Pitchfork Reviews Reviews

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

this guy is a media savant, you'll all be working for him someday

― (e_3) (Edward III), Monday, September 27, 2010 5:08 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

^ I take this back, you are already all working for him

already, all of you are working for him

he sounds like he'd be a chill boss

chatty

His memo's sentences would start with "like" and he'd tell you what he told his shrink about Avey Tare

this thread is like reliving the moment music lovers everywhere figured out fred durst was going to become successful and popular

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

straight up, five bucks if you make this the ilm board description

would offer more, but times are tough

I am okay with making ILM all about Geir

I am not at all okay with making ILM all about PRR

I keep reading PRR as "PBR." Or maybe I just can't wait to leave the office.

see, even anonymous aerosmith albums in an empty room is working for him now

this kid is like a bodysnatcher

would offer more, but times are tough

it's okay, i think i ruined this thread :(

it was ruined before I created it

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/ronaldinhopeep.jpg

see, even anonymous aerosmith albums in an empty room is working for him now

this is a genius ref btw Edward III and I don't want you to think I missed it

I think it's disingenuous to argue "he's not a music critic". What is his writing about Lil' Wayne, or the meaning of Vampire Weekend's class allusions, if not straight-up music crit (leaving aside whether it's good or bad music crit, which for me seems to swing wildly on a sentence by sentence basis).

Contenderiser, you were complaining about not having been directed towards all the good music crit that you should have been reading.

Have you read Tom Ewing's Popular series? When it comes to writing about both:

a) a personal relationship with given pieces of music; and

b) how music functions differently for different people "out there"...

...Tom demolishes PRR. But that's not a fair comparison because Tom demolishes nearly everyone on these grounds.

When it comes to music critics who have emerged over the last ten years or so with a "distinctive voice", I really can't think of a better candidate.

To build on this (and to give it a point beyond gratuitously repping for Tom), I would say that what Tom does which PRR doesn't (apart from being an immensely superior stylist and self-editor) is to ask interesting

questions

I agree with the basic argument that PRR can sometimes come up with some interesting insights, or at least correct ones - his Vampire Weekend analysis is sound, for example - but he strikes me as struggling to say something interesting from within the defined, delimited and over-determined aesthetic viewpoint of the stereotypical pitchfork reader. As good as his answers occasionally are, his questions seem kinda generic and undeconstructed.

Which is not a massive slight because I think that's true of most music critics tbh.

Obv that "questions" wasn't meant to be quoted like that.

i thought it was a nice stylistic choice