pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

it's a nice courtesy to tell a PR person that you aren't interested in xyz artist bcuz it's at least an acknowledgement of the PR person's existence

it's always appreciated. plus it's a way to make sure i will stop writing you ad infinitum. gotta tell the client something and "didn't answer me" sounds much worse than "said no".

I'm very bad about this. I delete about 90 percent of publicist emails without replying to them. That said, most of those are shotgun-blast emails where all they're doing is sending out a new album and saying "Hope you can write about this!" When someone takes the time to say "Hey, I read this thing you wrote and for that reason, I think you'll like my artist!" I will reply.

i often start with spray-and-pray and then narrow key folks with personal emails after; seems the best way to get broad work out and then follow more precisely afterward. In general, i try to find the balance between being enough of a pain in the ass that people feel compelled to respond but not so much of a pain in the ass that I'm actually a pain in the ass.

since i write too, i get hit with maybe 200 pitches a day too so i'm sympathetic on both sides!

i used to respond to publicists when i wasn't interested, but would often end up getting weird pass-agg responses back that just made me say "screw this" ...

The rapturous debut from the British singer-songwriter takes adventurous pop-rock crucibles to new heights with her illusory songwriting and stunning voice.

like david blaine, i think they mean

Yeah; I checked a few dictionaries, and on the third try I did find a secondary definition that seems to fit the way it’s used there. Had never encountered it used that way

How can an album be “rapturous”?

It delivers us from our chaotic, doomed lives into eternal heaven

Isn't intentional misuse of a word ("illusory" in this case) how new metaphors get minted? (giving the benefit of the doubt that it was intentional)
Anyway, it was confusing to me too -- it implied that, even though it seems like she can write songs, there really isn't any actual songwriting going on -- she's pulled one over on us all.

That‘s also how I read it... though I guess the word can also refer to something that generates illusions (similar to “hallucinatory”)

Wait, she promises eternal bliss but it’s all a lie? She is the Antichrist

I think we can all agree the blurb is a mix of “way too many adjectives, a few of which seem odd” and “weird terms like ‘pop-rock crucibles’ forced into metaphors like ‘taken to new heights’.”

how can a singer-songwriter be British?

ok I know this is the "Pitchfork is dumb" thread but I want to give them props for covering obscure Hull weirdos Fet.Nat today.

Symphony No. 3 has a nightmarish undertone that tends to get smoothed out in dulcet recordings—one of the texts is meant to be the sound of a woman calling out for her murdered child—and Gibbons brings that squirming danger right to the surface.

Yeah, and another one is based on scribblings on the walls of a Gestapo cell... Not really an 'undertone' I'd say.

The reissue doesn’t include any “special” exclusive materials, but considering the difficulty of finding other physical Autoclave memorabilia (at the time of publication, there’s a single copy of the CD available on Amazon and it costs $100.26), the tangible album feels special and exclusive enough.

Last sold Dec 08, 2018 for $15.00
Highest
$32.47
Lowest
$6.00
Average
$13.94
Median
$10.99

Last sold on Mar 05, 2019
$9.50 Average
$8.99 Median
$20.00 Highest
$3.90 Lowest

how can a singer-songwriter be British?

lots of lyrics about the queen

These Baby Beers Are the Cutest Things We’ve Ever Seen

Badly misplaced modified in opening paragraph of today’s T. Rex review — had me genuinely confused as I read it.

*modifier

Also, for purposes of an obituary, maybe use a more formal term (for releasing an album) than “dropped”?

With Brad, Smith dropped five records in total, the last being 2012’s United We Stand.

ok I know this is the "Pitchfork is dumb" thread but I want to give them props for covering obscure Hull weirdos Fet.Nat today.

― Simon H.

ok wow these people are nice, they remind me a bit of miriodor (is that stereotyping?)

I find it amusing how Pitchfork continues trying to push Frankie Cosmos on us

ok wow these people are nice, they remind me a bit of miriodor (is that stereotyping?)

I saw them as an opening act years ago, I don't even remember who the headliner was, but I found them very fun and distinctive, to the extent that I would check on their bandcamp semi-regularly for signs of life.

one of my old schoolmates got a nice review today, good for her!

Khalid: Free Spirit
Alphonse Pierre
The second album from the historically inoffensive singer is another genreless collection of safe choices for a pop star in the making.

Headline from my RSS feed. How many years into a career is a history? Second album seems early for someone using the name Alphonse Pierre to use eight syllables instead of one, "bland", to rag on an artist.

Looking forward to hearing this. I thought "8teen" was a great track, lyrics and music.

How many years into a career is a history?

i think he's saying "one of history's most inoffensive singers" not that he's historically been inoffensive

At a middle school dance somewhere in America, hundreds of students are getting rowdy to “Thotiana” while the chaperone tells the DJ to spin something else, something less vulgar, something inoffensive. Something like Khalid.

ok, but in my experience, the kids fucking love khalid

No, Brad, the kids are into pop music that’s on the bleeding-edge of aesthetic standards, like *checks notes* trap strip-club anthems.

I know that appeals to the “real” tastes of teenagers are a shopworn tactic in popular music criticism, but it’s emphasis on the “worn” here

Also as far as I’m aware Khalid has never said anything deeply offensive about trans women:
https://pitchfork.com/news/blueface-makes-transphobic-remarks-on-instagram/

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/labrinth-sia-diplo-lsd/
Not 100% opposed to the sentiments of this review but amused by the extent to which it reads as an "I'm so tired" to the entirety of current pop music
Like when it gets to the "maybe be more like Juice WRLD" paragraph you can just envision the author's head down on the desk as they let out a long protracted sigh

Including an explanatory YouTube link on the phrase “how do you do, fellow kids” is very... “memes, how do they work?”

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/macintosh-plus-floral-shoppe/

Vapourwave is pitchfork-approved now

I don't know what to say

There is no synapse between the author's ear and their didactic facilities

This review reads like the author is looking at old nudes and saying "yep I was nude at this point in time"

Not gonna deny that Floral Shoppe’s, um, *checks Wikipedia* “tin anniversary” deserves some commemoration, though

I always find it amusing that Vaporwave seemed to take off around the same time that Pitchfork decided to shut down Altered Zones.

i still believe in post-internet optimism

Cheesy saxophones melted into ooze, easy listening skipped and tripped over itself like a buffering YouTube video, and vaguely human voices were slowed into breathy, bland moans. The first time I hit play in the spring of 2012, it stopped me in my tracks. I stared at my iPhone wondering if it was broken or if the file was corrupted. It sounded like the musical equivalent of a computer virus, as if all the exciting ideas at the time about “post-internet” music had soured and gone flat.

lol

"musical equivalent of a computer virus" is actually a nice line.

They've really been bringing the old-school takedowns lately
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sad-planets-akron-ohio/

The band’s press materials indicate that Akron, Ohio exists as a result of two good buddies hanging around the studio and seeing where the spirit takes them. But to insist that the rest of the world needs to hear their wankery is an assertion of rampant egomania

I hate when writers deploy the canard of musicians "insisting" or "demanding" their music be heard as a takedown. It's not like they forced it onto everyone's phone like the U2 album.

That is - deploying, as a takedown, the canard of musicians insisting etc. Long workday, brain not make sentences good.

Ah yes, the rampant egomania of releasing a record (which may be true, but that goes for everyone else too).

I have no interested in that record, but yeah that's super lame.

It's the dude from the Black Keys, too. pfork biting the hand that feeds them?

Also, I would like to posit that the attitude of a musician / band releasing a recording to satisfy their collective egos is no different than a writer publishing their takedown of said recording.

bbbut guys, they're not just musicians, they are out-of-touch male musicians please don't forget