pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

If there is any ambiguity, it lies in the fact that the reviewer doesn’t explain why she finds doja cat’s seeming carelessness compelling.

The article just unconvincingly asserts that this album is a triumph for doja cat against the haters and a victory for the “burnout generation.”

I don’t want to come down too hard on this particular writer. Pitchfork often publishes criticism like this.

An album is discussed in the context of some hazy cultural narrative that might feel vaguely familiar but only really exists, in this particular form, in the reviewer’s head, and then the album is assessed on how well it navigated the choppy waters of this meta-environment. These pieces often seem like post-facto defenses of music the author happens to like—like they need to find a way to say that it is also making a meaningful contribution to the discourse.

This imperfect review is better written than any of your posts itt

written more better, you mean. goodly

Any professionally written and edited review should be far better than a tossed-off ILM post, but for too many of them aren’t, that’s why we come here right?

You of all people—Eminem fan, dirtbag left defender

Wait, what's the third threat?

and this is interesting because it does seem to contradict pitchfork's messaging in other articles.

I don't know how to break this to you but multiple people write for the site, who come to their own conclusions

Yeah, it would have been interesting for the writer to explore why Doja’s opposition the liberal consensus was good, if that is the argument they were making.

Katherine, we know you and others write for the site, which is why anyone ever complaining about it gets shut down immediately. It's tiresome af, if you can't take people not liking a place you write for, then don't write for them

haha what

complaints get shut down?

Lol @ the idea people are defending “pitchfork”

When Greg Sage roars “it’s no fair” midway through Youth of America, the vowels long and colicky, it’s not exactly a noble moment. Complaining about unfairness rarely is, because even if it’s accurate, it’s still a badge of comfort. “No fair” are petulant words, stagnant words, the conclusion of people who have set up camp in their perceived burdens. “No fair” is not a phrase of a revolution, because fairness is built on shifting sands; it’s not as steely a protest as “unjust” or “wrong.” And the people to whom life truly has been cruelest don’t have the time to complain about it; they’re too busy trying to outmaneuver the system that failed them. Now that’s no fair.

Oh Christ.

Wait, what's the third threat?

― Vin Jawn (PBKR), Monday, 28 June 2021 01:01 (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

shall we ask zooey deschanel

yeah, that is just a bad reading of that song. the point is to express a mood of disillusionment, that moment in adolescence where you realize that you've been sold a bill of goods, that the world is not what you've been led to believe it was:

Out of the shadows, blistering lights
Through the hallways of a sleepless night
Every time I turn around, it's there
Take a piece of our lives, didn't think we'd care?
Take away the chore
Take all of that, and more
And now we're crying
It's no fair

"Now we're crying / It's no fair" is the expression of that moment, that mood. I think it's implied that the speaker will move beyond this lament that the situation "isn't fair," toward a more productive or revolutionary analysis or whatever. But still, it's a necessary moment.

that's a fucking ludicrous paragraph

(the wipers review)

Infuriating really

wow that is the most astonishingly dumb thing I have read in an album review in a long time

And now we're crying /
It‘a unjuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust!

*guitar soloing*

Big fans of things are still eligible to review them, but probably best if it’s not like this.

Looks like Pitchfork is doing their Peoples' List again with readers submitting their favorite albums from the past 25 years. It will be interesting to see how it will compare with the last time they this: https://pitchfork.com/peopleslist/

I actually really enjoyed some of the breakdowns from that one.

kanye kendrick frank frank kanye kendrick

and radiohead!

I think this might actually be an interesting test to see if Kanye's stock has indeed fallen much (if at all) in the last few years. I suspect not much, but we'll see.

when they did the first peoples list from back in 2012 all the p4k staff members at the time put out all their own individual lists and all those individual lists exposed me to so much good music from those years. like, i could just pull up someone's list, notice there was an album on it i hadn't heard of before, and then bam i have a new favourite record.

but the actual full people's list? boring as hell.

Trying to winnow 25 years worth of albums down to a Top 25 doesn’t seem like a particularly fun or fruitful exercise.

It isn't a bad list

I wish I'd saved my original People's List. At one time, each individual voter's list had its own unique URL, but those got scrubbed a long time ago.

I would like to know how their auto-population works. I just tried Grouper and 6 albums came up but then Paramore and 0.

i think it has to do with reviews in the archive. looks like they've only ever reviewed 'after laughter'

Right, but they reviewed After Laughter, so it must pull from some other source.

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lol how did someone pitch last train to paris as a sunday review without making the case for it as a classic

This review of a STP reissue (which is great – breezy, well-written, with some perfect turns of phrase) makes reference to a “a genuinely deplorable review upon its original release” by “Pitchfork’s then-editor”… I looked it up, and holy sh1t.

yikes that might be the worst thing they ever ran

plus bennies
seriously, what a piece of shit to have written that.

For ease of access, but hidden with a trigger warning for inhumanity to someone with a drug addiction. I feel like such opinions were a lot more common back in the '90s or even a decade ago.

Stone Temple Pilots
Tiny Music:
Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop
Atlantic
Rating: 0.8
Though I admit to being in love with Stone Temple Pilots' last record (and to some extent, the record before that), there's nothing for sale at the Vatican Gift Shop but lousy, repetitive riffs, wimpy lyrics, and a drug-addled sonofabitch that should have OD'ed a long time ago. The only thing even vaguely appealing about this smelly hunk of digital turd, is all the heroin jokes it allows you to make up about Scott Weiland.

I don't know if you noticed this, but parts of the big hit single, "Big Bang Baby" are direct rip-offs of the old Rolling Stones tune, "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and they should have even known better than to steal lines from a song that is completely chiseled into every living person's brain. "Big Bang Baby / It's a crash, crash, crash." Fuck you, Weiland. You suck so bad that even your band hates you. And after lousing it up your chances to open for Kiss on their reunion tour, who wouldn't?

Oh, other insightful lyrics on the record include "I Can't Walk / I Can't Talk / Booze / I Can Booze / Steal Your Shoes." He's a poet, and we don't know it. So, Scott, here's what you do: Get out of bed, tie yourself off, and fall directly into space forever. But don't just do it for yourself, do it for me.

-Ryan Schreiber

Neither reviewer manages to suss out that the song Big Bang Baby actually rips off is For Love by Lush.

Oh, ok. the hidden text didn't work? Sorry. I tried.

really awful.

in many ways we live in a more compassionate era than 10, 20 years ago. in other ways we don't, but i think the progress is worth celebrating.

What an edgelord

I am very happy that the "this person made art I dislike and therefore should die" school of criticism is on its way out, yeah. Saw a Kazou Ishiguro doc some time ago that featured a 90's lit show where one critic thought that, because he hadn't liked his most recent novel, Ishiguro should "commit ritual suicide".

had to do a few write ins but coming up with 25 since 96 was pretty fun

I ended up doing it last nite, too... didn't put too much thought into it, just had fun (included a bunch of duplicates). Put a box set at #2, not sure if that's allowed.

(btw - that old STP review was so bad, it broke Zing)

The dropdown list included "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge" but not "The Black Parade". I thought that was really weird.

I encountered several instances where albums they have reviewed did not appear in the dropdown (recent reviews, not old/deleted ones).

yeah its odd. for example i remember reading the burn piano island burn review years ago but in the dropdown and in a google search, it no longer exists.

is pitchfork, like, trying very hard not to give out Best New Tracks these days? the new grouper single is downright stunning and not even it can get a bnt

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/peppa-pig-peppas-adventures-the-album/