OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

editors would help

they'd help drive up costs you mean!!!

it reads like a copy of a copy of someone else’s marketing copy

Yeah, I was gonna say — it reads like a bad high school or college newspaper piece, Google-translated to another language and then back to English.

the naked careerism of some of the longtime L.A. Weekly folks who were deigned worthy enough to stick around is pretty off-putting, but those weren't the writers i used to like there.

I wouldn't have ever put Falling James and 'naked careerism' in the same sentence.

Via the Belle and Sebastian thread (and Wikipedia), I discovered this now-deleted OG Pitchfork gem:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030604193859/http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/belle-and-sebastian/boy-with-the-arab-strap.shtml

whatever an Arab Strap is, it should be used to batten down the crap song hatch

That's an awesome review that doesn't deserve to be mentioned in this thread. J@son Jos3ph3s is still active on twitter, btw.

"awesome" is pushing it, "lazy" and "by the numbers" is a better description

but yes, it doesn't belong on this thread

I give the review a 5.9

I give it a... 0.8

They always used to slag off popular albums. Their policy in those days was pretty much “If you’ve heard of it, it must not be very good.” I guess it helped get clicks though.

Their policy in those days was pretty much “If you’ve heard of it, it must not be very good.”

What webcomic do you write for with this idea?

Hologram Concerts Don't Suck, You're Just a Hater

professional troll Eve Peyser goes to a show where a video recording of a Roy Orbison impersonator with a CGI Roy Orbison face stuck on him is projected in front of an orchestra, just like the real Orbison played with

but is there holographic clingfilm

holografanfic

she really capitalized on that bari weiss kissyfest huh

she's having quite a year

very excited to not know who this is, thank you for not linking sic

Twitter things you def need to care about for 5 seconds

https://www.stereogum.com/2025587/vox-lux-review-natalie-portman-death-of-poptimism/franchises/sounding-board/

otm

But at what cost? Maybe poptimism’s fatal flaw is placing too much of our hopes and ideologies on an art form that cannot support or sustain them. Or maybe it doesn’t matter

if you peer deeply into the clause "or maybe it doesn't matter" you will see the phrase "i really regret pitching this dumbass idea" slowly clarifying itself in the dimness

lol

how many times does somebody need to rewrite the "we've gone too far, time to reinstate cultural hierarchies" handwringer?

I mean apart from on ILM

alright everybody start writing Car Seat Headrest clickbait

“Every generation gets the rock star they deserve. An icon that both contextualises the surrounded cultural landscape and redefines it. Looking back on this bewildering decade, no star will better epitomise our fractured, hyper-sexed identities and fiscal insecurity than the swaggy nihilism of Post Malone. The world is literally on fire and 13-year-old YouTubers are covering entire Ferraris in Louis Vuitton x Supreme wraps. Posty reigns.”

ban fashion magazines from covering music imo

lol I had to read the whole thing. marilyn manson is def fondly remembered as stylish

“If you've ever seen a photo of Miles Davis, Dwight Yoakam, Debbie Harry, or OutKast, you know that writing about music and writing about style are basically the same thing”

https://www.gq.com/story/whole-new-era-at-gq-ed-letter

wow dude really excited for your cutting edge magazine where your music issue features, uh, SoundCloud rap, John Mayer, and Vampire Weekend? You do know that music evolved since you left Fader right

.... ah

People who wear their shoes untied on purpose are insane

pitching GQ as an way-out-there magazine when it comes to anything is wild

like it's literally for 30 somethings who have an interest in owning more than one suit and want to read about things they've already heard of

https://www.spin.com/2019/01/deerhunter-why-hasnt-everything-already-disappeared-review/

I'm probably being unfair, but this unedited+unreadable wordcloud (at one point referring to the "ponderous basso continuo" of a track, presumably to mean "it has harpsichord") turned up in my feed on the same day many of the best writers I know got canned, and I went for the state of "content" as I have not wept since Pitchfork Reviews Reviews was a thing

*first "went" should be "wept" obv, but thanks to autocorrect for trying to make me appear happier than I am

he shd have cut straight to "boffo continuo"

eh, dense screed apparently written by a megafan who is too close to gauge the interest to others of everything being said

united spiritual conduit tho

jesus christ dale

'Ponderous basso continuo' is perfectly fine imho. As for the rest, it's not exactly good but it isn't bland either.

PONDEROUS, MAN, FUCKIN PONDEROUS

“Nothing Ever Happened,” a short-but-sweet number that leads to one of the most-inspiring guitar riffs in modern indie rock history

I'd be hard-pressed to name one riff from modern indie rock besides maybe "A-Punk" which is just a busier version of Minutemen's "My Heart And The Real World"

I'm struggling to articulate precisely why, but (for reasons undisclosed) really rubs me the wrong way. It just seems so uh... presumptuous? Idk

I recall Vedder saying he wished he'd written the guitar line from the dismemberment plan's "secret curse"

I dunno what “most-inspiring” means (so I’ll bracket that); but when I think of great/iconic indie rock riffs, I guess I think immediately of — “Freed Pig,” “Hot & Cold Skulls,” “Trigger Cut” (which was swiped from VU), “Coming Hot and Proud”... (all from the ‘90s)

What VU is the "Trigger Cut" riff swiped from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lqyoq2P7OE

"modern indie rock history" means post-Oh Inverted World ifaic

*afaic

it's getting to the point where one of my favorite things about indie rock is its sheer unmemorability. if i could remember it i think i'd probably hate a lot of it.