pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Rod wave has great songs why would you not want that

Some of these artists are very popular, they’re just not the highest level of superstar.

Meanwhile Pfork isn’t including other pop that may be less popular, but isn’t “cool” enough to qualify as “progressive”

Anyway I find the randomness (43 best rap songs? Why 43 if you’re going to include both munch *and* bikini bottom?) and unrankedness (just rank them!) frustrating more than anything

i dunno, the made up genre stuff is dumb but ultimately i look at that list and see some things i'm curious to listen to that i didn't know about before, which is the only actual useful quality of any list

i mean, "pop underground" was the 90s version of this, right?

(you guys remember ro sham bo by the grays??!?! that album rules!)

pretty sure it was called Liberal Pop back then

those were the very best years, verily

i'm just joshin, of course. the whole thing is kind of cool i think and i always enjoy the new ways media tries to sell new things. who knows if these are acts that have extra push money behind them or maybe they're just favorites of sone staff. i've certainly not heard all of those albums, so i was happy to hear the word.

although yes: "progressive pop" is a silly term. anything with an alliterative of P's is bad imo.

Anyway I find the randomness (43 best rap songs? Why 43 if you’re going to include both munch *and* bikini bottom?) and unrankedness (just rank them!) frustrating more than anything

― xheugy eddy (D-40), Wednesday, December 14, 2022 11:08 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

should've made it 44 and also added the on the radar freestyle

Anyway I find the randomness (43 best rap songs? Why 43 if you’re going to include both munch *and* bikini bottom?) and unrankedness (just rank them!) frustrating more than anything

Not random - when your list of the 100 best songs of 2022 has 43 rap songs on it, you've got yourself a 43 best rap songs of 2022 list ready to publish for more clicks.

Or maybe it is random! A lot of the content is recycled but there are some songs that are unique to the 43 rap songs list.

'progressive pop' is an awkward term but i get it as a catchall for left-of-centre pop-adjacent stuff + some global stuff + charli who was just doing regular pop this time (but quite well!)

i mean, i've always thought of people like joni mitchell, kate bush, fiona apple, etc. as makers of kinda proggy pop music. more by coincidence/accident than actual intent. i remember thinking that "prog pop" was a better descriptor for the idler wheel than anything else. and that's not to diminish the uniqueness of my specific examples either - i just say "prog" because that's the rockist term that i'm used to when music that is otherwise accessible pop music starts to incorporate other non-pop/rock forms or gets deep into studio crafting and creating large productions. idk. it's stupid. i'm stupid. music is stupid, but somehow keeps getting away with it.

"leftfield pop" would have been fine, "hipster pop" would have been accurate (I'm including myself here), "pop for rockists" would be lol. I firmly believe the idea that music "progresses" should be forcefully rejected though, especially if you are then going to highlight music that is retro

xpost, yeah "prog pop" could be a real thing, but that list isn't making that argument (I don't think?)

kate bush has pretty direct connections and was influenced by prog rock. obviously, david gilmour helped her create a better demo tape and shopped her around to labels, and is producer on a couple of the first album songs, but she was a fan of king crimson and especially genesis, she talks about side 2 of hounds of love as being inspired by "supper's ready" off foxtrot. obv that's not all she was influenced by - elton john, bowie, roxy etc, but still i'd say if anyone was prog pop it was her.

rob otm (imo)

(I mean I guess pop music can "progress," in a purely descriptive sense, in terms of incorporating new styles, production elements etc. – but that shouldn't be a value judgment thing, and would make some of the most "progressive" recent artists people like Taylor Swift, whom they certainly would exclude from their definition.)

(They're using it aspirationally, like - "artists whom we hope are influencing the next direction of pop...")

Which I guess it fine actually - I don't even know what I'm complaining about now. It just sounds kinda snobbish, lol

what is new about taylor swift? i could see like an artist like sophie fitting that, just in terms of ok this doesn't sound like it could have been created in the past, swift is pretty traditional

Just in that she's influenced other artists to write songs like her, and so the direction of pop styles has "progressed" as a result of her popularity – in the sense that change is "forward movement" (but I get that's not what "progress" is supposed to mean)

all songs progress toward silence

Not fast enough, in many cases.

Any particular reason why it took them forever to review Ground Groove?

this is an objective discrepancy-

if i'm listening to music on my smartphone (android+spotify) and i navigate to pfork on my browser (brave), something on the site commandeers the volume on my phone and knocks it down significantly (both via headphones or bluetooth, whatever i'm using at the time).

it's a minor annoyance, but also very wtf-ey. leave my shit alone, damn.

what is new about taylor swift? i could see like an artist like sophie fitting that, just in terms of ok this doesn't sound like it could have been created in the past, swift is pretty traditional

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, December 14, 2022 3:59 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just in that she's influenced other artists to write songs like her, and so the direction of pop styles has "progressed" as a result of her popularity – in the sense that change is "forward movement" (but I get that's not what "progress" is supposed to mean)

― Wet Legume (morrisp), Wednesday, December 14, 2022 4:01 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think tim f made a good case that compositionally/formally she is 'progressing'

xp oh yes, pitchfork site famous for commandeering audio. because when would you ever possibly be wanting to read about music while listening to music?

it's infuriating! one of the few sites left that completely stops my audio when i click to it

Good to know that's not just my phone setup. I'll only check out Pitchfork on a computer.

... where lately I always take a minute to stare at the short preview loop of the Alvvays interview video. Molly nodding and turning and adjusting her shirtsleeve is oddly mesmerizing.

That just me?

I mean, it *was* just you. But now that you've mentioned it, I can't look away.

https://media.tenor.com/wm5HEerpuNoAAAAC/the-usual-suspects-benicio-del-toro.gif

lol wrong thread, or not

Quite a few of “The 34 Most Anticipated Albums of 2023” are dated “TBA,” and the blurb says something like, “we don’t know if this artist has music coming out anytime soon, but we can hope!”

Some really terrible writing in a few of those entries, too

Also, maybe I live in a bubble, but is anyone out there actually "anticipating" a new Gorillaz album?

Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is Lana Del Rey’s first album since 2021

Will anyone remember her after such a hiatus?

Rihanna’s long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s Anti somehow seems closer than ever.

I mean, it would be

If there’s one thing the Smashing Pumpkins at which have always excelled, it’s making melodramatic rock.

the choices in that article are almost perfectly emblematic of the prevailing dual critical focus on chartpop and yet also dinosaur rock, for some reason

mush for brains

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

saw that 'anticipated albums' thing yesterday and had all of the exact same issues that you guys do. i'm actively trying not to be a grump so i didn't say anything.

but it's also good to know i'm not alone in my cynicism lol

i have seen the light. metallica have always banged hardest

Pitchfork stumps for far worse bands than current day Metallica on a regular basis

what's that new one -- Horsepaste or something?

Mac DeMarco: Five Easy Hot Dogs

*screams into the void*

the problem with all these most-anticipated albums list is that artists don't announce their albums months ahead of time anymore! the only hard release dates in there are in february. the rest is just baseless speculation

apologies to expert planners fever ray (march) and smashing pumpkins (april)

you guys really enjoy getting mad over nonsense

Where's Magna Carta...Holy Grail 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition?

i'm not really screaming into the void jordan i just don't want to work