pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

can't believe Sally Pitchfork changed her personal taste in three years

― quelle sprocket damage (sic), Wednesday, July 31, 2019 1:43 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

im aware, i ... wrote for the site. but this isn't just a matter of two different reviewers liking two albums slightly differently, you're talking abt someone stamped as like a Pitchfork Artist, who got Best New Music & headlined their festival, being turned on completely for an album that is hardly some radical departure

slaves to the narrative, must force all artists to conform to scrappy upstart > triumphant breakthrough > commercial peak > bloated decline storyline.

and then... the comeback!

(if they're lucky)

He'll drop another album -- or ahem, 'mixtape' -- shortly, which people will also hate, and then about two years from now, after a series of great records that nobody pays attention to but are actually dope, he will make a mediocre album everyone will say is great. https://t.co/LYKemXzpu0

— Paul Cantor (@PaulCantor) July 29, 2019

its really such a bizarre backlash, when was the last time something like this happened so disconnected from the quality of the music

I was just thinking about the all-stars of "Twitter inexplicably decided this was bad now"

What I came up with: Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Arcade Fire and Chance the Rapper

Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus and Sleater-Kinney legit changed their sound/style to varying degrees so they don't really count, I suppose

Anyway, I'll do a poll/thread if anyone has any other examples

so disconnected from the quality of the music

yeahhh the Arcade Fire one was pretty explicable

Everything Now wasnt the worst album ever made but there were some real clunkers on it (but some decent enough stuff too), and the lyrics were generally awful with the ridiculous marketing campaign that did a lot of work to turn everyone away, it's pretty easy to understand why everyone loved to dunk on it

was completely unaware of any Bruno Mars backlash, my impression was critics etc had slowly warmed up to him after his shifted away from his initial obnoxious presence? Man of the Woods was mostly forgettable rather than terrible (though I know Whiney is a defender of it) but "Supplies" really was that bad and the reevaluation of 20/20 Experience in the time since it came out did him no favours either. the Reputation backlash was overblown though it was disappointing and LWYMMD was a real "wtf is she doing" single

with Chance it's especially puzzling because he hasn't made some bizarre left turn or made a boring rehash of his previous work, he's refined his sound but also added some things that feel natural enough for him like the house grooves which are extremely welcome. no misguided marketing campaign or a weird/bad lead single to get everyone offside either

Why do we need to let Twitter decide what is bad now, when Twitter itself is a fucking shithole?

re Chance, I think it's mostly about the ground of the rap zeitgeist shifting beneath his feet between projects as opposed to anything to do with "quality". no one wants optimism from their rap right now because we all feel like shit

this might help explain why, if anything, Lana Del Rey has only gained critical love because her whole project has skepticism and cynicism baked in on some level

feel like p4k never drops reviews before albums drop anymore. they used to try to set the terms of critical discourse, but now they just come in a few days late and confirm what everyone else already thinks

yeah that definitely seems to be part of it with Chance and i'm not surprised there's been a backlash to his whole schtick i'm just surprised it's with this album, and that it's as absurdly strong a backlash as it is like people really really hate this album, more than they did Everything Now or Reputation!

p4k used to nearly always drop reviews the day of release for big albums but they seem to spread them out more now. iirc it's always been pretty rare for them to put out a review before the album's out

LDR has kinda fluctuated in terms of critical love over the decade i feel? she's on a high right now with the strength of last year's singles of course

idk not counting RYM (which is my usual policy) I feel like her stock has only risen over time

yeah i guess she's been taken more seriously as time has gone on for sure

definitely an example of an artist im most disappointed to see sustaining

I'll happily admit that there might be contextual reasons for the backlash, at least in Europe: Chance has cancelled three European tours since Coloring Book, the last one just this summer, and the belief has been that he wanted to work on his album. And then it's this? I do think if he'd just called it his fourth mixtape, that it could very well have gotten 0,5 points more.

The mixtape-album divide is pretty much meaningless when it comes to Chance. In what way is this not his third album really?

It's his fourth :)

since when is 6.9 a pan?

it’s not as nice as you might think

(sorry couldn’t resist the dumb joke)

Chance's manager is gonna be so busy calling all these places and pressuring them to take their mean words down

did someone already make that joke

lol maura

I wanna go on record saying having read both @rollingstone and @pitchfork ‘s reviews of ‘Immunity,’ I thought they were both subtly sexist and misogynist in their own ways.

— Rostam (@matsoR) August 2, 2019

how was p4k's Clairo review misogynist??

wtf

What a weird accusation... Katherine’s review is good, there’s nothing “wrong” with it.

The notion that Katherine wrote a 'subtly sexist and misogynist' review is so utterly idiotic, I don't even know where to begin.

We're not "in a place as a culture" for him to back that up, apparently?

Shout out to dude from “Cultural Appropriation: The Band” doing the real work: Calling a woman sexist on Twitter.

Cop-out:

I don’t know if we’re in a place as a culture to have a conversation about why but I feel it’s important to say it. It’s what I feel and I think it warrants expression.

— Rostam (@matsoR) August 2, 2019

"I can't explain why I called out a review written by a woman as exist, so I'll use my power on this public platform to be as vague as possible."

agreed, moronic

this vs f*nt*n*'s "why are critics not giving the chance album 0/10 scores like The People and also me, rly makes u think"

and the pitchfork review is some very fine, generous critical writing, katherine should be proud of it. if the record's producer thinks there's something to second-guess about it then it's a shame he is too stupid to understand how that has to be done.

it’s what I feel and I think it warrants expression.

who even says things like this

people who want to appear to be speakers responsible enough to talk about what's warranted but not responsible enough to try to justify things they speak

The key is to go on record as having said it, whatever 'it' might be.

well, that way you can get credit for courage to speak the truth, too

feel like p4k never drops reviews before albums drop anymore. they used to try to set the terms of critical discourse, but now they just come in a few days late and confirm what everyone else already thinks

― jakey mo collier (voodoo chili), Thursday, August 1, 2019 11:56 PM (two days ago)

pretty much nobody hears big major label records w/ enough lead time to get a review up days before a release anymore & unlike at other points in pitchfork's history the big discussion records these days are almost always from majors. no critic heard chance's album before the public.

so the calculation then is to have a writer do a review in ~12 hours in order to get something up "early" or work on a more sensible publishing schedule and risk being "late" on the conversation

yeah, totally feel that, i know some writers still get albums under embargo, but def not all the time. and in that context, it definitely makes more sense for p4k to actually take its time with the review rather than rush out a hot take.

pretty much every indie record even the big ones is completed and often sent out to press before it's even announced tho

I still genuinely have no idea what this is about -- the only two things I can think of are using the phrase "soft rock" (but "adult contemporary" is a clunkier phrase, and also seems weird to describe an artist who's Generation Z), or mentioning other female artists (the culture is not ready for the conversation about the ridiculous pretzel logic it takes to claim that citing other women is sexist -- nobody cares when male artists are compared only to other men)

since he is the producer i thought it might somehow be a qualm with the way you attribute some of the record's good features to the production, maybe he feels like you are crediting him with some auteurist man whatever when you are actually stinting the artist herself, with her playing or arranging or production work or vision or oders to him or whatever

but if that is what it is, it is absurd for him to say it the way he did, and i don't think there is any basis in your review for thinking you are guilty of that

Paul Ponzi at 3:58 3 Aug 19

it’s what I feel and I think it warrants expression.

who even says things like this


this is such a perfect distillation of the mentality of indie dudes it's unreal