have i ever been right about anything?

sadly thats not a quote from the actual review

first person to compare me to the chick who reviewed the breeders gets a cookie

and ryan p said- nothing you idiots! ryan p's dead! he's locked in my basement!

mitch that was the best thing you've ever said

For an entire sector of business that has repeatedly failed attempting any sort of post-modernism, this is the first successful attempt ever done as a record review.

Not that I want that cookie but ... those haha's are so grating. They make you sound like an insecure 16 year old indie grrl. The meat of the review, the jabs at the 'fork, the batman & robin thing; I like all that.

you do know that i actually am an insecure teenage boy right?

Then you should be more goth.

from his fresh youthful perspective, ethan p. masterfully subverts the pitchforkistani institution with his 'in yr face' style, topping even jessica grose's patriarchy-smashing piece of breeders criticism

goddammit do i get the cookie yet

See i did a review today in dusted and i thought it was really quite well written. But the minute Ethan comes to the plate, his gonzo emascualtes me.

you see, in order for ethan fully to be ethan, pitchfork needs to continue to be pitchfork => if he ACTUALLY changed or destroyed it, his style would have nothing to bounce off...

(i think this is a tremendous review, ethan) (but i also like jessica grose) (so bite me)

Ethan you are Eminem to Ryan's Steve Berman.

The review was still difficult to read. The "but later" line in between the conversations was the best.

You should have called this thread "How do you like me now?"

First of all, that P-fork is reviewing Eminem should tell you something about Ethan's influence. However, did anyone read that old Brent D bit on Cobra & Phases?

AIM didn't exist then, I take it.

post-modernism is even less essent than influence

I guess this might be a good review of Pitchfork, but who the fuck reads Pitchfork? Does everyone know who "Ryan" is, and what Pitchfork stands for? I didn't, and I can't say I care any more now than before I read it. And if it is about Pitchfork rather than the record, how hard is it to mock a zine that appears to think it's wacky & wild to review a fucking eminem album? Is this record really a Ten Out Of Ten because it's as good as a record can be, or is that all part of Ethan playing wacky pranks on Pitchfork? I don't know what - if anything - is sincere in this review. If nothing else I believed that Breeders reviewer in the Voice when she said she really liked the Breeders - I guess now I know Ethan really doesn't like Pitchfork. So why write for them?

that said, why not write the whole thing about one of the interesting angles you brought up - the em is gay thing, the hailie love thing - instead of rushing through those as dismissive "just a thought" bits so you can get back to the ruffneck of pitchfork act?

Fritz is otm.

I third that. I loved the 'meat' of the review, but the constant, unerring self-reflexiveness at P-Fork always leaves me wanting. It's like there's this uncontrollable urge to permeate exclusivity by constantly hedging things in a 'you're in or you're out' fashion.

Old postmodernism: Artists making self-referential art for other artists.
ILx postmodernism: Critics writing self-referential reviews for other reviewers.

And so the whole imagined conversation with Ryan just comes off as another marker of self-imposed insularity. It's like you wrote a wonderful review MEANT for public consumption and then suddenly wavered *becauseitISpitchforkafterall* and then reacted by peeing a giant protective circle of self-referential hoo-ha which about 5% of Pitchfork readers will probably a) understand and b) care about. ie. for members only.

ethan, you didn't even write a review, you just used those notes you mailed me the day after you bought the album!

i love you.

hunter you are my new hero (he said in a mark s stylee)

hahahahahah "imagined conversation"

Thanks for proving the point, Jess.

I'm clearly not 'in.'

jess and ethan, do you mean it for all those hahahahahaha's to be as fuckyou-ish as they seem?

25-30,000 readers read pitchfork every day, with around 50,000 total over each weekend. (if ryan's figures - via ethan and others - are to be believed.) it is probably the most loved/hated indie review site on the internet and certainly the longest running(?) sure we don't read it (at least every day), because the writing sucks and they cover shitty music, but to deny that their readership doesn't know who ryan is (they do) or their "policies" (example: the pro-pop april fools day "gag") is disingenuous and/or just plain wrong.

ethan fell down on the review (sorry pal) because it wasn't what he was promising for so long, which was to be a massive and articulated prank on pfork. whether it fell down because ryan did indeed edit it or because ethan just got lazy (a little from collumn a and b i should think), i dont know. so all we got was his notes, tarted up. that it's still better than 75% of pfork writing still says something.

and fritz sometimes yes, sometimes no. that time i was actually expressing glee over the fact that the editor of pfork really does believe that "his music is above pop" or whatevah (did that even make it into the review?)

also (ethan won't care because he never bothers to write anything more than one sentence these days anyway), it's ethan playing with his own pfork audience perception where he's had to hear everything from "brent d's mini-me" to "who is this ethan p? is he a psudeonym for some other writer?"

So, Jess, if I were to concede that the majority of P-Fork readers DO know who Ryan is and you were to concede that the majority of writing on P-Fork *is* painfully self-reflexive, then what does that make Pitchfork in the end?

Also, some questions:

1) Now I'm confused. Did Ethan like the record at all? What's the joke?

2) Don't you write for Pitchfork? If so, why the obvious contempt?

mark, it's indie writing, of course it's painfully cliquish and self-reflexive! i don't know why this is shocking. i can't comment on the review because i didn't think it was that good (or at least as good as it could be, given that i know what ethan is capable of.)

mark, it's indie writing, of course it's painfully cliquish and self-reflexive! i don't know why this is shocking.

It's not shocking, it's just... sad.

Call me naive, but, when I first discovered P-Fork way back when, I approached it with the pie-in-the-sky hope that it'd transcend all the indie bullshit. Now it's just positively mired in it. And, by paying too much attention to it, so are we.

paraphrase quote from ethang: "you know, i really do try to approach my reviews like singles...something fun and funny and exciting and pop, each time."

i suppose my point is that, if he had really done a number on pfork it could have been a nice commentary on the "mired indie writing- think," but it didn't so it walks that self-reflexivity line too closely to tell. which might - in the eyes of the defenders of the village voice piece - give it it's power. anyway, i think ethan's had enough attention over the last couple days.

This review is fun to read, ethanp! a) I didn't understand the "let me tell you a story" interlude. b) The sentence about your edited columbine refs was hilarious. c) The made up quote(s?) from your editor was priceless ("i am an indie pussy" one very eminem-ish for some reason). though maybe went on too long at the end. d) And you told me a lot about the record, though when you're describing the sound I'd get rid of some of those heh pricey Autechre-words and just bring it real direct.

25-30,000 readers read pitchfork every day, with around 50,000 total over each weekend.

But it seems to me that most are the kind of casual readers who might check out the occasional review to read and then move on to, I don't know, makeoutclub or ebay or whatever the hell else they would be interested in looking at on the internet. It's probably only 10% of readers who would know about what ethan is talking about. Which is fine, but again only interesting to the people who care about pitchfork.

Bring back Indieshite.co.uk, that's what I say, it was the closest I ever got to ever wanting to read Pitchfork.

Um I'm not so sure that those Ryan quotes are "made up". If I had to bet I'd say they are very very REAL.

The only reason I know who Ryan is is because I'm a music writer and I sent him an application about six months ago.

Never got a reply.

They are, and be sure that one of the reasons this ran was because Ryan figured people would think they were fake.

anyway, i think ethan's had enough attention over the last couple days.

Putting it mildly.

That and the fact that this review will get more hits and more feedback than anything else Pitchfork's done in a while.

Why, Alex, are you saying Ethan's going to prove his point about how indie doesn't matter as much as hip-hop due to relative levels of attention? ;-)

"only interesting to people who care about pitchfork" = but i can't really see why this is a fault, given that pitchfork ran it => ethan recreates the eminem effect — including cut-up speedread switchback cleverness AND obnoxious self-obsessed jerkiness AND incompeteness of ideas — in the context of pitchfork and its readership, playing with the notions its readers (inc. its editors) have of HIM (or — since in on the eminem jag it's the same thing) the notions he'd like to THINK its readers (inc its editors) have of him. That's his job, actually. As a reviewer. To get across to the readers in HIS discipline what the thing under review does in its. He doesn't have to say if he likes it or not. (I mean, it's FANTASTICALLY MASSIVELY HUGELY STRIKINGLY obvious that he likes it, but he doesn't have SAY he likes it... )

Hands up who loves Eminem but hated what ethan just did?

I'm saying that short of another Brent D review nothing seems to generate hits like reviews people want to argue about and I'm guessing that folks are going to argue about this review (and Ethan and Ryan/Pitchfork and Eminem) for a while. Just a hunch.

ethan+jess = the long-awaited hiphop-indie fusion hurrah!!

stinkerrrbean: i wonder what eminem would say to a flock of indie kids?
dubplatestyle: he'd pistol whip them into submission then make them clean his fabulous mansion while singing "it's a hard knock life for us."

Hands up who loves Eminem but hated what ethan just did?

I'm still trying to figure out your assessment...

Why not put the killing grandmothers step first?

I need something to get pumped up first.

If there's one album these people are pretty much guaranteed to have made up their mind about already it's this one - so Ethan's strategy is entirely right.

I think that's a really bad attitude for a reviewer to have. "Everyone's made up their mind already so I'll just fuck around." Sounds like a cop out to me.

Hands up who loves Eminem but hated what ethan just did?

i completely agree ethan p is to pitchfork what eminem is to the music industry. ...an insider (if for just this moment) pretending to be an outsider. that parallel is neat and it conveys nicely who eminem is trying to be. that's definitely a nice touch. a brilliant stroke as a writer.

unfortunately, just as lame as revolution rock is ala rage against the machine, so is eminem as true rebel. so where does that leave ethan p? a hit making machine?

m.

This is all very Momus of Ethan

Ethan's review works because (most) everyone has already heard and formed an opinion on Eminem - reviews like this aren't nearly as (if at all) effective for tiny releases that most people have never heard. I enjoyed the review, but I just wanted to bring up a few points: (1) Lexicon of Love?!? Talk about references only a few people will get (not the album itself, but it's whole recent "life" on ILM)! Not that that's bad, but it really made me feel like an ILM reader. ;-) (2) Maybe a little too much explicit anti-Pitchforking, e.g. "in a normal p-fork review" etc. I think it would have been even more effective if you had kept on hinting at it without coming right out like that - because, let's face it, it's pretty obvious that you're not the typical Fork writer; your very style suggests antipathy through sheer and seemingly willful difference (note: not a bad thing of course!). (3) Even if your writing does resemble Brent's in some ways, who the fuck cares? Despite his pretty dreadful taste, Brent is a fun writer to read, and so are you.

uh in conclusion...

Stop being such a 'smarmy' dude and 'write' more often! And more than one line at a time!

So are we actually analysing this piece as a review or as literature?

Oh, and as for what I think: that style of review very rarely works. It did there. Doesn't mean that we all need to go Miss Amp crazy, huh?

the thing about parodic indie writing is this: if you're already over the usual indie hangups, why let them define how you describe something? why are you still hanging around the frat house hazing the pledges after you've already gotten your diploma? if this kind of thing can shake up pitchfork i guess it deserves it, but if indie politics bore you why engage in them?

I engage in indie politics to impress girls.

Mark (mpytlik): it was really just a joke at the expense of the word "subversive" in this context. As far as I'm concerned Ethan's review is the opposite of subversive, because it gives you a good idea of what goes on in the record, and you can gauge — by yr response to ethan — whether or not you will enjoy the record. Although quite often perfectly sincerely meant reviews I read are actually inadvertently subversive, in that their need to translate the subject of review into the only kind of language it is assumed the reader understands — viz nme of late calling everything the "new hope of rock'n'roll" — actually has the opposite effect, ie instead of inspiring it wearies and depresses.

that reviez is a deja vu of some sorts.... its good but it only works in a certain context...

i mean perfectly sincerely meant standard-format reviews => clearly i don't think ethan's review is insincere just cuz it fucks w.the industrial template a bit

fritz, ethan's relationship to indie is like the eight-year-old boy in the play-yard who suddenly whacks the pretty girl in the face ie he doesn't hate her at all HE LOVES HER but he doesn't know how to say it

ethan and indie SITTING IN A TREE etc etc

It's "Tweethan," Mark.

ethan's relationship to indie is like the eight-year-old boy in the play-yard who suddenly whacks the pretty girl in the face ie he doesn't hate her at all HE LOVES HER but he doesn't know how to say it

Amen. Mark S, as ever, you rule.

I hated indie rock when I was 19. Now I own... well... uh. I don't have any Pavement albums or anything, but I have some Built to Spill MP3s. IT'LL HAPPEN TO YOOOOOOOOOOU
(I find a similar change is happening with me re: pop. Unlike this time last year, I think Missy=rad. And I'm learning that I don't hate Jay-Z for his popularity/moneymaking as much as I hate him 'cos he bores me musically but hey)

patrin and padgett sitting in a tree etc

It'd never work out. He'd laugh at me for having The Cold Vein as my favorite album of 2001 and I'd laugh at him for his Prefuse 73 write-up on Pitchfork and then he'd throw my backpack in a mud puddle and I'd drop his platinum chains down the garbage disposal and it'd be really, really bad.

"This isn't spaghetti, it's linguini!"
"Now, it's garbage!"

Does Ethan really wear platinum chains? I would respect him a lot more.

Also CHECK IT OUT, Ethan -- on the 9th page of that smackdown thread you BECOME BLACK. This is cool because it means if I keep writing about indie it'll become easier and easier to hail cabs.

I'll say this much, at least Ethan's review isn't Nathan Rabin's cringeworthy hoo-hah over at the Onion A.V. Club. Why am I not surprised that, "Without Me" aside, he ended up praising some of the worst songs on the album?

"It's not exactly "Cats In The Cradle""

Since when has sounding like "Cats In The Cradle" been a good thing?

The Onion A.V. Club is a far better parody of straightlaced indieness than that record clerks/yo la tengo article.

I am glad to know now that I am not the worst music writer named Nathan.

The Onion A.V. Club is a far better parody of straightlaced indieness than that record clerks/yo la tengo article.

I'm simply not convinced that this is true. Of course I'm biased in favor of Rabin, who has not only been reviewing major "street" hip- hop releases every week for the past two years but has also made the dedicated sacrifice of watching and reviewing every tangentially hip- hop-related movie to come along as well.

How is that a sacrifice? That's a lot of good movies!

Well, that was kind of a lame tossed off joke, which probably wasn't the smartest thing considering the atmosphere around here lately. But when someone writes a hip hop review which includes the sentence, "Eminem's greatest gift has always been his ability to make the specific hardships and complications of one world-famous millionaire sound like the frustrations of an entire generation," it shows they're stuck in a very narrow (and I think irrelevant and uninteresting) critical perspective. You've got the most interesting aspect being his ability to be the "voice of a generation" (a horrifically dull cliche and something very characteristic of the "early-'90s alt-rock renaissance" lauded in the next review); the faux prole-ish sneering at the "problems of a millionaire" (in addition to the earlier mention of Em "transform [ing] the sordid details of his personal hell into a multimillion- dollar industry"); plus the b-b-but it's manufactured "he's also a shrewd businessman who's savvy enough to offer smartly recycled variations on his past hits." If "the Eminem Show [is] hip-hop's most riveting and popular psychodrama", why not try to actually engage with it, rather than making sideways sneers at all the usual *ND** targets?

Gah, that was poorly constructed. What I was trying to say is that the article sounds like it was written from a CMJ review template from 1993: he not only doesn't show any interest in or possible understanding of hip hop culture or craft (which may be untrue re:himself; I'm just basing this on the article), he's coming from a VERY FAMILIAR independent/college newspaper-type stance. The Onion has never really lost that provincial Midwestern perspective, which isn't a terrible thing, or course, but it doesn't serve this sort of material very well.

I'm really regretting having brought this up. So then, Ethan's article...

But bnw Ethan's review isn't just 'fucking around' - as lots of people who like it here have said. Or maybe it is but only as much as the album itself is. The first time I read it I thought, oh, missed opportunity - the second time I read it I thought it was as good as it could have been (which is to say I liked it lots). No desire to read it a third time.

Ethan likes better music than Miss AMP, mostly.

ethan I read it again and you don't actually use a bunch of pricey words, so scratch that (weird though that I thought you did??)

a selection from ryan p's pfork mail response to one of the haterz:

"I'm with most of our readers in feeling that the vast majority of what makes it to platinum status in this age is utter crap, due to incessant target marketing and insulting dumbing-down of music made solely for profit. But every great once in a while we're fortunate enough that a genuine artist who was NOT the product of the 'imagination' of record execs hits it big based on real talent and creativity, and when that happens (see Nirvana) I don't take it for granted.

One of Ethan's foremost points in his review was that a lot of us indie music fans refuse to accept Eminem because we're so blinded by our (generally dependable) pro-indie ethics that many of us wrote him off the second we heard about him, simply because we equate 'mainstream rap' with Ja Rule and Cash Money Millionaires. But whereas we'll try and try to get what's so great about our classic, often musically challenging indie bands until we finally do understand it-- and we DO love a good challenge-- few of us are willing to extend the same courtesy to Eminem, who deserves it just as much as Gang of Four or Fennesz because, like those artists, he is redefining the parameters of his genre."

this seems to me to be telling the readers, "it's okay to like em because he's INDIE!" or: eminem does the same things as indie (supposedly) does: push boundaries, open doors, stand on the front lines of musical innovation. But ja rule/ludacris/mystikal? Yeah, they're just POP pop, not "indie" pop: so pay no attention.

citing nirvana as a solitary example of when mainstream music was good is maybe just an attempt to appease the angry fans with bared teeth and distortion pedals, but its also contrary to what eminethan was trying to get across with that review.

"gang of four or fennesz"?! hahaha! hey someone tell eminem that he ranks as highly as fennesz!!

Ryan has learnt nothing! Ethan, your mission has failed!

(ETHAN IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU REVIEW JA RULE & THE NEW BIG TYMERS NOW!)

(ETHAN IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU REVIEW JA RULE & THE NEW BIG TYMERS NOW!)

Unfortunately an objective review of Hood Rich is impossible due to its incredible goodness. Where's the love?

Oh, and Ethan's review was if not good than at least the best thing on Pitchfork ever. Jim DeRogatis on the other hand is really annoying.

if not good than at least the best thing on Pitchfork ever

Does this say more about his writing or the general quality of what Pitchfork gives to the world? ;-)

Does this say more about his writing or the general quality of what Pitchfork gives to the world? ;-)

Choose your own adventure, Ned.

big tymers suck dude!

(sorry adam, i don't really think that, but i have to keep up critical appearances.)

(sorry adam, i don't really think that, but i have to keep up critical appearances.)

It's cool. Cash Money seem to be doing everything they can to start sucking but I am full of hope etc.

Choose your own adventure, Ned.

I think I'll go into the cave instead of visiting my father's home planet.

I think I'll go into the cave instead of visiting my father's home planet.

Turn to page 68. (Those CYOA-knockoff time travel books were much cooler though--they had this great psychedelic splash page thing when you went back in time, like a big-ass spiral--my entire downward trajectory from like age 9 on can probably be traced back to that.)

To the point where to regain your sanity, you fled here. OOPS. ;-)

"no Dido to add tuneful relief"!!!!!!

Oh my god, the DeRogatis review is the worst thing ever. Andrew nailed the worst line of the review pretty well.

http://image.pathfinder.com/ew/img/review/000421/jim_l.jpg
My god, the man has T-Rex arms.

i'm with nicole - it's miserable. here's another awful line: "Dre wishes he had a tenth of the creativity of a Max Martin" ugh.

DeRogatis on _The Eminem Show_:

"Of course, up until now, the kids have been buying this crap by the bushelful, so like his head geek, Mr. Mathers, Dre's been laughing all the way to the bank. But the best tune that either of these guys come up with this time is an extended sample of Aerosmith's "Dream On," and that trick seemed obvious when Run-D.M.C. pulled it in 1986 - - approximately a century ago in pop-music time."

DeRogatis on the Hives' _Veni Vidi Vicious_:

"Originality is overrated in rock. The late critic Lester Bangs, champeen of all things garage, famously drew a line from "La Bamba" by Ritchie Valens through "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen, "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, "No Fun" by the Stooges, up to the then- current "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones. "There: twenty years of rock 'n' roll history in three chords, played more primitively each time they are recycled," he wrote. But those dependable fuzz tones never get tired, so long as they're accompanied by a propulsive backbeat, maximum adrenaline and a modicum of melody, and Sweden's Hives have all of that."

AHEM.