pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Huh, I haven't even heard of Mississippi's favourite album

A graph where the Y axis is BPM and the X axis is popularity is pretty much pointless

part of the issue w/ the scoring is that as an editor you're looking to assign reviews to writers who have some level of passion about the act or album in question. with bigger acts that means you can easily find ppl w/ all sorts of passionate opinions about a certain record or the artist overall, but that becomes less true the further you go down the review hierarchy. w/ i.e. dry cleaning you're not likely to find tons of writers who are like "this dry cleaning record is a 6.5 and i can't wait to write about it please please assign this review to me." the person who will likely give you the best, most knowledgable dry cleaning review is likely to be a fan of dry cleaning who in turn is likelier to have a more optimistic view of an album that is somewhere between pretty good to decent, depending on who you're talking to. "i'm going to spend hours of my life writing about this 6.5 indie rock album for $200" is a tough sell these days. a lot of these reviews are essentially passion projects. if i'm a writer pitching a review of something pitchfork may or may not cover -- i.e. anything that is the no. 4 review of the day -- my passion for the album is what's going to sell it to the editor. "hey this album isn't very important and it also isn't very good or very bad" is not often going to be a successful pitch. it's unlikely that my passion for the no. 4 most important album of wednesday is going to result in a 6.5, but it's not going to result in an 8.2. either bcuz those numbers need to matter. so naturally you're going to end up w/ a glut of 7.7s and 7.8s.

i know that when i was writing there ~5 years ago they were cognizant of this dynamic and would track and plot the scores of each review. there was an email that went out at one point about the increase in mid 7 scores and their desire to deviate from that trend, but over the course of 1,000 reviews per year there is going to be a natural congealing of scores around "yeah this album is pretty good" by writers who are generally fans of the artists they're writing about

What % of the albums are chosen by the editors and assigned to interested writers (who may or may not rate them highly), vs. accepted for review via "pitches"?

I couldn't give you a percentage but I've had both happen, often.

hell yeah Quicksand!

seems like they should just not have ratings but what do i know

lol ums

idaho is feeling very sinister

That's Montana.

hell yeah Quicksand!

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

Of course you would be excited for that, based on your username.

What % of the albums are chosen by the editors and assigned to interested writers (who may or may not rate them highly), vs. accepted for review via "pitches"?

― Reese's Pisces Iscariot (morrisp), Tuesday, October 25, 2022 12:28 PM (three minutes ago)

i think that number is more skewed to the former side now than in past years bcuz they're running fewer reviews overall. but how it works there (spanning various eras) is the reviews editor periodically sends out a list of upcoming albums to their email list of freelancers and ppl respond back with "hey i'd like to review x y z album, here's what my take would be/here's what i think of this artist generally" etc. there is obv a certain inner circle of albums per week/month that have to get reviewed no matter what but then off that master list there is gonna be stuff that does or doesn't get reviewed depending on the interest the editor gets back in those albums. and it's in this group where generally speaking most of the ppl who want to review something are going to be fans of the artist to some degree. then there there is stuff in niche genres i.e. regional rap, dance, experimental etc that is more likely to be cold pitched to the editors. i'm not sure what percentage that latter group makes up but it's prob fairly small.

seems like they should just not have ratings but what do i know

― na (NA), Tuesday, October 25, 2022 12:45 PM (three minutes ago)

this would be a great idea if they no longer want to have a business model

lol

Automatic For the People being in the Top 4 for ages 45-64 is the most Gen X thing ever.

Did not expect readers of over the age of 65 to be really into Trip Hop.

and of course the ppl who are cold pitching reviews of niche music are more likely to be pitching stuff they like and want to see reviewed on pitchfork i.e. 7.7 type stuff. some times of the year are lighter on important reviews than others but i'd imagine that most of what they review is stuff they have on a calendar that they know they want to get to

Listening to Quicksand now. It's awesome, thank you whoever vote brigaded this in Mississippi 🙏

they had a pretty cool mix of grunge/metal moves with that good ol' choppy angular post fugazi/jawbox etc u.s. post hardcore stuff

the main dude is Walter Schreifels (Gorilla Biscuits from NY X HC daze and after Quicksand the excellent Rival Schools)

quicksand is one of the dopest rock bands to ever exist. their album from last year rules

oh shit i didn't know they were still around!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EoL5am4PLI

hey I missed it but where did Girls Against Boys - House of GVSB finish on this list?

higher or lower than Hissing Prigs in Static Couture by Brainiac?

idaho is feeling very sinister

That's Montana.

― MarkoP, Tuesday, October 25, 2022 11:46 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

darn gotta brush up on my united states of dots

Also Mariah Carey is not nearly as popular with Pitchfork's readership base as it with its staff.

Idaho is Sinister, being WA's eastern neighbor. Montana is the Pearl Jam - Vs (?) album cover. Surprised WA wasn't Nevermind or Ten over OK Computer.

Props to NY!

Or maybe not, apologies. Had to check a map. Seems like the top bit is WA, MT, ND, MN, WI, and second row is OR, ID, WY, SD, IA. So ... never mind.

the point, i think, is: doing the map of the U.S. that way is beyond ridiculous, and no visual professional should've OK'd that. in this writer-not-visual-professional's opinion.

i haven't clicked through ... i assume that was really on the P4k site and the post up there wasn't a joke, right?

Yeah, though on the site you can hover over each hexagon to see which state it is.

I just thought it was funny how... non-diverse their data set obv is, and how little is revealed by slicing it up geographically.

lol i was just crossposting this

striking thing to me is that messing with all the age ranges/gender/etc the changes aren't really that big, obv some things change but overall most drawn from a small handful of albums

loveless is officially nonbinary canon

only one boringhead album in the top 10 is also an achievement

there's two unless you meant Portis not Radio

it's gotta be portis because radiohead is so exciting!

actually now I realize Left meant in the non-binary list, nm

Thread has made me dig out Slip and Venus Luxure No.1 Baby. Thanks thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3brYxY5Gdps

loveless is officially nonbinary canon

Cocteau Twins as well.

sure i'll take it

Did not expect readers of over the age of 65 to be really into Trip Hop.

They would have been 34+ in 1991... I wouldn't expect it off the top of my head but given that context I get it. Going to a 10-years out of date fern bar and trying to pick up a fellow divorced person while the stereo plays Massive Attack... that's just nature taking its course.

Sour Times, indeed

I used to know an old bloke who was hugely into massive attack. he turned out to be a creep around women 1/3 his age so hopefully not representative

pitchfork should should do a focus group where they ask their readers to rate their ratings.

how does a 6.5 rating make you feel?
...about a...seven. a 7.2
ok, how about a 7.4 rating
5 point.....five.
8.2?
8.4.
8.4?
8.2.
how about a 10?
9.2.

did cosmic baby make the list?

table i was here! i was probably saying really dumb things though, so please don't look them up. i would have been z s during those classic pitchfork days

the readers' list is a bit more varied than i would have expected so congratulations to pitchfork in successfully improving the taste of its readers?

in general the readers' lists are pretty good

It’s November 2… I think I complain about this every year, but feels like this must be earlier than ever(?)

https://pitchfork.com/news/vote-now-for-your-favorite-albums-and-songs-of-2022/

Vote closes November 15? Gonna vote Weyes Blood and Richard Dawson 1 and 2 and leave the rest blank obv

To say nothing of anyone releasing in December