pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

copyright 1987 laffy taffy inc

Genie: "Oi! Ten thousand snares will give you such a kick in the neck."

Their last album started with a neck-kicking snare and closed with a four-movement wordless jazz suite; it sold about 35k in its first week. Around the same time, the Roots backed Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa, who played their Bruno Mars-assisted single "Young Wild & Free", from the execrable 2012 stoner movie Mac and Devin. The soundtrack debuted in the Top 10.

not only is this kind of a hollow false binary but it's also incorrect. Undun did 48k the first week and charted higher than the Mac & Devin soundtrack, which sold 38k the first week.

Also, they backed Snoop and Wiz as part of their job on Late Night, right? Nothing I've seen indicates that they are on the studio track.

I guess they should have realized that movie was execrable and refused to back the show's musical goest on principle.

Obviously still a hollow false binary, even if they were on the track, but just more evidence of what a stretch that passage is.

What is up with them referring to "Jon Richman" in the Priests review today?

"punk progenitor Jon Richman" https://www.google.com/search?q=%22jon+richman#q=%22jon+richman%22

partial Jon Richman discography:
Jon Sings!
Jon Goes Country
I, Jon
Surrender To Jon

After 28 years of being held by many as the gold standard for indie-pop, 1986's C86 compilation is getting a lavish reissue with two bonus discs have been assembled by one of its original curators, former NME writer Neil Taylor, who also supplies copious liner notes.

officially canonized in the compilation's canon

The Guardian recently [published? presented? wrote?] a piece titled “C86: The myths about the NME’s indie cassette debunked”

if you go through for typos you're basically one of those cranks who reads the New York Times front-to-back every day and writes a strongly worded letter about every spelling mistake

i don't go through for typos. i notice the ones i can't help noticing, and sometimes find it funny, since it's a pretty stuck up, self-important place

I write letters to PF every day about putting commas and periods after endquotes.

me too. it's the dangling participles that really get me

When lines like these pop up on the record, I find myself chuckling, sometimes laughing out loud, which might seem anachronistic on an album about sadness.
Wait, so people were sad before they learned to laugh? Or does Mark Richardson just not know what the word 'anachronistic' means?

'Creating a semi-fictional delivery system for your creative ideas is nothing new, but few have had Del Rey’s commitment to the idea...' Oh come now, even Ziggy Stardust hung around for two albums... and that's in your second of three consecutive paragraphs dealing with (the we don't actually give a fuck) question of the authenticity of Lana Del Rey.

I feel like I could type forever about "how I wish men would write about not-men". Clauses like: "you begin to remember why many people find the whole project repellant" really grate on me, the writer presuming to speak on behalf of a large group. I want to underline "many people" and ask "who?" because as far as I know, everybody fucking loves LDR. Plus the deliberately unsympathetic connotation of the word "repellant", this is coded abuse.

Other than that, I was prepared to hate that review but thought generally it was OK. She inhabits such the Marilyn trope so wholly that many people I trust and respect seem unable to conceive that she is doing so willingly. Kind of a cool Gordian knot, really, "it takes a lot of money to look this cheap" turned into "it takes a lot of commitment to appear so inauthentic". Mark Richardson wrote well about it imo

also, it's spelled "repellent", not "repellant"

Clauses like: "you begin to remember why many people find the whole project repellant" really grate on me, the writer presuming to speak on behalf of a large group. I want to underline "many people" and ask "who?" because as far as I know, everybody fucking loves LDR.

otm, richardson is generally a good writer imo but i can't stand it when writers assume internet/blog chatter about some artist to be the defining narrative of his/her work. lana del rey's music isn't really for me but regardless i don't really give a fuck that some music bloggers were shitting on her for not being authentic? it's the same kind of spirit (constant references to bullshit on the web) when pitchfork reviewers have links in every other sentence to fluffy p4k news articles and minor twitter beefs.

the LDR backlash wasn't just some music bloggers going on about her authenticity. like her appearance on SNL was reviled. there was a massive "wtf is this" reaction to her first album, and i think relegating that to "internet/blog chatter" is sort of missing the point. especially since the review is pretty well geared towards convincing people that were sure there was nothing in them from LDR that maybe there is after all.

i mean at this point all criticism is just internet chatter before we die anyway but i did check metacritic for born to die and it revealed yeah there was a large _critical_ spread of opinion that mark was responding to. what else is he supposed to respond to -- the album as a cultural artifact with no context? or just like interview people on the street about it until he hits a sufficiently large sample size?

what's the difference between a blog and a review in a major pub now, views-wise? is there one? (either way born to die got panned in both, so..)

what even is a blog, anyway

I like that Lana del Rey review. Does Mark Richardson post here? I seem to remember him doing so.

Yeah, I'm with s.clover. The backlash wasn't restricted to Hipster Runoff - there was a widespread desire to take her down, from Twitter to most US critics. Most of her 7 million albums were sold outside the US so it's reasonable to frame a review on a US website in those terms. I think the review's generally OTM.

But then comes “Brooklyn Baby”, a song that references Lou Reed, a rare jazz collection, feathers in hair, the “freedom land of the ’70s,” and “churning out novels like beat poetry on amphetamines.”

L-fucking-O-L

In a new Guardian profile, Lana Del Rey says that the late Lou Reed was supposed to appear on her Ultraviolence track "Brooklyn Baby". Unfortunately, he passed away right as they were set to meet. "I took the red eye, touched down at 7am … and two minutes later he died," she says.

Elsewhere in the profile, she claims that she wants to die. When asked by writer Tim Jonze "if she sees an early death as glamorous," she responds, "I don't know. Ummm, yeah," before adding, "I wish I was dead already." When Jonze tells her not to say that, that she doesn't really mean it, Del Rey responds, "I do! I don't want to have to keep doing this. But I am."

Jonze asks "Do what? Make music?", and she responds, "Everything. That's just how I feel. If it wasn't that way, then I wouldn't say it. I would be scared if I knew [death] was coming, but …"

Additionally, she thinks that criticism aimed at her is "personal" (rather than straight-up sexism) because in comparison to artists like Miley Cyrus, Lily Allen and Lorde, she isn't a "true provocateur." "I don't think there's any shock value in my stuff – well, maybe the odd disconcerting lyric – but I think other people probably deserve the criticism, because they're eliciting it," she said.

Listen to "Brooklyn Baby":

I've always hated LDR because she always felt so manufactured; specifically following American Apparel's branding strategy.

billboards and ads on the back of vice magazine?

I've always hated LDR because I don't think her songs are interesting and I dislike the way she sings.

billboards and ads on the back of vice magazine?

― socki (s1ocki), Monday, June 16, 2014 11:21 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Her music is about as deep as a clothing company trying to reach a particular demographic, and her approach is the same as American Apparel's.

she has a rich dad and she'd rather be a pop star than work in advertising/academia/TV. more power to her. perfect for the pitchfork demographic

find other criticisms plz

"She has a rich dad" Oh wow, game over, killer point.

also... she... like... markets her music!!!

burn all your ramones and dead kennedys albums plz

i love how gang of four and stereolab sound but i don't listen to lyrics

as far as I know, everybody fucking loves LDR.

really?

new dn

by "everyone" people are referring to non-US audiences (SNL appearance less of a factor?) and young, often teenage girls -- the Cedric Gervais "Summertime Sadness" was Top 10, "Young and Beautiful" IIRC just missed Top 20, and you don't get those numbers from hate-listens. you can speculate all you want about *why* she resonates with non-US audiences or teenage girls but the data is there.

that said, there was absolutely a backlash to LDR among "music types," a huge one -- in fact, if you think it's just blog chatter that probably says more about your defining things by blog chatter.

great review, also

seemed to get passed over earlier but holy fucking shit @ professional writer not knowing what anachronistic means

(haven't read the review)

I've read it now, it's alright (that line has been changed btw: "When lines like these pop up on the record, I find myself chuckling, sometimes laughing out loud, which might seem odd on an album about sadness" - to which I would still say "yep, it would seem odd if you were on the album", and yeah "repellant" is a noun, but I guess she's a daft reader who looks for belles lettres in a p4k review). Not heard the album, not sure if I'll bother, but it seems otm to me that her appeal can be both summed up & dismissed as "cool fully formed aesthetic bro"; if you like the songs you'll go along with all the played-out americana. True as well that most ppl, popstars or no, get bored with their one-note sockpuppets after a while, I guess LDR is the waterface of pop

*smiles, sings Video Games at the top of his lungs*

*guitar solo*

i thought you were owen pallett

*takes off Nixon mask, revealing Darth Vader mask*

circles within circles
within other circles
video games

first person shooter