pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Listening to it now, I can almost smell the turpentine I used to huff after school. Its popularity should’ve made me feel less alone. Instead, it made me feel like stabbing my stepdad and driving his car into a pole, which, when I think about it now, is probably exactly how a 12-year-old is supposed to feel.

wat

3 out of the 8 paragraphs in this review of the first X album is about how John and Exene use the n-word once in one song.

I'm sure 98% of ILX agrees with the basic premises that "1980 was a different time" and "white people probably shouldn't say the n-word in their songs (even in like ironic Randy Newman character sketches)" and please, please, please fuck off if you don't

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/x-los-angeles/

But is ... this what anyone wants or needs from an album review? Like just doing paroxyms of analysis and linking out to Afropunk and using words like "jarring" and "inherent weaponry" and "dearth of compassion" and "greater violence" and "the buried ugliness of intolerance" and "marginalized people" because some 20-something druggy L.A. boneheads said the n-word to appear gritty in a song 38 years ago?

Like am I just callous and worn out from listening to this album for 20 years and hearing countless rappers and writers and thinkers dictate America's litany of racist realities, or is this actually how people in 2018 should be interacting with problematic art. I feel like I'm losing my mind here.

And I obviously don't want to FIGHT or ARGUE about this approach *existing* because, hey, fighting racism ANY way you can on ANY platform you have is a net positive, so go P4k go. But, man, I do not relate to the idea that this is what a listener or consumer or advertiser or anyone really desires w/r/t contextualizing what the first X album is and means and stands for...

*extremely "the hungry wolf" voice* I am the milkshake duck

Yeah that’s... quite the second half of an album review.

Also, I know what she means (obv.) when she writes “lone actual slur”; but I also wonder if she fully appreciates that the words “Jew” and “Mexican” can be wielded as slurs, without substitution.

and certainly so in the context/delivery of that song

I agree w your posts Whiney, I had the same difficult-to-articulate unease reading that and think you more or less named it

Eh, it could have been much worse. Imagine the review we'd have gotten if the writer had done five minutes of research and discovered that present-day Exene is pretty much a Roseanne-level MAGA crank.

Two thoughts:
1) Agree with Whiney
2) Is it just me or are there a LOT of "7.7"s lately

2) Is it just me or are there a LOT of "7.7"s lately

https://i.ibb.co/4pJp087/Screen-Shot-2019-02-25-at-8-13-22-AM.png

evidence of 77 entering the collective subconscious iirc xp

Review reads like parody, but it's exactly what I expected when I saw that they reviewed this album today. Did anyone really think the review was not going to focus on that one line?

In other news, boy oh boy would I get a kick out of going back in time twenty years and showing this headline to Pitchfork readers in Dismemberment Plan t-shirts: Watch Bette Midler Perform Mary Poppins Returns Song

Does anyone remember that year they trolled readers with an April Fools joke of reviewing an Alannis Morrisette album?
(I don't remember the other 3 reviews from the day, but readers wrote into the mailbag incensed about it)

i remember this one

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5313-fever/

The very first tweets in this massive thread seem to be (from what I can tell at a glance, every time the thread loads) bewilderment/anger at a few pop reviews.

(Haha – “posts,” not tweets)

Aha, found it:
Alanis: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5429-under-rug-swept/
Jars of Clay: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/4210-the-eleventh-hour/
Kylie Minogue: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5313-fever/
NOFX: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5824-byo-split-series-vol-iii/

This was all introduced by a paragraph about how they'd literally "sold out" to a media conglomerate and were shifting their editorial focus.

Ah, simpler times, those.

xp - you're right, looks like this thread started that very day.

that's still the only Alanis review they've published

So wait -- they ran those legitimate-seeming reviews as "April Fool's" pranks?

I can't remember what year we all decided pop music was okay again, but apparently it was after 2002

(Also, why was a Rancid/NOFX CD considered a humorously unlikely thing for Pitchfork to review?)

I think they were trying to show that even after selling out, they were still going to make a token effort to cover indie releases. It was a pretty well-executed prank, if I remember correctly. I was completely fooled until the next day, when they revealed it was a hoax. But I'm gullible.

OK, I get it.

even post 2002 pop music for awhile had to be run through a Scandinavian babelfish before it was palatable for pitchfork.

This was also the first time I can remember a website pranking readers for april fools, so this was before everyone was expecting it and there were roundups of the best ones.

Looks like it sure worked on the gullible marks at the top of this thread!

This is probably just a me thing, but the Skee Mask review today drives me crazy in that it more than once implies that he samples his own actual drumming, which is not borne out in either the sound or statements elsewhere afaic?

Jagged Little Pill is destined for the Sunday review treatment xps

xp seems like they overextended their premise or forgot it was just a premise - 'he's a drummer so he must have ~insight~ or sth into drum programming and beatmaking'

Seeing "Pitchfork has reached out to X's representatives" in basically all of their news stories drives me mental. They use it all the bloody time, and it is so fucking nagl. You want a medal for sending an email to some PR guy? It would make half sense if it actually lead to anything, an update, more news etc. But It. Never. Does.

Example: you read this piece about Spike Lee at the Oscars. You read on about the supposed row, see them quoting other media, and at the point where you basically know all there is to know about it, BOOM! "Pitchfork has reached out to Lee’s representatives for comment". Because of course all of the 25 representatives of Spike Lee have been keeping the line free and been refreshing their email every minute, waiting to hear from p4k.

It's just so incredibly smug. "Oh? A couple of hundred others probably reached out too, you say? That may be true, but... WE, the MIGHTY P4K, too sent an email. So WE will bring you an update" (if we get one) ((which never happens))

"Pitchfork has reached out to X's representatives"

I read your entire post thinking I had a missed a story tied to their Los Angeles review, and they had reached out to the band's representatives...

Anyway, I know what you mean, and I think that tic may be more reasonable/defensible if Pfork actually did a lot of original music news reporting; but they seem to basically just write up press releases most of the time.

That said, I guess there may also be some value in at least gesturing towards the mechanics of actual reporting -- as opposed to simply re-writing articles published elsewhere, summarizing social media exchanges, etc. (which is what so much online entertainment "news" has become).

Thing is, I expect nothing less of them to reach out for comment. It's journalism 1.1, it's the very least they need to be doing ffs. You don't need to tell me you reached out: reach out and if you get more news, report it.

I think it does indeed give away that they hardly do any reporting of their own any more. They want to signal that they're working on a developing story, I get that. But it has an opposite effect if you read it so often. "Oh you've reached out have you? You *actually* reached out? I am in awe..."

All those emails and phone calls going out every single day, all that reaching out to representatives, and it never goes anywhere ;_;

I am mostly surprised at this point that they still haven't got the Hollis story running.

They've reached out to Hollis' representatives iirc

The Spike Lee / Oscars story is also noteworthy for having absolutely nothing to do with music, in any way (except, I guess, for that Prince tribute outfit that Lee was wearing).

interesting that they don't have anything up yet about Mark Hollis

oh hey

I still see nothing

most places that reach out for comment mention they did so, so the subject of the piece cannot later allege (in a lawsuit or otherwise) that there was no attempt

https://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2018/05/25/614159361/in-the-quest-for-comment-hurry-up-and-wait

broader: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-journalists-write-that-a-prospective-interview-subject-did-not-immediately-respond-to-a-request-inquiry

^^^

We have this argument at my student newsroom all the thime. They're reluctant to use or plain forget "X did not return calls or emails despite several attempts." It's a quick signal to readers that your reporting isn't incomplete.

When it's about actual serious stuff, of course I understand and agree re Katherine's link. But that Spike Lee thing, and many, many other p4k stories just don't warrant it even mentioning it imo. It comes across as a cop out: we've copied someone else's copy/tweets/hearsay but we did reach out ourselves too. About a story they clearly didn't break themselves.

"X did not return calls or emails despite several attempts."

This is obvious, and good, to use. Because the reaching out has been wrapped out by the writer. But 'we have reached out' as p4k uses so often is just too open.

Still in Oscar Fever mode as of 5pm, no mention of Hollis' death

Oh, and lots about R Kelly, natch

Need to make up for the time they had him headline their festival.