. When there's enough 8s and higher to keep readers on their toes, most people aren't going to bother with the stuff that's rated below that. I guess.

Not to say I long for the days of 0.0 stunt reviews, those always bugged me, but I can't remember the last time Pitchfork was genuinely harsh on a record that anyone might've reasonably expected a good review of. Now that BNM is the big trophy, there are lots of those little trophies to go around to just about every team in the pee wee league. (xpost)

xpost - I know it was a joke, but seriously, some folks will seem genuinely annoyed by ratings up in the mid-to-high 7s, on the logic that they'll just get lost in the blur of "quite good" indie albums released each year.

And on the other side, reader-wise, I do think people who are in touch with the site's taste category should look carefully at ranges like the high 7s. This is not a mediocre score -- it's filled with plenty of albums that could be someone's favorite of the year, if they were up that person's particular alley. Like a 7.8 should never read to anyone as a turnoff!

Yeah...part of why I never totally fit in w/ PF I think is that I have a totally different idea of how to apply the scale of 10 to albums than most people, like maybe 10% of my reviews were an 8 or higher and many were way lower, and there are a lot of records I love wholeheartedly but would happily give a 7 or a high 6. Sometimes I'm not sure what a 9.5 or 10.0 album would sound like or if I've ever heard one.