pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I think of this anecdote a lot lately, especially reading through various year end lists. “Who?!?”

That's one (of many) reasons I stopped doing year-end lists entirely. Like, folks (including some of us all, lol!) that rank the top 100 or 50 or hell 25 records of the year? At a certain (low) point it becomes pretty random and arbitrary, because no way is anyone going to remember at least half if not more of those top 50 the next year, when another 50 is added to the list of "best" albums, and all of those collectively added to an ongoing list of "best" albums that very quickly numbers in the hundreds just in a couple of years. And this is all new, contemporary stuff, too, not even factoring in the hundreds and hundreds of albums from the past 50 years. So we can all pretend to keep up with this stuff, but it's just that - pretending, imo. An impeccably researched article like the one I posted is always welcome, and it exudes expertise, but hats off to him if he's able to spew that stuff out at a moment's notice in, like, just a couple of months without a host of spreadsheets and notes at the ready. Even Robert Pollard probably doesn't know the names of most of his songs.

This seems like a permanent state. If I had started trying to listen to every new tape uploaded to Datpiff in February 2011 I'd probably still be at it today.

Ghostride the Drift

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I don't think anyone's pretending to have listened to all of the records in a given year, or even a plurality? Lists are an aggregate, and imo the more interesting ones either poll across a very large base, meaning there's more of a chance people who are into more obscure genres and subgenres will have peers in a poll, or they're very targeted at a specific type of music and you get a handful of devotees making a targeted list.

Aggregate year end lists are just, like, these are some albums that some of us found interesting at this point in time. Maybe you'll listen to them in the future, too.

lol who's talking aggregates, I'm talking individuals!

The Ghostride the Drift album from 2018 or so is really good fwiw.

It's interesting to me that Sherburne doesn't talk more about how black metal and dark ambient are fellow travelers— Dischord is mentioned as a nod to the underground/punk nature of the scene he's describing, but dark ambient is much closer to black metal in terms of its prolific nature, anonymous rotating musicians, and general vibe.

I got into the west mineral etc stuff through huerco s, whose first album is one of my favorites of last decade. a lot of that stuff just really hits me in the right place. i guess you could call it dark but to me it’s more like cloudy/overcast.

dim? no

ha yes I like that

black metal definitely isn't as cool as it used to be. Pitchfork publishing Xasthur and Leviathan reviews feels like a century ago

This Birthday Party review is a piece of shit:

"Of all the bands that fit loosely under the umbrella of early-’80s “post-punk” bands, the Birthday Party was easily the sexiest. This is both obvious and the faintest of praise. As far as primal concerns went, being sexy wasn’t a big one for, say, Gang of Four. Only Bauhaus, fellow princelings in the “Don’t call us goth!” boyband olympics, came close. But Peter Murphy’s glam quartet was practically obsessed with being sexy, and even the most performatively minded sex-haver will tell you that too much effort can be a real turn-off. Couple Bauhaus’ preening with Peter Murphy’s somewhat ooky lifelong oedipal relationship with David Bowie, and the field for sallow-cheeked hip thrusters really opens up."

Blah blah blah...

That's 2002-quality PFork right there.

thought that review was pretty good

I avoided them at the time but always wondered what I missed

listening to them now, Nick Cave was so savage

Paul Ponzi at 5:42 4 Feb 22

black metal definitely isn't as cool as it used to be. Pitchfork publishing Xasthur and Leviathan reviews feels like a century ago

I think people are rightly a lot less willing to handwave away Nazis like those bands in the name of early 00s Vice style edginess

also xasthur and leviathan sucked

I always confuse the Birthday Party with The Wedding Present.

Haven't done so for years, but when I was in high school, I would constantly mix up the Birthday Party and Beat Happening because someone put their songs back-to-back on a mixtape for me, and I could never keep their names straight.

Obviously I resolved that once I graduated high school and started spending much more time with music.

top news story on the page today:

Snacks, Bethany Cosentino’s Pet Cat and Best Coast Album Cover Star, Has Died

oh yeah and Betty Davis

yeah wtf is that

they do have an article about Davis, but it's below the fold. too bad she was never able to reach the heights that Snacks, Bethany Cosentino’s Pet Cat and Best Coast Album Cover Star did in her career

From the band’s debut album Crazy For You and the iconic lyric “I wish my cat could talk” (taken from “Goodbye”) on through to the artwork for their 2021 single “Leading,” he quickly became integral to Best Coast’s public-facing identity.

ICONIC

INTEGRAL

Whatever subconscious interest might have existed in my brain to someday check out this band Best Coast…

in my feelings about that lil floofer

Paul Ponzi at 4:00 10 Feb 22

top news story on the page today:

Snacks, Bethany Cosentino’s Pet Cat and Best Coast Album Cover Star, Has Died

oh yeah and Betty Davis

jfc on phone at least this is the top story and Betty Davis is way down the page

Wait, are Xasthur and Leviathan Nazis?

xp: Way down the page on the website as well.

I didn't even know that Best Coast had released an album a year or so ago, let alone that it was their first in five years. At that pace they could put that cat on the cover of every album and it *still* wouldn't qualify as iconic. Or at least no more iconic than any cat. I mean, look at this guy:

https://i.imgur.com/fqreLAh.jpg

I dunno. I remember Snacks the Cat. He's actually the first thing I think of when I hear the words Best Coast. When the first record came out, I think that a moderate amount of attention was paid to him in the press. More than most artist's cats anyway, save for Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, and Benjamin Button.

For instance, recently I read an interview where american Malefic, better known in bm circles as Xasthur said "The NSBM scene wants nothing to do with Xasthur? I really wasn't aware if it was or not. I'll put it this way, being where I'm from and noticing that the 'minorities' are really the majority, I certainly don't take any offense to NSBM, yet I don't feel the need to wave the NSBM banner."

But the longer you sit with “Spud Infinity,” and “Red Moon,” its closest counterpart, the less their hillbilly trappings come across like winks.

hillbilly trappings

i think maybe i meant to post that in the big thief thread but whichever

I dunno, I thought the first Hillbilly Trappings EP was OK.

at least PF's obit for Betty Davis, a human woman, was longer than the obit for the white lady's cat. (counts words) oh wait nm

cripes

how many words are just meows though?

Ugh, do you have a link for that interview, upper ms?

Can't we just leave the black metal racist stuff off of this perfectly pleasant thread?

(oh wait, never mind, I thought I was on the EOY albums thread... the pitchfork thread is a trash heap)

hahaha was gonna say

thought this revive would be about 5 BNMs in 5 days, if i'm reading Twitter right

4 BNMs, 1 Best New Reissue

Sam Sodomsky's Sunday review of Death's Symbolic was, for me, a case of – "Never heard of this album; I'm not at all into the genre; but I gotta hear this ASAP!" (...not the first time one of his pieces has had this effect).

death is so so good, i'm a metal dilettante and they blow me away

That how I felt about the Iannis review from the other week.

xpost Death are a top tenner for sure.

i don't remember if Leviathan were nazis, just that Jef Whitehead was a scary, horrible human being who was accused of sexual assault and domestic violence, and continued to write about the person he abused on his albums.

execrable fucking being.