Pitchfork

Whoa!

Anyway, this was funny to see:

Echo Chamber: The Who

"It didn't even feel like a concert. It's a television show. And what can you do in 12 minutes? ... Cameras were everywhere, I was so blinded that I couldn't see."

-- Roger Daltrey makes excuses for the Who's shit-sandwich performance at this year's Super Bowl. In other news, I still want those 12 minutes of my life back. (via ESPN, via Spinner)

Posted by Ryan Dombal on February 12, 2010 at 2:45 p.m.

I didn't think Pitchfork news writers were encouraged to be this nasty still!

Should say- I would have thought they were encouraged not to be this nasty these days*

Pitchfork

I just used this thread because I liked Ned's reaction to it.

(Ned)

man, that really is mean. i hope roger daltrey is going to be ok after that comment he'll never see

xxpost -- One tries.

Its not about it hurting his feelings, I just haven't seen such an angry blurb in the news section on that website in awhile. Whiney sorry again for motivating you to create an online sensation.

I don't give a shit about how mean it is to The Who.

wait, who?

the point being that it's safe for mags to be snarky and mean to people that don't pay their bills.

ie, they would never be like "The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart a bunch of piss-drinking cumlords, here's some of their tour dates"

lol que

cum-drinking pisslords

what?

Haha true Whiney, but it still was pretty emotional. I was amused.

Should have said emotional instead of nasty originally.

Pitchfork's reputation will probably never recover from giving a 1.6 to "Two Against Nature".

i don't think it was especially nasty or emotional. all guy was saying was The Who, as good as they are or have been, put on a disappointing halftime performance, strongly worded as it was.

'shit sandwich' rubs me as more silly than nasty or emotional. also very accurate.

a shit sandwich would be pretty nasty imo

Well it was strongly worded! He was clearly venting, he wasn't merely "disappointed." Thats all, just thought it was amusing and wanted to share it.

Or never mind you have a point.

I thought it was just a reference to spinal tap?

http://twitter.com/pitchforkmedia/status/9082564986

http://pitchfork.tumblr.com/

Tracks is now "The Playlist"

From the news post New Section: The Playlist:

We're still going to be presenting and discussing individual songs there, but we won't be rating them, and we're not going to be talking about songs we don't like. This space is where we'll talk about songs we're digging that we think might be worth your time.

(via)

ehhhhhhh

a change that can only be for the better, since they gave the Drake single a fuckin 8 today

my guess is that most readers didn't bother reading reviews for low-scoring tracks. by no longer talking about songs they don't care for, they're making it more likely people will read more pieces in the section. result: page views & revenue go up.

http://www.dirtybutton.com/media/db2072-i-love-to-fart.jpg

I dare them to try this with album reviews. What an optimistic and unpopular website it would turn out to be!

So why not consolidate this and the "Forkcast"?

I always read that section, and I'm actually disappointed they're not including tracks they don't like anymore. I actually did like some of them, but now I'm not given the option to make up my own mind.

yeah! the scathing negative reviews are the funniest.

seems like an idea that albums are the really important things is one effect?

since everyone seems to jizz about scores u know

How are we supposed to know what songs are merely 7s?

or 3s!

the "track review" is sort of a fatally flawed concept--every score was in the 6-8 range.

they're dropping this because it didn't work from an editorial standpoint, not because they're like masters of pageview manipulation or something.

also, the pageview explanation doesn't make sense because i have a feeling that people just clicked "track reviews" or w/e and read the three that were posted for the day -- that's just one "view," regardless of which you actually wanted to read

the problem w/ the current track reviews section imo is that it seems to deal much more with songs no one has heard of as opposed to songs that are "out there" -- i think it makes sense & is valuable to write negatively about songs that people are hearing, are on blogs etc, and i wish they would still do this -- the thing is that it doesn't make sense to give 5/6 to a song by a band that no one has ever heard of, and i don't know why they started doing this in the first place

maybe i'm remembering the OG tracks review section wrong, but it def seems like this iteration leans more towards turning people on to new music they haven't heard of as opposed to giving the pitchfork crit view of songs that people are hearing

yeah otm, i complained about that exact thing when track reviews were revived in the first place

yeah that's exactly right--i feel like a lot of the neg track reviews the way they were doing it was when some established band put out something lesser as compared to their earlier work.

Perpetua comments on the change: http://perpetua.tumblr.com/post/450151149/matthew-what-are-your-feelings-about-pitchfork

valuable link

Please, no anonymous questions.

so awesome

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2010/05/and_now_a_galle.php

#pitchforkbumperstickers

best first post of all time

agreed. and the reply is so perfect and hilarious.

http://www.pitchforkreviewsreviews.com/post/698918721/just-walked-past-james-murphy-on-south-fourth-street

u_u

Best Blogs of 2010

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1999770_1999761_1999893,00.html

o_O

Great "blog."

you show em

Has this NYT piece been discussed on one of the many Pitchfork threads yet?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/arts/music/15pitchfork.html

This bit surprised me. I assumed individual writers had more leeway. Even the most cautious magazines I know don't routinely think of a rating first and then find a writer to present the party line.

The ratings are not assigned lightly. “Over and over we revisit decisions before they’re on the site,” said Scott Plagenhoef, the editor in chief. Albums are discussed via e-mail and on a staff message board. The review is then assigned to a writer trusted to deliver the group’s opinion. Reviews have individual bylines, but they represent the Pitchfork hive-mind.

Oh, and Whiney's in there too.

hahaha they took a photo of the pitchforkreviews dude????? lord

i think star/numerical ratings are stupid anyway, but had no idea pfork took it to this level of derpitude

The review is then assigned to a writer trusted to deliver the group’s opinion. Reviews have individual bylines, but they represent the Pitchfork hive-mind.

useful, if unsurprising, to know

it's funny that other publications have received/prob continue to receive a lot of flak for "altering ratings" for whatever reason (and the one UK publication i knew of that actually did this was a laughing stock for it), yet pfork blatantly admits to it!

alright i didn't realize that like the whole article was about the dude -- guess one probably would need a new angle for a 2010 pitchfork profile -- cool for him tho

i wonder what they think would happen if they just let reviewers review and rate according to their own taste - no publication i've written for has ever asked me to change a star rating! and i'm easy-going about most editorial changes but i reeeally wouldn't like it if they did.

I know that the major music magazines won't let a writer shit on a big, core act like U2 or Springsteen but there's still a lot of room for manouevre between, say, three stars and five. I don't see how you can commission a review and insist on a specific grade. Maybe the piece oversimplifies the process.

idk -- i mean i can understand why, for instance, tim wouldn't be "allowed" to give electrik red a 9.2 or whatever -- you have to set up some sort of hierarchy for the ratings to have any meaning whatsoever

uh?

that's like saying there's only one way for a record to be good

i was "allowed" to give electrik red a fully-deserved 5/5 in the guardian! which my editor prob knew was coming from the off.

idk -- i mean i can understand why, for instance, tim wouldn't be "allowed" to give electrik red a 9.2 or whatever -- you have to set up some sort of hierarchy for the ratings to have any meaning whatsoever

and this would say that electrik red are near the top of that hierarchy. and what's wrong with that?

there are clear hierarchies in the system if you read pfork routinely -- i.e. there are a few records a year that get over a 9.0, maybe one a year that gets over a 9.5, probably 75 or so that get over an 8.0, with 20 or so of those getting best new music -- getting over a 7.5 is still considered really good, anything above a 7 good etc and it goes on from there

have to imagine that the writers themselves are aware of this hierarchy and score accordingly and that there's not many instances where a writer's score gets lowered by a full point or something

(1) Grades are so arbitrary anyway that the editor could renegotiate it after it's been filed. If 9.2's too much, bring it down a bit to 8.something - everyone's happy.

(2) Why not just assign key reviews to writers you trust to make the right calls? And leave enough time between deadline and publication for a rethink on the rare occasions that they might hand in something that's way out of line with P4K editorial.

for one, i think it's fair to say that pitchfork scores matter more than any sort of rating in music and that the site's editors should guard them accordingly -- other profiles have quoted schreiber saying that after giving the d-plan dude's album a 0.0 they'll prob won't do it again because it really fucked with the sales of the album etc

This is one reason I like reviewing for the Guardian, btw. They let lex give Klaxons one star and Electrik Red five, which nobody with the faintest concern about consensus opinion or backing the next big thing would have done.

tbrr i dunno if you even get to be a critic if your judgement is determined by a committee, if the review has to reflect a score

but again, numerical ratings are sillie

letting lex review the klaxons is fucking absurd

you have to set up some sort of hierarchy for the ratings to have any meaning whatsoever

why would this be true for pitchfork but untrue for almost every other publication publishing graded reviews?

look i don't really know how the process works i just think it's sensible for a site with pitchfork's notoriety and influence to guard their scores -- i mean, what major music publication doesn't do this? i don't even see why it's noteworthy in this instance

i wonder what they think would happen if they just let reviewers review and rate according to their own taste

If like me you basically only review things that no-one cares about there's really no intervention (beyond usual editing). I've never reviewed something "important" enough (to pitchfork readers) to experience what the process suggested by the article; probably my most edited article ever was my review of Where You Go I Go Too which I guess is the closest i've gotten to reviewing something an average pitchfork reader might actually want to hear.

Really the only ceiling I've experienced is that they'd probably want "the hivemind" to be behind an album to pass out a high 8 or a 9.

x-post - Electrik Red are an example of that I guess. My sense is it's less about hierarchy of taste and more about the fact that the really high or low scores are received as statements by "pitchfork", so it's implied that heaps of writers basically agree (whether or not the outcome has been workshopped as the article suggests).

the whole point about being a critic is that it is judgment on something, from the text to the stars, is YOUR CALL and only your call

aiming for consensus opinion is BS imo - way more valuable to tease out the distinct individual responses to music, even - especially - amidst what seems like a hegemonic consensus

why would this be true for pitchfork but untrue for almost every other publication publishing graded reviews?

― good news if you wear cargo shorts (contenderizer), Thursday, July 15, 2010 5:32 AM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark

i would say that it applies across the board? rolling stone has a fucked up hierarchy in their ratings and as such they are meaningless

i mean, what major music publication doesn't do this?

seriously, none that i know of. the one i knew did this in the UK has folded

letting lex review the klaxons is fucking absurd

it was fun doing it tho

(the writing bit, not the listening bit. urgh. the ~sacrifices~ i make)

lex otm. i grant j0rdan's point abt the importance of pitchfork reviews, and their sensible interest in protecting their brand, but surely there's a middle ground that might allow some leeway for critic to pass a personal judgment, even a nonconsensus one, on a high-profile album. maybe this is why i find most pitchfork reviews so deadly dull.

this whole hivemind idea is absurd though

look i don't really know how the process works i just think it's sensible for a site with pitchfork's notoriety and influence to guard their scores -- i mean, what major music publication doesn't do this? i don't even see why it's noteworthy in this instance

― i think i'm baby peach, larry koopa (J0rdan S.), Thursday, July 15, 2010 10:32 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

pitchfork is willing to hire matthew perpetua to write about music, so although i recognize it's influential, it's still kinda bush-league. idk, internets. if you put up shit for free, people will look at it whatever the quality. n e ways, what im getting at is that i don't think mnstrm music publications were *that* anal about this kind of thing. im sure the nme or rolling stone or spin fixed scores and didn't knock legacy acts, etc, but pfork seem to have gone beyond that into have a lame official 'hivemind'.

lex otm.

some leeway for critic to pass a personal judgment

aka "some leeway for a critic to be a critic"

no matter how authoritative or knowledgeable a critic is, it's ALL just personal judgements, and if you remove this element of it, wtf is even the point of hiring critics? get a hivemind intern bot to do it!

Thanks Tim. I was just thinking that input from an actual P4K reviewer would be useful. I totally see the point about there being an upper limit on albums that are great in their field but aren't going to get the big Pitchfork seal of approval. The piece implied that, say, Perpetua was given the MIA gig with the proviso that he give it 4.4, which seems like crazy micromanagement but may be a misrepresentation by the NYT writer. If it is, then P4K should record a diss track and tweet Jon Caramanica's cell number.

Lex, I think Q, Uncut and Mojo all have a grading hierarchy to some extent. I'm pretty sure if I gave Coldplay 2 stars in Q they'd have something to say about it, but they were happy for me to give the Killers 3 and the Robert Wyatt compilation 5, so it's not that obsessive.

obv we're all speculating on a process we know nothing about, but almost no readers pay attention to bylines -- in practice reviews are written by "the site/magazine/newspaper" so i don't see a problem with adjusting scores with the tastes of the whole staff in mind

this is obviously easier when you have a core staff of writers a la pitchfork and not a bunch of freelancers like it seems like the guardian is

i mean i imagine the pitchfork process is as follows

the staff discusses album x
80% of the people on the staff love album x, think it's one of the best albums of the year, but not one of the best albums of the decade or anything
some people don't think the album is that good, but they don't hate it
one or two people hate it
a writer from the first group gets assigned to write the review, with the understanding where the score will fall based on the unwritten hierarchy that has emerged in pitchfork scores
wavves' king of the beach gets a 8.5

the tastes of the whole staff

this is the problem tho, because aren't these tastes going to be wildly differing? i wouldn't want ANY of my guardian colleagues having any input into the star ratings i give (no offence obv but, like, electrik red would never have got their rightful 5 stars if that had been the case). we see on the jukebox how an aggregate score ends up in a mush of 5s and 6s most of the time. and w/r/t pfork specifically, this totally disadvantages the albums that "token" writers are assigned like deej or tim or tom e or whoever does their dancehall/dance stuffz atm.

i think pfork and the guardian have similar core staff/freelancer ratios but no one at the guardian would really think about discussing the albums they're assigned with their colleagues, let alone in an official messageboard format, let alone with the intention of forming a hivemind - i mean when people accuse the guardian of having a hivemind i think most writers would take that as an INSULT

we see on the jukebox how an aggregate score ends up in a mush of 5s and 6s most of the time

right, and for if some reason, will only posted one review per entry, wouldn't you pick one that represented that 5 or 6? or that 7 or 8? or that 2 or 3? isn't this basically what happens at pitchfork?

Can't say I've ever had any grade interference whenever I've written anything for P4k, though like Tim I've never written about P4k core artists I suppose. And at Uncut I was able to give the new MIA 2 stars - though generally there is the feeling that if you're going to have lead reviews, why focus on albums that aren't any good? (I was also able to give Annie's debut album 5 stars.)

like, if someone asked what the singles jukebox thought of vampire weekend, i certainly wouldn't hold your review up as the representative, nor would i hold up mine, which would be higher

right, and for if some reason, will only posted one review per entry, wouldn't you pick one that represented that 5 or 6? or that 7 or 8? or that 2 or 3?

um, no? not at all? the 5/6 doesn't actually represent any kind of hivemind. only a small minority of writers actually think that eg vampire weekend deserve 5/10. basic maths.

to use an example

don't you think it undermines the ratings of stylus magazine to let dom write a hit and run review of 'alright, still' and then have one of the singles from that album show up on the year end list?

It's about expectation, I think. The Guardian's policy means that readers are prepared for a range of individual, idiosyncratic opinions. But Pitchfork sets itself up, like Rolling Stone, as a bellwether for the tastes of a certain constituency so it's tied its own hands really. I don't see how it could now switch to a lex-style, let-the-critic-speak approach without losing some authority.

And I do think titles can be look bad when a writer makes the "wrong" call. In the latest Mojo, Janelle Monae is one of only a handful of two-star reviews in the whole issue - that may be the critic's honest opinion, but when you look at some of the pisspoor stuff that gets three stars it looks like a mistake on Mojo's part.

plus the whole point of the jukebox, the thing that makes it a worthwhile endeavour, is to see the range of opinions. b/c will gets that criticism is composed of hugely differing individual responses, not some BS fake hivemind

don't you think it undermines the ratings of stylus magazine to let dom write a hit and run review of 'alright, still' and then have one of the singles from that album show up on the year end list?

no, b/c anyone with a brain knows that just b/c one writer dislikes lily allen, that doesn't necessarily mean his colleagues agree.

It's about expectation, I think. The Guardian's policy means that readers are prepared for a range of individual, idiosyncratic opinions. But Pitchfork sets itself up, like Rolling Stone, as a bellwether for the tastes of a certain constituency so it's tied its own hands really. I don't see how it could now switch to a lex-style, let-the-critic-speak approach without losing some authority.

And I do think titles can be look bad when a writer makes the "wrong" call. In the latest Mojo, Janelle Monae is one of only a handful of two-star reviews in the whole issue - that may be the critic's honest opinion, but when you look at some of the pisspoor stuff that gets three stars it looks like a mistake on Mojo's part.

― Haunted Clocks For Sale (Dorianlynskey), Thursday, July 15, 2010 5:54 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

this is otm

like, if someone asked what the singles jukebox thought of vampire weekend, i certainly wouldn't hold your review up as the representative, nor would i hold up mine, which would be higher

― i think i'm baby peach, larry koopa (J0rdan S.), Thursday, 15 July 2010 09:50 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Isn't the basic point of the Singles Jukebox that the idea of one person's opinion being 'representative' would be flatly absurd?

xps

no, b/c anyone with a brain knows that just b/c one writer dislikes lily allen, that doesn't necessarily mean his colleagues agree.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Thursday, July 15, 2010 5:55 AM (17 seconds ago) Bookmark

i think it's pretty naive to think that most readers recognize bylines/realize this at all -- likewise, most people read reviews to find out what a certain publication thinks, for better or worse, not what an individual writer thinks -- only music nerds split the differences and i think it's okay to run a publication not to the whims of music nerds

Isn't the basic point of the Singles Jukebox that the idea of one person's opinion being 'representative' would be flatly absurd?

― Aptly nicknamed ‘Crème’ because he is so edible. Hilarious. (DJ Mencap), Thursday, July 15, 2010 5:57 AM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark

obv i understand this, which is why it was a hypothetical

Janelle Monae is one of only a handful of two-star reviews in the whole issue - that may be the critic's honest opinion, but when you look at some of the pisspoor stuff that gets three stars it looks like a mistake on Mojo's part.

i haven't read the review in qn but its looking like a "mistake" is more dependent on the content of the review rather than the star rating. i'd have given monáe two stars, if the national asked for star ratings!

WRT the question of do readers think the review represents the opinion of the writer or the publication - I think that's an interesting point. The primacy of the writer is undermined by other media and advertisements almost always crediting the review to the publication alone. But once the publication starts assuming that line for itself, then giving way to consensus means cutting off interesting diversions - so if Lex's Electrick Red review had been submitted to Guardian consensus, it's inevitable that its mark would have come down. In fact, no publication that demanded consensus reviewing could ever employ Lex, could they?

That said, where a publication is clearly associated with a set of tastes - as with Q - I don't have so much of a problem with consensus reviewing. As long as the consensus is honest - so Dorian should have the right to shit on Coldplay if it's obvious to all concerned that Coldplay have made a shit album, as Coldplay albums go.

like, i only really understood where dom was coming from in his review of 'alright still' after i got to know him via ilx -- when i read that review originally i was kind of just like "wtf is going on here, this doesn't really make much sense in the context of other stylus reviews"

I find this approach kind of dispiriting and for that matter BORING. One of the great things about the NME in the old days was that the writers were continuously competing and disagreeing with one another - one reviewer might assign a band a 9/10 only for another to totally trash them in the live reviews over the page. It keeps things interesting, hiveminds are tedious, it makes me think the publication is more interested in defining an aesthetic than reviewing things honestly.

In fact, no publication that demanded consensus reviewing could ever employ Lex, could they?

:D

hiveminds are tedious, it makes me think the publication is more interested in defining an aesthetic than reviewing things honestly

otmfm. c/p this everywhere applicable

no, b/c anyone with a brain knows that just b/c one writer dislikes lily allen, that doesn't necessarily mean his colleagues agree.

This is basically a case of

'what you and I and ppl who post on threads like this think'
vs
'what the indeterminate mass of x thousand people who read the reviews and keep it afloat think'

or so it seems to me - the second group is many many many times bigger and it drives me up the fucking wall when I read nominally smart people talking about "[publication] said such and such about so and so" but I don't think it's ever going to change because, as someone already said, most ppl aren't nearly invested enough in this nonsense to actually pay attention to bylines

like, i don't know what people who read guardian reviews think of its ratings system, but i think the idea of every critic getting to slap on any rating to any of their reviews disregards the reality that ratings in publications aren't given in vacuums

Most of my reviews are clustered around high 6s to low 8s - scores I've chosen - so it's not a process that necessarily results in a mushy aggregate score.

If i wanted to give albums higher scores I'd actively campaign for them on the pitchfork messageboard.

As it is I don't really care about scores and care a lot more about what i've actually written. The Electrik Red review has an 8.2 on it but I'm pretty sure it reads as a 9.5. From memory the only editing change was I was asked to tease out a somewhat insider-y reference. I don't think the text screams "hivemind".

And it's pretty obvious that Tom E's columns are totally his voice, not a "pitchfork" voice.

All of this is evidence that people care too much about the numbers and not enough about the writing IMO.

when we get into these debates about pitchfork i think we forget that it's a legit business that has to protect its interests and i would agree that letting deej give gucci mane mixtapes 9.5s is not in the best interest of the site

Pitchfork's decimal points have always been ludicrous fwiw, what's the difference between a 4.4 and a 4.5 again?

instead any astute pitchfork reader will realize that an 8.3 review of a gucci mane record means that it's probably pretty good, and will then read the review

All of this is evidence that people care too much about the numbers and not enough about the writing IMO.

for people caring about the writing, see the m.i.a. thread for eye-rolling at m-perp's review, even from people who also dislike the album

lol @ m-perp

the-perp

i'd have given monáe two stars, if the national asked for star ratings!

And you'd have that right, but if I were an editor there's no way I'd commission you to do that. It doesn't help the title to have someone slamming one of the albums of the year.

the publication is more interested in defining an aesthetic than reviewing things honestly

True, but isn't that exactly the position P4K is in? It's blatant about its intention to define an aesthetic - that's where its power resides. One thing we're not short of now is outlets for reviews, so you can always go to Popmatters or (in the past) Stylus to get an alternative view.

ithappens is right - even a big mainstream magazine has a responsibility to be honest when their big names slip up. I heard of one case where even the band themselves were embarrassed by the fulsome praise they received for a record which clearly wasn't their best.

review king

Slamaha.

for people caring about the writing, see the m.i.a. thread for eye-rolling at m-perp's review, even from people who also dislike the album

lex I already know you care about ptichfork's writing!

One of the great things about the NME in the old days was that the writers were continuously competing and disagreeing with one another - one reviewer might assign a band a 9/10 only for another to totally trash them in the live reviews over the page.

yeah but as an NME reader I used to constantly have to explain this to people who just saw it as "the NME gave this only one star" (or w/e it was) - even though a spod like me knew it was a steven wells review and everything that entailed, it was just the undifferentiated NME opinion to a casual/non-reader.

Going with the mode and picking the reviewer who's going to represent the majority pfk-writer opinion is a totally pragmatic response to already having a corporate identity in peoples' eyes. And yeah it's tedious and prevents the excitement that comes from creative disagreeement - but why should i care? I'm not likely to read pitchfork's indie-rock reviews any time soon.

xposts

It doesn't help the title to have someone slamming one of the albums of the year.

every publication did it in '06 with the paris hilton album ;_;

And yet somehow those publications survived that humiliating error.

And that's why consensus publications can't employ Lex ...

One of the best things to happen to British music publications was the mass hallucination that Be Here Now was a five-star album. It was so embarrassing that it's acted as a cautionary tale ever since.

And going back to Lex's Klaxons review ... hindsight suggests he was more right than wrong, and the gushing "future of indie music" reviews were the mistaken ones ...

One of the best things to happen to British music publications was the mass hallucination that Be Here Now was a five-star album. It was so embarrassing that it's acted as a cautionary tale ever since.

i for one would have given it ZERO stars

Creative disagreement of this regard is nice in theory, but if in practice it means led reviewing klaxons or the opposite of led reviewing e red then I don't think it is really worth much -- I'd rather read one reasoned review, even if it is pragmatic

Lex obv -- lol phone

But Lex reviewing Klaxons was completely legit - because of the way they set themselves up as nu-rave. That wasn't a media creation, it was them - and the minute they do that, they deserve to have their claims to be dance music taken on.

And going back to Lex's Klaxons review ... hindsight suggests he was more right than wrong, and the gushing "future of indie music" reviews were the mistaken ones ...

i don't think this is the right way to see it though - objectively yeah Lex was and remains right about Klaxons, but the 'gushing "future of indie music" reviews' were totally true as expressions of the fashion moment that was nu-rave. Just like giving Be Here Now a five-star review is absolutely true about how a lot of people felt about Oasis in 1997 and also completely insane given what the actual record sounds like.

But isn't the reviewer's job to say whether it's actually good, rather than to reflect the mood of the moment?

xp By that reckoning it would be absolutely true for every Oasis album ever and ever to get 5/5 as there are still hundreds of thousands of ppl that still uncritically adore everything they do

the idea of lex being "right" is kind of ridiculous insofar as it turns music and music writing into a horse race -- you can say that lex's taste was "right" but otherwise who cares

i'm not gonna discount lex's review of electrik red because they proved to be about as unpopular as any major label artist can actively be

I think the Klaxons review was great and refreshing as a one-off antidote to excessive hype over a so-so album. If every week he was trashing some hotly-tipped indie album just because he doesn't like indie, that would be no good to anybody. Equally, if every week he championed some underperforming R&B album, that would take away the impact of 5 stars for Elektrik Red. Basically, the less the readers know about his genre prejudices the better. ;)

It's not a critic's job to reflect the temporary madness that surrounds a record like Be Here Now, which is why there hasn't been anything similar since, though I did shake my head when Q gave Coldplay's X&Y five stars.

The reviews for Be Here Now were really obviously overcompensating for the mediocre "meh, it's all over" reviews given to What's The Story Morning Glory which then went on to sell millions and become annoyingly ubiquitous.

not necessarily! or, rather, the reviewer's job isn't a matter of an absolutely intellectually pure 'this is good on utterly objective lights' because that's physically impossible - sometimes something is good because of the mood of the moment! sometimes people want to be working out which mood-of-the-moment record is most worth buying, in terms of the mood of the moment - not which one will make them look best in hindsight, in the grand horserace of whose taste is most correct in eternal terms.

& i'm fairly sure there's at least one publication where every oasis album has got and would get 5/5 for precisely that reason! it just won't be a specialist music publication.

xposts

If a metal record gets a 9.2 and you're not into metal as a musical style does the review become more or less relevant to you? The text is clearly the most important part of the review. At university I was submitting reviews for my student paper and it was the only time I didn't have to rate what I was reviewing by stars or points, which was a really enjoyable experience. I always think there's a difference between three stars for mediocrity and three stars for a mixture of amazing and terrible, and I think many casual (so, not ILX) readers don't appreciate that.

OTM. I gave the MIA album 3 because some tracks are among the best I've heard all year and some are outright failures, but that review might sit next to one of a solid but unininspiring album with the same rating. That's why the onus is on the writer to make a clear, eloquent case.

Big Fat Perp is right. MIA is overrated shit and you can take that to the bank, Jack.

Nice succinct review but you missed out the grade.

'Jack' was the grade

don't you think it undermines the ratings of stylus magazine to let dom write a hit and run review of 'alright, still' and then have one of the singles from that album show up on the year end list?

no. because i've never read a review as being "by" the publication in which it appeared. they're not official statements, they're personal reactions, mini essays - i.e. criticism. understand that i may be in the minority in viewing things this way, but i don't think less of a publication when i see "they got it wrong" with regard to this or that artist/release. to the extent that i actually enjoy reading criticism, i'm reading it as literature. the fact that i often disagree with pauline kael doesn't change the way i feel about her writing.

I find this approach kind of dispiriting and for that matter BORING. One of the great things about the NME in the old days was that the writers were continuously competing and disagreeing with one another - one reviewer might assign a band a 9/10 only for another to totally trash them in the live reviews over the page. It keeps things interesting, hiveminds are tedious, it makes me think the publication is more interested in defining an aesthetic than reviewing things honestly.

Matt DC otm here. timid, brand-protecting consensus reviews are boring. they're no fun to read.

But this is where word counts matter. Pauline Kael had the space (and the talent obviously) to express a nuanced opinion. Pitchfork reviews are long enough too, as are magazine leads, but when you're down to 150 words it sure isn't literature (unless, arguably, you're xgau).

idk i think it's pretty stupid to say that a single review is not an official statement of some sort -- running a review is a tacit endorsement of said review, that your publication, generally speaking, agrees with said opinion -- pitchfork (or stylus) is not someone's blog

like i said, the problem with the "the rating represents solely the opinion of the reviewer!" idea is that it only is of worth if you keep up with a publication enough to have sussed out the specific tastes of every writer. otherwise, a reviewer's ratings exist in the context of other ratings in the publication, and should be handled accordingly

One of my favourite columns ever was The Face's singles column which (if I remember correctly) never had bylines. I don't see anything wrong with having a magazine "voice", as long as it's an interesting one...

(obv though I have no capacity or desire to participate in the regular pitchfork voice)

Pauline Kael had the space (and the talent obviously) to express a nuanced opinion. Pitchfork reviews are long enough too, as are magazine leads, but when you're down to 150 words it sure isn't literature (unless, arguably, you're xgau).

yeah, pitchfork reviews ARE long enough to bring in lots of interesting personal-response stuff along with the boilerplate that justifies the score. which makes me wonder why i find them so deadly dull, for the most part. maybe it's that pitchfork as a culture is so hyper-aware of its brand, its audience and its place in history that everyone writes with extreme caution, as though the schoolmarm of posterity were looking over their shoulder, marking them down for anything too irregular/inconsistent. so what you mostly get = a pile of well-supported facts, some culturally-aware context setting, and a general aura of intelligent good taste. which bores me to fucking tears, but clearly works for the site and its readers.

also, you can pretty much count the number of worthwhile writers pfork has on the fingers of one hand, and they're mostly the outliers to the ~hivemind~

a pile of well-supported facts, some culturally-aware context setting

what a tragedy. what would you prefer?

idk i think it's pretty stupid to say that a single review is not an official statement of some sort -- running a review is a tacit endorsement of said review, that your publication, generally speaking, agrees with said opinion -- pitchfork (or stylus) is not someone's blog

depends. a publication might also run a piece of criticism simply because it was good, worthwhile piece of writing, regardless of what judgment it happened to pass. or because the publication happened to believe in the writer in a general sort of "thru thick and thin" way. but none of that really has anything to do with pitchfork.

what a tragedy. what would you prefer?

something intrinsically interesting, challenging or entertaining. some writing for its own sake. when i do enjoy criticism, it usually has more to do with the critical intellect and personality on display than with the information and opinion being passed along.

I don't think you can separate those two groups of things out in music criticism. Inventive interpretations based on factual inaccuracies, mistaken assumptions or a sheer lack of awareness of the context in which a piece of music is made can end up being worthwhile or interesting, but the cards are stacked against them.

Really, I hate the notion of "wild" unrestrained criticism vs reasoned attentive criticism.

contenderizer, for yr consideration: http://drownedinsound.com/releases/15507/reviews/4140447

a publication might also run a piece of criticism simply because it was good

As Kenneth Tynan pointed out, his job was not to sell theatre tickets, it was to sell newspapers.

idk i think it's pretty stupid to say that a single review is not an official statement of some sort -- running a review is a tacit endorsement of said review, that your publication, generally speaking, agrees with said opinion -- pitchfork (or stylus) is not someone's blog

OTM

although that said, that review's biggest crimes only become apparent once you actually listen to the album and realise the extent of his projection (xxp to self)

Going with the mode and picking the reviewer who's going to represent the majority pfk-writer opinion is a totally pragmatic response to already having a corporate identity in peoples' eyes. And yeah it's tedious and prevents the excitement that comes from creative disagreeement

When I was an editor at Stylus and our magazine started to see a modest profit near the end of its tenure, I'm fairly sure that the catch-as-catch-can method for which we were known (we really could review whatever we wanted) would have changed.

yeah, i'm not suggesting that criticism is improved by inaccuracies and ignorance. and i'd hate to boil it down to something as simplistic as wild & visionary vs. uptight & scholarly. was mostly speculating about why i find pitchfork reviews so crushingly dull, as a longtime reader and enjoyer of pop reviews. i'm not sure what the problem is, because they ARE generally so well-informed & competently written. which leads me to wonder about the effect that a culture of consensus and importance might have on the things i value in writing.

contenderizer, for yr consideration: [crazy-ass shit]

well, that's just a horrible piece of self-congratulatory nonsense. if yr saying that pitchfork has at least learned to avoid running crap like that, then okay, point taken. but i don't think that the poles have to be "awful" and "boring".

I think I know what you mean. I was merely throwing in a bone for you to chew on - my favourite sort of critical writing engages wide-eyed with an informed personal response, but focuses firmly on the object criticised rather than the self.

I think Pitchfork does often publish reviews that strike the right balance - Tim, Steve T, Tom Ewing, Nabisco and Mike Powell all fall into that category for me.

there are all sorts of crit, all can be good or bad, but there's no getting away from the fact that all criticism = personal, individual response.

how can a publication have an opinion...there'll be disagreement even between people who both like an album over what its merits are.

there'll be disagreement even between people who both like an album over what its merits are.

yes of course, and it's not like every pitchfork writer who likes an animal collective or vampire weekend will agree 100% with what a mark richardson or nabisco have said specifically.

It's not "pitchfork's opinion" in the strong sense of, say, a newspaper editorial.

my favourite sort of critical writing engages wide-eyed with an informed personal response, but focuses firmly on the object criticised rather than the self.

me too, with the understanding that there can be outliers. but i also think that "good writing" enters into it in a way that can't be unpacked. not that good writing is universal, but i know it when i see it (ha), and i suspect that it's much more likely to arise from a sense of intellectual/literary freedom than from deference to sensible consensus.

All of this is evidence that people care too much about the numbers and not enough about the writing IMO.

― Tim F, Thursday, July 15, 2010 5:03 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

real talk

i hate giving out number scores fwiw

p sure 95% of mine are in the 7.6-7.9 range

it's much more likely to arise from a sense of intellectual/literary freedom than from deference to sensible consensus.

This is a skewed way of describing the process. I assume that for the big releases scott (say) will see what writers are saying on the pitchfork messageboard thread and ask the writer who seems to have the best and most representative take on the album to review the album.

But that writer isn't deferring to some sensible consensus outside of themselves, they're making their internal opinion into a consensus by virtue of insight and persuasion.

A bit like how certain posters on ILX begin to almost define particular threads by virtue of garnering the most OTMs, capturing the appeal of the music in a way that is both "good writing" and leads other people to agree with them. With certain threads on ILM particular posters will "set the tone" for other posters' enjoyment, not because the other posters are incapable of thinking for themselves or because they're all bowing down to some external law, but because it's the very stuff of music crit that we wish to share our mode of enjoyment, and when we do that well it becomes infection. There's certain music that I can't help but hear for the prism of what certain posters here have said about them (not for nothing did we use to talk about "the ilx hivemind").

Now obv the above doesn't always work - not every pitchfork review is raining OTMs by any stretch - but that strikes me as being the idea.

I believe in subjectivity as much as the next person, but I suspect wel tend to overstate the extent to which we look for bold, controversial iconoclastic opinions in music writing.

In truth, the music writing that sticks with us is more likely to be that which largely hears what we hear in a record, but hears it better, explains our experience back to us in a way which heightens our own self-awareness.

(or maybe I'm extrapolating from my own tastes too much)

In truth, the music writing that sticks with us is more likely to be that which largely hears what we hear in a record, but hears it better, explains our experience back to us in a way which heightens our own self-awareness.

Also: sharp, thoughtful, engaging writing about albums to which we feel lukewarm or outright dismiss.

Having worked at a magazine, I don't see how these revelations about PFM are a big deal. Commercial enterprises mix advocacy and contrarianism all the time.

Over the last 15 years Pitchfork has painted itself as an authority figure with its sometimes ruthless and often controversial album rating system, which assigns scores from 0.0 to 10.0.

it always blows my mind to see sentences like this in everything written about PF. obviously the scores and the way they're arrived at are sometimes controversial (i.e. a lot of the posts on this thread) but is there anything actually controversial or even unusual about a scale of 1 to 10 or assigning a number rating to a record?

I assume they mean the specifics of what they do with that 1-10 system

if so then they shouldn't have said "controversial album rating system"

A bit like how certain posters on ILX begin to almost define particular threads by virtue of garnering the most OTMs, capturing the appeal of the music in a way that is both "good writing" and leads other people to agree with them. With certain threads on ILM particular posters will "set the tone" for other posters' enjoyment, not because the other posters are incapable of thinking for themselves or because they're all bowing down to some external law, but because it's the very stuff of music crit that we wish to share our mode of enjoyment, and when we do that well it becomes infection. There's certain music that I can't help but hear for the prism of what certain posters here have said about them (not for nothing did we use to talk about "the ilx hivemind").

Now obv the above doesn't always work - not every pitchfork review is raining OTMs by any stretch - but that strikes me as being the idea.

― Tim F, Thursday, July 15, 2010 8:20 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

I feel this is OTM - all I ever ask for of music reviews (and I guess most things I read) is a new perspective, a revealed framework that may help me inhabit an album or song better. scores are for chumps. that's why the only music criticism I read nowadays are ILM threads about an album, for unfiltered, personal takes on albums.

not saying that Pitchfork isn't capable of reaching such heights but most of the times it doesn't do it for me.

I assume that for the big releases scott (say) will see what writers are saying on the pitchfork messageboard thread and ask the writer who seems to have the best and most representative take on the album to review the album.

But that writer isn't deferring to some sensible consensus outside of themselves, they're making their internal opinion into a consensus by virtue of insight and persuasion.

A bit like how certain posters on ILX begin to almost define particular threads by virtue of garnering the most OTMs, capturing the appeal of the music in a way that is both "good writing" and leads other people to agree with them.

would agree with that (i.e., Tim OTM). suspect i phrased my last post badly. i'm not condemning forced conformity with the hivemind (cuz i doubt that pitchfork is some kind of pop crit gulag in the 1st place). i'm really just wondering whether pitchfork's obvious interest in unity of voice and their own cultural importance perhaps tends to result in writing that bores me. like they're more oriented towards definitive and defensible criticism than that which is interesting or exciting on its own merits.

and there's nothing wrong with that. it protects their brand, keeps egg off their faces and the readership happy. just isn't to my taste.

Can't "definitive and defensible criticism" be interesting and exciting on its own merits?

i think the hivemind stuff, to some extent, is unavoidable with a staff as large as PF's. but it also speaks volumes that so many of the writers listen to all the same records that they can pick and choose who writes what; at this point i feel like writers like tim f or deej are some of the most valuable contributors not just because they're covering stuff a little outside the site's usual scope but because they're often the only person there who knows much about the record they're reviewing and you know you're getting their direct opinion (even if the score is moderated a little so that they don't run the risk of putting the BNM endorsement on a rap or dance record that doesn't have indie crossover written all over it).

Who is deej? I'm rubbish at knowing people's real names.

d4vid dr4ke

Thanks

Can't "definitive and defensible criticism" be interesting and exciting on its own merits?

sure. i'm not trying to set up a dichotomy. but a strong emphasis on the former might take a toll on the latter. just speculating here...

my only clarification: "hivemind" is tripping some up here. It's not like the staff is polled and the average opinion is the (inherently watered-down) score and that's it. And it's most certainly not like everyone on staff, or even within the editorial staff, shares opinions. But we all talk about things and get a sense for what people think-- in part simply because we're all huge music nerds who the enjoy the process; in part because we respect the opinions of our staff, which is one reason we have a closed staff and not just a loose collective of freelancers (aka whatever happens at other pubs doesn't really apply to us). (The "over and over" in that quote is simply an indication of the care and consideration given to these decisions.)

The editorial staff ultimately decides which direction to go with a major release and then we assign those records to someone fully knowing what their opinions and insights into the album are. In this regard, we give writers the comfort and freedom to then more fully articulate their take on a record, as well as secure the expectation that their reviews will not be greatly disfigured in edits, because of the conversations and groundwork done ahead of time. (bonus: almost no kill fees!)

But it would be ludicrous for us to run a magazine like ours by just assigning a review of, e.g., MIA to Matthew with no expectations about his opinions or what he would say about it, and no input from the editors. "well, I guess it's a 4.4 then! print it!" And...it's that simple.

or any magazine, tbh!

i don't think i write for a single outlet that would let me just put any crazy score i wanted on everything

Appreciate the clarification, Scott. Just one thing that bothered me in the NYT piece - do you actually agree on the grade before the review is commissioned/written? It's one thing to agree that the MIA album is a dud, quite another to agree that it's a 4.4 dud. Surely there's a range of possible grades for any review?

I would very much like to see the London Evening Standard's Voice of Youth, Richard Dennen, do some reviewing. I think he and Willa would have some valuable insights into music to share with the world, in between trying to fuck the same boy.

Isn't there a big difference between Pitchfork and the Guardian? Namely: one is a Web site that focuses solely about music, the other is a newspaper whose music section is but one of many sections in the publication. The Guardian's aesthetic and reputation rests on a sense of the paper as a whole (its general liberal bent, e.g.), not just on the trustworthiness of its music reviews, which many subscribers probably don't even read. So there's probably a little more leeway for Lex to go about things his own way.

A different perspective from another context -- while I write in a specific voice for my All Music Guide work, I have never (and will never) aim at a consensus view, for all that the site aims at its own particular goal for definitive thoughts. Now they have staffers as well and Andy K or someone else may have a different perspective, but there's no private discussion board I hash out requests or initial thoughts on, as a freelancers I just ask to review something in the database and get a yes/no answer and take it from there. On that level it is a very individual take, I hope, within a pretty big system. And I hate dealing with the star rankings but there you are.

he and Willa would have some valuable insights into music to share with the world, in between trying to fuck the same boy.

why just trying? is he hard to catch?

xp to Ned - yeah I do reviews for the BBC's music site which, while not being the same thing as AMG, purports to be going for a kind of 'archive of significant releases' type angle (the fact that it'll likely get budgeted out of existence in six months notwithstanding) - the review guidelines basically just boil down to "don't be a dick" which seems to work OK, possibly because it actually pays people reasonably

i dont know if people are still arguing about this but anyone who thinks that the vast majority of people who visit the pitchfork website take any time with the reviews or differentiate between writers has an.... unreasonably optimistic view of people

You mean you don't write all the articles on your site, Max? I'm crushed.

Resident Advisor also had a fairly close-managed editorial policy didn't it? I remember a review (by an ilxor) of a big prog-house release was killed for being too negative and replaced by a positive one.

And while they have or had some opinionated "controversial" people writing for them (Pete Chambers springs to mind) I always got the impression reviews of "big ticket" items (Villalobos say) were given to writers only if the editors were confident that the overall thrust of the review would match their expectations, such that the writer's opinions could stand in for the publication's opinion.

I get the impression FACT is similar, although maybe there it's more that most of the writers have pretty similar tastes anyway so the "hivemind" emerges as a matter of course.

But it would be ludicrous for us to run a magazine like ours by just assigning a review of, e.g., MIA to Matthew with no expectations about his opinions or what he would say about it, and no input from the editors. "well, I guess it's a 4.4 then! print it!" And...it's that simple.

― scottpl, Thursday, July 15, 2010 2:27 PM (8 hours ago)

hmm, not really. i write for a p well established magazine (abt 80 years old) and, well, 1) we don't do retarded fuckin' numerical scores (still less ones with decimal points); 2) the editors do not interfere even if you are panning the cover star. so long as the review is solid.

whereas perpetua wrote a p.o.s. that ludicrously compared eating truffle fries to paedophilia (kinda).

i dont know if people are still arguing about this but anyone who thinks that the vast majority of people who visit the pitchfork website take any time with the reviews or differentiate between writers has an.... unreasonably optimistic view of people

― max, Thursday, July 15, 2010 4:40 PM (5 hours ago)

This seems almost head-smackingly obvious but really super overlooked. At least pitchforkreviewsreviews tries to differentiate between the writers.

it's true but i dunno what max's point is there

if readers are that inattentive (and i agree they probably are), then all this talk about consistency is also horseshit. surely these readers, if they don't remember names, won't bother to recall old scores, or giveashit.jpg about the website's party line?

ppl who are invested in the pfork brand might, but those are the sorts of readers who remember writers' names.

Actually there appear to be a lot of people who re invested in the pfork brand without having a clear sense of the individual writers. I don't understand it myself but it is what it is.

I even have friends who will recommend me stuff and say "pitchfork gave it a really good review" and not think that's a slightly odd way to recommend something to me.

wth at those ppl

dunno where to start. how would they deal with the nyrb or whatever? surely these people have a level of education, etc. god.

Those of you who write for Pitchfork ... can you give me an example of what happens when the consensus opinion is to give an album a positive review but someone else strongly dislikes it? Or vice versa? How do situations like that tend to be resolved?

knife fights

Like most people here, colour me less than shocked about the general oversight re: grades.

I've had a strangely large number of irl conversations about P4K over the past few weeks, and the general perspective of my friends (who are pretty firmly in the target demo for the site) is that reviews are "Pitchfork" reviews, for better or for worse. Whether or not they think P4K is a source of good criticism or the bane of all that is holy, any suggestion on my part that people should actually pay attention to who wrote the reviews in question and follow writers whose viewpoint/ideas/insights they find engaging and worthwhile is usually seen as patently ridiculous.

(Back in April, someone I know complained that grading at P4K was inconsistent because the New Amerykah Pt. 2 review referred to the 'stellar' Part 1, which had been rated significantly lower! Or - for real - that end-of-year lists were frustrating because albums in the Best-of-2009 often outranked those that had received higher scores in their individual reviews. The concept that Pitchfork is comprised of a sizeable staff who don't, in fact, agree on everything is lost on a great number of people.)

Basically, given that the vast majority of the site's readership isn't the dude from pitchforkreviewsreviews or the denizens of ILX, it makes total sense that scores are collectivized to some extent.

Actually there appear to be a lot of people who re invested in the pfork brand without having a clear sense of the individual writers. I don't understand it myself but it is what it is.

It makes no sense, and I wouldn't believe they exist if I didn't know them myself. \(o_O)/

Honestly, part of me thinks it would be incredibly frustrating to write for P4K if only b/c of the inevitability of being strawmanned as the Word of God by reductionist 20something hipsters, strawmanned as the source of all Evil by portions of ILX and generally ignored in favour of a numerical score by a significant percentage of yr audience.

i even have friends who will recommend me stuff and say "pitchfork gave it a really good review" and not think that's a slightly odd way to recommend something to me.

― Tim F, Thursday, July 15, 2010 6:00 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wth at those ppl

― I’ll put you in a f *ckin Weingarten you c*nt! (history mayne), Thursday, July 15, 2010 6:03 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have said this exact phrase before and i am an ilx- and pitchfork-reading music nerd. kind of really embarassing to admit that you've identified and categorized different pitchfork writers when talking to someone who presumably doesn't. ilx is cool cause i can say "wtf ryan dombal" and enough people know what i'm talking about, but irl that would be some seriously n/l o_O

alex is otm. but i think i have some light to shed on this phenomenon

Actually there appear to be a lot of people who re invested in the pfork brand without having a clear sense of the individual writers. I don't understand it myself but it is what it is.

it's pretty simple, actually. you can scroll through a year-end list or the best new music page or pless play and listen to fork cast or track reviews for an hour and not really pay attention to the name of the writers. if you are somewhat aware of the music being released it should be pretty clear what stuff has been excluded. thus, the brand is conceived in the minds of millions of people in the world

samosa, I think the irony of Tim's statement is that given that he WRITES for Pitchfork, friends telling him "pitchfork gave it a good review" should know full well that his tastes and the site's are not necessarily identical.

i mean, i don't think there's something inherently wrong with saying "pitchfork gave it a really good review". just, context specific, ya know?

yeah, seemed like history mayne took it the other way though

samosa, I think the irony of Tim's statement is that given that he WRITES for Pitchfork, friends telling him "pitchfork gave it a good review" should know full well that his tastes and the site's are not necessarily identical.

Mainly the assumption that I might not have been aware that the music was reviewed positively on pitchfork, but now that I do know that I WILL DEF. CHECK IT OUT.

Of course the reverse is true: friends who are shocked when they say "x (which is BNM that week) is really awesome, huh?" and I admit I haven't heard it.

But what do I know? I'm a fairly regular reader of Pitchfork and dabbler in criticism who's probably less likely to download/listen to a BNM than some random 7.x that got an interesting review two tiers down.

at some point i stopped actually listening to music written about on pitchfork and started using it as a way to keep track of new releases and look out for stuff written by writers i recognize from ilx. not unrelatedly somewhere along that i continuum i turned from someone who had downloaded and caned the department of eagles record in 08 into someone who nearly gagged when he heard them again the other day

i think pitchfork is great & its existence and editorial policies justified but people who are serious about loving music and spending a lot of time listening to it should not be contained by hiveminds. i was into it for a while, and i'm glad i'm out. nice for people who just want something to listen to in the car or talk to girls about though, y'know

haha. i'll just OTM that entire post except:

nice for people who just want something to listen to in the car or talk to girlsboys about though, y'know

FIXED.

Also, I will no longer bother getting around to Dept. of Eagles.

I'm not surprised at all by Tim F's experience. Pitchfork itself has decided to place the emphasis on itself and its brand at the expense of its writers. The URL is pitchfork.com, the word PITCHFORK and a big picture of a pitchfork sit at the top of every page, and the site has cultivated an authoritative, monolithic image. By contrast, the names of individual writers appear in small font at the end of the review (no one reads that far anyway), there are no head shots, no links to an archive of other reviews by that author. The implication is that the writer is a cog in the machine and that the review reflects the editorial vision of Pitchfork. I bet 95%+ of the site's readers can't name one writer off the top of their head.

If anything it's kind of comforting to see such an old-media style, authoritative, non-relativist take on something survive in the internet age. If people cared what writer X thought, they could go to his blog. But they care about what Pitchfork thinks.

^^otm

it's called building a brand

my ultimate feelings on this are as follows

as people, or critics, we want our opinions to matter. for our opinions to matter to other people, we need there to be a context for our opinions. we need other people to agree or disagree with us, and we need for those people to understand how/why our opinions are formed and where they stand in relation to our other opinions. i know the lex's music taste, so when he is less enthused about a rihanna album than other people, i pay attention. what am i missing here that lex, a trustworthy opinion in pop, sees, or rather doesn't see? when the lex is excited about an indie band like the xx, i pay attention. what does the lex see in this indie band that isn't present in other indie bands, and how might this pertain to my personal tastes? his opinions become more noteworthy and powerful to me because i have a context, individually, for them.

the way i see it, by monitoring scores, pitchfork is really just doing the same thing that we do as individuals. they're building a context for their opinions, so those opinions take on more weight and make more sense to their readers. i can understand why some people would balk at the idea of a publication trying to become as singularly monolithic as an individual, but it is in the best interests of the publication to do that.

how is that old media? aside from the fact that scores are not old media, it's a very faux authoritativeness if the score is pre-agreed. there's a difference between a self-indulgent, subjective approach and a personal and properly authoritative one.

xposts

I'm not surprised at all by Tim F's experience. Pitchfork itself has decided to place the emphasis on itself and its brand at the expense of its writers. The URL is pitchfork.com, the word PITCHFORK and a big picture of a pitchfork sit at the top of every page, and the site has cultivated an authoritative, monolithic image. By contrast, the names of individual writers appear in small font at the end of the review (no one reads that far anyway), there are no head shots, no links to an archive of other reviews by that author. The implication is that the writer is a cog in the machine and that the review reflects the editorial vision of Pitchfork. I bet 95%+ of the site's readers can't name one writer off the top of their head.

what major music publication -- online or print -- does otherwise?

there are plenty of sites that link to archives or post photos or provide bios of their writers

okay, but i don't think that, by itself, suggests the publications are heavily emphasizing the individual writers over the brand.

Stylus used to have a page for each writer w/ headshot, bio, top ten list(s), links to recently written or archived stuff.

(RIP)

there are no head shots, no links to an archive of other reviews by that author.

this is by far the suckiest thing about it, imo. not so much that other sites/pubs emphasize writers over brand, but that p4k so aggressively de-emphasizes the individual contributors. it's like cook's illustrated: house voice. (lol i read cook's illustrated)

they used to do it and they stopped iirc, nothing stopping you from searching "nabisco otm" site:pitchfork.com but that's for us to know

You guys ever written for or been editors at a newspaper, even a college one? When it's time to assign the editorial -- the collective opinion of the newspaper -- most eboards will discuss it, sometimes violently disagreeing, but ultimately the editor in chief decides. Then, unless the paper employs a person whose only responsibility is writing editorials, the chief assigns the editorial to a congenial editor. How is this any different?

The difference, I suppose, is that editorials are unsigned, but the process is similar. The individual voice matters less than the collective opinion of the newspaper.

um yeah, editorials are nothing like frickin' music reviews

If you say so.

post up the best writing on pitchfork

I haven't really read much on the site in terms of reviews or articles or even interviews or anything

We're talking about a magazine's policy. If it uses bylines sooner or later you'll remember the writer's work if h/she's any good. There's nothing strange about editors discussing an album, coming to a decision, and asking their staff for critics whose opinions line with theirs. Again, if the critic produces a thoughtful, excellent piece of persuasive prose, what difference does it make?

because of this site I read the review of the eminem show which was p lol

There's nothing strange about editors discussing an album, coming to a decision, and asking their staff for critics whose opinions line with theirs.

empirically speaking, if pfork really *does* agree on a numerical rating before assigning a review, that is strange

haha I just looked this up cuz fantasy cited it and jeeezus christ this is bad

Actually there appear to be a lot of people who re invested in the pfork brand without having a clear sense of the individual writers. I don't understand it myself but it is what it is.

you don't have to have a sense of the individual writers to realise that there ARE individual writers. i don't know what to say to people who think magazines or brands have opinions. it's not "inconsistent" when magazines give apparently conflicting reviews of works by the same artist, it's the nature of any outlet with multiple voices. you don't have to follow those voices or care about them to realise this. seriously anyone who complains on this basis must be genuinely retarded.

there's no such thing as a hivemind, even - maybe especially - when you think there is. to the outsider on ilm, it probably appears that eg jordan/rev/alex in mtl/tim f/shipz/rtc have a hivemind at times. but that couldn't be less true! and the points of difference between us are as or more interesting as our #cassiefanclub or #teriusfanclub ways. i honestly have no idea why anyone, anywhere would try to enforce or create a fake consensus hivemind - that's an insult wherever i've seen it. i have nothing but contempt for people who need the safety of a hivemind brand to reinforce their "tastes", or people who pander to them. think 4 yrselves.

I get the impression FACT is similar, although maybe there it's more that most of the writers have pretty similar tastes anyway so the "hivemind" emerges as a matter of course.

never heard of fact altering a rating or assigning based on editorial policy, and i certainly don't consider myself to have a hivemind with anyone else who writes for them.

there are no head shots, no links to an archive of other reviews by that author.

don't care about head shots but every site (inc fact) should be searchable by author - w/r/t pfork that's the ONLY way i ever want to read it, and the fact that i can't means that i never visit it unless the writers in question happen to link their work.

empirically speaking, if pfork really *does* agree on a numerical rating before assigning a review, that is strange

did scott actually answer dorian when he asked this? can't be arsed to view all posts

empirically speaking, if pfork really *does* agree on a numerical rating before assigning a review, that is strange

It really doesn't as far as I know. When you pitch you describe the kind of review you wish to write and the score you're likely to give. I assume that in the case of, say, the M.I.A. review, perp would have said "I'm thinking this is somewhere around a 4/10 or 5/10" when he was discussing the kind of review he intended to write, and ended up settling on 4.4 for the final review.

there's no such thing as a hivemind, even - maybe especially - when you think there is. to the outsider on ilm, it probably appears that eg jordan/rev/alex in mtl/tim f/shipz/rtc have a hivemind at times. but that couldn't be less true! and the points of difference between us are as or more interesting as our #cassiefanclub or #teriusfanclub ways.

It's really no different to this though - the "consensus" is basically as loose as the "consensus" on a the-dream thread - i.e. dude makes good music, some of the things that are interesting about his are x, y, and z, but we all disagree on the importance or success of particular traits, or which songs are best, or which of the three albums is best/worst etc.

Someone saying "the-dream is bad because he's encouraging this whole synthetic post-autotune trend of R&B whereas I prefer stuff that sounds like old soul" would not look like they were part of #teriusfanclub, and a pitchfork writer who thought this would be unlikely to be assigned the review by scott.

This thread is full of people taking the most extreme possible interpretation of what happens and then saying "hey that's a bad idea."

xp No, he kind of dodged the point. I mean, he made a strong case about site branding and generalized consensus & c. (basically what j0rdan said), but avoided answering the specific question.

(And a bunch of people who think that what happens is totally unobjectionable.)

Much like Lynn Hirschberg's M.I.A. piece, can't we just agree that taking statements made in NYTimes articles as gospel wrt controversy-starting part of the music scene is probably pretty lol-worthy.

*controversy-starting parts of the music scene, rather.

Having seen a few Pitchfork writers in the flesh, I can tell you that headshots is definitely not a good idea.

tim did you think the electrik red album was worth, in your opinion, a higher mark than that which it received? do you think you'd have "got away" with giving it 9 or above?

I've already said that giving any album you like a 9 is basically the only limit I've come across. I think I've tried to be pretty reasonable (as opposed to unreasonably defensive) in my explanation of how this stuff works.

Yeah, we listen to records and talk about them and writers give an idea of what they are thinking and assignments are made. No one is ever told what to rate a record but sometimes there are discussions about it, just like there would be with edits. Naturally, some writers care about ratings more than others. It's pretty simple really.

And now we can all stop spinning our wheels over a fairly silly thing, and get back to discussing epic UK Funky remixes and the proper use of the word 'punk', yes?

All this arguing has made me hungry for some truffle fries.

i would like to discuss good music but 90% of the time the response is ~tumbleweave~ hence why i'm on the pfork and m.i.a. threads.

am still waiting for any other critic type to even bother listening to k michelle, idk how much i have to rave about her before this happens.

oh shit! I was going to listen to that on this train ride to toronto but i got distracted by Cibelle. And then Silent Shout randomly. And then the new Scissor Sisters LP, which has somehow become a total summer jam for me, even though any previous exposure to them has resulted in vague distaste and cringing at the campiness of it all.

Will put on the K Michelle ASAP and report back. What's her deal? Haven't heard/heard of her anywhere but you.

rich j posted about her -- not sure where HE heard about her tho

she's signed to a major tho

"hit em in the mouth" is wild but i am not a crit type so don't mind me

hood r&b, big on "real talk', in the mary j/keyshia cole/teedra moses lineage. one minute a fine line in heartbreak, the next "you gon make me come up out of these earrings"

rich four four's into her, girl unit sampled "self made" for imminent summer jam "wut", she's releasing an album on jive and r kelly's taken her under his wing

xps

"hit em in the mouth" is amazing

what i ain't gon do is: call my pops
what i ain't gon do is: call no cops
i'm no jazmine sullivan, bustin all your windows out
i'm from memphis, tennekee: imma bust you in your mouth

sounds glorious - i will hear it in 10 or so trax from now. but i like the sound of this so far. it's good to have an r&b album to get behind. after 07/08/09 being big years for me and pop/r'n'b/country 2010 has been a disappointingly indie sort of year for me.

(and yes, terius/erykah/janelle but crit-bait aside, it's been pretty weak for mainstream US r&b this year thus far.)

Not that I've written a ton of reviews in a while, but I just want to throw in that any ratings negotiation I've ever personally been a part of over the years has been way more "common sense" than "hivemind."

It's the same principle that would prevent a critic from throwing random 10s and 0s at any old thing -- if you tried, you'd have to have some kind of conversation about it, right? Like: why do you think that? Is your 0.0 appropriate if some number of people on staff actually like this record? Is your 10 reasonable if you're the only one who thinks that? Etc. So maybe people (writers, editors, etc.) wind up having similar conversations on a smaller scale about where a particular rating goes, which is just ... basic diligence, I think.

Obviously people (and musicians!) pay an amazing amount of attention to those ratings, and I don't know that any critic is so attached to his/her Objective Decimal-Point Rightness that he/she is above having a rational conversation about what rating they thought was right, or other people's opinions about it. That seems like way less of a "hivemind" and way more just like ... a conversation with good input.

ALSO she's done an amazing cover/response to b.o.b's "nothin on you" that sees the original and takes apart its sweet lying nothings

pretty sure the imminent ciara will live up to my high expectations

xps

How it worked @ the source in its prime, w/ editor reginald c dennis:

Any albums you regret not giving the coveted 5 mic rating?

[...]

In 1992 we gave Dr. Dre’s The Chronic 4.5 mics. Had I the opportunity to press reset, I would have given it a 5. Here’s the story:

We got the advance of the album in October of 1992 and it immediately became an office favorite. And our version was a little better than the one everyone else got to hear because we had the joint that was sequenced differently, had different song arrangements and in some instances, different lyrics. It was all good. In fact it was too good — and I didn’t want to let the album out of my sight, so I decided that it would be reviewed totally in house, meaning that a fellow Source editor would handle the task. (I didn’t want to risk the tape coming up missing, which was always a concern if you were mailing things out of state for review or dealing with hip-hop writers who, due to their weed habits, tended to misplace things or drop the critical ball from time to time.)

So my man Matty C, fellow editor and the king of Unsigned Hype, did the do, and he gave it 4.5 — he thought “Lil’ Ghetto Boy” was the weak link in the chain — and that was that. I was firm on my “no 5’s” rule and that was also that. If you check the actual review, you’ll see that the byline is attributed to “TMS” (The Mind Squad) — which for those that don’t know was how we handled things that were done by group effort or committee.

[...]

Any albums you regret giving 5 mics?

“I only gave one 5 under my watch and it went to Nas’s Illmatic. It was the only time I ever broke the no 5 rule. Jon Shecter [Source co-founder] had gotten his hands on the album like eight months before it was scheduled to drop. And just like I was with The Chronic a few months earlier, Jon didn’t let the tape out of his sight. Not only that, but he constantly raved about it. Everyday. He played it in the office about a million times and very early on began to lobby for this record to receive 5 mics. Now I was cool with Nas and had been a fan since “Live At The BBQ,” but I really wasn’t really stressing his album. It wasn’t coming out for at least half a year and I had other shit to do. But Jon couldn’t wait. And he began to micromanage everything concerning Nas’s coverage in The Source. He’d be like, so who are you thinking about getting to review this album? This is going to be an important release and we can’t give it to just anybody, and I think I should be in on that decision. I told Jon that we’d work all of that stuff out when it was time to review the album. But everyday, Jon was like, yo, this album is 5 mics — seriously, Reg, 5 mics.

Eventually he got on my last nerve and by the time I’d finally gotten a chance to listen to the album (remember: he wouldn’t let anyone borrow the record to check it out, so it was impossible for me to see if I would have liked it or not) lo and behold, I didn’t like it. And it was all because of Jon’s constant badgering! So when it came time to review the album, I decided that because my opinion had been tainted, I would sort of step back and let whatever Jon and the reviewer decided be the rating that the album got. So Minya Oh (then writing as Shorty, but now known to millions as Miss Info) did her thing and gave it 5 mics. I was happy, Jon was happy, Nas was happy, everybody was happy — except for all of the people who felt that The Chronic should have also gotten a 5.

link

i think the analogy w/ pitchfork isn't with 10.00s but the much less scarce Best New Music things. since they have them, it kind of always followed that there would be discussion of scores. it's not a bad thing per se but @ p4k i'd say it's brand building over criticism @ that level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP5jsbw6eYQ

solo in the whip steamy drop top boopin it
ask about me they say can michelle be doin it

like they wouldn't give a manufactured girl group that no ones heard of a big big score, but they would to a male rnb auteur their readers haven't heard of when they thought the time was right. maybe i guess kinda maybe not xpost

...dealing with hip-hop writers who, due to their weed habits, tended to misplace things or drop the critical ball from time to time.

Forget all this talk of hiveminds, I want to know if stuff like this happens at P4K. Perhaps Matty Perp was buzzed out of his mind on MDMA when he turned in that 4.4?

so my man Matty P, out of his mind on MDMA and fiending for a pop princess, did the do, and he gave it a 4.4

Ray has upped the ante by stating that if his next album doesn’t get 4 mics he will start “puttin’ niggas in bodybags.”

Would love to hear about a P4K equivalent of this.

It's the same principle that would prevent a critic from throwing random 10s and 0s at any old thing -- if you tried, you'd have to have some kind of conversation about it, right? Like: why do you think that? Is your 0.0 appropriate if some number of people on staff actually like this record? Is your 10 reasonable if you're the only one who thinks that? Etc. So maybe people (writers, editors, etc.) wind up having similar conversations on a smaller scale about where a particular rating goes, which is just ... basic diligence, I think.

well, the idea is that the review backs up the score, right? so it ain't so random. that's the conversation. as for "Is your 0.0 appropriate if some number of people on staff actually like this record?" -- i dunno, that sounds way more hivemind than common sense. you get policy decisions of this kind in left-wing political magazines (like the french film mag positif), but that's kinda different. "Is your 10 reasonable if you're the only one who thinks that?" this is a silly question -- it's reasonable if it's reasoned. all this says to me is that numerical scores have got way out of hand as a thing.

Hey, has anyone mentioned yet that giving an arbitrary "score" to any artistic endeavour, including music, is utterly retarded and ultimately pointless?

Just sayin', that's all.

HM OTM. seems to me that p4k's in the business of delivering numerical scores & BNM tags, and the reviews exist primarily as supporting documents. nothing wrong with that, and i'm not pretending to pull back the curtain. it's self-evident, given the way p4k is received in the marketplace and discussed by those who follow it. it's not even so terribly unusual. similar to the rolling stone's longstanding approach.

Pitchfork should start giving numerical scores to their Guest Lists and 5-10-15-20 lists. Some of those are super great. The ones that are all, like, "my favorite band/album is this shitty band we've been touring with for a yea" are totally sub-4.4.

ILM members and other critics are the only ones whose eyes ever scan down the page past the numerical score/BNM flag.

Having seen a few Pitchfork writers in the flesh, I can tell you that headshots is definitely not a good idea.

I'm for it, but only if Mike Powell's headshot is this:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e383/nescience716/powell.jpg

I knew sooner or later someone would post that screenshot.

can't keep up with Pitchfork Reviews Reviews. like the site, but dude's posting more stuff than I'm willing to dedicate time to reading

he emailed me the other day

really? about what

because i wrote this:

http://celebraterickysargulesh.tumblr.com/page/10

he spent like 500 words trying to explain his blog to me.

seems like a really nice kid but super neurotic.

oh yeah, I actually saw your blog post! dude does seem nice, and I actually like a lot of his stuff, but he really, really needs an editor

yeah. i told him he should probably not waste his time emailing everyone whos ever written about him on the internet. especially snide one-sentence dismissals from random tubmlrs.

that site is kinda disturbing. i tried reading it bc i saw j0rdan & a few other ppl i read engaging with it but a guy who rings his friends when p4k "went low" (like 8.4) on a record he liked...i'm not sure he's functioning properly. or his weird wondering why rappers rap abt weed... or you know, anything on there. at first i thought he was a fifteen year old writing with a level of irony abt how he was coming off, but dude is grown

xpost

yeah, there's something very disturbing about the whole enterprise. also sad on another level that he's not any more obsessed w/ Pitchfork than a hundred other indie bloggers but because he put PITCHFORK in the name of his blog he's semi-famous and in NYT and stuff.

xpost

max, that's solid advice

really, dude's (1) already been written about in the Times, (2) already signed on to do a reading, and (3) already has an audience of people who are following his stuff, including some P4k writers themselves, so it's not like he's doing too badly for himself

zvookster, I don't know if I'd call it disturbing. I mean, the guy's really enthusiastic about music writing, which is great, and I think it's cool to have someone actually trying to engage with what that kind of writing does, but the fact that he's literally reviewing every review is the part that's a little O_o to me, and sometimes the way he approaches talking about those reviews kinda borderlines on obsessive

some dude, I don't think it's he's more famous than those other indie rock bloggers because of his blog's name, but because, unlike those other bloggers, he's doing the whole kinda metacriticism thing from the perspective of the site's ideal reader, whereas they're just kinda covering the same stuff P4k is covering? the only other blogs that I know of that actually engage with P4k's writing are dumb sites like Ripfork or smaller, rock critic-run Tumblrs

you realize that by the end of that paragraph you all but circle back and call it disturbing yourself, right? (xpost)

just not comfortable with the connotations of the word disturbing. a 23-year-old writing so much about Pitchfork is more of a "too obsessed, but in a kinda endearing way" thing than legitimately scary

there are LOTS of people that talk about and react to PF reviews online, but yeah no other one person who writes about all of them. i'm just saying the way he branded himself w/ their brand (as opposed to being a general "reviewing the reviews" site or being "spin reviews reviews" or something) has more to do with how well known he is than anything about his writing.

yeah 'disturbing' may be overly harsh but to be fair ksh i don't know how to explain to you of all people why earnest enthusiasm isn't always a virtue

sure, his site definitely wouldn't be nearly as popular if he were doing a less insanely negative Ripfork/"reviewing the reviews" deal, but if his writing were total dogshit then way fewer people would be following what he's doing than are right now, and I doubt his stuff would be as popular as it is

as far as the whole "why earnest enthusiasm isn't always a virtue" thing, I read some of my older posts and cringe, so I at least understand a little bit more than I did last year why that whole steez can come off as kinda lame

not sure I'd be able to articulate exactly why that is right now. maybe it's just because it's a really uncritical and, by extension, uninteresting and boring stance

i'd say i "get" the meta aspect of it, but when he writes things along the lines of "tom breihan's review of _____ album is great...i'll never listen to the album and i don't follow this genre, but the review is great" i pretty much tune out. and although posting that type of stuff is necessary to the project it in a way trivializes a lot of his commentary and music he's more familiar with

maybe it's because you use the word "steez" xpost

yeah totally. also any time i've looked at it there's been something like breathless anticipation for Thank Me Later or the assertion that the Cool Kids have the most perfect discography in rap history that kinda makes me run screaming away. (xpost)

the apple doesnt fall far from the tree

http://i29.tinypic.com/9r3ygl.png

r.i.p.

RIP PRP

just looked up that post zvookster was talking about. i'm dying at "my first thought about this was that rappers rap about smoking a lot of weed to indicate the integrity of their mental fortresses"

amazing

his posts about rap music are not good

tbh i find something about his approach to me pretty endearing, but the actual blog is hella overwhelming... i read his posts about the pfork reviews of the day, but the other stuff on top of that is too much for me

jon carmancia writing a feature about him in the nyt was fuckin crazy tho

approach to be*

h8 jon 4 that 1

this guy. when i quoted him saying "one of those chains that connects the wallet to the pants" i said "u mean a wallet chain??" then he emailed me asking who i was

was the email really long

with no parapraph breaks

hey what's your name? you commented on my blog and i want to read your writing

thats it. but otoh all i said was 'u mean a wallet chain?' so

'i want to read yr wallet chain blog'

he usually likes your reviews a lot

damnit, lost a bet about the mahjongg score ;_;

iirc he said 'molto bene' to r0ach gigz & 'ehhh' to the-dream & 'ehh' to davinci

maybe i was just remembering the "molto bene" one

that was a really good review tho

davinci was better imo but ppl have trouble w/ 'positive reviews' that are also 'critical'

ilm clearly needs to start a reviews of reviews of pitchfork reviews tumblr, no?

reviews of altered zones reviews twitter, maybe?

i have only just become aware of this "putchfork reviews reviews" thing and what the actual fuck

just WHAT

lex - best to just ignore it before you have a total apopleptic fit.

id say the main diff between PRR & other pitchfork related blogs w/out pfork in the name is that the pfork writers seem to read PRR

I bet this guy would post here if you asked him to.

hypothetically valuable new posters

id say the main diff between PRR & other pitchfork related blogs w/out pfork in the name is that the pfork writers seem to read PRR

― blap...tremendo (deej), Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:18 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well i guess if you're guaranteed feedback on anything you write, even if its the 5th review down of some record people don't care that much about it, it's worth a look. but it's kinda like saying "omg Lil B commented on my blog about him!"

btw sorry i mentioned Lil B, i'm sure he'll be in this thread in 10 minutes

i find this dude kinda...off myself, but thankfully since all i seem to review these days are quasi-obscure techno albums, i tend to stay out of his crosshairs.

i dont know some dude i think that a guy managed to get a back-and-forth going w/ the writers is valuable even if its about shit i couldnt care less about

meaningful more than valuable i guess

when i quoted him saying "one of those chains that connects the wallet to the pants" i said "u mean a wallet chain??" then he emailed me asking who i was

I liked the one the other day where he described some fascinating drug paraphernalia, at great length, but it was just a one-hitter

(I like this kid's writing pretty often, so I hope he doesn't go nuts with self-consciousness and internet social climbing or anything. Maybe he is reading this. It's okay if you're not familiar with one-hitters; you went to NYU.)

I would welcome his joining ILX tbh

i considered sending him a link to this thread

dude might have a heart attack if he realizes who ppl are here

how long did it take you to recover from yours?

I had posted a little bit back in fall 2007 as "three handclaps," so I knew what's up when I started posting again last year, but I don't think I ever had a heart attack

I think it was more just, "oh cool, a lot of writers whose stuff I like post here"

I mean, it was pretty exciting. dunno though, gotta say that before I started posting here I was posting on the Via Chicago Wilco forums in high school, which was alright, but doing that is a recipe for some serious tunnel vision. still don't really get artist-centered message boards. anyway, that's off topic

I bet this guy would post here if you asked him to.

Someone needs to make this happen.

I would welcome his joining ILX tbh

^^^^^

is anyone else having trouble bookmarking this thread, btw?

I just bookmarked it. I also I sent the guy a link.

I also I sent I uh the guy I a link uh

I press "Bookmark" and nothing happens

alright, I deleted all my bookmarks and it worked

Z S, did you explain what an ILX is?

do u even post on ilm z s?

i don't know who 'Joe Tangari' but i'd like to thank him for the new display name

zvookster, I invented ILM

markers, I just told em' to check it out

hehe, z _ _ _ _ s _ _ _, now that I think of it, I think I ONLY posted on ILM for like 2 years before I even realized there were other boards on ILX! :)

yeah Z S been round here

tbh I had/have almost 0 interesting opinions about music, though, which is probably why I post on the other boards way more often these days

I lurk ILM like a mother though

PRR guy reminds me a lot of ultra-earnest ilxor-nublets. i like how he seemingly can't help but be honest.

^^TRUTH

Did we ever figure out the life cycle of an earnest ILX0r?

ksh...how long did we take to break your spirit?

a month or two? maybe a bit longer? not sure

My spirit is immune to ILM, but my taste isn't.

Which is a good thing (he says earnestly).

I was posting on the Via Chicago Wilco forums in high school, which was alright, but doing that is a recipe for some serious tunnel vision

Tunnel vision maybe, but that's definitely one of the most friendly and knowledgeable boards I've ever done any long term lurking on. I soaked up everything I could from the gear/recording forum, posted one lousy cover tune (well, medley of two tunes), and then vanished back into the aether. Much better than being on certain dedicated recording boards (besides the obvious mixing of ingredients, studio work/pro audio seems to have a lot of the same macho hierarchy as cooking/restaurant work).

Anyway, tunnel vision is relative, considering many ILXors claim to not care about Pitchfork's opinions, but care enough to keep four (count em!) Pitchfork threads on the go, along with all the haggling over scores in individual artist threads. Slag the reviews reviews guy all you want, but lots of us are doing the same thing here, day in, day out.

As for the earnestness thing... nabisco has a great tumblr post about the effort required for honest advocacy vs. juvenile takedowns. My top two artists on last.fm are The Shins and Jeff Buckley, but I know that (a) they're not exactly short of admirers, even in my corner of the planet and (b) that I'm wasting my breath convincing ILX of their (lifechanging!) (heartbreaking!) (falsetto!) worth.

Earnestness ultimately sustains the whole community, though, and stops it turning into a sort of freemason's handshake.

I mean. I was being tongue-in-cheek at least a little bit. I'm about as earnest as ksh is/was. If I didn't honestly think that music was heartbreaking and lifechanging and wonderful and magical, I wouldn't be here. Life's too short.

It's just nice to temper the breathless enthusiasm with measured analysis and description and consideration every so often. I get the sense that PRR's voice is a pretty calculated decision to some extent, tho.

xpost

Yeah, the VC people are super, super friendly! The focus of the forums was just kinda too narrow for me, and I never got into it the way I've gotten into ILX.

guys I'm going to start a separate thread for PRR

Pitchfork Reviews Reviews

guys I'm going to start a separate thread for PRR

oh god why would you do this whyyyyyyy

so we don't put all that stuff here -- as a side effect, now you can just safely avoid that one thread!

dunno if it deserves a thread

you can tell jess harvell was having so much fun writing this morning’s Zero 7 review, honestly i imagine him grinning and nodding in self-agreeance as he articulates everything that’s wrong with a whole subgenre and the group of people who bought its records!!

i mean, is agreeance even a word? im not convinced. or is PRR a sophisticated joke at some1's expense?

if no one wants use the other thread that's fine, it'll just drop off the front page

so we don't put all that stuff here -- as a side effect, now you can just safely avoid that one thread!

seriously what's the appeal of talking about that stuff? it shouldn't be put ANYWHERE. seriously, dissecting some loser who devotes himself to dissecting a shitty indie website? that's interesting?

can't speak for anyone else, but I find talking about that interesting

i think p4k should take a page from coke machine glow. they give both an individual score and a combined score. and for divisive albums, like the new MIA, they will often post a counter-point review, which is great for actually getting a conversation going.

prr was inevitable but it still must have taken a lot of balls to do something so radically uncool, i wonder if he tells people irl that that's what he does in his spare time

HRO exegesis is ok. kinda. i don't read it. but this is super lame.

how is someone analyzing HIPSTER RUNOFF in the "ok" realm but PRR isn't

guys we post to ILX

analysing hipster runoff is not in the "ok" realm

neither is reading hipster runoff tbh

^^^Lex totally OTM

From PRR

this blog does not have any vendettas against any individual pitchfork writers, honestly. i realize that there are certain writers who i am consistently up or down on, but i am not looking to go in on any one writer, and every review i write about stands on its own. a pitchfork writer who drops a Worst New Review yesterday could drop a 9.3 today and i would write about it as such. yesterday a commenter wrote that i should only write about pitchfork reviews negatively, because that’s what pitchfork deserves or something like that, but that’s not what this blog is about

the other day i was incredulously complaining to a friend that pitchfork isn’t sortable by writer. some of the pitchfork writers i’ve talked to have said the “web guys are working on adding that feature”, but if they can put in a feature that lets you watch Broken Social Scene from six different angles before they can make pitchfork searchable by writer, well, i’d say the writers who tell me they’re “working on it” are basically telling me that the check is in the mail. if you’re not american and that idiom doesn’t make sense it means that they’re bullshitting me

really, a big part of the power of pitchfork is our notion of their consolidated opinion. you’re NOT SUPPOSED TO BE thinking about pitchfork in terms of individual writer but in terms of the collective, you know, the hive-mind, and while this seemingly displeases the writers to no end (what self-respecting critic, bright people who pride themselves on their individual insight, wants to be thought of as part of the hive-mind? as recreational listeners we don’t even wanna be thought of as part of the herd, so imagine how you feel people thinking that about you if thinking to music is your profession), but it makes sense from an administrative standpoint. if you’re thinking about pitchfork reviews by writer than it’s one guy’s opinion, but if it all blends together than you’re reading the work of a panel of experts, which is so much more powerful of a voice than, like, “23-year-old larry fitzmaurice is lukewarm on the new Magic Numbers record.” there’s a huge element of pitchfork’s magic, and, to me, a lot of why they captured a generation of listeners, so why would they ever chip away at it by making their site searchable by writer?

so to the guy who commented that i should only shit on pitchfork because of what they’ve done to contemporary indie music, i see where you’re coming from but obviously there’s more to it than just, like, they’re evil and they need to be destroyed, because really they’re not evil, and there is no way to destroy them, and i don’t think i’d want to. i mean have you read music reviews elsewhere on the web? it’s writing of a different caliber. nobody would ever have listened to pitchfork if it was bad at what it did or just went around slamming records it didn’t like and leaving out the stuff it did like, and if this blog was all negative all the time like that, why would anyone read it? popular internet curmudgeonry is sooooo web 1.0. if you really wanna slam it, try writing something negative about all the reviews and you’ll realize you’re out of material pretty fast. BUT:

part of my hope for this blog, by identifying the writers by name a lot and isolating their tastes and writing styles and seeing patterns in their work that defy the voice of the whole but otherwise get lost in pitchfork’s sea of unified voice (like when Larry Fitzmaurice quips that Vivian Girls and Beach Fossils suck), is to maybe chip away at the power we’ve lent it by reading it as a monolith instead of a stable of capable writers. so here’s something that the writers might be happy about but maybe the editors won’t: there’s a search bar on the side of this blog where you can type in any writer’s name and everything i’ve written about them comes up. it’s not their words (well some of it is), and it’s an incomplete record, it’s just some kid’s interpretation of their words, but in a way, you know, it’s the closest you’re gonna get to pitchfork being searchable by writer, and that in itself might chip away at their magic in the way you’d want it to

part of my hope for this blog, by identifying the writers by name a lot and isolating their tastes and writing styles and seeing patterns in their work that defy the voice of the whole but otherwise get lost in pitchfork’s sea of unified voice (like when Larry Fitzmaurice quips that Vivian Girls and Beach Fossils suck)

I like the random pettiness of this.

I have been thinking about starting Pitchfork Reviews Reviews Reviews.

is that from a private email? google's got nothing

I have been thinking about starting Pitchfork Reviews Reviews Reviews.

must be done. in the name of science.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Otk-knCm-nw/ShT1-MhpVtI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/pUPoWxUyy3w/s400/bee+watcher4.jpg

^^this thread

^ dying @ this

must be done. in the name of science.

Hmm, maybe someone who is less lazy than I am should do it.

http://i.imgur.com/LY2wZ.png

T/S: St. Anger vs. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

I honestly think more than a few ilxors would struggle over that one.

loool

http://pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/reader/passion-pit/