pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

anyway, i haven't read it yet so maybe it IS a dumb column, i just think it's a cool platform is all -- these types of columns are often the best thing pfork does

otm re: pfork columns -- t0m ew1ng, nabisco and m4rk r.'s columns should be required reading for anyone looking for smart thoughts abt music. i also usually find something of interest in The Out Door.

I like "Resonant Frequency" a lot

so what you guys are saying is that pitchfork...isn't dumb?

oh it's plenty dumb but it has its smart moments too

Getting rid of the reggae dancehall column was dumb

iirc the dude who wrote that posts here in the rolling thread

Dave Stelfox, who wrote the Pitchfork reggae/dancehall column for awhile used to post here a long time ago. After he stopped writing for Pitchfork (he took a non-music journalism job in the Mideast), Erin MacLeod wrote a few columns. She posted here a few times. But Pitchfork stopped asking her for columns.

best pfork review i've read in some time:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15122-space-is-only-noise

ugh, my least favorite misuse of "time signatures": In this more rhythmic first half of the album, electronic percussion figures in heavily as usual, but also with heightened emphasis on drummer Phil Selway's uneven time signatures

lol jesus

i wonder what the writer thinks time signatures are...?

once saw some review mention the "opening coda" of a song and just sighed so deeply

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcaYhGEzKD8

omg hearty lol @ "opening coda"

also maybe the phrase wasn't meant this way, but "uneven time signatures" could be acceptable if it's referring to stuff like 5/8, 7/8, 11/8, etc. where the subdivision of the macro beat isn't equal for every macro beat

(I should really get TKOL since, you know, I actually like Radiohead)

but the reviewer makes it sound like time signatures are something the drummer can do apart from the rest of the band. you know he really means "syncopated rhythms" or whatever.

btw everything on the radiohead record is in 4/4.

also thought it was weird they referred to "Neil Young-inspired guitar work" on "Seperator." I associate Neil Young with either strummy acoustic guitar or loud fuzzy solos, neither of which appear prominently in that song.

Guitar on Separator sounds Balearic to me. Reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZJy-yQTtI

irrelevant:

that emeralds review from some months back is one of the best i've read, and alone made me buy the album. and then i reread it recently and it sounds fucking ridiculous. comparing emeralds to the bp oil spill? i was a lil more enthused by description of "thrilling, viscous rush" as it's ending line, which you kinda have to forget the oil spill was somewhat of a tragedy of nature before you can appreciate.

dont even know what my point is.

the oil spill not being a "thrilling viscous rush" seems like a good enough point tbh

hahahahahahahahaha @ comparing an album to the bp oil spill o_0

metaphor, you fail at it

that review was by phil sherburne, it was good, it didnt compare the music to the oil spill.

"Describing Emeralds' music feels a little like capping that underwater oil spill must: how do you get your hands around this stuff?"

ie hardly a comparison

well its comparing the process of describing the music, rather than the music?

yeah no, I was agreeing with you effectively

lol sorry i wasnt sure if you were being sarcastic

ha, failed meta-crit by kelpolaris then

but the reviewer makes it sound like time signatures are something the drummer can do apart from the rest of the band. you know he really means "syncopated rhythms" or whatever.

Sure but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyrhythm

Just saying, it's not at all unreasonable

btw everything on the radiohead record is in 4/4.

lol well I guessed that, I'm just being pedantic

actually, if you were _really_ being pedantic,

CLIFFHANGER

from the review for PJ Harvey's new album:

The Great War remains a rich and resonant subject for art because it briefly caused the world to step back, aghast and afraid to look at what it had done. The collective trauma of World War I did indeed shake England, specifically, out of the end of its imperialistic Victorian stupor. The rest of the world gasped as well: WWI hastened the Russian Revolution, coaxed the U.S. into isolationism and a flirtation with pacifism, and set the tone for a shunned Germany to embrace the Third Reich. Culturally, the result was modernism, dadaism, and surrealism continuing to overtake the giddiness of la belle époque; geopolitically, it redrew European borders, creating roughly a dozen new nations; diplomatically, the League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations, was meant to prevent war, at least on this scale, from ever happening again.

the fuck? do they not have editors?

You mad

uh i think the PJ Harvey review was written by sc0tt p., who IS the editor... right?

i got about 1/3 into it and stopped reading btw. one of the only recent pfork reviews to be totally offputting b/c of the ridiculous density of language. i mean yeah i can read but i think music reviews should be, like, approachable

maybe they realized that some of the college kids reading PF won't learn world history unless they do an occasional wikipedia infodump in the middle of an album review as a public service.

lol @ the new streets review figuring out a way to work in james murphy/lcd

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15099-computers-and-blues

i got about 1/3 into it and stopped reading btw. one of the only recent pfork reviews to be totally offputting b/c of the ridiculous density of language. i mean yeah i can read but i think music reviews should be, like, approachable

― Damn this thread seems so....different without ilxor (ilxor), Saturday, 26 February 2011 15:57 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

? really?

yeah man there's this whole weird BLOCK of words, it's not cool! why can't they be like ilx posts?

lol yeah i just read the review + i agree that the history lesson in the middle is a bit weird but apart from that... i mean 'ridiculous density of language'??

relatively speaking... for a pitchfork review, i guess?

like, i can't think of a recent review that uses ANY of the following "big" phrases

collective trauma of World War I
imperialistic Victorian stupor
Russian Revolution
isolationism and a flirtation with pacifism
embrace the Third Reich
modernism, dadaism, and surrealism continuing to overtake the giddiness of la belle époque <---- WTF
geopolitically, it redrew European borders

i mean, sure, i guess it ties back to the album's core themes and inspirations, but i dont like my music reviews to come with high school history lessons -- just tell me what the album sounds like, please!

"Victorian stupor" seems like a potentially useful description of a PJ Harvey album tbh

not "imperialistic"?

i think he's saying that if a music review is going to be hard to read, it might as well actually talk about the album

frankly I think I prefer this to ham-handed current events tie-in

well yeah thats one paragraph, the rest of it talks abt the album xpost

collective trauma of World War I9/11
imperialistic VictorianRepublican stupor
RussianEgyptian Revolution
isolationism and a flirtation with pacifism [uh nobody does this anymore]
embrace the Third ReichTea Party
modernism, dadaism, and surrealismchillwave reggaeton and bloghouse continuing to overtake the giddiness of la belle époquethe Clinton Years

it doesn't matter that its just one paragraph it just kind of defeats the purpose of the record review, and this is the kind of thing they do all the time and it's really agitating. like that max tundra review where they just tried to draw similarities to him and the "real" fictional max tundra, the whole thing was just like "we got a hook, it's not about the music, but god damn it we're gonna use it"

i think it's totally okay to dedicate some of a record review to some overarching metaphor or non-musical commentary or introductory anecdote, if it's done well, obviously. at least with Pitchfork they've got enough leeway in wordcount that they can indulge in that stuff and still have room to discuss the music, sometimes in print reviews writers will just burn through the only 2 or 3 paragraphs they've got talking about some irrelevant side issue.