pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

there's lots of great stuff on wish it just doesn't hang together that well, but really disintegration is the only one from that period that isn't a wild stylistic grab bag

The problem for me is that they sound like they're pandering to their audience rather than following the muse.

uhm, maybe not the case since you didn't like it?

(kidding, ikwym)

Lol

Austin otm tho, following their best/richest "dark" record with their second-poppiest record ever is hardly pandering

The problem for me is that they sound like they're pandering to their audience rather than following the muse.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, May 31, 2022 6:08 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've always found that there is something fabricated in the band's affects, but it's part of the appeal, the tragicomic goth figure etc.

This discussion (and the article) had me revisiting Wish and it's better than I remember it being - I still think it's a bit of dip from their classic run (I basically love all the '80s albums except The Top) but there's lots of good stuff there, the songwriting maybe just feels a bit unfocussed at times? Agreed on the praise for the guitar sound, that's a large part of why I love 'Open' so much, one of their strongest opening tracks.

don't think my dissonance from ILM consensus can be summarised any more succinctly than by our respective attitudes towards The Top

Ha, I thought it had some supporters on here but I could be wrong.

pretty big fan here, also partial to Blue Sunshine

I feel their peak was Seventeen Seconds and Faith, and though all the subsequent 80s records have some good songs, they're marred by self-consciously stretching for effects, whether in the "goth" or "pop" directions. The only 90s stuff I've heard was seven songs on Greatest Hits and on that evidence it seemed to me that Smith had completely lost whatever made him a distinctive songwriter.
As for the Pitchfork review, it felt like the writer was trying to put the best spin on "they were past their prime".

Nothing wrong with self-consciousness!

I accept that Smith was willing himself to be in a sour mood recording the early '80s doom trilogy.

wish was the last album of their prime! & one of the better ones of it

xps to Halfway

Many present tend to be fans of bands' softer phases though, when they matured and started crafting songs rather than violently hacking them into being. I differ; I have time for Wish (especially FTEOTDGS and End), but the notion that it could represent any sort of pinnacle in the wake of that Seventeen Seconds through The Top run feels madly fanciful to me. Watching Me Fall (and 39) off Bloodflowers feel to me like a much more successful approach to the epic wall-of-sound style they adopted - be theatrical, go berserk with it

That said, you've basically just dismissed Pornography as schlock rather than one of the most singular and brilliant achievements in art-rock history, so

I love The Top to bits, but then I love albums in which self-indulgence, commercial indecision, and a heap of drugs produce material this colorful and wack.

you've basically just dismissed Pornography as schlock

I think it's a sincere and credible effort, and I especially like "A Short Term Effect", but the strain of overkill is starting to show in the sound and the lyrics.

Nothing wrong with self-consciousness!

OK, but not if it comes across as forced, "willed".

Self-consciousness by nature is willed.

We're getting into a semantic argument when we should be doing the unstuck.

Get Hovvdy!

wonderful terry callier piece on today's archive review. props.

I really enjoyed Jesse Doris' review of NOW That's What I Call Pride! today

Pitchfork 🤝 Donald Trump
“‘YMCA’ is a bop”

it isn’t?

I mean, I guess if you’re a DJ playing someone’s third wedding…

that review's existence is one of the most confusing things p4k has done

I really enjoyed Jazz Monroe's write-up on Tilt that I read, just now

A "very nice" for making the connect to "Kraft", high five for that one!

I do wish music writers would commit to expressing their interpretations and judgements about the fundamental building block sonics of what they're listening to instead of quoting lyrics and relying heavily on biographical background to "set the scene". I have so much I'd love to type about Tilt and it's all about the music and wouldn't ever need to re-re-re-re-reiterate the Walker Bros./"Scott 4 flopped"/drunk in the 70s/'here are some quotes' things that people who're actually interested in Scott Walker have already tattooed seven times on their hearts

Anyway hooray for Tilt and good work Jazz Monroe

^^^

I have so much I'd love to type about _Tilt_ and it's all about the music and wouldn't ever need to re-re-re-re-reiterate the Walker Bros./"Scott 4 flopped"/drunk in the 70s/'here are some quotes' things that people who're actually interested in Scott Walker have already tattooed seven times on their hearts

I’m sure I’m not the only one here who would love to read this if you do end up typing it out!

I see many good perceptive bits in the reappraisal. I liked his referring to a lyric sheet "strewn with unidentified remains. Displaced images, fished from mysterious backwaters of history..." It's disorganized, though: preface, nut graf...then it goes back for more history before returning to the album.

very disappointing "end of an era" site redesign today, as much as one could imagine it coming

news to the top, reviews buried below, rip music criticism

I'm not seeing that on my desktop; it's three news stories in a horizontal line, then six reviews stacked vertically, then more news below. And there's a nav bar at the top and "Reviews" is the #2 slot.

yeah, it doesn't look any different than it has recently

On the phone you have to scroll down past the 3 stories, but that's been the case for awhile now

It looks fine.

I think it looks ok, too, but agree that it sucks to see the Reviews section a footnote. I thought I'd heard/read that their users still engaged with their reviews more than you might think.

Does the SEO benefit accrue differently if certain words are above the fold vs. anywhere on the homescreen? If so, I suppose it would make sense that someone is more likely to be searching for a current news item and land on Pitchfork vs. whatever new music review happened to post that day.

A quick search for "1975 new album" (one of the headlines currently on the homescreen) puts Pitchfork at the top of google.

I think it looks good, but it annoys me a little that Safari’s “reading mode” never works on their pages, don’t know why that it is.

I'm seeing the usual right now after getting a glimpse of the new layout earlier. Either they pulled it back or it's some kind of randomized thing at this stage. I dunno, weird.

i'm defaulting to this new one:

https://pitchfork.com/?verso=true

at least Weezer isn't the lead review

it's funny to me that pitchfork reviews on mobile always have an ad running that pauses the music on my phone lol

Is the horizontal white line below the logo supposed to be there? Or is it a glitch?

interesting!

https://i.imgur.com/nzF9eDR.png

all websites suck these days, though. there's no way to make one that makes money, or doesn't bleed money, without also making it really suck

forbes.com, though

forbes is a good one, quality writing, fun atmosphere

also love the houston chronicle, especially how they give voice to so many non-houston issues

Oh ok, the new Pfork layout does look worse on the desktop than mobile (I hate when menus etc. move/shrink/animate as you navigate a page)

I'm glad this thread exists as a distraction from the SCOTUS thread.

Pitchfork should have a 9 critic panel that rates albums. Most of them over 60 years old.

Former members too, like Justice Pl@genhoef.

lmao @ that Karl screencap

I’ll probably never listen to a Jack Johnson album, but I thought this was a really well-written review.