pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

belle and sebastian and wes anderson -- love them as i do -- are sort of out of date references, no? it's weird to use them as an occasion for a sweeping damnation of "indie," which doesn't seem to exist as a discernible, guitar-rock based form anymore but rather an amorphous "upscale" marketing niche

also i am super uncomfortable with this kind of shit:

Batmanglij and Khan are highly visible but have never courted controversy, and rarely acknowledge their ethnic heritages through their art. What we hear in their work is artistic assimilation, their careers evidence the easy acceptance that comes of that.

it would be cool if they "acknowledged their ethnic heritage through their art" i guess, but why should they have to? why shouldn't they just allow themselves to be influenced by whomever happens to influence them? white artists do this. why should POC be pigeonholed, and asked to perform their identity in a way that pleases this critic?

n.b. pitchfork has totally played a huge role in establishing a largely white, largely male "indie canon" and deserve criticism for this. but this article is taking aim at specific artists, not content curators. and artists are who they are. their visibility is determined by other forces -- marketing budgets and the editorial decisions of content curators like pitchfork

i hate belle and sebastian, they're awful. but i dunno, go to glasgow before you bemoan their whiteness. glasgow is white as fuck.

12% of Glasgow is not white, which is lower than London, Manchester, etc but higher than a lot of other places in the UK. Getting mad about Belle & Sebastian is a bit like getting mad about Midsomer Murders, though. They are both part of the same fantasy heritage industry. I think the article was less about them than the way that fantasy is taken as the default by critics.

Xp, that paragraph was cut but doesn't read to me as a slight on the artists. There is no assumption that they should reflect their heritage in their art, it's pointing out that artists who don't often fare better.

Idk, it's far from perfect so I'd only go so far in defending it but it's definitely taking aim at the critical canon, not the musicians. The article Alfred posted fleshed that out better.

sufjan, belle & sebastien (fucking right about an outdated reference), wes andersen, et al aren't the bad guys here, it's the mindless imitators. arcade fire and bon iver bred vest rock and a lot of people have been talking about how there's a thinly veined white supremacy in generic indie rock and the 'upscale' artisan aesthetic lifestyle, embraced by fucks and naive, simple people moving to brooklyn with stars in their eyes. Nirvana lead to Nickelback, but they weren't the problem. ♫ it'ssss the money ! ♫

sorry *led

it would be cool if they "acknowledged their ethnic heritage through their art" i guess, but why should they have to? why shouldn't they just allow themselves to be influenced by whomever happens to influence them? white artists do this. why should POC be pigeonholed, and asked to perform their identity in a way that pleases this critic?

yeah...this is what irks me about the regular thinkpieces about The Mindy Project, the idea that Mindy Kaling can't just have a funny show that is rarely explicitly about her race the same way there are funny shows that ARE largely about race like Black-ish or Fresh Off The Boat. we can always wish someone executes their project differently, but when you make it sound like a duty...

reminds me of this Roger Ebert moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSzP9YV3jbc

So Jamie XX has 2 Pitchfork Best New Tracks in just the last week and will have dancehaller Popcaan guesting on his new album, but I haven't seen a single Jamaican dancehall song on the Best New Tracks tab going back to September 2014 (and maybe farther back as I stopped looking. Best New Albums may be similar I bet). The Best New Tracks has some rap, a little r'n'b, & rock and electronic stuff from various parts of the world btw.

oh Jamaican artists always get treated like that, guesting on projects (Kanye and Kendrick's last albums, Major Lazer) that attract huge acclaim that rarely spills over to their solo work very significantly, to say nothing of the long history of US/UK reggae and ska acts that have dwarfed the sales of any Jamaican artist not named Bob Marley.

Popcaan's album got reviewed on Pitchfork last year (an 8) but since Pitchfork dropped those columns they once had that covered music that Pitchfork gave less coverage to elsewhere, and with Jess H and Joe Tangari writing less for them, there's not much review coverage.

Afropop from Nigeria and elsewhere doesn't make best tracks or albums either. Deej wrote that December 2014 Pitchfork Pitch piece on best Nigerian Afropop tracks of 2014, and I haven't seen much coverage since then.

I really don't want Pitchfork to start covering more ''world music'', I don't think I would trust the idea generally.

Nor that I want south asian influences on a B&S record, that's a terrible idea.

the only site i can think of that comes close to being globally proportional in its coverage is rbma

It could work. The Avalanches remix of "I'm A Cuckoo" mixed in East African sounds pretty well.

xpost

Dude should just post a whole bunch of interesting south asian artists he knows about, instead of waiting for some validation by a bunch twee glaswegians.

and when Arcade Fire discuss their creoles influences people speak of cultural appropriation like it's a huge sin. I don't want to defend those artists and I'm all for better coverage of minority cultures in mainstream media. I just think there are better way of opening dialogue than again discussing pitchfork and white indie artists.

Hey guys, maybe off topic, but just while we're on the subject of "erasing the voices of women and POC", Regine is a Creole-speaking female POC

So what are the better ways you hint at Van Horn Street? You're fine with lots of Diplo but not dancehall? Indie(multiple forms of rock including experimental & metal & electronic programmed sounds) plus rap and a couple of r'n'b performers as the only Best Albums and Best Tracks is ok? Btw, Some of those "world music" artists you don't want are considered pop or dance to those familiar with their music.

Dude should just post a whole bunch of interesting south asian artists he knows about, instead of waiting for some validation by a bunch twee glaswegians.

― Van Horn Street,

The "dude" who wrote the Pitchfork article is named Sarah Sahim. Sarah said she liked B & S's music, but took them to task for how they were casting a movie.

I can't think of anything less consequential to anything than how Belle & Sebastian cast its twee movie in 2014.

my main problem with the article was that it drew sinister implications from the Taco Bell/Pizza Hut guys having trouble shaking the "joke rap" rep

in defense of the piece, a) it's clear the belle and sebastian stuff came from the writer's being a fan, and more importantly b) you can't complain about outlets establishing a canon or zeitgeist and then simultaneously criticize bands for being "out of date"

I'm just not sure what the author's point was. I guess I would have prefered a strictly personal essay about what it's like to be, say, south Asian and like bands that look nothing like me. As opposed to citing a whole bunch of bands that ... are too white? I guess I'm not sure what the solution to her problem would be. When I want to hear music from India, I listen to music from India. When I want to hear music from Africa, I listen to music from Africa. When I want to hear indie rock, I listen to indie rock. When I want to hear jazz, I listen to jazz. When I want to listen to death metal, I listen to death metal. And so on. No one looks like me because I am the only me.

Semi-related, what's with corrections/excisions at Pitchfork? I don't just mean stuff like making glowing Save Ferris and Walt Mink reviews fall down the rabbit hole, which is easy to mock but probably harmless.

But in this piece, controversial sentences were excised (the Rostam Batmanglij/Natasha Khan stuff) without any acknowledgement. The note at the bottom only mentions that the Belle and Sebastian album cover section (a factual error) was removed.

And, as mentioned in that piece that Alfred posted, the "correction" for Ian Cohen's classist lead said that it was a case of unclear writing that an editor accidentally overlooked.

Why do they take the "sweep it under the rug" strategy in these instances? Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like a weird strategy that undercuts their credibility.

go back and listen to ur own country's music!! xp

Yeah, that's the last I waste my time on world music like Belle & Sebastian. Too weird, too not like me. Gonna stick closer to home from now on.

they have a special time to drink tea over there!

Semi-related, what's with corrections/excisions at Pitchfork? I don't just mean stuff like making glowing Save Ferris and Walt Mink reviews fall down the rabbit hole, which is easy to mock but probably harmless.

But in this piece, controversial sentences were excised (the Rostam Batmanglij/Natasha Khan stuff) without any acknowledgement. The note at the bottom only mentions that the Belle and Sebastian album cover section (a factual error) was removed.

And, as mentioned in that piece that Alfred posted, the "correction" for Ian Cohen's classist lead said that it was a case of unclear writing that an editor accidentally overlooked.

Why do they take the "sweep it under the rug" strategy in these instances? Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like a weird strategy that undercuts their credibility.

Can't expect too much of a site that has 1984'd all of its Ryan schreiber reviews

I don't know, the stuff I mentioned seems a level above deleting stuff from when it was basically Ryan Schreiber's personal site.

There are plenty of credible writers/journalists at Pitchfork, and yet the site is engaging in these pointless Journalism Ethics 101 breaches, and I'm unsure why. Is it really just to save face?

So what are the better ways you hint at Van Horn Street? You're fine with lots of Diplo but not dancehall? Indie(multiple forms of rock including experimental & metal & electronic programmed sounds) plus rap and a couple of r'n'b performers as the only Best Albums and Best Tracks is ok? Btw, Some of those "world music" artists you don't want are considered pop or dance to those familiar with their music.

― curmudgeon, dimanche 29 mars 2015 18:16 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with the tedious definition of world music, music from my own country will be placed in World in some US and canadian store whereas to me its just regular pop or folk. As for the editorial content of Pitchfork, I'm fine with it, since I know it's not the only news and music critic source and the way they operate must be taken with a grain of salt. I don't want them to change or do anything different, I'll just look elsewhere for other types of information. When it comes to 'white indie music' I'll go back to them, when I'm looking for hip hop or reggae, I won't, unless they've been linked from ILM/ or written by someone from ILM.

Also, since I said "journalism ethics" and the supreme assholes of gamergate have forever tainted that phrase, I'm talking about taking sentences out of a piece without any acknowledgment, not any of the content of Sarah Sahim's piece.

i don't really miss living in center city philadelphia but i have missed the different faces/peoples i saw every day on the street and at work since i left there. i like lots of languages and people from other places and to be honest white people living can make me kinda itchy. at least when i lived on marthas vineyard all my co-workers at the hospital spoke portuguese all day long. that was soothing. i take what i can get here. a very white and not very big town but there are 4 chinese restaurants, a korean restaurant, 2 thai restaurants, a japanese restaurant, and an indian restaurant! in the heart of kielbasa country! that's progress if you ask me. not that they're all great but hey i'll take it after 6 years of fried tourist food on MVI. though the linguica & egg sandwiches were choice...

this country is sloooooowly changing. it's still very young. i'm telling ya, in 50 years if we aren't underwater it should be an interesting place. i mean it ain't sweden.

Btw, Some of those "world music" artists you don't want are considered pop or dance to those familiar with their music.

This is something I had a lot of conversations about with other editors when I was working on a "world music" magazine (2005-2007). I argued strongly that we should publish more articles on acts considered "cheesy pop" in their own countries, not just the NPR/Whole Foods/good-for-you version of "world music."

Reminds me of when I played some highlife comp for a friend of mine in the peace corps in Ghana, and she told me it was absolutely unlike what she knew as highlife.

I had a Jamaican friend of a friend tell me once that dancehall was for Jamaicans, and dub was for white people.

Putumayo’s distinctive CD covers feature the colorful art of British illustrator Nicola Heindl, whose folkloric style illuminates the company’s mission: to connect the traditional and the contemporary through music and art. By combining appealing music and striking visual aesthetics with creative retail marketing, Putumayo has developed a unique brand identity, a rarity in today’s artist-based music industry.

These distinctions are so fascinating to me. I mean, in my older daughter's class last year there was a girl from Israel and a girl whose parents were from Ireland. Literally nothing in common at all except that both might be categorized as "white." I think encountering things that are different from me is part of what makes life interesting. That any particular genre, however amorphous, is considered more one thing than another is almost beside the point, imo.

in my older daughter's class last year there was a girl from Israel and a girl whose parents were from Ireland. Literally nothing in common at all except that both might be categorized as "white."

And there was a time, possibly within my grandparents' lifetime, that neither Irish nor Jews (nor Italians, for that matter) counted as "white."

Also, since I said "journalism ethics" and the supreme assholes of gamergate have forever tainted that phrase

― intheblanks, Sunday, March 29, 2015 8:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is still such a thing as journalistic ethics. the idea of a concept like that becoming "tainted" by a movement as idiotic as "gamergate" -- don't even like typing it -- is distressing.

it is unethical of pitchfork to retract things without mentioning it

where's PRR bro when you need him

i think he's working at Halliburton or Rap Genius now?

he died

I will note that while that list of recent BNMs contains a decent amount of women and men of color, afaict it contains no women of color.

Twigs the last one there I think. Richard and Sullivan were both put into the 8.0-8.1-almost-BNM tranche. They gave Tinashe 7.5 and Azealia 8.0 but both ended up in the 2014 Top 50.

i'm fine w/ looking at what a site reviews highly and observing trends or tendences, but the fact that people are always pulling their hair out over what is or isn't a 'BNM' seems like just buying into the site's branding way too much for me. it might as well be a smiley face icon that appears over certain reviews or a little cartoon red pepper with a word bubble saying 'this is a HOT one, baby!'

The fact that anyone thinks this is about Pitchfork covering more "world music" or B&S putting sitars on their records is kind of lol but mostly sad.

my main problem with the article was that it drew sinister implications from the Taco Bell/Pizza Hut guys having trouble shaking the "joke rap" rep

The guy has had two Das Racist albums, a couple of solo mixtapes and the Swetshop Boys EP since Combination Pizza Hut / Taco Bell but the main issue, as Alfred's link states more clearly, is that the Pitchfork reviewer lacked the ability or willingness to engage with the core theme of the album. It's not necessarily sinister but it's a failure.

yeah i've never understood the prominence people place on it but it seems like more of an indication of the site's branding than anything else. official seal of approval rather than just one writer who likes an album.

also when it comes to core "indie rock" (that this piece addresses) BNM still has an ability to shift an artist's career. pitchfork might not "make" bands at the scale that it used to but for a whole lot of music it covers it's still a pretty important signifier.