pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Oh, then definitely. I started posting here when I was barely 21. I'm now 36.

i don't mean for here! i mean for pitchfork!

Oh lol. I haven't read Pitchfork for years, I'm a Quietus and Resident Advisor guy.

looking at p4k's reviews over the past month or so--very heavy with reissue and retrospective reviews. Release schedule must be light for some reason.

almost like there's a global event making it difficult for bands to write and release new albums

It's kind of funny how Pitchfork writes about shit like Salem as if they ever fucking mattered in the first place

tbf there's a piece in the New Yorker this week as well. critics of a certain age.

when music turns 10 years old it is suddenly classic

eagerly awaiting the critical resurgence of Kitty Pryde

100 gecs 2032 reunion tour spurring thought pieces in suprastacks everywhere

tbf no joking this is 10 out of 10 amazing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNlkiitx0vY

10 years since salem's fader fort set should be celebrated imo

I think I'm paying attention to different music than y'all, because to me it's been a banner year for electronic music and jazz and all kinds of releases, even with the pandemic. Hell, there are tons of great pandemic albums.

same

almost like there's a global event making it difficult for bands to write and release new albums

― na (NA), Friday, November 6, 2020 11:05 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think it’s the opposite, pandemic seems to have made bands that would’ve spent the year touring go back into the studio. like every band has released an album this year?

There is tons of new music; they really shouldn’t be reviewing a Wilco reissue on a Friday.

“Hmmm. I’ve never heard of Salem or witch house before. Wonder what Wikipedia has to say about them.”

“Salem (sometimes stylized as S4LEM or SALEM)...”

“lol fuck this shit”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNlkiitx0vY

if you've never heard of salem before, their live at fader fort video is an absolute must watch

so good that it was posted only yesterday

the original upload got taken down recently

Lol Snrub

(Sometimes stylized as MRSNRU8)

Yeah, tbqh despite some occasional good writing (often by people who post on here, afaict), P4k seems more and more like Rolling Stone or Spin seemed to me in the early to mid aughts-- often straining for relevancy while simultaneously focusing on big-tent shit that no one who actually cares about music wants to pay attention to.

but presumably gets clicks

It points more toward the irrelevancy of P4k to a certain younger demographic than anything. I have plenty of friends with teens, and none of them give a flying fuck about Wilco, and rightly so! But do the more nerdy and strange among them click on the OPN and Arca reviews on P4k? Sure.

I guess I just stopped reading it as much because of what has been pointed out, that so many of the reviews and news focus on shit that doesn't matter to me...aka contemporary guitar driven music, which is overwhelmingly mediocre.

I'm not exactly capn save a p4k but I don't know that there's a good way to make everyone happy on four reviews a day tbh

I mean, my idea would be to stop reviewing reissues of albums that suck.

Or stop trying to be everything to everyone.

The difference is that in the early to mid 00s Rolling Stone and Spin were being overtaken by p4k. Not sure there’s a big outlet overtaking p4k, or if such a thing will ever happen again

xp I have a sort of opposite suggestion, which would be to expand their coverage ever further. They could publish multiple reviews per week in genres they barely touch, in addition to what they’re already doing. (It’s what we did at a successful, for awhile, music dot-com in the early 2000s.) Maybe this would turn off readers who are just looking for “cool music”; but otoh, maybe Pitchfork could lead their readers toward appreciating a wider lens.

I may have said this before on here but P4k held the party line during the SoundCloud rap and Supreme bedroom pop era and basically got their milkshake drank by No Jumper and Pigeons & Planes.

xpost

I mean, my idea would be to stop reviewing reissues of albums that suck.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table)

I'm listening to a Mary J. Blige reissue.

Wilco reissues are for core p4k readers what CSN box sets are for core RS readers

Or stop trying to be everything to everyone.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table),

I think this is...wrong. The rockcrit generation emergent after 2012 is more hospitable to Black, disco, and country than Pitchfork's original crew, and god bless'em -- I'm older than they and hated the condescension. Acting as some sort of arbiter, whatever their clicks in 2020, works.

It's a circular argument. To stop being Everything to Everyone would be retreating to covering Wilco-esque bands.

im pretty sure the fraction of guitar music covered by p4k is at an all-time low in 2020

#atlast

I may have said this before on here but P4k held the party line during the SoundCloud rap and Supreme bedroom pop era and basically got their milkshake drank by No Jumper and Pigeons & Planes.

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Saturday, November 7, 2020 2:17 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sounds like it was a good strategy, since no ones ever heard of either of these and both those turned out to be short lived fads?

young millenial/gen z are still checking p4k from what i can tell. gen z are still pretty young so time will tell but imo they don’t have a v strong cultural identity. they mostly just rehash millenial stuff. like “lofi” and the poppy tiktok r&b

I'm a Fork contributor with no insight into the e-board's machinations, I should note.

you kinda have to try being everything to everyone since streaming services are turning the majority of listeners into taste omnivores (or at least this is my impression - hardly anyone I know speaks in genres anymore)

I can see where P4k would do better to be more expansive, ie the exact opposite of what I was saying up thread. To me it makes sense to either focus or go big, and going big makes more sense.

(I also admit that yes, a lot of where I am coming from is related to my inability to understand what people hear in a lot of newer guitar-driven music)

they cover a lot less of it than they used to!

I know this is not a good thread for this sentiment but I think Pitchfork has actually done great job of becoming much more inclusive and diverse of a great variety of music and genres in the past 5 or so years

I may have said this before on here but P4k held the party line during the SoundCloud rap and Supreme bedroom pop era and basically got their milkshake drank by No Jumper and Pigeons & Planes.

I unfortunately just clicked on that site for the first awful time in years and read an idiotic "what does it mean to be an industry plant?" article and my day is already ruined

sounds like the sort of thing an industry plant would say

your momma's so old she knew industry park when it was just a plant

Pigeon and Planes seems to have been mostly wiped off the web and exists as a few articles on Complex?

And No Jumper seems to be a merch site for a podcast or something

what a buch of sellouts amirite