pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I only remember them ever saying it was a a David Berman thing.

OK, fine, I guess —

MALKMUS: Album titles are hard, and I came up with [Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain] somehow. I don’t really know. It’s kind of like “Purple rain, purple rain” in my mind. And it rhymes in a really ridiculous way, a double rhyme. I don’t know. “Crooked rain” is kind of poetic sounding, and then just doubling it with an absurdity double and the veiled Prince reference, at least in my mind. [sings: “Crooked rain, crooked rain.”] It just came up at the end. I had lots of other titles, but that one, much like Wig Out At Jagbags, it comes to be seen as the best one.
https://www.stereogum.com/1629101/the-oral-history-of-pavements-crooked-rain-crooked-rain/franchises/the-anniversary/

Still not as cut-and-dried as Pfork makes it sound!

I take it Slanted and Enchanted was the Berman-inspired title. I mixed those up on another thread here recently.

can someone explain to me why we need a vehicle to explore a 40-minute album in 5 minutes?

yeah I really wonder why online media outlets seem to favor short videos

these videos are one of the few things people who otherwise dislike p4k seem to broadly like ime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJP-Ilw_xaY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekg45ub8bsk

https://pitchfork.com/news/eminem-to-critics-of-his-shows-loud-gunshot-sound-effects-you-shouldnt-be-here/
Headline pretty heavily misrepresents what’s amounts to a pre-show disclaimer (if still a rather noncommittal one).

What's the misrepresentation exactly?

The “Eminem to Critics” part - as if this were, like, an open letter specifically addresssd to people pissed about the gunshot sounds.
And, like, I’m not especially compelled to stump for Eminem or anything. You could take his manager posting the message on Instagram as subtextually being a message to those people, maybe, linking sensitivity over the noises to Eminem’s history of getting in trouble over his lyrics. But that’s several layers of inference, even if plausible inference, past what’s literally just a pre-concert disclaimer.

“Does this merit posting in the Pitchfork thread,” I wondered, and well, here we are now.

Yes, I guess it would be more accurate to say that the message was aimed at ticket buyers rather than critics

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/50-songs-that-define-the-last-50-years-of-lgbtq-pride/

this is good; hi alfred

What, no “Glad to Be Gay”?

surprised at no Anthony.

this on 'don't stop me now' either strikes me as a weird interpretation that relies too hard on hindsight, or its just bad writing:

"The song’s wan initial reception may have had something to do with the genders of its love interests, which flip from male to female and back again to assert that frontman Freddie Mercury was bisexual"

it was a top ten UK hit so not too many people could have been put off... I Want To Break Free would have been more obvious, and that was an even bigger hit in most countries.
i'm just not sure this has much of a place in this specific list... no more than say, any Judas Priest hit.

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/50-songs-that-define-the-last-50-years-of-lgbtq-pride/

this is good; hi alfred

― lowercase (eric), Monday, June 18, 2018

hi!

lol apparently i need to brand myself more aggressively as a queer person

same

see if you can ask to write something to replace that troye sivan blurb that's apparently impressed that "cis, white gayness can be a selling point"

that

I Want To Break Free would have been more obvious, and that was an even bigger hit in most countries.

It is also very terrible.

there needs to be a punk version of that list

there is punk on that list

Man, the entire late 80s-early 90s queercore scene - Pansy Division, Team Dresch, Tribe 8, God Is My Co-Pilot really gettin the shaft

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

I was gonna pitch "Dick of Death."

These Pitchfork lists sometimes have a weird DMZ where it feels like their entire staff was totally checked out

cf. their "The Story of Feminist Punk in 33 Songs" list that has a mysterious deadzone between 2000 and 2008 like the Red Monkey/Scissor Girls/V for Vendetta/Erase Errata axis wasn't totally kicking ass while Pitchfork was propping up all the bearded indie boyz

I liked that list if only bc it covered 80-95 really well

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/chromeo-head-over-heels/

this is one of the most insane things i've ever read

Which is all to say, Head Over Heels sounds expert, expensive, accomplished, while being distasteful in almost everything else. First single “Juice” pours out a sugary, intoxicating groove reminiscent of ’80s boogie masters Mtume, whose Tawatha Agee provides backing vocals, then sours it with some gross ideas about power dynamics: “Relationships ain’t a democracy,” oh, Jesus, gross. “Must’ve Been” is a sort of “Fuck You” after the weed kicks in; it’s hard to get excited about a talk box these days, but Johnson’s guitar is so ticklish, and DRAM’s harmonies so pretty, you might as well giggle, if you can, at the lyric’s macho theatrics. To be fair, it’s the cost of doing business if you’re a fan of the band that brought you “Needy Girl” and “Sexy Socialite.”

If the album is typically weird about women, it’s worse about money. “Slumming It” starts out with, “She got lipstick on my blue collar,” and it’s downhill from there. Imagine “Common People” without the class consciousness, or “Uptown Girl” with a protagonist even less believably marginalized than Billy Joel and a (pretty good) saxophone solo instead of the faux-Frankie Valli lilt. And “Bad Decision” is a very Ivanka Trump kind of love song, in which a guy gives his future over to the credit industrial complex to show his devotion. “Let’s book a shopping trip, maybe I could charter a jet/And I don’t give a shit if I never get out of debt,” he croons. “Take out all my money from the bank/Take you around the corner, buy a ring…You make me want to make a bad decision.” Falling for this acquisition-as-affection is a bad decision too.

motherfucker you're writing about chromeo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Head Over Heels might replace the duo’s trademark mannequin legs on the cover for their own, but these days such co-opting of realness is real meh. It’s genderfluid like a tech bro in a stunt romper drinking a Monster. The farce is strong with these ones.

yeah... the farce is strong... with fucking chromeo!!!!!!!!!!

funny to imagine being chromeo and winking at the woke era by putting on he heels that have always been attached to mannequin legs on your album cover, and then some kid reviews your album for pitchfork without a single trace of irony and is like "this song about a man using his credit card to take a woman on vacation is morally reprehensible"

oh this is the same guy who wrote the troye sivan blurb, nice

lol J0rdan

https://pitchfork.com/news/person-killed-in-hit-and-run-after-dutch-festival/

If we're reading Pitchfork, chances are pretty good we've heard of Pinkpop and you could just say Pinkpop in your headline.

really? is pinkpop a big deal with American millennial males?

It's dumb clickbait. They've never reported on pinkpop before (they would've *maybe* if they've existed in 1992 when Eddie Vedder fell from an amp tower or w/e). Nothing indicating a trrrrr attack either.

yeah to me Pinkpop and Rock Am Ring are as familiar as Glastonbury and Reading

ditto for Summer Sonic

very light on the 'aughts. no Fischerspooner no Peaches no Goldfrapp

how is the new chromeo tho

It's good. If you like Chromeo, you'll be pleased.

i love chromeo

how does the dude look in heels to you

suits Dave better than Pee but they both wear it well

https://pitchfork.com/news/mobb-deeps-havoc-shares-posthumous-prodigy-freestyles-listen/

Wow if Prodigy is freestyling from beyond the grave, he's an even more talented MC than I originally thought

Man, the Gruff Rhys review they shoved down to the bottom of the page over a week after it came out reads much stronger than a 7.8.

After the album came out*

https://pitchfork.com/news/elon-musk-feuds-with-lisa-prank-over-stolen-farting-unicorn-illustration/

Jesus that url