Pitchfork Reviews Reviews

oh that's enough out of you

sorry but the idea that this is like some conspiracy to usurp rock crits everywhere is ridiculous

no one is getting suckered into anything ffs, calm down

― If Airplanes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport (s1ocki), Wednesday, September 29, 2010 11:32 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

kid is the best damn music writer i have read in ages and i am crazy crazy jealous, like knowing what truman capote was up to his teens & 20s level jealous. just for the record.

― a dystopian society awaits if we continue on this path. (contenderizer), Thursday, September 2, 2010 1:21 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

Cannot believe you guys don't read PRR when there are brilliant insights like these ALMOST EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY:

now i am thinking about when ezra sings, “you can turn your back on the bitter world!!!” and also when kurt cobain sings, “i found it hard / it’s hard to find / oh well, whatever, nevermind” but maybe it’s a double-entendre because it sounds like he’s singing, “it’s hard to find the will, whatever, nevermind…”

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Thursday, September 16, 2010 6:26 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

I mean, the fact that the moment he actually starts to get some attention (not to mention some real writing gigs) and now he is talking about seriously stopping the actual Pitchfork Review Reviews part of the blog, or at least downgrading it: isn't that like a dead giveaway or something?

haha this is totally what i thought, too, as soon as he made the announcement. (so soon after getting the awl to pick up his shit? say it ain't so.) but even if it's true, i can't hate on people for finding back doors into audience- and venue-building these days. shit is hard out there.

they like his writing. i don't think they were like, lured into his blog under false pretenses only to have the porticullis snap shut behind them xp

um, where did I say that, s10ck1? xpost

drugs a. money dont waste your time worrying about ilxor and contenderizer they always have weird opinions, all over the board, over and over and over again, but its sweet that you care

(ilxor quote might be sarcasm, though it's hard telling since he'd been repping for him quite some time before that post)

xpost thanx max! :D

Pitchfork Reviews Reviews Thread Reviews

(ilxor quote might be sarcasm, though it's hard telling since he'd been repping for him quite some time before that post)

For the record: I definitely like the guy's writing, and I definitely exaggerate my enthusiasm for the sake of funneh ILX responses. So, while my enthusiasm is genuine, so is my coming across like an extreme fanboy. :)

is someone gonna man up and start blogging ILX thread reviews? (Not it.)

RIP clusterfuck thread

still not sure why it makes everyone's BLOOD BOIL

I think the only thing that makes BLOOD BOIL is when people say he's the next great thing or whatever. He's pretty meh tbh; after skimming that last Awl piece i kinda stopped reading his stuff altogether.

I read far more criticism about him than actual writings he has done!

Ripfork, a site with a similar conceit, gets no attention because it sucks

Ripfork is also a shitty title. Pitchfork Reviews Reviews is pretty funny, and probably wholly responsible for his fame.

kid is the best damn music writer i have read in ages and i am crazy crazy jealous, like knowing what truman capote was up to his teens & 20s level jealous. just for the record.

― a dystopian society awaits if we continue on this path. (contenderizer), Thursday, September 2, 2010 1:21 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

ooookay, so this i'd forgotten about. yikes. think i wrote this after first reading his stuff, several of the pieces he links at the top of his site as the work he's most proud of. and i was, momentarily, a bit overawed. apparently... i'm not exactly rescinding the praise, but i am a bit embarrassed by my tendency to go all-out (THIS SUCKS! or THIS IS GREAT!) on first exposure to new things. my initial impressions are almost always moderated and complicated by time.

i still think the guy is a talented writer, by which i mean "arranger of words in appealing sequence." i've said it before, so i won't go into it again, but i like the way he structures and tells a story. i'm impressed with his literary chops on that level. in that sense, i don't buy markers' claim that this is nothing more than poorly written inside baseball aimed at indie obsessives. it may scratch that itch that for certain readers, but it's better than that.

is this really "music writing"? i don't know that it is. it certainly isn't music criticism in any conventional sense. most of PRR's best essay-style pieces barely comment on the music they ostensibly address. they deal instead with the author's own life and with the lives of those around him, narrating certain moments spent immersed in music as culture. i guess i view these pieces as a combination of journalism and personal essay. perhaps people object to the fact PRR's (admittedly overhyped) essays have so little to say about music. i'm okay with that, because i like/admire the writing, and because i think the author frequently does manage to get at something meaningful and interesting - though more often than not it's personal rather than critical. the careful attention to the texture of professional interactions with strangers in the das racist piece, and the way it doles out and builds up its angle on immigrant experience and alienation.

contenderizer could you link to the shit you read that made you all WOW

kind of curious, i've largely ignored this thread cuz I don't care about pitchfork or reviews of their reviews but if it's causing this much reaction consistently I guess I should at least hip myself to it

well, the two recently-discussed AWL pieces are a good start. both excellent (links not far upthread). also:

there's this one, on being a fat kid.

and this one, about getting a lil wayne tattoo.

can't imagine they'd convert anyone who doesn't like what they've already read, though. his approach doesn't vary much.

guys, editing's not a BAD word. really.

why the hell did I even try to read that Lil Wayne piece

so is PRR literally a viking in his dreams or not?

why the hell did I even try to read that Lil Wayne piece

― Monkeys? Um, no. (HI DERE), Wednesday, September 29, 2010 3:04 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

right?

i think the LW piece is both awkward-funny and kinda poignant, but not to all tastes, i guess...

is this really "music writing"? i don't know that it is. it certainly isn't music criticism in any conventional sense. most of PRR's best essay-style pieces barely comment on the music they ostensibly address

I think he's interested in music from a sociocultural perspective, i.e. the shifting hierarchies of "coolness," Pitchfork's function as a gatekeeper, etc. A lot of his pieces scrutinize how music functions for different people, including himself. It's not conventional music criticism inasmuch as it doesn't focus primarily on the music itself, but that wider perspective also makes it more interesting to me than if he were just some enthusiastic mp3 blogger.

okay I wz able to finish the tattoo story. he actually for the most part writes about Lil Wayne pretty well, and as promised, the heart-on-sleeve introspection did yield some evocative moments, but there's a lot of dross in there, and there's definitely at least one paragraph that ranks among the worst ever written.

Music writing and music criticism are two different things. The former doesn't necessarily require a critical perspective on the music. Plus I frankly think the idea of criticism has been so devalued in the last ten years that everyone thinks they're a critic just because they have a blog and they listen to advances. Even worse, everyone thinks everyone ELSE is a critic for the same reason. As far as PRR goes I think the distinction is pretty fucking important, and I'd wager that he'd be the first to tell you he's not a critic, nor even a journalist.

I actually think the James Frey comparison is the most salient thing I've read in this thread. PRR reads like some hybrid of fiction/memoir, and its intent has never been to be incisive about MUSIC. Ostensibly it was created to be incisive about Pitchfork, and in reality he is compelling because he is incisive about himself.

Seems like everyone, pro or con, can agree that PRR's most distinctive quality is how much he reveals his own neuroses. Whether you find his writing successful or not--grammar aside--seems to lie in whether you see this as the point or as an obstacle to some other point.

good post

He's incapable of distinguishing between the interesting and mundane aspects of his life. I'd put money on this kid being a (possibly) undiagnosed Apergers case, albeit a fairly mild one.

I disagree

I'd put money on this kid being a (possibly) undiagnosed Apergers case

this has already been said--armchair psychologists ought to stfu

PRR's most distinctive quality is how much he reveals his own neuroses

Uh, read some proper confessional literature and this won't seem so distinctive. And his neuroses are such piddling things; they neither resonate with me nor move me. Who gives a shit about how some man-child who won't grow up gets insecure about ringing a doorbell.

Also, he's not a bad music writer bc he's bad on music (tho he is) - it's cuz he's a bad writer, full stop, about everything.

he is just the worst human being ever, and probably mentally ill, and has written some of the worst paragraphs written by any writer.

^ this thread

if he was a bad writer about everything wouldn't he also be a bad writer about nothing

Not saying he is a cut above all writers who write about their neuroses; I'm saying it is the most obvious characterization of his own writing. I didn't phrase it as a value judgment.

hes really quite normal in person

i mean at least as normal as most ilxors ive met. moreso, probably.

"hes" "really" "quite" "normal" "in person"

Seems like everyone, pro or con, can agree that PRR's most distinctive quality is how much he reveals his own neuroses. Whether you find his writing successful or not--grammar aside--seems to lie in whether you see this as the point or as an obstacle to some other point.

Great point about the point.

like if you are a teenage mercenary in mogadishu or a stickup kid in the City of God or a college student getting yourself pumped up for a recreational basketball game in italy, or borat, or a swiss girl at a party in new york, and your reference points in American rap are Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac and maybe jay-z or 50 Cent, kanye and wayne might strike you as really skilled homosexual gangsta rap parodists

the aforementioned "worst paragraph of all time." now I'm willing to guess that pretty much everyone itt knows what point PRR is trying to make here, but I'm also willing to bet that 95% would agree that this probably the worst possible way to illustrate said point.

to get a sense of the broader context:

it would take like six hours to explain Wayne to someone who isn’t from America, i think, because people from other countries have different senses of humor and understandings of irony and meaning and visions of american gangsterism. like remember when Kanye West and 50 Cent both put their records out on September 11th a few years ago and 50 Cent said he would retire if Kanye outsold him and then Kanye outsold him by a lot in America but then 50 Cent sold more records worldwide so he didn’t retire?

50 Cent is a gangster cartoon and Kanye is a self-conscious weirdo who details his mixed feelings about fame and success, which wayne is and does too, and i think if you’re not familiar with the American version of Self, 50 Cent might make a lot more sense to you than Kanye. and i guess that Wayne, at his alien best and his kurt cobain worst and most places in between those, lands closer to Kanye than 50 Cent

like if you are a teenage mercenary in mogadishu or a stickup kid in the City of God or a college student getting yourself pumped up for a recreational basketball game in italy, or borat, or a swiss girl at a party in new york, and your reference points in American rap are Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac and maybe jay-z or 50 Cent, kanye and wayne might strike you as really skilled homosexual gangsta rap parodists

am I missing something or is he just saying their voices sound gay?

you're missing something, but that's okay, so is he

everything up to the conclusion was really rather salient, but the conclusion is obv insane

The success of that, er, entry depends on your tolerance for faux-casual writing.

my last post was meant as a joke but doesn't actually make sense. sorry.

but no, I think he's talking about deeper/broader self-presentation stuff. the one problem with this is that someone coming from the foreign contexts he's talking about is less likely to even pick up those self-presentation distinctions in the first place.

if you are a teenage mercenary in mogadishu
or a stickup kid in the City of God or
a college student getting
yourself pumped up for a recreational basketball game in italy,
or borat,
or a swiss girl at a party in new york,
and your reference points in American rap
are Notorious B.I.G.
and Tupac
and maybe jay-z or 50 Cent,
kanye and wayne
might strike you

as really skilled homosexual gangsta rap parodists

like I know he's dancing around some assumed idea of people from other countries being unfamiliar with the "American Sense Of Self" (Curtis and Graduation have sold about the same internationally, actually) but the idea that they'd be perceived as a "homosexual parody" of gangsta rap kinda nullifies any other point he's trying to make.

dammit -- Europeans should have kept their colonies.

Coming from the rich tradition of homosexual rap parodies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KTalft2T9k

really skilled homosexual gangsta rap parodists

ok that is funny