pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I wonder if it's going to serve anyone's needs. I don't think a web- only publication can attract readers interested in Alanis Morissette and Kylie Minogue. To my knowledge, no one actually hunts down information about such artists. People just hear about it on tv and that's it. Let's give Pitchfork a few months, until the corporate contributors pull the plug.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR.

the first thing i thought (after, well, this is no all cure all the time) was that i wished they really had "sold out" (what the fuck, is this 93?), because maybe it would mean LESS GODDAMN PROG.

Well, the Albini thing practically is...

Makes sense, really.

Well, the Albini thing practically is... huh???

You have completed your learning of life's lessons. Now, you suck ass just like all the other bores before you. Kylie, Alanis? Whatever, bitch. I am sure you already have the defense mechanisms in place so, this will mean nothing but, another exercise in...oh, who cares. Looking elsewhere for reality...or maybe I can pretend to be a rubber worm like pitchwhore.com...here big fishie, look, I rounded 'em up for you in a arrel. A whole demographic!

Not Funny

Y'know sometimes they really are asking for it:

"White Williams issues a debut album layered with impeccable influences-- including Roxy Music, Beck, and T. Rex-- and a sense of calculated disaffection."

Well shit SIGN ME UP.

Yeah, that was a bit of a repellant blurb if I ever saw one.

Wait, are you saying that doesn't seem accurate?

I read 'White' as 'While' and thought "The Saul Williams album sounds like that?"

it's more that they used that as their _hook_

x-post

The front blurbs are always stripped/condensed summary descriptions from the review inside -- in this case

His songs are thin and languorous, with impeccable influences and the sort of calculated disaffection that comes from an MFA in design and a good weed connection.

omg that is horrorshow

The blurb >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the article quote

I assume that's an article quote; nabisco, if you just made that up then SHAME ON YOU.

why would a critic ever try to guess where a song comes from?

I'm more bothered by beck as impeccable influence

Wait, are you saying that doesn't seem accurate?

The description of "a sense of calculated disaffection", a combination of words that makes me imagine the shittiest band of all time, followed by "recommended" was repellant for me. I guess I like my disaffection to be natural, not carefully planned, so I would never recommend something like that.

Then again, I've never heard it so what do I know and so on.

b-but someone at pfork said "hm, how can we get people to read this review? I know! we'll mention the artist's impeccable influences and calculated disaffection! that'll reel 'em in!"

RIP satire etc

they could have collaged+mis-used _anything_ from the article, and they collaged+mis-used that

The White Williams album reminds me much more of late 10cc and Bread than of Roxy Music. That bit was like the classic "Let's over-hip our influences" review.

The description of "a sense of calculated disaffection", a combination of words that makes me imagine the shittiest band of all time, followed by "recommended" was repellant for me.

See, this sounds like the blurb WORKED for you -- i.e., efficiently let you know you would probably not like this act.

I agree, though, it looks kind of weird to have such a neutral-to-disparaging summary blurb on a recommended album.

I like how they gave the new Babyshambles, which is actually tuneful and a good all around album, a 4.0, but gave the first one, which is dreadful and hard to listen to / bloated, a 7.3,

Yeah, it was definitely TWICE as good as the new one. Fuckin' morons.

ugh, "impeccable influences" is really repulsive.

(xpost) was that a parody or are you really getting worked up about an internet score for babyshambles

He was worked up?

wait, i thought the grading scale was logarithmic. like 5 is twice as good as 4. somebody email ryan schreiber to find out.

shit, now i need to reevaluate all my purchases of the last five years.

It's actually modelled after the Richter Scale, hence the superlative designations of various well-reviewed albums as either "Reccomended," "Best New Music," or "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On."

I've got my first Sunday Review soon and I hope it measures up to Ivy's.

BETTER BE GOOD

....TO ME

Amazing

It’s a great write, congrats to ivy.; my impression of post-disco/boogie was that the purpose was not to nod along but to lose oneself in the chromeness of it, an immersion in non-emotion as a form of dance floor therapy

hm, i suppose that's true, i just wanted to evoke the nimbleness and flexibility of it, especially in contrast to disco

You did that! Your delineation of disco as a static and maximalist medium was excellent

lol pitchfork’s pick for a Cindy Lee song on its tracks list is the one song from that album I think’s a dud

I like that one, reminds me of Brighblack Morning Light

xaviersobased fans receive their long-awaited justice in the albums list

Nick Cave Thanks Bob Dylan for Praise of Bad Seeds Show

slow news week

― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, November 26, 2024 1:05 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yesterday: Bob Dylan on New Movie A Complete Unknown: “What a Title!”

so progresses the Lefsetzing of Pitchfork

I guess I miss when pitchfork was merely "dumb" rather than totally uninteresting and inane

it's kinda always been that way tho

idk I find it hard to care that the news side of the site seems to be on autopilot. I think the change in editorial line has been positive. seems like writers have more leeway to bnm stuff they are positive about and the recent lists are more interesting than they use to be. the focus on xavsobased and similar fried rap stuff, even if alienating to some, shows an attempt to cover stuff that is way more popular than it's representation elsewhere suggest and trying to 'tastemake' in a way p4k seemed to abandon over the last decade.

The news section has pretty much always just been aggregated. Twenty years ago, it was mostly just announcements of new albums and tour dates, drawn from record labels' press releases. I have to imagine there wasn't much else to draw from back then, unless you were doing original reporting. Now, social media provides much more news fodder, and readers are probably likelier to click on "Artist X Says Y About Artist Z" than "Artist X Readies New EP."

xp a necessary corrective to all of those who say xav is only moderately based

Alfred’s Sunday Review today is great

thank you!

i say this all the time alfred, but: your writing is so engaging that i often find myself reading about and listening to music i actively dislike, because the thoughts you're offering are challenging my active dislike.

proper example. thank you.

hey, I wasn't sure if I put it across, but I actively dislike Elvis Costello these days. I didn't pitch this review, so to re-listen to a good album I had buried in the churchyard more than 20 years ago was the kind of challenge I like. Thank you!

great review, alfred. i am pretty sure i enjoy costello and this particular album much more than you hah

thanks!

looking forward to checking out some of the stuff on their rap albums list, a lot i haven't heard yet

same, enjoying the glorygirl2950 tape atm

Yeah, it's really great piece Alfred! I've had a hesitant, frustrating journey with Costello, I like large parts of what I've heard and really don't like others, and surprisingly enough, Imperial Bedroom, is still one of the albums I haven't heard. Time to change that.

https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/6724-subtle/
https://pitchfork.com/news/35453-subtles-dax-pierson-awarded-183-million-in-injury-lawsuit/

Pretty illustrative of p4k's direction change that when someone from a group they used to do reviews and profiles on dies they don't even get a news item these days.

When Will Hart died recently they couldn’t even be bothered to dig up a pic of the guy for their news item.

conde nast is dumb, number a billion in a series
https://www.wbez.org/music/2025/01/29/pitchfork-music-festival-chicago-conde-nast-mike-reed

my takeaway from this is less that conde nast is dumb -- though they are for many reasons -- and more that the business model that pitchfork festival was built on simply no longer exists

yeah, it seems like the fest was in the valley between the two sustainable kinds of festivals (the niche genre ones, the megafests). could they really not have gotten headliners that don't charge $1 mil guarantees? is that what the likes of big thief and fontaines dc are pulling these days?

the other problem would be that, imo, the audience for pitchfork has broadened but the festival booking, especially headliners, lean more toward the core pitchfork demographic from 2005ish

the acts that are still around and successful aren't going to ask for $12k a show anymore

Whereas touring was traditionally the vehicle artists used to boost music sales, the reverse is happening today. “The earner is the live show,”

Aren't festivals in general in trouble? They certainly nearly all seem to be here in Australia, though most of the ones here have the added problem of flying headline acts halfway round the world at great expense.

depends on the festival. locally, we had one that kind of ran itself into the ground and had next to no attendance this year. another one had possibly too much attendance on a hot summer day and looked overcrowded and under-resourced. not having enough security/water stations/food workers seems to be the trend

all kind of reeks of money extraction

whoa borders are back

borders and columns!

Maybe Altered Zones will come back

Alphonse Pierre’s column sounds like it could be good. The others... uh... well I'll reserve judgement for now, but one based on "shitposts"/memes and the other based on "vibes" doesn't initially sound promising.

i think summer festivals now are definitely going to have to address the question of: it's, like, 400 degrees in the summer now. do i want to pay $$$ to stand in dirt and mud with long lines for everything when its 400 degrees outside? and not a dry 400 degrees either. a wet bulb 400 degrees.

19 year olds will put up with a lot to see Andy Schauf and Yeule

meaghan garvey is good, glad she'll be writing full-time again

Kieran Press-Reynolds being Simon Reynolds' son and paid to write about shitposts is not a great look for anyone

I didn't know that was Simon Reynolds' son! And I do like Garvey's writing, the theme of her column doesn't really excite me though.

The first Kieran Press-Reynolds column is a pretty standard and good interview with OsamaSon.

OsamaSon—another nepo kid

who isn't?

i'm sure these will result in some readable columns, but overall they sound terrible. at least Pierre's seems to be *about* something, i guess.

Pierre’s bad Kendrick takes have kinda soured me on him over the last year

KPR was contributing to Mano sund4resan's blog before the latter took over at Pitchfork: https://nobells.blog/author/kpr/

I get the sense they have similar tastes.

The first Kieran Press-Reynolds column is a pretty standard and good interview with OsamaSon.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, 12 February 2025 17:04 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

OsamaSon—another nepo kid

― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Wednesday, 12 February 2025 18:46 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol