pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

lol Paul Ponzi, I’m turning 38 in five weeks

yr all zoomers to me

get off my lawn

property is theft, greyhair

Graham Parker placed second in the 1976 Pazz and Top poll with Heat Treatment and first in 1979 with Squeezing Out Sparks, for historical context

*Pazz and Jop

cadence weapon vs pitchfork
(with a namedrop for this place)

https://thewalrus.ca/bedroom-rapper/

I actually found ilm because Rollie mentioned it on a hip hop message board I used to read

Rollie has such a specific and interesting prose style. I enjoyed that excerpt and its hindsight-self-analysis.

yeah, I enjoyed that piece. That level of critical self reflection is all too rare.

Going back to that overlooked albums list, Gwenno's Tresor is nicely in the Broadcast/Vanishing Twin/etc zone

Oh yes, if you're enjoying that please revisit Gwenno's other albums too. They're all fantastic.

Awesome! The name rang a bell, but I don't think I've heard her before, it's very much my exact kind of thing. Might have to send this to my (Welsh) dad too

o i c there's a thread: Gwenno - Le Kov

Going back to the list from last week of overlooked albums of the year so far - just want to note that I listened to that Afrorack album today and really enjoyed it.

After a few more drinks, practically vibrating, she jumps to her feet and leads a trek to her favorite record store, 12 Tónar. The plan is an impromptu DJ set, but she peers through the window to find no sign of life, no staff to schmooze, just a cardboard cutout of her younger self staring back from the shop floor.

Imagine if the cardboard cutout of herself was older! 🤯

hanging with bjork must be amazing but i would not like to be in a motor vehicle with her

would you be afraid of a motorcrash?

hanging with bjork must be amazing but i would not like to be in a motor vehicle with her

― Karl Malone

Also unless I’m misreading it, the writer pretty much ratted on her driving while drinking.

hmm, which part are you thinking of?

Sorry lol just read again and after she parks the car, she goes to the bar and they walk to the next location.

lol, i was re-reading every single fragment of this section searching for clues of drinking and driving:

Rumbling down a two-lane highway in her hefty white Land Rover, Björk is chatting away in meandering tribute to Iceland’s volcanic landscape when a digger truck lumbers into view. The unexpected obstacle presents a chance for a spot of mischief. Wrinkling her nose, Björk eyes a tight opening ahead and stamps the throttle to perform a perilous passing maneuver. “Cheeky cheeky!” she trills, nearly demolishing a roadside post. Back in lane, she slides off her coat and casually resumes her ode to her island nation.

“That volcano over there,” she says, pointing through a mountain pass, “one of its most famous eruptions caused the crops in France to get destroyed, and people say that’s why the French Revolution happened. Well, it’s a very Icelandic thing: It was our mountain that caused the French Revolution.”

at one point i wondered whether "resumes her ode to her island nation" was some sort of reference to drinking, but i have been to iceland and didn't remember a drinking culture that was any more extremely alcoholic than any other. then i considered the comment about the french revolution, lol

Lol

i was overdue for an inscrutable new dn

Pretty sure loads of other people have done this, not sure why the tone is so look-at-this-visionary-artist. Odd.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/burning-cds-with-blood-oranges-dev-hynes-in-the-basement-of-madison-square-garden/

yeah i remember them doing that at one of those early pixies reunion shows

yeah definitely not uncommon during a certain era, which makes the tone kinda lol. i mean its fair if people dont remember it firsthand but it certainly was not some visionary obscure thing that throbbing gristle invented

i feel like dave matthews did this?

p sure dream theater does it too…

actually I’m not pretty sure, I just think I might have read that somewhere

But even as he waved goodbye to the feather-boa-clad masses, he still had some work to do: For all 15 of his MSG dates with Styles, Petrucci and his team have been mixing, burning, and selling CDs of the show he just played, available at the merch booth that same night....

Soon Petrucci arrived wearing a Balenciaga cap, a slate gray hoodie, and royal blue shorts. He radiated calm, affable excitement and was visibly psyched to be pulling off this DIY art project inside the most storied arena in the city that has served as his home (and often his muse) for 16 years.

Burning CDs in the basement of MSG: the situation is so awesomely befitting of John Petrucci, visionary synthesizer of sensibilities and styles. He continues to prove how prismatically many-sided an artist can be

Now I'm trying to imagine the Harry Styles' audience reaction to a Dream Theater opening set.

There were or two companies who specialising in doing this across europe (and maybe other places) for tons of bands 5-10 years back, but their names are slipping my mind. Certainly not original... or that interesting

UMS I’m sitting here in my home office laughing at my phone

(I know nothing about the artist or his music, it’s just these descriptions)

In retrospect, everything about Yankee Hotel Foxtrot feels astonishingly precarious. It’s an album that inspires endless what-ifs: What if it hadn’t been very good, or what if it had been extremely good but not in a way that captured the imaginations of so many listeners? What if Jim O’Rourke had been too busy to take Tweedy’s phone call and never connected them with Glenn Kotche or mixed the final album? What if Nonesuch had passed on the record, robbing us of the satisfying narrative that Wilco made Warner pay for the album twice? What if streaming it on their website had depleted sales rather than boosted them? What if a national tragedy hadn’t immediately given the music more gravity and relevance than even Wilco could have dreamed? Every hypothetical represents a new universe, a new world of possibilities.

i love how the most important aspect of the counterfactual "what if 9/11 hadn't happened" to this writer is "how would that have changed the reception of wilco's yankee hotel foxtrot?"

What if it hadn’t been very good, or what if it had been extremely good but not in a way that captured the imaginations of so many listeners?

LOL. A real Rare Earth Hypothesis happening here.

extremely good but not in a way that captured the imaginations of so many listeners

*ponders this alternate dimension*

yes, i would have been a very special and more rare wilco fan, in that case. would have been pretty crazy

or maybe, just maybe, i would be one of those many listeners that never heard the album at all, because it was not made in a way that captured the imaginations of many listeners. i'm so glad we're in the universe we're in now, where 9/11 happened AND we all got to listen to wilco

what if an overrated indie rock album... wasn't that good?

That review was stupid but the album remains a masterpiece.

What if Jeff Tweedy had hot dog fingers?

Their original review (now byline-free) is just as OTT

No one is too good for this album; it is better than all of us.

dear god

They continued being a midlevel rock band rather than one of the most revered rock bands of the 21st century, which is what they did in our universe.

No but isn't that just what happened after YHF instead

like "got good reviews, landed on a few year-end lists, toured slightly bigger venues, and that’s it." That's bang on about most if not all of the successive albums no?

Thousands of bands would kill for Wilco's loyal live followings, they can do midsized amphitheaters from now til the end of time

What if Wilco had been in the WTC that day? Makes you think...

Pitchfork is so embarrasing, including its "indie" phase.

I’m so embarrassing, including my indie phase