pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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

it's hilarious that that is a Black Keys guy's project becuase my first thought was "why is P4k reviewing/slamming a band no one's heard of?"

bet they wouldn't dare give a BK album a 3.0. 6.3, sure, but not 3.0. *that* would be biting the hand that feeds them. this is just sort of gumming it. so pathetic.

reminds me of when Arcade Fire made fun of Stereogum as part of their album rollout. Not P4k or RS or Spin, but Stereogum. Big tough anti-establishment band!

“gumming the hand that feeds you” is an amazing image

I assumed Stereogum was in 4th place after those 3 for music blog popularity.

Bullies prefer to pick on people a few steps down in the pecking order ime

arcade fire is a totally a band of bullies.

i knew there was a reason i didn't like them all along.

xxxpost to billstevejim: that was my point. they didn't mess with the big boys. they went down the line just enough to pick on a site that people (in that world) know but that couldn't hurt them quite like the others.

it's not really analogous to the P4k review of the Black Keys side project, just kinda made me think of it ...

Are the Black Keys a hand that feeds P4K in 2019? Seems like exactly the kind of band they'd give a bad review of these days.

yeah, their last album (in 2014) got a 5.8

black keys are loved by rolling stone and grammy noms. they never struck me as a pitchfork favorite.

all their early albums got good reviews from 7.5 to 8.3 for Magic Potion

Black Keys were past their sell by date by the time they became an arena rock band, I guess around 2014. a 5.8 sounds about right for former favorite gone big. I thought the Arcade Fire trashing was much more surprising and bold, at least for p4k in 2017.

they did also poke fun at the hollywood reporter

Ya sorry but music writers have never had to face even a modicum of the level of entitlement, resentment, intrusiveness and abuse that musicians face every day from punters, fans, journalists, family and friends.

woe to the music writer who’s said a harsh word about an arena-filling act though

feel like musicians get their art assailed and critics get their existence as a human attacked. not exclusively, but more often in those terms

No, musicians have their entire existence and personhood threatened on a daily basis by the nearest possible asshole

I track textbook abusive patterns in the way that even “respected” journalists report on and speak on the works of musicians. Even in this thread, a group of extremely kind and generous individuals have been determined to be “bullies” off the back of a poorly realized promo campaign

The irony is that most music writers, once they themselves publish, have that epiphany where they see how musicians feel every day— Ann when her book got middling reviews, Carl when his book got celebrated by the wrong people, Maura when she herself faced a mob of entitled crowd-funders, and on and on and on. You literally have no idea what it’s like until you experience it yourself

I’m sorry. All of that is completely wrong and I’m sorry that’s come your direction

Dogg, dudes/chicks in indie band have weird stalkers and shit, which is not like someone blowing up your menchies because you said ‘My Teenage Dream Has Ended’ is more of a feminist statement than ‘Lemonade’

noted

Ya like I have two dudes who send me semi-annual death threats. One of them still habitually e-mail-harasses my ex, with whom I broke up with three years ago.

If I were to go into detail about the sexual harassment I've experienced you'd have a panic attack, and like, I'm a DUDE.

It's not really about me either, musicians face an incredible amount of dehumanization, it's always been the case and it's getting worse; apparently, to the point where a musician can't call themselves "queer" unless they actively are engaging in queer sex at that exact point in time, or a musician can't be a landlord, or a musician isn't allowed to clap back at a bad review without the entire internet calling her "entitled" or "diva" or a purveyor of "a terrible look"

Anyway, speaking of shit that musicians probably shouldn't say, when is that paywall on Pitchfork going up? Every musician and every label is waiting with baited breath

I’m goin to outright disavow how I phrased things earlier and just agree that the criticism of where an artist stands and the perception of who they “really are” has taken a weird turn in public perception and discourse and the ability to make work, and have it commented upon without it becoming this assault on character, is fucked up

I’d have put things a lot more effectively if not for my continued naivety and thanks for the reminder, which should have been unnecessary

Ugh I’m not railing at anyone in particular and I think I’m being perhaps a little nasty and I apologize if so

I’m just exhausted beyond exhausted

You people who write about pop acts really have it rough! You should switch to writing about jazz, where no one gives a fuck what you say (because no one's reading it; the magazines are all subsidized by ads from music schools and instrument manufacturers).

(i think you might be confusing me with someone else fgti? but i definitely had to face entitled portugal. the man fans. over thanksgiving. that sucked.)

That sounds awful! And no I’m thinking about the magazine, and a frustrating moment when boarders were like “I paid for a subscription, where’s my product” to a point where I wanted to email everyone a benzo but my memory might have been paraphrasing in my annoyed state last night