pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

i changed it to make sense is what i did tbh. anyway love u mom.

my mom maintains and will argue endlessly that everyone who says “12 am” or “12 pm” is a big idiot and that “noon” and “midnight” are special uncategorized designations for literally infinitesimal periods of time. maybe the internet has trapped us in one of those.

― difficult listening hour

Was your mom reared in AP style

she did work for the OED for a stint.

(for OUP, rather.)

oh great, now i wanna party with difficult listening hour's mom

Working with a team of hit-making collaborators, the country-pop icon returns with a bland collection of optimistic affirmations and pumping electro-pop rhythms.

I can't believe Shania has forsaken the style of her previous albums of idiosyncratic outsider folk for this bland collection of optimistic affirmations and pumping electro-pop rhythms. I guess the label made her scrap the rumored collaboration with Bill Orcutt?

Reading Pfork’s “Grammys Predictions: Who Will Win and Who Should Win?” commentary is somehow no less depressing than anything else Grammys-related.

Also, this:

If you think “That’s What I Like” has the best sheet music and lyrics of its year, but “24K Magic” is the best recording (despite somehow demonstrably worse songcraft), you work for the Grammys.

Sheesh critics, stop hating on my favorite Anthology of American Folk Music tunes. “Henry Lee” is fucking great!! And “Lone Star Trail”! “OH I AMMM A LONELY COWBOYYYYYY!”

Also excuse me while I paraphrase a post I made in the “post a controversial opinion about music” thread: Harry Smith gets wayyyyyy too much credit and critical mileage for the Anthology. So he picked the songs and wrote the liner notes, big fucking deal, he’s a music nerd. He also missed A TON of AMAZING music simply because it didn’t happen to be in his personal record collection.

smh morrisp erasing the existence of all the people who work at the grammy factory

I really didn't like the use of "mixtape" or "pre-Discogs" in the headers for the review and then stopped reading when "mixtape" came up again. Petty I know.

xxp but on the other hand - he's the guy who did it! Any anthology of that size would still miss tons of amazing music, and I think it's a pretty wild event in music history that his esoteric personal headcanon became the touchstone of the folk revival, rather than any kind of logical or academic study of folk music.

Yep

Their music may sound like it’s made for introducing the all-new Ford F-150 ... Don’t you wish cologne commercials were longer? ...

I'm forever unsettled by the whole deathless 'sounds like an ad' punch down. Hmm cus many adverts I see do use terrible soundtracks now, yeh, and I assume that's been a transatlantic or even worldwide feat for a few years. But the implicit criticism though is that it's wrong to sound like something that might be on an advert, because it's an advert, no? If so, what about decades of TV advertising with the potential to use just about anything that has ever attracted radio play at any point ever - or even stuff that hasn't (?)

(the subtext as a lifelong old adverts nerd is there's plenty of music i really like that i first came across in ad breaks).

Also I feel there's more ads with perky cutesy YouTube tutorial type instrumentals than ones that sound like Maneskin or the last Green Day album.

Came here to say that this review marks the first time in many years I laughed out loud at a Pitchfork review

I lived through a time when music criticism was 50% raves and 50% takedowns and man I miss the era of the takedown. A constant dribble of Bs and B-plusses threatens to entropy my interest entirely. Love this review

absolutely this

i enjoy a good takedown review but this seems like an easy target. never even heard of this band before, seems like if it's that bad they could just ... not review it. the scathing review is more satisfying when it's something so culturally relevant that it requires a review. but maybe i'm not up on what's culturally relevant.

i hate takedowns but i have a personal stake in this

i once had a review killed bc it wasn’t takedown-y enough, for instance

i had to ask myself “what’s the last record i would’ve written a scathing takedown about” and i would’ve absolutely ripped to shreds that last arcade fire record they gave a 7

Maneskin won Eurovision in 2021, and are a pretty big deal in Europe, but they even crossed over to the U.S. with their cover of the Four Seasons' "Beggin'."

the last genuinely negative p4k review I remember was the not dissimilar Greta van Fleet, who I've still never heard a note by.

That was an xp to NA. All of that is the review, I guess I'm just saying I think they are culturally relevant. Biggest Italian act on the US pop charts since Eiffel 65, at least (who are also coincidentally back on the US pop charts courtesy David Guetta).

Larson wrote the GVF one too iirc. I wouldn't mind reading a vicious takedown every now and again, but I didn't think this was that funny

tl;dr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvZmRv6U_s0

Still think the first Jet review is funnier (and probably the best takedown of This Kind of Thing still on the site)

Huh, that may be the first Måneskin review I've ever seen. I just assumed the band manifested out of the ether or whatever, fully formed and (seemingly?) successful, like Greta Van Fleet. But I hate what I've heard on the radio, so appreciate the takedown concept of Wolfmother produced by Max Martin.

I confess that I’d never heard of Maneskin until … today.

Too much music!!!!

Unlike Greta Van Fleet, I've actually heard Maneskin multiple times on pop radio.

I don't think I've ever heard them, but they're definitely one of those names that has been bubbling around for the last year or two.

i'd advise not checking them out

They did SNL last year, too.

listening now, pretty bad stuff

I often find his writing glib and dickish, but that piece is very good and exactly what that band deserves. It’s not just a takedown, it’s a well-reasoned and accurate description of their many flaws.

ILX is like “I’ve never even heard of Maneskin” and also “I can’t stop hearing about Wet Leg”

Any ilxor born before 1993 can’t have heard of Måneskin. All they know is Wet Leg, charge they phone, twerk, be bisexual, eat hot chip & lie.

was tempted to watch the eurovision performances but the awfulness of that "beggin" cover sticks in my craw

I'm forever unsettled by the whole deathless 'sounds like an ad' punch down

i had never heard of Måneskin til this thread, but, after reading the first bit of the review, aren't they a huge band now? the 0.0's of liz phair and travis morrison were gross for a few different reasons, but one of them was that they were not that "big". Måneskin has 6.5 billion streams, which makes them one of handful of artists who can actually make money off of streaming. max martin is producing. plus, yikes they reaaaaaally suck

As someone who was known in his publication office (circa 2009-2011) for writing takedowns, I have to say I approve of this takedown. “Cirque du Soleil: Buckcherry” made me lol.

Rock music is in such dire shape right now

needs to get back to basics

Some great lines in this review! This made me laugh in appreciation:

“Cool kids, they do not like rock/They only listen to trap and pop,” he continues, hoping for more upvotes on his comment.

i have no idea how anyone could've avoided "Beggin'" over the past year or two

It sounds absolutely awful but is actually getting some decent reviews elsewhere. (Kerrang gave it 4 stars for instance but I've no idea what the quality of Kerrang is like these days).

anyway, this band stinks, and they *are* a very easy target (for P4k, at least / has RS reviewed?), and also we need more negative reviews. all these things are true.

In theory, Måneskin—in their politely iconoclastic, youthful, inscrutably European, anti-mainstream guise—might fit under that rubric Americans once knew as “alternative rock.” It was a genre that conferred—in accordance with the social bylaws of the ’80s and ’90s—that what you liked signaled what you did not like: By owning a Sonic Youth album, you displaced the energy that otherwise would have been consumed by a Spin Doctors album.

By owning one alternative rock album you displace the energy of a different alternative rock album.

"Don’t you wish Guitar Center could win a Grammy?" made me chuckle

only issue i have is there are so many bands which are too big, too plugged into the alt/indie industrial complex for pitchfork to dare slam them as hard as they deserve. anyway this band does deserve it obv.

Yeah, punching up. Måneskin laughing all the way to the bank, a la Bon Jovi happily getting roasted by Triumph the Insult Dog. "Sick burns, Pitchfork." (throws leftover $200 burger topped with gold leaf in the trash)