pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

If there was no pandemic would they post Best Albums To Soundtrack 10-Hour Train Journey YouTube Videos?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNiN7gOcNI4

How many times will the phrase “recorded while in quarantine” appear in pitchfork over the next year or two?

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/fiona-apple-fetch-the-bolt-cutters/

holy shit

When's the last time they gave a 10 to a non-reissue?

a decade ago, I think. I don't keep track of such things.

Yeah, Kanye West maybe?

it's a great record more deserving than most but them leaning into the 'perfect' score thing feels a lil off

Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters—named Best New Music—is a perfect album https://t.co/IFQSikfarH

— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) April 17, 2020

Kanye West was the last time they gave a 10 to a non-reissue/retrospective.

The last time before that might have been Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in April 2002.

and a hair before that, Source Tags and Codes. different times.

Source Tags and Codes still bangs, I'd say it's 2/3 years away from a hugely positive reappraisal.

9.9 a more appropriate score for this Fiona album. It's so good.

yeah i think i resent something this special being used for brand building (completely separate to the content of the review)

Source Tags and Codes is so great

Inevitable, though.

xpost

haven't listened yet but i am skeptical that "No music has ever sounded quite like [this new fiona apple album]" as repeated multiple times on the front page, review intro, and review proper

silly to fixate on that phrase i know but it's bad bc you can either take it literally and it's wrong, or figuratively and it's meaningless

9.9 repeating

my silly prediction is that this will happen again this year

no music has ever sounded quite like the new weezer album

my silly prediction is that this will happen again this year

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Friday, April 17, 2020 7:05 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

who though

I can think of at least two options but both are highly speculative and potentially embarrassing

finally the 10 that the 1975 deserve

Kendrick Lamar?
Dixie Chicks?

haven't listened yet but i am skeptical that "No music has ever sounded quite like [this new fiona apple album]" as repeated multiple times on the front page, review intro, and review proper

― na (NA), Friday, April 17, 2020 9:49 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

silly to fixate on that phrase i know but it's bad bc you can either take it literally and it's wrong, or figuratively and it's meaningless

― na (NA), Friday, April 17, 2020 9:50 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I had a similar reaction to "she wrote lyrics and melodies on par with the finest pop songs ever recorded."

I would just give them the benefit of the doubt and take some of the hyperbolic writing as partially being the result of being under quarantine for several weeks.

a breathing person made this record!

I dunno guys in my opinion the experience and emotions tied to listening to Fetch the Bolt Cutters is like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax.

Is that good or bad?

"No music has ever sounded quite like [this new fiona apple album]"

The tUnE-yArDs erasure is really in full swing, huh!

okay, now i'm interested

So everyone missed Talking Heads Day?

A couple were terrific.

Everything else—records to play, letters to write, identity crises to have (“I’ve changed my hairstyle so many times now…”) is just quaint, a reminder of better times when we were allowed to be miserable for our own little reasons.

The one clear relationship portrait he paints is completely absurd, centering around a couple that funnels their stupid fights into a hit TV show; cheekily, it’s called “Found a Job.”

Just the idea of a couple “saving their relationship” by producing their own mass-media art; plus the guidance “Think about this little scene, apply it to your life / If your work isn't what you love, then something isn't right — and capped off with that rhythm guitar solo... it’s like the ultimate Talking Heads song, probably #1 in my book.

eat fast foods (morrisp) at 10:53 23 Apr 20

Everything else—records to play, letters to write, identity crises to have (“I’ve changed my hairstyle so many times now…”) is just quaint, a reminder of better times when we were allowed to be miserable for our own little reasons.

I always took those lines (“We dress like students, we dress like housewives / Or in a suit and a tie / I changed my hairstyle so many times now / I don't know what I look like”) to indicate militants taking measures to blend in with the populace... not a recollection of pre-“wartime” life. NBD

yes, you are absolutely right and it's incredibly obvious and I don't understand how anyone could think otherwise

Watch the Weeknd Sing New Song “I’m a Virgin” on American Dad

and today on "least appealing headlines". . .

fuckin a yikes

a lot of terrible men in one headline

This is kind of an odd piece; it almost reads like PR for the voice-synthesis guy (especially the last few paragraphs): https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/what-does-jay-zs-fight-over-audio-deepfakes-mean-for-the-future-of-ai-music/

I checked out a few of the YT clips... they sound like crap, which I guess weighs even harder against Jay-Z or any other artist who may complain (even if the clips weren't labeled, they wouldn't fool anyone). Though I'm sure this kind of thing will only "get better" with time.

2002 was a wild time.

To some degree, we all prefer the familiar. This explains the stateside failure of the metric system and, to a lesser extent, vegemite. Like they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I feel the same way about women's hair. For example, what heterosexual male has not been forced to answer this question: "Honey, how do you like my new haircut?" For your information, the "correct" answer is always "I love it. You look like Bo Derek." The large-nutted boyfriend, however, would reject appeasement and instead offer the following rejoinder: "You mean the one that makes you look like Billie Jean King? What the fuck were you thinking?"

If Damien Jurado's music were my girlfriend, I just might grow nuts and drop that bomb.

i learned from that recent 'history of the pitchfork 10.0' article that the guy who wrote the ...Trail of Dead review was a high school senior! or maybe the summer after that! regardless, yeah. maybe whoever wrote that review was his high school pal

Bo Derek and Billie Jean King are very weird pop culture references to be making in 2002

The kids of today should defend themselves against the '70s
It’s not reality, just someone else’s sentimentality

I'm surprised no one posted Rob's essay: https://www.theringer.com/music/2020/5/11/21251822/pitchfork-perfect-review-history-10-fiona-apple-kanye-west-trail-of-dead

Thanks, that was an enjoyable read!

the most vital rock-critic publication of its era

an era that ended over the past couple years.

"rock-critic"

Washington’s music epitomizes the Obama presidency’s once-in-a-generation vision, uplift, and sense of hope. Today, that period looks like a beacon of light in a time of incessant dolor.

If he means the first year or so, then fine. Otherwise . . .