pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

people who don't play guitar could not possibly give less of a fuck about the centaur. but they can understand how a pedal makes andrew bird's or tyondi braxton's shit possible.

i'm just imagining trying to explain a mildly interesting overdrive circuit design to the music fan who doesn't play and i'm sweating.

Be that as it may, not calling it the most important pedal of the past twenty years is wrong.

just a thought: maybe the author of the article didn't intend to make the claim that the DL4 was the most important pedal of the last 20 years, but someone whose job it is to make people click on articles decided to throw it in there after reading the Tyondai Braxton quote?

Be that as it may, not calling it the most important pedal of the past twenty years is wrong.

― he doesn't need to be racist about it though. (Austin), Sunday, April 1, 2018 10:33 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm sorry, i really want to dig into this. have klon overdrive tones actively influenced music over the past 20 years? are musicians everywhere doing different things because of the klon? i have literally never seen evidence that anyone outside of the segment of people who care about gear have been impacted by a klon.

compared to what looping pedals have done as far as letting bedroom musicians be more expressive live and letting guitar players create a lot of non-guitar sounds i just don't understand what any overdrive pedal could possibly be accomplishing.

Again, the DL4 was very influential and important for a delay/looper. But, even then, it borrowed elements that had existed in some Boss pedals since the late 80s. It wasn't even really "the first" device with looping capabilities.

The Klon was entirely new when it came out. Originals still go for thousands of dollars. And, as I said before, companies (big and small) are still trying to recreate it. I doubt this would be the case if it wasn't financially beneficial.

I mean, I think the whole idea of Klons being this gargantuan box of tone enhancing magic are just as dumb as the next guy, but to deny its influence and importance is wrong.

i've seen a lot of ridiculous arguments on ilx but this one... lol. the klon is influential to jack white-types who want to tell you about how different brands of 9v battery in their pedal sound as different as night + day, it has never inspired anyone in any tangible way bc why would it it's not an effect

what a klon

I mean, also, the Line 6 is also important in a different way because people are running more things besides guitars through it.

I know nothing about gear, but when this DL4 article was originally published, I emailed it to my amateur gtr buddy. He said – “I have one, but I'm terrible at looping. It's a good delay with something for everyone.”

Klon conversation has gone off a cliff

it's not an effect

Incorrect.

I mean, also, the Line 6 is also important in a different way because people are running more things besides guitars through it.

Yeah, nobody had ran anything except guitars through tape loops and delays at any point in the history of recorded music, ever, before the Line 6 DL4.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/onepiecetreasurecruiseglobal/images/e/e7/Epic_Facepalm_5452.png

Boss RC-20 was just as if not more popular than the DL4.

So, is Kacey Musgraves the first Country artist to have an album get Best New Music?

Loretta Lynn got one in 2003

*2004, my bad

boc are fine and so is simon reynolds but i'm fuckin tired of hearing about this album it's becoming like loveless https://pitchfork.com/features/article/why-boards-of-canadas-music-has-the-right-to-children-is-the-greatest-psychedelic-album-of-the-90s/

ilx sacred horse

experimental horse music being ilx's fave genre

hey it could have been a long piece on that avalanches record...

They're so obsessed w/the '90s. The idea of that recent "Top 200 [or whatever] of 1998" -- maybe the decade's worst year for music -- had me lol'ing.

are they sure it isn't the most goth album of the 90s?

boc are fine and so is simon reynolds but i'm fuckin tired of hearing about this album it's becoming like loveless

I'm offended "boc" is being used for some sleepytime computer twiddlers rather than for Rock Gods

decent record but i never thought of it as psychedelic when i could go to Spiritualized or Beck or the Flaming Lips or Cornelius. tbh i find that album a bit monotone and dull.

BoC >>>>>> BOC

They're so obsessed w/the '90s. The idea of that recent "Top 200 [or whatever] of 1998" -- maybe the decade's worst year for music -- had me lol'ing.

― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 1:02 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

p sure that's more reflective of a need for content + the fact that 20th anniversary pieces are ubiquitous than any obsession w the 90s

Geogaddi was better but this feels weird to get worked up over. The BoC debut is definitely a milestone release for its genre, and it’s not like Pitchfork is new to the game of somewhat overstating the importance of important records.
Maybe their new, more naked Content Aggregation approach just makes it grate more, idk

Also I won’t hear a bad word about either Avalanches record

xxpost
I guess, but (a) there are lots of current things the content could be devoted to, and (a) I don't recall the clip of 20th-anniversary pieces being so relentless in past decades, such as in music magazines etc. (though of course it's always been a thing). I know the '90s are big right now...

(I'm also not a publisher of any website, so who am I to quibble with how they get needed page views... I guess it's just funny to see the '90s repped so hard at the moment.)

it's not funny, it's very predictable, this happens every decade

the 90s have been big for years now.

There are possibly 400 better psychedelic albums from the 90s than MHTRTC, and it is certainly not a bad album

also the late 90s was p4k's early years. It's like the way Rolling Stone celebrated every 20th anniversary of 60s this & that back in the 80s.

when i think of pitchfork i think of 90s indie.

Yeah - and my point was that I don't recall "Best Albums of 1988" being done in 2008, etc. (I know they've done "Best of" lists for the '80s as a whole, and every other decade). The '90s are obv. in their wheelhouse, and I guess also what ppl want to read about right now.

Also, I read RS in the '80s, I don't recall features like "Why 'Surrealistic Pillow' Remains a '60s Landmark" or whatever. Obv. there was a big Boomer market for '60s nostalgia at that time. But Pfork seems particularly backward-looking.

https://img.wennermedia.com/920-width/rs-28722-22863_lg.jpg

xp they didn't even do one last year!

yeah rolling stone is as backward-looking as it gets, tho it mainly manifests in glowing reviews for late-period springsteen and u2 albums these days.

RS and every other mainstream music mag has done special Beatles issues every decade!

(RS may be more backward-looking now, I have no idea; but in the '80s I mainly remember reading about current acts, not big features devoted to 20-yr-old albums)

(I'm also totally willing to concede you all are correct, and I'm just more focused on / slightly bummed by the '90s nostalgia for personal reasons.)

the 80s and 90s don't seem to want to go away. but i guess its only fair because the 60s are seemingly forever. me, i'm stuck in the 70s.

(I'm also not a publisher of any website, so who am I to quibble with how they get needed page views... I guess it's just funny to see the '90s repped so hard at the moment.)

― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Tuesday, April 3, 2018 11:28 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not funny, it's very predictable, this happens every decade

― flappy bird, Tuesday, April 3, 2018 11:29 AM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn wait til we get to 2021 and we get dozens of thoughtful retrospectives on "Is This It." Released in the heart of the final summer before 9/11, The Strokes' scene-shattering classic debut is being reissued in a double CD special edition as well as a four-LP box set complete with outtakes and b-sides. and so on...

Probably already on the schedule.

Surprised that reissue hasn't happened already.

they could just lift the beginning and end from their interpol 10th anniversary review and change the dates

In retrospect, 2001 may have been the very year that we stopped talking about how music sounds, and started talking about what other music it sounds like. "The Strokes sound like the Velvet Underground" was one of the first critical observations to turn into a full-fledged meme.

speaking of that i was at Amoeba yesterday afternoon and Julian Casablancas was wandering around being filmed, probably for a "What's In Your Bag?" segment. i passed by him twice and didn't recognize him at first. he's still holding onto that dirtbag style 100%.