pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

"a pleasingly lysergic jangle-pop tip before climaxing with a fireworks-worthy guitar jam"

You just made me want to buy that album though, whatever it is.

the new polvo

"Like Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen, and Sonic Youth before them, Polvo reached their critical peak with an epic double-album statement, 1996's Exploded Drawing"

not really

not totally sure what's wrong with that?

i think a lot of people would say today's active lifestyles is better? i dunno. . . be interesting to see what everyone's favorite polvo is

that's possible i guess? tbf there is a lot more critical consensus to be had on those other bands but i thought a lot of ppl considered exploded drawing the high point.

i think i like Exploded Drawing more now than i did back when it first came out, and for me, anyway, Celebrate The New Dark Age is perfect

yeah new dark age kind of distills the essence perfectly but i love fast canoe and feather of forgiveness so so much.

feather of forgiveness was so so awesome live when they played here within the last year or so

Exploded Drawing was the first thing I heard by them and is probably still my favorite. But "reached their critical peak" doesn't necessarily mean it's their best or even that it's the critical consensus nowadays; I have no trouble believing that it was the Polvo album that got the most attention from critics in the '90s.

seems like a weird thing to point out then: "the album critics gave the most attention to" ???

i mean to be serious for a sec is polvo a band that enough critics even regard to the point where there might be a "critical consensus"? no polvo chapter in our band could be your life iirc.

and yeah when i saw them last year feather was unbelievable--such a jam.

xp Why is that weird?

Because the only ppl who would care are people who are interested in critics?

it's weird thing to point out

I mean, "this album got the most positive attention" makes more sense as a fact to point out than "this album got the most attention from critics" unless you're doing a fall-from-grace "where are they now?" piece.

Hmmm, can't really remember any critic's reactions to Polvo within the context of those times, but it did seem that Shapes was not as well-received, and really those were different times, so none of the records got a huge amount of attention as far as I remember. So, the statement might actually be very true. Remember,critical peak is a different idea than what the typical Polvo enthusiast considers their best album. I imagine if there was a poll that Exploded Drawing would come in 4th or 5th, certainly if the EPs were considered albums (which I think they should), but I bet if I went back and read the reviews and press for all of these albums, Exploded Drawing would have the most action surrounding it.

It really is funny, but for a long time Polvo was "my" band. In pre-internet days it was really easy to think something like that. I was young, got Celebrate the New Dark Age because they were touring with Drive Like Jehu and I loved Jehu, and then spent 3 years or so going into record stores and seeing what else they had by Polvo in their stacks, slowly accumulating it all. I didn't even know Exploded Drawing was coming out when it did, I just walked into a record store one day and there it was. No critical mediation at all. Different times ...

Sorrry, lagging a little behind the thread here.

"The group reached its commercial and critical peak with the multiplatinum album Synchronicity (1983)." -- Encyclopaedia Britannica

"For example, she opens the CD with the Band's "It Makes No Difference," perhaps the most achingly beautiful song the group ever recorded, but one that was buried on one of their later albums and recorded after they had reached their critical peak and were no longer a hot item in rock circles." -- Allmusic.com

"Much like the namesake of the Cash award, Lynn has reached a critical peak late in her career, winning two Grammys for her recent album Van Lear Rose." -- USA Today

"It has been nearly 30 years since Graham Parker hit his critical peak with the energetically tuneful "Squeezing Out Sparks."" -- Washington Post

Not that weird.

We're saying that your definition of "critical peak" is weird.

Whatever the meaning of "critical peak" is, theres no comparison between what people think about Daydream nation and Zen Arcade and Two Nickles to Exploded Drawing.

The concept of a 'critical peak' isn't weird, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare the Polvo album to 3 huge '80s indie touchstones, both in terms of the timeline, the band's profile, and the general opinion of that one album compared to the rest of their catalog.

xpost what Zeno said

just because other reviews use the same terminology doesn't make it any less weird to me, though.

Sorry, I assumed it was implied that "attention" = "positive attention."

Like, I'm sure that we can argue about what the best Beck album is, or even which Beck album critics in 2009 would say is his best, but there's no doubt that the album that got the most positive attention at the time was Odelay.

Which makes it his critical peak.

why should i care about critical peaks, though?

Noone says you should, it's just a handy concept to refer to with bands that didn't sell enough to have an easily measured commercial peak.

Fwiw, I agree that Polvo doesn't really have an indisputable critical peak in the same way that those other bands do.

why should i care about critical peaks, though?

I dunno, why should you care about music at all? Some of us find it interesting.

I kind of do remember people being really excited for Exploded Drawing, maybe because it was on Touch and Go and it was a double album, etc etc. Also it was their first full-length album in a few years and I think their fanbase had been growing in the interim. They definitely seemed to get bigger around that time.

so I think it was their critical peak, if only because it's probably the first time many people who are now pfork critics etc had heard them

Yeah...plus lots of bands make their biggest 'statement' with a double album, whether it's their best or most loved album or not, you don't really need an indie history lesson to communicate that.

xpost -- haha if we're going to measure concensus in terms of what "people who are know pfork critics" think we're really gonna start wagging the dog

xp And then Shapes came out and people were confused by the presence of classic-rock riffs in indie rock, so it didn't get as much press.

the other three bands were so massive and influential and those records are so talked about and other bands talked about them and stuff. and polvo never really seemed like a BIG band that people talked about or tried to emulate, (except for the raymond brake).

and yeah the double album is a big factor

well, I mean, don't those kinds of people define what the "critical consensus" is for a band like polvo?

xp

maybe, but people see the peak of a band in retrospective.
and it's quite obvious that in 2009 - most people wouldnt think exploded drawing is polvo's peak, while most people would think Daydream is SY peak for example

xpost to Jhonson

why should i care about critical peaks, though?

I dunno, why should you care about music at all? Some of us find it interesting.

― jaymc, Tuesday, September 1, 2009 12:52 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the thing is, a lot of stuff that contributes to "critical peaks" has very little to do with music. i guess it's interesting in the way i might look up a band i know nothing about on allmusic to see which album i should start with, but i think ultimately for the music listener (i.e. not other music critics) it's not very relevant, especially for bands where the critical peak doesn't necessarily gibe with a general consensus of the band's best album (like polvo).

the thing is, a lot of stuff that contributes to "critical peaks" has very little to do with music.

i think this is super important. a lot of this becomes "talking about talking about music" (which i realize is interesting to people, not to me) instead of "talking about music" (which i love).

Look, I wasn't really old enough to have paid attention to the media attention the Husker, Minutemen, and Sonic Youth albums received when they came out, but isn't it safe to say that those were all released as the attention paid to those bands was rising? It seems like a simple statement. It may be a weakish conceit for a review and a bit strained, but it isn't "wrong" I don't think. If you are applying hindsight to these records as far as how they are considered now then you are abstracting the point.

Also, if a band doesn't put a record out for 12 years and suddenly does, should the reviewer really just talk about the music and not try to put it into context?

i know y'all think you've evolved beyond this but i really think you underestimate the importance a certain swathe of the "general" audience still places on "informed consensus" when it comes to making decisions related to consumption of art/entertainment.

Yeah, for instance last year when I was interested in checking out a Polvo album, I looked to AllMusic to see which album got 4.5 stars (Today's Active Lifestyles) and which one got 3.5 stars (Exploded Drawing)

I wasn't real into TAL for what it's worth, maybe AMG was wrong and I should've checked out a different album

They became better musicians but people have a real soft spot for that record. Some good tunes and very much a weird record, but they really tightened their shit up after that. Just listen to Celebrate the New Dark Age, maybe they weren't counting it as it is technically an EP. I am not going to look myself, so don't blame me if it is listed.

Shouln't this conversation just move to the Polvo thread. For those who just want to talk about the music, please tell me that the new record is great and why or what is wrong with it, as I am probably not going to hear it for a while.

it is pretty great. i really should have a more considered opinion than that considering have a review due tomorrow.

i kind of love the record, but i've only listened to it five times all the way through so who knows.

Polvo

In Prism

Merge Records

"it is pretty great."

you should probably just review the critical response to the album, since that's what music/art consumers really care about

I wasn't real into TAL for what it's worth, maybe AMG was wrong and I should've checked out a different album

you should check out Exploded Drawing, I hear most critics agree that's it's got 53% more riffage than the other leading brands of math rock