Thread For Pitchfork Web.Archive.org fun

There's undoubtedly been others, but I just scrolled through 10 pages of "pitchfork" threads in the search engine and no such luck finding one.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816175149/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/i/isotope-217/utonian-automatic.shtml

6. "Solaris" (6:11) When I'm back in my old 'hood (Hopkins, Minnesota), cruisin' down Main Street in my convertible Geo Metro, rollin' up to the Burger King drive-thru, yo, check it out, it's real. 'Cause, bitch, I'm a playa-- big balla. Actually, I'm just some white guy who thinks I'm a big balla. In a spaghetti western. This is my soundtrack.

did they remove a lot of the old goofy reviews from the site?

tool - lateralus and amon tobin - supermodified are two that come to mind

also someone reviewed every KISS album when they got reissued iirc

save ferris -- 9.5

http://web.archive.org/web/20070712033409/www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/21567-it-means-everything

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816173402/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/g/go-betweens/bellavista-terrace.shtml

Their lack of commercial success was due in part to hitting their creative peak at a time in the late '80s when lite- metal gods like Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses had a stranglehold on the Top 40, along with perenially tiresome trash like Madonna and everyone's favorite dancing surgical mishap, Michael Jackson.

Then again, will there ever be a place on the American charts for sensitive fellows who write elegant, humanistic pop songs full of metaphor, emotional depth and bleeding heart sentimentality? Somehow the Go-Betweens just didn't appeal to the legions of martini- sipping stockbrokers and Bon Jovi- worshipping hair- rockers that seemed to overpopulate the Earth back then. Big surprise.

All exaggeration aside, though, many of the Go-Betweens' new wave contemporaries, in comparison, amounted to little more than out- of- work hairdressers blindly groping their Casios and pretending to be Japanese. Forster and songwriting partner Grant McLennan burst onto the scene like displaced medieval troubadours, having just traded in their lutes for electric guitars, yet still embracing classical styles.

What's up with the French? Man, it seems like every up and coming electronica band these days is from France. Personally, I don't know anyone from France. Why all the good music? France? Are they sure? What's in France, anyway? They have a big, famous tower. Did they give us the Statue of Liberty? I'm having a lot of trouble with this.

Oh, Daft Punk. They're French. And you probably didn't know it, but these guys have more rhythm than Max Weinberg on fast-forward. You could go into a record store and say, "Christ! For $14.99, this disc should be able to sing and dance!" Unfortunately, that's gonna be left up to you. However, Homework manages to throb, bleep, scratch, trip, hop, freak and boogie. It sounds like an Atari 2600 on a killing spree.

Homework provides sixteen whole tracks of modern-day boom box bass n' drum and unlike your science project, it doesn't require a lot of intricate calculations to figure out how it works. It just does.

ANNNNNND DRUMMMMMROLLLLL PLEEEEEEEEEASE

http://web.archive.org/web/20030401161931/pitchforkmedia.com/interviews/i/interpol-02/

As I step back into the hallway, showtime quickly approaching, Paul Banks walks around the corner, and half-remembers me:

"Wait, you look really familiar."

"Yeah. Ryan." I extend a handshake. "I'm here from Pitchfork."

"Ohhhh!! Man, thanks for putting us on your 2002 list. That paragraph was fantastic!"

Which was a surprising response, since the paragraph in question was something of a piss-take, noting the band's "skinny ties and terrible hair," and referring to them as "art-house darlings" whose "appearance was their most embarrassing aspect."

"Well, you know, it was you guys against Nellyville. He almost had it on affirmative action, but we couldn't forgive the Band-Aid."

these guys have more rhythm than Max Weinberg on fast-forward

how does this even occur to you as something you want captured in print

xp: holy christ I'd forgotten exactly why I hated Pitchfork so much

Walt Mink
El Producto
[Atlantic]
Rating: 10.0

I have stumbled, quite absentmindedly, upon one of the best albums I've ever heard. Walt Mink's El Producto takes some growing on you, but grow it does, and in the largest way ever.

The album's opener, "Stood Up," fades in with the unmatched skill of John Kimbrough's fingers picking away at those old steel strings, and then shoves its seven inches of pop square up your ass. "Overgrown" steps around the corner with its unbelievable catchiness and intricate guitar riffs, and Orestes Morfin's intense drumbeatings. Who knew that when it was written (and rejected) for that hip, Gen-X slacker film, "P.C.U.," it would be such an irresistible chunk of beautiful noise? "Love in the Dakota" is the record's beautiful ballad, a sweetly- strummed storytelling of the plot to Roman Polanski's classic film, "Rosemary's Baby." Guitar, strings, and John Kimbrough's boyish voice blend together in what sounds like a serious case of good music.

Minneapolis has spawned more than its share of great music, but Walt Mink is the best band I've heard leave the city for the big time in over five years. We're trying to get in good with local politicians right now in hopes to pass a law that makes not owning a copy of El Producto a misdemeanor. Um, yeah.

-Ryan Schreiber

lol that's the one Walt Mink album I would unreservedly and unabashedly burn in a fire

Wrens
Abbott 1135 EP
[Ten 23]
Rating: 7.4

Ah, my good old buddies, the Wrens. They're always there to comfort me when I'm feeling crappy. They give me reason to live. Power for living! Well, no, it's not like the band comes over and gives me a boost of self- confidence or anything. Instead, I've got something almost as good-- or maybe even better-- their rockin' music.

Abbott 1135's the title of the band's 6-song EP follow-up to their brilliant 1996 release, Secaucus. See, Secaucus had it all-- pop, rock, country, punk, ballads, love songs, the works. Of course, it also fell just short of 20 tracks, so they had a lot of room to experiment. This EP sees the band traveling in a more standard pop-rock direction with all of their boyish, energetic excitement still intact.

Tracks like the opener, "Pretty O.K." and "North to Nothing" show the band at the top of their game-- relentless, charged and spazzy. "I Guess We're Done" is a nice one that combines equal parts Andy Partridge and Brian Wilson for choco-licious results, and "This Machine" actually has the band experimenting with current electronica trends (albeit just a little). But on two numbers, "It's Alright" and "Fire Fire," the band let their wild n' crazy antics get the best of them and the songs just don't turn out.

Naturally, there were a few throwaway numbers on Secaucus and the band's 1994 debut, Silver, but those albums also showcased a bit more diversity than Abbott 1135. Regardless, I'm looking forward to the band's next album which is due out, hopefully, before I die.

-Ryan Schreiber

OH BOY here's an old favorite:

Everclear
So Much For The Afterglow
[Capitol]
Rating: 8.2

When So Much For The Afterglow opens with a corny, Beach Boys spoof, one can only prepare for the worst. But I'm writing this review to let you know that you don't need to. Those 40 painfully kitschy seconds are the worst you'll endure for the rest of the disc. Right when you least expect it, A.P. Alexakis growls, "This is a song about Susan," and Everclear's trademark So-Cal pop-punk blasts from the speakers in a firey ball of triumph.

Afterglow is overflowing with exactly the same kind of catchy rock and roll these guys cranked out on Sparkle and Fade and their lesser-known debut, World of Noise. Alexakis' lyrics are almost poetic again as he sings about standard rock star stuff like the advantages of being broke and on drugs. The difference between Alexakis and the average rocker, as you probably know, is that he's been through it, so it comes across more like a diary than a fantasy. Yeah, we've heard the sob story a million times, but where modern rock has become infested (and recent associated) with crappy music, Afterglow boasts unfeigned dignity and some damn good songs, too.

-Ryan Schreiber

from the interpol interview linked above

Pitchfork: Cuddleworthy?? You guys?

Sam: Come here, buddy, I'll show you why. <Sam hugs Ryan>

Pitchfork: <Swoons>

LOL

this thread is fun

Is this thread only for stuff that's no longer accessible on the site?

Jesus, that Go-Betweens review. Never saw that one.

The disc goes all over the place, covering some virtually unexplored territory, and occasionally returns to the mid- '80s vein of hellmusic we love to hate these days. The songs even out pretty well, and I have to say, Bilingual is better than I thought it would be. It's embarrasing to admit to liking this record, but somebody's got to do it. I feel pretty confident there are others just like me out there.

(from the pet shop boys - bilingual review someone linked in the other thread)

new sn to commemorate this sure-2-b-a-classik thread

word

Kind of amazed this pitchfork review (which I've probably linked to ILX a million times, but hey) is still on the site while so many aren't.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/80-10000-hz-legend/

I wouldn't say she was a lost cause, but my girlfriend needed a music doctor like I needed, well, a girlfriend. That is, desperately. Call it a perfect match. She'd spent too many years clubbing to have more than a passing knowledge of non-techno music, and I'd spent too many years shucking to have more than a passing knowledge of monogamous sex. The results have been fast, effective, and largely painless. She's taken to the Pixies, and I've taken to, um, lots of sex.

And that's just the first paragraph!

"largely painless"

at a time in the late '80s when lite- metal gods like Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses had a stranglehold

you can't say "stranglehold" unless you're talking about Ted Nugent imo

Listening to All The Pain Money Can Buy, I can't help but picture Fastball as one of those garage bands which populate crappy '80s teenage sex comedies. You know the routine: the band usually appears three or four times throughout the movie, once practicing, once hanging out with the hero/ heroine, and once near the end of the movie when the band ends up playing at some club or party where a record exec hears them, and they sign a big contract and live happily ever after. And the band never seems to deserve the contract, because the songs they play are horrid cheese- pop ditties probably written by the screenwriter or (even worse) the film's producer.

Is there a 1980s teenage sex comedy featuring a band that does this? Important facts to check.

guns n roses was not metal or lite IMO

Heatmiser
Mic City Sons
[Caroline]
Rating: 7.9

When Mic City Sons opens, and you feel the power of the drums, the bass thumping along, and the guitar, and Elliott Smith commanding you to "Get Lucky," that's what music is all about.

Remember arena rock? Was it the loud guitars, the crazy hair or the "Rock and Roll All Nite" politics that made people fall in love with it? Nah, it was the adrenaline rush you got when all the elements were combined and everybody felt the music in the vodka and blood cocktail running through their veins.

Maybe that's a bit dramatic, especially coming from someone who wasn't even born yet when Highway To Hell came out, but I've seen it, and I've felt it. Arena rock is still alive, whether the Smashing Pumpkins care to admit it or not.

Heatmiser are, by some act of Christ, able to make you feel that very same way, using entirely different elements. Sure, there are still loud guitars, smacky bass lines, and monsterous skin power, but there's no screaming. Where the hell did all the screaming go? It's certainly not here. Doesn't matter though. These guys combine Eddie Haskell and the Scorpions into one solid sound that makes feel like I'm watching Frampton come alive.

-Ryan Schreiber

"more than a passing knowledge of monogamous sex"

http://web.archive.org/web/20030421111230/pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/d/donnas/american-teenage-rock-n-roll-machine.shtml

Yeah, you probably remember girl bands like this from when you were in high school, but The Donnas stand out in two respects: their songs actually have enough bite to validate the press attention, and no other band's guitarist looks hotter in tight, pink leather pants.

If American Teenage Rock 'n' Roll Machine doesn't exactly grab you by the nipples the way uber-kids like X-Ray Spex or Bis have in the past, maybe the band's Silicon Valley upbringing is to blame. Here they are, four girls from insanely wealthy families sporting cheap, matching outfits and their best pouty-lipped expressions. The problem is, you wonder if the Donnas bought their trashy personas at Bloomingdales on Daddy's credit card. If you can ignore this historical inconsistency-- and if you don't go digging out any of your old Britny Fox albums-- The Donnas are sure to become your favorite poster girls of pubescent punk.

God knows I have been searching for a band that sounds like a combination of Eddie Haskell and the Scorpions all my life

"the screenwriter or (even worse) the film's producer"
"girl bands like this from when you were in high school"
etc etc

pitchfork has discarded a cornucopia of riches imo

"grab you by the nipples the way uber-kids like X-Ray Spex or Bis have"

lmao these are golden

"Well, you know, it was you guys against Nellyville. He almost had it on affirmative action, but we couldn't forgive the Band-Aid."

*considers digging through his old britny fox albums*

http://web.archive.org/web/20030421092738/pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/p/pulp/this-is-hardcore.shtml

There are two types of condom buyers.

1) Loudly walks into the corner drugstore asking, "Yo, wher're the caps at?!" The kid behind the counter asks, "Excuse me?" "You know, Caps... Jimmy Hats, Gloves, McRibs, Sleeping Bags, Mobile Suit Gundams, Slips, Slides, Slip 'n' Slides, Socks, Shoes, Flip- Flops, Backseat Airbags, Cozies, Boil- in- the- bag Rice, Gummis, Gummi Bears, Prophylactics, Shirts, Skins," the condom guy asks. "I need a second layer for the root." The kid replies with a voice as cracky as the littlest Hanson, "Um, yes, uh... Behind the cheap toys, aisle five, next to the rack of reading eyeglasses."

2) Sneaks in on tip- toe. The buyer hunches his shoulders like Quasimodo and darts his eyes around in paranoia like a rookie spy on PCP. The buyer circles every aisle twice to lose the trail of any potential stock- boy or curious customer. The buyer picks up random items like Ace Bandages, Post- It Notes, Saline Solution, and Funyuns with his condoms to camouflage his dirty secret. The buyer never makes eye contact with the cashier.

Fact: The first type of condom buyer is more likely to enjoy Pulp's This is Hardcore.

OMG

The kid replies with a voice as cracky as the littlest Hanson

I miss Brent D so much

everyone's a goddamn poet these days

Pitchfork Web Archive Reviews Reviews

hahahha

I do kind of like the amateurish/unprofessional self-indulgent bullshit because somehow it seems preferable to aloof snark. like at least yr puttin' yrself out there?? I dunno

http://web.archive.org/web/20030403210802/pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/sebadoh/harmacy.shtml

Lo-fi indie rock is probably the greatest thing since ejaculation, and I'm not taking any chances. I'm loving it full-on. Show no mercy. No holds barred. Full-on, baby. I mean, come on! Home recordings of people mixing the pop sounds of '60s with the firey glam-rock of the '70s! What's not to love? And Sebadoh clearly stand out as indie rock champs along with other home tapers like Guided By Voices and Jack Logan. These are the guys that are going down in history as The Real Shit. Harmacy just further proves Sebadoh are among the rulers of the rock-n-roll wetdream they call "independence."

¯\(°_°)/¯

Oh man that line

xpost

do we have to post that little ascii dude in every indie rock thread now?

Rating: 8======D~~~~~

Nothing posted yet beats a cross between Miles Davis' Sorcerer and the Heroic Doses' debut" on sheer scope. (Which is, of course, not to discount the bounty of execrable material I have in there).

yeah well no one has posted the Kid A review yet

otm

there is a certain epic aesthetic at work in these reviews

lots of lists, spontaneously-invented nicknames, superlatives out the wazoo

Like ILX?

Jesus, that Go-Betweens review. Never saw that one.

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Tuesday, 7 September 2010 16:21 (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'm not saying that writing of Madonna and MJ in a review of the Go-Betweens isn't gauche to the point of embarrassing but that excerpt seemed pretty OK in the main next to most of this stuff (which is great btw)? Picture me ¯\(°_°)/¯ ing

xp ned sometimes I feel like the sensationalism of c.2000 indie-rock criticism is just a long shadow cast by the humble mediocrity of c.2000 indie rock

Six grafs of teenage Cold War diary screed; Replace All "Gorbachev"<->"Go-Betweens".

xp or maybe anti-'sellout' sentiment being taken so far that no band wants to seem so gauche as to promote their own product

lol

The kid replies with a voice as cracky as the littlest Hanson

OK, I laughed at this.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816181701/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/mayfield_curtis/superfly.shtml

As most folks with clues realize, Superfly is one of the most influential R&B recordings of the 1970s (the majority of Seattle Grunge Rockers cite this album as an inspiration), and while some of the slang terms are less effective adjectives than flashbacks to yesteryear, they're true to their time. (Admit it; you've never been able to say 'junkie' with a straight face.)

... Four years ago, I found Issac Hayes' Shaft on vinyl for a buck in a thrift store and it became the ultimate "sex music" of my late-teen life. It's got nothin' on Superfly.

So fly that you drop the g's.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816182254/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/momus/little-red-songbook.shtml

My ex-girlfriend recently pointed out to me that my reviews have increasingly become more and more sexual. She was alarmed. Massages, foot sucking, chest rubbing, phermone wipes, jimmy hats, and PVC pop up in my reviews with greater frequency than pimples on Dawson's cheek. I explained to her it was all for the entertaiment of the Internet masses and that I would try to turn it down a notch.

So now Ryan Pitchfork sends me the new Momus record, featuring the tongue- and- other- body- parts- in- cheek ditty, "Coming In A Girl's Mouth." The song is catchy as hell, but somehow I can't picture cheerleaders jeeping to squad practice, cranking the FM, smacking gum, swaying back and forth, singing along with the insightful line, "With a fluid the consistancy of honey, tapoica, and motor oil." However, I bet Momus, the horny Scotch bastard, can picture this scenario vividly. With his boney frame in back holding onto the rollbar, giggling and goggling the girls with wide eyes through designer sunglasses smeared with a gossamer of splattered gnats, Momus daydreams new songs ideas...

(Admit it; you've never been able to say 'junkie' with a straight face.)

I don't understand this at all.

da croupier, are you just googling "sex" on that or were old pfork reviews just overly concerned w. it?

Dawson's cheek!

or "dicresnzno+jimmy hats"

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816182313/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/money-mark/marks-keyboard-repair.shtml

I think "Money" Mark Ramos- Nishita says it best over the funk groove and ancient '70s fuzzbox on "Don't Miss The Boat." He says, "You may not like this type of shit, but somebody does." Well, kids, I'm that somebody, and you might be, too. In fact, if you're into undeniably stylee grooves that stick to your skin and shake your body up, you'll love it. Besides, isn't that really what life is about? Super lo-fi, analog, funkboard boogie.

...Mark's Keyboard Repair has, quite frankly, hit my G Chord.

lol whiney, i'm just going through their record review index circa 2000, admittedly checking out the reviews that seem most likely to offer some discussion of the love sex groove thang

still wasn't ready for this, though

http://web.archive.org/web/20001005050833/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/morcheeba/who-can-you-trust.shtml

I glanced at the jewel case she'd thrown down with the rest and saw that it was Morcheeba's Who Can You Trust?. Just as Skye Edwards began to croon, "Sometimes I get up feelin' good/ But greed gets me down," she stood up, turned to face me and began unbuttoning her blouse. I first saw her nipples, black in the blueness of that barren room, as Skye sung with molasses- richness: "Good vibrations that we make will come bouncing back." I felt her nakedness in my arms as Skye told me, "Soak up Wisdom all year long/ And then take action." My mouth was wandering along the mountains and valleys of her purple skin as Skye spoke to me: "Things have changed this time around/ I'm on the rocks and lookin' down/ And I can't see/ For all the darkness 'round here." I began to spin deep into the vortex of her flesh, her soul, heart and darkest eyes, as Skye soundtracked the event to its ultimate climax.

Upon the morn, she was gone and the sun shone brightly into her room. I gathered my clothes around me and found my way out, the blisteringly bright sun torturing the dark memories of night. I held my collar as I took the city bus back, and thought about both Skye and my princess bride. Deep down, I knew the music was expressing something deep-- the intersection between the modern urban paranoia of her flat and the pure undiluted pleasure of her voice, skin and arms. Sex energized with dark fears. Slow beats mirroring her heartbeat. Jazzy guitars and sax recalling. Electro touches forecasting. Morcheeba, simply happening.

Let me tell you something about this "rap" music created and issued solely by hooligans and miscreants. Not only is it infecting the malleable minds of our youth with its curse words and butchery of grammar, but it clearly goes against the Lord's gospel ("And upon hearing Bone Thugs 'N' Harmony, the Lord did proclaim 'What is this? I certainly didn't create it. It must have been that scoundrel Satan!'" Luke 3:26). I truly wonder why so many kids can endorse this Ol' Dirty Rascal and Mr. Bursting with Rhymes when they obviously engage in nefarious behavior. And don't get me started on this Dre person, who claims to be a doctor of some sort. I wouldn't even trust that man to open my tube of Preparation H to ease my "chronic" hemorrhoid pain.

Don't get me wrong; not too long ago I was quite the "Boomin' Granny." When visiting with my grandson Billy, I have been known to beatbox while he lays down Bible verse. During heated Bingo matches, I have "battled" Vera and Ethel freestyle on a number of occasions. I'm no "wack mother-bleeper." Thus, I can make exceptions for positive artists like those nice young Jewish lads, the Beastly Boys. That's why I'm so pleased to have stumbled across Blackalicious' Nia, a nice little compilation of ditties by a very polite African-American fellow.

link for above review: http://web.archive.org/web/20000816163031/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/blackalicious/nia.shtml

lolz at that morcheeba review. wow.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816163618/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/brown_james/make-it-funky.shtml

To dub James Brown as anything but a legend would be flat out stupid. Jim is the Godfather of Soul, and this is the only compilation I've ever heard that does him justice.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816163623/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/brown_james/dead-on-the-heavy-funk.shtml

So let Dead On The Heavy Funk recognize that James Brown, despite his criminal assault, drug charges, high- speed freeway chases and jail time, is and always has been the funkiest brother on campus.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816164713/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/c/cat-power/moon-pix.shtml

There's something irresistible about that Chan Marshall, or as I like to call her, the Mark Eitzel of Atlanta. Recording under the Cat Power moniker, she's got a magic coolness that only certain guitar- totin' girls come equipped with. You know what I'm talkin' about-- like Beth Orton's got the Magic Cool, too. You can't really pinpoint any particularily cool things about Chan, though; she's just cool.

To dub James Brown as anything but a legend would be flat out stupid.

"O RLY?"

http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/kkrhin_1253025103_elvis_costello_.jpg

croup, put the bylines in yr posts so i don't have to click em all

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816165317/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/c/coltrane_john/living-space.shtml

Awww yeaah...

-Ryan Schreiber

Dismemberment Plan
Emergency and I
[DeSoto]
Rating: 9.6

The Short Review:
If you consider yourself a fan of groundbreaking pop, go out and buy this album right now. Now. Get up. Go.

The Long Review:
Judd handed me a purple children's book and said, "Check this out." The hardback felt about the size of a gatefold double vinyl album. In bold letters, the cover proclaimed The Worst Band in the Universe! Immediately we opened the book in an attempt to discern which band the author, Graeme Base, had in mind while writing the picture book. Toto and Gomez came to mind. Yet upon finishing the first page, I muttered, "Man, this book is about the Dismemberment Plan."

As Pitchfork readers know, I like to come up with wild and crazy scenarios for record reviews. The songs from the Plan's latest record, Emergency and I, had been making love to my brain for over a year, and I wanted my review to perfectly capture my faith and prophecy for the album. Ironically, "the worst band in the universe" captured my sentiments perfectly. The book begins:

"On Planett Blipp, beyond the stars, beyond the sun and moon,
The world was ruled by music-– but tradition called the tune.
The Ancient Songs of ages past were all that could be heard,
And no one was allowed to change a single note or word.

"To write a new tune was heresy, to play it even worse,
And anyone who improvised was scowled upon and cursed.
For years untold the temple walls had rung to songs of yore--
Until the day a brave young groob named Sprocc rewrote the score.

"He took his trusty Spligtwanger, and though he knew 'twas wrong,
He cranked the volume up to ten and played a Brand New Song."

The elders banish Sprocc from his planet and he's forced to wander the galaxy with his ragtag band. They stumble upon a contest for "the worst band in the universe," and naturally win. As it's a childrens' book, Sprocc and his jamming outfit return home and establish a new order of song. Lessons are learned. Hands are held. Cue sunset, go to sleep, little babies.

The Dismemberment Plan spit in the face of modern music. Perhaps their coup is more analogous to an unexpected sloppy french kiss, in terms of saliva imagery. But Emergency and I heralds a new era in rock and roll. Nothing else you own sounds like this record, yet everything you own echoes throughout. The Dismemberment Plan's chromosomes carry the superior DNA of rock's genealogy through a natural sexual affair with music-- not the cold process of cloning. The perfect nucleotides of the Pixies, the Talking Heads, Fugazi, and Prince spindle in beautiful double- helixes throughout these 12 tracks. Specific moments recall Gang of Four ("8½ Minutes") or Radiohead ("The Jitters"), but this melange is wholly unique-- boiled down for synapse- popping flavor. Certainly some will scratch their heads, but innovation is never unanimously understood.

Keyboards are enjoying a recent renaissance in rock. I believe even Snapcase tour with a Korg. But while pop groups are content to sprinkle Moog hooks or create false string sections with their Yamahas, the Dismemberment Plan squeeze alien funk and digital soul from their ebony and ivory. Deep, gurgling squirts carry "A Life of Possibilities" in place of bass. Mainframe bleeps add android soul to "Memory Machine." An overly synthesized score shifts behind "Spider in the Snow," mocking pop's traditional signifier for "delicate," yet inevitably sounding even more sincere. But the beautiful, yearning hum that hangs over "The City" like purple- orange sky pollution emotes more than a bruised diva-- it simultaneously aches and uplifts. The tumbling drums pleasantly propel like public transit. Frustrated guitars chime like flashes of streetlights in passing puddles. The alienation and excitement, the desolate and the bustling-- the title simply envelopes the themes. By the time Travis Morrison begins crying, "All... I... ever... say... now... is... good... bye," angels are spooning out your stomach with ladles and visions of your distant past are punching you in the face.

The closing track, "Back and Forth," grooves into brilliance. Bringing to mind the Talking Heads' Remain in Light, the layers lock in bliss. Funky drums, ticking guitar, synthetic slides, and joyous keyboard hooks circle tightly like bareback thoroughbreds in Siena's Palio. This track, along with the explosive "I Love a Magician" and "Girl O' Clock," hint at new futures. Hometown fans have staged elaborate costumed breakdancing during Dismemberment Plan sets, and these songs are the hormonal fuel. The Plan rule during schizophrenic dance-punk explosions, somehow finding middle ground between Brainiac and Prince. As a testament to the Plan's power, these songs have turned D.C.'s traditionally head- bobbing concert crowds into cathartic bacchanals. Can I get an "Amen?"

Around the time Kurt Cobain muttered "I think I'm dumb," lyricists gave up. Syncopated poetry, retro theft, and extended metaphor have ruled rock lyrics since. Perhaps more importantly than their music, the Plan offer a return to intelligent, ripe, narrative songwriting. An air of despair hangs over the album, spiked with humor and passion. A definite debt is owned to hip-hop and soul, but don't think that Morrison simply barks a sequence of rhyming phrases. He ponderously spits on "Back and Forth:" "And faces slide by in glowing shadows like snowbound ghosts that go up and down in epileptic shivers and negative radioactive shivers in a landscape of endless dull glitter and a taste in my mouth so sweet, yet so bitter-- and we exhaust ourselves trying to get there." Philosophy is backed up with primitive yelps like, "Put your hands in the air," and the always popular "yeah!" Sex, death and humdrum lives are examined with alacrity. I guarantee you that if you're a twenty- something, post- collegiate human, "Spider in the Snow" and "Gyroscope" will knock you back into a couch and force a slight "fuck" from between your lips. At the very least, you'll hum along for the rest of your 20's.

I could spend pages examining this record. Everything down to the art is stunningly unique and perfectly appropriate. Even standard guitar pop numbers like "What Do You Want Me to Say" hit like a high- strung Weezer. A full range of emotions-- orgasm, loss, confusion, uncertainty, resignation, rage-- ooze from the Dismemberment Plan. Paradox is woven throughout-- the alien and the nostalgic, the nascent and the classic. It's unfortunate that the term "new wave" is still linked to the early 80's. Bands like Jets to Brazil are unimaginatively trying to revive that new wave sound. But the Dismemberment Plan is truly, unequivocally, the new new wave. Emergency and I, fittingly, was delayed until the close of the century. (Hey, Interscope, does "the Boston Red Sox" ring any bells?) Let's get this era over with. Please form a line behind the fellows in the sweaty button- down shirts.

-Brent DiCrescenzo

"The Last Blues" (aptly titled, as it was the last blues number Coltrane ever recorded) is bliss on cruise control; the theme song for a one- armed man living his life on Chicago's el train, and the soundtrack to his final moments spent ODing on a hallucinogen called Saxophene.

morcheeba review author:

http://media.linkedin.com/mpr/mpr/shrink_80_80/p/1/000/045/266/3bdb328.jpg

TS: "the theme song for a one- armed man living his life on Chicago's el train, and the soundtrack to his final moments spent ODing on a hallucinogen called Saxophene." vs. "The experience and emotions tied to listening to Kid A are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax"

The Cobain line is good.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816184819/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/radiohead/ok-computer.shtml

Thom Yorke's fragile vocals backed by the intricate guitar duels of Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway's intense, rhythmic pounding and the subtle but effective bass guitar of Colin Greenwood sends an energetic flare clean through your speakers, hurtling into the room around you and charging the air with static electricity. When Yorke sings, "In an interstellar burst / I am back to save the universe," you believe him.

OK Computer is the first album to intellegently express vehement hatred toward the corporate world's replacement of human emotion and personality with robotic behavior in their attempt to be "more professional."

on Cat Power:

Her sound is like Liz Phair on valium mixed with the lonesome, desert highway tone of Modest Mouse. It's pretty, clever, and terribly depressing-- all of which are common traits in any classic statement- making album.

"Upon the morn"

xxpost and here's how their Radiohead reviews look now:

[...]there's a talent to building and a pleasure in experiencing a dozen songs weaved together into a 40 minutes that's richer than each individual track, a 12-course meal for special occasions between microwave snacks. Like calligraphy, it's a fading art, as even Radiohead themselves seem to be disinterested in the format, perpetually threatening to dribble tracks out in ones or fours when the spirit takes them. In the end, one of the many ghosts that haunt the corridors of Kid A is The Album itself, it's death throes an unsettling funeral for a format that, like so much else, was out of time.

— Rob Mitchum, August 25, 2009

I really do love that Ryan admits in the Time mag article that half their success started when people were passing around the Kid A review meme because it was totally batshit. Pitchfork essentially dominating the dialogue now is totally like if Chris Crocker grew up to be George Clooney.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816184847/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/rakim/18th-letter.shtml

Rakim's been sampled more times than Pizza Rolls at Sam's Club.

Remember, kids. The sign of a truly important rap release is that it comes with two discs. Don't let this one pass you by.

-Ryan Schreiber

18th Letter is fucking dope tho

think you mean *are* fucking dope -- two discs bro

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816185111/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/rentals/return-of.shtml

Another cool thing about The Rentals is that Sharp is partially responsible for what looks like a great big Moog comeback. Before you know it, they'll be everywhere again: On TV, in movies, on stage, and in your kitchen. Well, we'll see, I guess. It's a big fantasy of mine. I have a lot of fantasies. Oops.

-Ryan Schreiber

The sign of a truly important rap release is that it comes with two discs.

o_O

Rage Against The Machine
Evil Empire
[Epic]
Rating: 6.1

...And so, with permboy Zach De La Rocha leading the way, Rage Against The Machine did rock the nation once again with a new record entitled Evil Empire.

This record sounds so much like their debut, I can hardly tell the difference. That's both good and bad, depending on how you look at it. See, there are some artists who put out a debut album, and are never again capable of releasing an album as good. Evil Empire is no better or worse than their 1993 self-titled record. It's exactly the same.

While no new ground is explored on Evil Empire, it still gets the old adrenaline rushing. It's just sad to see that the band hasn't evolved in three years.

-Ryan Schreiber

morcheeba review author:

Matos wrote for Pitchfork?

o_O

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, September 7, 2010 3:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

Wu-Tang Forever
Life After Death

All Eyez on Me

thread truly delivers

evil empire review otm

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816192538/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/t/trouble-funk/early-singles.shtml

These guys rule, though. Their rhythms are not only gonna get you down, they're also gonna get you laid -- if she's feeling goofy.

-Ryan Schreiber

trouble funk review otm

You need the whole review for context to truly appreciate that sentence.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816193711/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/wink_josh/profound-sounds-vol-1.shtml

But the real meat on Profound Sounds is to be found from tracks 6 through 14, when Josh takes us on a hard- house journey that, well... is even moistening my panties a bit. Call me old-skool, call me Shirley, or all me Al, but this is good stuff that swallows your brain up with rhythms falling over one another in a cascade appropriate for both booty shakin' and abstract chillin'.

My conclusion: Josh has proven himself a top- notch DJ, but like fellow DJs Kruder and Dorfmeister, his own songs leave something to be desired. Of course, that's okay-- Profound Sounds makes the cut and keeps me squiggly... oh so squiggly.

-James P. Wisdom

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816193849/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/wyclef-jean/carnival.shtml

"Apocalypse" boasts a killer rap over a sampled piece of classical music with a trained soprano letting loose on the high notes. "To All The Girls" is an incredibly catchy track with beats as phat as a double quarter-pounder with cheese, telling the story of Wyclef's divorce. The beautifully sad "Gone Till November" is remarkably moving, even with its simple lyrics, "January February March April May/ I see you crying/ But girl I can't stay /I'll be gone till November/ Give a kiss to my mother." And of course, to overlook the hit single, "We Trying to Stay Alive," based around the Bee-Gee's disco smash "Staying Alive," would just be wrong.

So what makes The Carnival so great? What more evidence do you need? It's Wyclef Jean.

-Ryan Schreiber

Kool & The Gang
Music is the Message
[Mercury]
Rating: 7.6

Another in Mercury's class of Kool & The Gang reissues, 1972's Music Is The Message is the most notably funk-inspired.

It's got a groove that sticks to the greasiest parts of your body (whatever part that may be -- it's different for everyone) and vibrates. The horn section goes ballistic, the guitar grooves from left to right, the bass slaps your ass silly.

The record opens with the funk anthem, "Music is the Message," and segues nicely into "Electric Frog (Parts 1 and 2)." The other real winners on this disc are "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)," and the bizarre "Funky Granny." Kool & The Gang were the essential funk, the real getdown, the total poop. Rockin' the mike like limbo stix. Mr. 1984, you know what I'm sayin'. Or maybe you don't. Maybe no one does. Doesn't matter, though. Music is the message that sings universal love for one and all.

-Ryan Schreiber

PRESCIENT, NO?

Hearing this 2xCD greatest hits compilation (which combines the ubiquitous Abba Gold with the lesser- known More Abba Gold) makes me wonder about the Pitchfork demographic. The Swedish supergroup Abba are not the kind of unit whose music gets "rediscovered" by new generations of fans the way, say, '70s funk does. No question, the people who buy reissued Abba albums now are the people who heard and liked Abba back in the day. If you weren't there (read: you're less than 25 years old), this stuff sounds terrible-- nothing more than cold, calculated pop from the era before videos. For those of us who had some childhood in the "Me Decade," these well- crafted songs do what oldies are supposed to do: take you back to a fuzzy, warm, innocent time. I sense a generational rift afoot... Hmm, could be trouble.

...All told, the two discs offer a generous 39 slabs of... something. And what that something is is for you to decide. Inspired golden greats or worthless pap? Cynical product or stellar craftsmanship? Hot snot in a champagne glass or a cold booger in a Dixie cup? For the hipster kids, the set rates a rock bottom 0.0. For the graying readers in our midst with a taste for pop perfection, it's an easy 10. So let's split the difference and get on with our lives. Anybody up for a hug?

-Mark Richard-San

link: http://web.archive.org/web/20000816160742/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/abba/forever-gold.shtml

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180107/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/korn/follow-the-leader.shtml

It's like this: You eat a plate a of barbecued ribs. You love the ribs. You gobble the ribs. Then two hours later, you feel stuffed and disgusting and greasy and you scrub your hands. You can't get the smell of the barbecue sauce off. You pick your nose, and you smell barbecue sauce for an hour. You masturbate, your penis smells like barbecue sauce. You can't avoid it. It's best to just give in, suck your fingers, and savor the fading flavor of ribs until it's gone forever.

OMG WTF

Surely this is the most telling part:

Sound Clip:
"It's On"
MPEG-LayerII
64kpbs.44kHz.
258k.33sec.

You masturbate, your penis smells like barbecue sauce.

THAAAAAAAAAT'S GONNA DO IT FOR ME, THANKS GUYS.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816161537/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/amos_tori/from-the-choirgirl-hotel.shtml

After a failed attempt at late- '80s, poodle- hair glam rock, Amos' solo career took flight in 1991 with the release of (quite debatably) the best album in history, Little Earthquakes. It was a record so intensely personal and beautifully written that it was difficult to believe it was real. Earthquakes proved Amos was an incredible songwriter, a skilled pianist and a truly honest human being. Sporting lyrics like "So you can make me come/ It doesn't make you Jesus" and "I can scream as loud as your last one/ But I can't claim innocence," the album was hailed by many as pure genius. Amos' potency was remarkable.

- Ryan Schreiber

"(the majority of Seattle Grunge Rockers cite this album as an inspiration)"

in context, i think this might be the most confusing sentence the site's ever published.

wow Pitchfork used to be cool

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816162021/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/autechre/peel-session.shtml

But here's the deal with electronic music: you've got emulators, inventors and the inbetween. And on a scale of one to ten-- ten being the most inventious of inventors-- Autechre rack up about a nine. When you hear them, you'll know why. Purchase, ye! I encourage thee. Go and discover! Seek! Find!

...So, the low-down is, "Milk DX" and "Inhake 2" are your typical Autechre, with the band doing things their own way, yet with a good deal of predictibility. "Drone" is Autechre at their most amazing, creating psychedelic freakouts and other- worldly soundscapes that attack the senses as much as they massage them. Beautiful Autechre. Dreamy Autechre. So Peely before mine ears.

-Ryan Schreiber

I expected cheap lulz from the "50 worst guitar solos" feature I just clicked on but so far it's not bad

That was the strongest feature on the site for a period of years.

still some lulz 2 be had:

43. "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd
Soloist: David Gilmour
Album: The Wall
Year: 1979

I once thought this was a pretty impressive guitar solo. Then I read somewhere that Gilmour painstakingly sliced up a few different versions of the solo, and meticulously pieced them together in the studio. Okay, maybe you need a few takes to get it right, but this is preposterous. After all, what are we dealing with here? Rock 'n' roll or gene- splicing?

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816193905/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/x/xenakis_iannis/kraanerg.shtml

I have to admit that while it's certainly "not cool" to like DJ Spooky, he's one of the only guys out there making real art in music. Granted, it's cause he's got a lot of money from other sources. To me, that just makes him a rich artist, not a sell-out. "But he's so pretentious," you say. Well, he fucking can be. He's doing with electronic sound today what Eno did with ambient music in the mid- to- late 1970s. He's gradually taking steps toward the next level of music.

- Ryan Schreiber

xp pretty sure every guitar solo since like 1975 was recorded like that

haha i don't even want to know why that's in a xenakis review. i'm sure there's context, but i prefer it as an out-of-nowhere rant.

man, if it wasn't cool even back then to like DJ Spooky i really wonder if it was EVER cool to like DJ Spooky.

I'm really enjoying this though, there's some grade-a snark

39. "Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin
Soloist: Jimmy Page
Album: Led Zeppelin
Year: 1969

Page uses a bow on his Les Paul here, becoming rock's first lead cellist. Gee whiz, where would rock be without this sort of bold neo- classical pioneering?

31. "Get Out of This" by Dinosaur Jr.
Soloist: J. Mascis
Album: Without a Sound
Year: 1994

Thanks to J. Mascis for imbuing alt-rock with a little non- stop Skynyrd guitar- rot. Hey, is this toothless stoner still considered a genius?

18. "Hold the Line" by Toto
Soloist: Steve Lukather
Album: Toto
Year: 1978

Former L.A. session hack Steve Lukather is a legend in certain circles. If you'll recall, Toto was on top of the world at one dreary point in American music history. But here we have another out- of- control whammy bar escapade that has absolutely nothing to do with the song. And above all, Lukather tacks on that tinny guitar harmonizing just to show everyone he's hip to the hottest- selling sound around. No doubt Toto sent talent spies to the Boston camp to steal bad ideas (and vice- versa). In fact, Boston and Toto could have been the same band for all I know, and stolen all their ideas from Thin Lizzy. Along with guys like that blasted Neal Schon, Lukather reduced rock solos to bloodlessly thin, withered pop-metal deformities.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010209030333/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/lennon_john/imagine.shtml

John Lennon
Imagine: Digitally Remastered and Remixed
[Capitol]
Rating: 9.9

So then, Imagine, the music, gets a 10.0. However, this glossed up version only deserves a 9.9. That's how much power you have, Capitol Records!

Page uses a bow on his Les Paul here, becoming rock's first lead cellist. Gee whiz, where would rock be without this sort of bold neo- classical pioneering?

LOL seriously

i kind of wish the pitchfork that would publish a fake eight-year-old's letter to amon tobin was still around:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816160702/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/t/tobin_amon/supermodified.shtml

this is some mirrors-with-mirrors shit here:

" This other time, my sister asked him why he didn't listen to more mainstream electronic stuff like Fatboy Slim and Moby, because they were so much cooler. I've never seen him so angry. He went off for like half an hour. He had just gotten Supermodified, so this is what he told her:

"You poor plebeian, devouring mainstream culture like so many Chalupas and Doritos. If you would simply pause for a mere second and lend an ear to the remarkably intricate and razor sharp compositions offered on Supermodified, you would become revolted at only the thought of such derivative drivel. Amon Tobin creates aural treasures each time he touches studio equipment. He breathes vitality into a stagnant genre with each drum hit. He rejuvenates the pallid genre of electronica every time he permits the world to glance through the twisted digital window of his music. Take the opening track, 'Get Your Snack On.' In even the inaugural morsel of the album, Tobin breaks new ground for funk-infused rhythms. It is easily the most addictive song he's recorded to date, replete with thumping bass line and ludicrous drum breaks. Then we have 'Saboteur,' a subtle epic that hovers on the edge of genius, yet is able to shatter walls in its sheer restraint from exploding into rhythmic madness. 'Deo' again presents an intellectual Amon Tobin who allows his tracks to evolve, weaving a elaborate oriental rug of organic tones and beats. I am literally contorted with giddiness when hearing certain sections of Supermodified."

She tried to walk out of the room, but he chased her around the house with a boombox that was playing "Four Ton Mantis" until my sister threatened to tell his girlfriend that he once said that "Believe" by Cher was "sort of interesting."

Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza? Do you like pizza?

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816183649/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/p/pavement/brighten-the-corners.shtml

Still shocking the music world with their wacky, off-kilter brand of music, Pavement come back hard in 1997 with Brighten The Corners. Having never released an album that was even remotely bad, Pavement continue to awe with songs like "Shady Lane" and "We are Underused." Yeah, it's a fact. Stephen Malkmus and company pretty much got it goin' on.

When this disc opens with "Stereo," you're immediately compelled to grin. And grin you do. For the duration of the album. A natural high, the tracks roll on. "Transport is Arranged," "Date With Ikea," "Old to Begin." Each one somehow ultimately more awesome than the last. Stuck in a joyous stupor, your only option is to go limp and let the music move you.

Luckily, the disc ends and after a few minutes of continued incapacitation and twitching, you're able to move again. Best not put it on repeat.

-Ryan Schreiber

for anyone wondering why "gold soundz" made no. 1

Their only option was to go limp.

fwiw, the fact that there's a pavement song called "Date With Ikea" is way more embarrassing than that review

Brent: It seems to me that people are either really into you or just don't get it at all.

Travis: They hate us. Oh yeah. Very few people simply say, "Yeah, the Plan's alright."

Brent: People say, "The guy's voice is really weird! He says too much!"

Travis: It's a flood of syllables. I can understand that.

Brent: Do you have to practice in the privacy of your home, in front of a mirror?

Travis: Yeah, I do. There's a new song that we're playing tonight that I wrote under the influence of...

Brent: The herb?

Travis: [Chuckling] Yeah... "I was sooo high!" No, under the influence of Bob Dylan. Definitely under the influence of Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home. Just those rants he would go on. He would start to go into weird word associations and gibberish. There's this new song we have. I'm so nervous. There's so many words. I can never remember them.

[Travis goes to get a Tom Collins]

Brent: Travis is all liquored up now!

Travis: What are you talking about now?

Chip: We were just talking about Brainiac.

Travis: Man, nobody even knows what a loss for America that was. In one week, he and Jeff Buckley died. And No Doubt was still #1.

man Schreiber was REALLY horny

first sentence of pitchfork slashfic

and he REALLY needed to know how hot Dominique Leone was in person...

from that Imagine review ilxor posted:

Any album in the Pitchfork archive cannot touch any Beatles album. Sorry. We could simply write, "It's not as good as the Beatles" for all records. Do I even need to tell you not to spend money on Wolfie or Gomez?

Every day of my life I listen to the Beatles. To anyone who loves music, it is your religion. (Note: One can model either a polytheistic or monotheistic worship. You can worship Marvin Gaye and/or John Coltrane and/or Robert Johnson, etc., but the Beatles have to be a god.) Want a simple method for destroying any credibility you might hope to earn? Slam Sgt. Peppers and talk up Deathray. It's that easy.

"a simple method for destroying any credibility you might hope to earn"

whiney should really talk to brent

man Schreiber was REALLY horny

OTM

Jim O'Rourke
Halfway to a Threeway EP
[Drag City]
Rating: 8.0

Last March, I had the opportunity to interview Chicago uber-producer Jim O'Rourke at his place of residence. I snatched it up. While I wasn't nuts about his latest release, Eureka, I was a fan of his other albums, his production techniques, and his collaborations with David Grubbs as Gastr Del Sol. That I finally had the chance to meet and talk with O'Rourke seemed a great honor.

The interview went smoothly enough. We talked about his fascination with Japanese artist Mimiyo Tomozawa (whose actually- pretty- gross artwork adorned the cover of Eureka), Portuguese artist Nuno Canavarro, O'Rourke's work on the then- forthcoming Stereolab, Superchunk and Aluminum Group LPs, among other things. Later, O'Rourke asked what I thought of Eureka. I told him I thought it was pretty good, which I did, for the most part. (The album had its share of great tracks along with its share of mediocrity.) We moved on.

Later that day, Jim logged onto Pitchfork to read what I'd said about Eureka. If you'll recall (and if you don't, the review is in the archive), the review was about how I was disappointed in the album because I knew that O'Rourke was capable of better things. In fact, I went out of my way to say that the album had some genuinely awesome moments. Sadly, Jim took the review very personally, and is apparently unwilling to discuss the issue any further, as he no longer responds to my e-mails.

What a sad shock it is to meet someone you have a tremendous respect for and realize that they're not exactly the person you hoped they might be. Of course, now I come at Jim O'Rourke's albums from a different perspective-- I still respect him as one of the great musicians of late '90s, but I have very little respect for him as a person.

That said, Halfway to a Threeway succeeds where Eureka failed. (Maybe Jim actually took my advice.) Threeway trims away the saccharine Bacharach stylings and aimless experimentalism flaunted by Eureka, opting instead for beautifully arranged orchestral pop and lighter- than- air percussion. The opening track, "Fuzzy Sun," does bear more than just a passing resemblence to Eureka's standout track "Ghost Ship in a Storm," grabbing a bar or two from that track's melody, but O'Rourke works enough magic in to make the song its own hummable entity.

It's followed by the summery instrumental "Not Sport, Martial Art," whose intertwining guitars and muted horns recall a less artsy Tortoise, and reflects O'Rourke's work on Sam Prekop's solo debut. But the EP concludes with what is arguably some of Jim's best material to date-- "The Workplace" is a musically autumnal ode to an office enviroment with playful lyrics ("Women look good here/ With their suits on/ It suits them"), and the gorgeous meloncholy title track, a gently- strummed acoustic ballad that beats even Archer Prewitt's stellar "I'll Be Waiting" at its own game.

Listening to Halfway to a Threeway reminds me what a complete shame it is that Jim O'Rourke's kneejerk reaction to my review of Eureka should spoil what comraderie we might have had when crossing paths at local venues. It won't ruin my appreciation for the bulk of his catalog.

-Ryan Schreiber

i was wondering why this seemed better written than the usual run of the time until i got to the byline:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010203204700/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/f/fatboy-slim/halfway-between-the-gutter.shtml

I had completely forgotten where the J Mascis "toothless stoner" line was from, but it's been lodged in my head for about a decade. Last year I saw him on the street and started giggling over it. For all I know he's got teeth like a soap star, but the line sticks.

pitchfork used to be a lot more fun

lol/uhh.jpg

Even worse than "Sunset" are the collaborations with neo-soul poseur, Macy Gray. "Love Life," in particular, allows Gray to ramble aimlessly for almost seven minutes over a quasi-funk/R&B beat, rather than adhering to standard verse-chorus-verse conventions.

Don Caballero
American Don
[Touch and Go]
Rating: 7.5

Several years ago, Michael Jackson told reporters that he incessantly grabs his crotch because he is a "slave to the rhythm." While this statement went largely unnoticed-- probably due to the fact that Jackson's public image at the time was more closely related to his choice of "friends"-- those four little words came to me at the perfect time. As I was rapidly becoming more obsessed with music, my physical reactions to music were amplified as well, and before long, anything with even a twinge of rhythm had me dancing around like a caffeinated flea. Needless to say, this didn't do much for my social life-- I became something of a circus freak, "that weird guy with headphones." To make matters worse, I had yet to come up with an acceptable wise-ass response to the question, "What the fuck is your problem?" Thankfully, the King of Pop came through for me.

Yes, "I am a slave to the rhythm" certainly did its job, eliciting knowing chuckles from those well-versed in pop culture, and quizzical stares from everyone else. I thought I had the whole thing worked out. Until Don Caballero entered my life.

part of me can't believe we're still here, on the same website, laughing about the same record reviews, ten years later, except now we have to access them via archive. org. (another part of me can totally believe it.)

http://www.blavish.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/time-flies-clock-10-11-2006.gif

lol markers

A+

the picture helped us all to think about how 'time flies'

time flies go hard like goose erection, iirc

Stuck in a joyous stupor, your only option is to go limp and let the music move you.

lolllllllllllllllllllllll

RONG:

fwiw, the fact that there's a pavement song called "Date With Ikea" is way more embarrassing than that review

― mecca lecca high, mecca whiney bro (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, September 7, 2010 7:53 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Can't believe no one else has remarked on the O'Rourke "review" (aka: PERSONAL GRIPE/RANT) upthread.

One of the most embarrassing examples of poor-taste music crit that I've seen.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990101000000-20030131235959/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/beck/odelay.shtml

Easily one of this generation's three most talented and innovative artists, Beck's major-label follow-up, Odelay is no loser for damn sure.

Eleven out of these thirteen new songs blew me straight away (which is really saying a lot considering what a jaded rock critic I've become - haw haw), though every single track on the disc is fantastic.

Opening with the spooky cartoon sounds of "Devil's Haircut," the record grabs you by the crotch immediately and, with the second track, "Hotwax," accidentally gets you down.

Beck samples from every possible wacky source imaginable (and unimaginable), which just makes the ride crazier. There are sounds from all sorts of old records, including one from Dick Hyman's classic Moog record and, on "High 5 (Rock The Catskills)," an obscure early '80s bit where listeners are commanded to scream out the names of their favorite designer jeans. ("Everybody in the house say 'Jordache!'")

Odelay is the third best record of 1996 so far (Walt Mink's El Producto, and 12 Rods' Gay? follow, respectively, if you had to know), and as you all know, there can only be one of those.

Other winning tracks include: "Jack-Ass," "Readymade," "The New Pollution," "Lord Only Knows," and, well... every other song on the CD.

omg @

(Maybe Jim actually took my advice.)

Can't believe no one else has remarked on the O'Rourke "review" (aka: PERSONAL GRIPE/RANT) upthread.

^ isn't the infamous brent d beastie boys '5 boroughs' review similarly ridiculous? lame that it's not on the archive site, and the version on the actual site is some lame reactionary re-write bs.

http://youropinionsucks.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/6/

^thx!

>> RETRACTION

Last Tuesday, June 15th, Pitchfork published a review of the Beastie Boys' To the 5 Boroughs by Brent DiCrescenzo, a frequent and trusted contributor. In his review, Brent detailed experiences with the Beastie Boys' public relations firm Nasty Little Man, and its president Steve Martin, over the course of several years. Pitchfork has since determined that a number of DiCrescenzo's assertions were false, based on corroborated statements from the two parties he claimed were participating in the chain of events referred to in the review. With apologies to Steve Martin and Nasty Little Man, we have retracted the original review in its entirety, and would like to make the following known publicly, to correct any and all falsities perpetrated by Brent's review:

1) Radiohead were never in Milan in June 1999.

2) Radiohead never moved a concert from Villa Reale in Milan to Monza in 1999, 2000 or otherwise.

3) Steve Martin never "forgot to tell" Brent that the concert was moved, as it was not.

4) Neither Steve Martin, nor anyone working for Nasty Little Man, ever confirmed a Radiohead interview with Brent DiCrescenzo or Pitchfork.

5) Brent DiCrescenzo's declaration that Steve Martin had not gotten back to him or Mean magazine about a possible Beastie Boys interview after six weeks is untrue: Martin was in constant contact with Mean publisher Kashy Khaledi and editor Andy Hunter throughout that period.

6) Mean magazine never "delayed their publication to accomodate [Martin's] procrastination." Kashy Khaledi did so of his own volition in order to keep the Beastie Boys cover story Martin had confirmed and saw through with him every step of the way.

7) Steve Martin has never, to Brent DiCrescenzo's knowledge, "dangled [his] major artists... like carrots to the media in an attempt to blackmail press for features" on less established artists or bands.

Sincerely,
Pitchfork Media

poll

feel bad for that guy:

http://ripfork.com/2009/11/brent-dicrescenzos-review-of-kid-a-by-radiohead/

someone help me find p4k's (brent d's, if i recall?) review of basement jaxx's remedy. totally essential.

http://web.archive.org/web/19990101000000-20030131235959/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/basement-jaxx/remedy.shtml

Quick someone submit this thread to Archive.org

"Well, what about Oakenfold or Sasha and Digweed?"

Ancient runic symbolism, this.

Draw a circle and BT appears.

Thom Yorke's fragile vocals backed by the intricate guitar duels of Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway's intense, rhythmic pounding and the subtle but effective bass guitar of Colin Greenwood

Mark Farner’s wild, shirtless lyrics? The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher? The competent drumwork of Don Brewer?

cant i just access all the same stuff by using the search engine? its cool for aesthetics but they don't really keep rewriting stuff do they?

oh shit i can see what the write-up for loveless taking best album of the 90's was!

that Schreiber's review/ O'Rourke rant is surely the most hilarious piece PFM has ever published, it's a shame Ryan no longer wants to share his masterpiece with the world

if anyone's curious and doesn't want to sift through the 100 albums beforehand (no quick links) to see what the original number 1 for the top album of the 90's said:

01My Bloody Valentine
Loveless
Sire/Warner Bros.
1991
Kevin Shields' guitar tickles like a Harrier jet engine. The brilliance of Loveless lies in paradox: how can something so incredibly noisy and layered sound so beautiful and delicate? In no other album, ever, could you describe 20+ tracks of feedback as "gossamer." In his recent review of Pet Sounds, Ryan really hit it in the head-- Loveless is the Pet Sounds for our generation. An anal genius spent years carving symphonies to God. At least My Bloody Valentine can cause deafness and isn't called "The Beach Boys." This album can be effervescent or lulling. It can be frightening or angelic. It all depends on a few degrees difference in your volume knob. And it has the most kick-ass opening track, or chord even, of the 1990s. -Brent DiCrescenzo

i'm too lazy to go back and find what the write up for radiohead's original position of #2 was supposed to be, and additionally, i'm a favoritist that only seems to think the above matters.

it might of been rewritten because loveless only has 11 tracks

maybe he meant they were overdubbed or sth

An anal genius spent years carving symphonies to God.

Years spent carving genius symphonies to an anal God.

Who wrote that retraction bitchez?? YA HERRD?

That's how much power you have, Capitol Records! is still one of my favorite things in the whole history of Pitchfork for a handful of reasons obvious and less-so.

Such as...?

cee-oh-why

"I'm sure there are kids out there that think Basement Jaxx is great dance music, but the odds are, they don't know much about jungle."

"I'm sure there are kids out there that think Basement Jaxx is great dance music, but the odds are, they don't know much about jungle."

Is that a legit quote? DiCrescenzo's entire career is tl;dr.

seriously.

http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/6044-david-cross-albums-to-listen-to-while-reading-overwrought-pitchfork-reviews/

http://web.archive.org/web/20070502025237/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/16264-live-at-the-village-vanguard-the-master-takes

John Coltrane

Live at the Village Vanguard: The Master Takes
[Impulse!]
Rating: 8.5

The Village Vanguard. New York City. 1961.
We was sittin' there watchin' the stage. Waitin' for the man they called Coltrane to come out and do his thing. It was me and my four droogs. Them bein' Peter, Georgio and Dim; Dim being really Dim.
'Round an hour'd passed and the place was packed straight through to the back. I'd just dropped some dollars for 'Trane's Giant Steps six months back. Now was the time, this was the place. The Village Vanguard. New York City. 1961.
I was only there for the first night, see, but them cats at Impulse! just made my life complete. They put out four CDs of all that sound 'Trane put out those nights. But you know my type, man. Can't afford to eat, let alone spend some heavy cash on music. So I only got the essential. Live at the Village Vanguard: The Master Takes is one disc, makin' it one-fourth the cost of the box set. And you only get the best stuff.
Man, the opening beauty of "Spiritual..." It's like a dream I had: I floated on the River Nile, smokin' some fresh weed, relaxin'. But I ain't ever gonna see the Nile anyhow. This track's as close as I come, and it's close enough. Best of the best, though, has gotta be "India." It's only when you listen to a perfect old jazz tune like this that you realize how much drum-n-bass is derived from this music. 'Trane takes it to heaven and back with some style, man. Some richness, daddy. It's a sad thing his life was cut short by them jaws o' death.
Shit, cat. It don't make a difference. The man produced enough good music to last me a lifetime. This Village Vanguard thing's just another example of the genius of Coltrane.

-Ryan Schreiber

Someone even turned it into an animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvogqD8NIS8

^The End^

shit, cat.

I should start my own music review site and offer hilarious, bad reviews. Maybe I can make some money with such a site

It's only when you listen to a perfect old jazz tune like this that you realize how much drum-n-bass is derived from this music.

shit, cat.

― An anal genius spent years carving symphonies to God. (crüt), Wednesday, September 8, 2010 2:34 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

My mouth was wandering along the mountains and valleys of her purple skin

It was me and my four droogs. Them bein' Peter, Georgio and Dim

Where's the fourth droog?

So many LOLz in this thread. Love it!

Negativland
Dispepsi
Rating: 4.0

I'm confused about this one. Or, as my good pal Jerry Seinfeld might say, "What's the deal with Negativland?"

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816182917/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/n/negativland/dispepsi.shtml

A very zeitgeist opening sentence!

This is already the best thread ever

I had thought I was the only one who knew about the archive. Should of known it would make an awesome thread!

Brent D, not afraid to paint with a wide brush.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001005152650/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/kahimi-karie/kahimi-karie.shtml

There's something deeply disturbing about Japanese sexuality. I always picture stoic salarymen in exhaust- colored suits riding on subways, flipping through phone- book proportioned Manga comics. A creepy thing, indeed, that Manga-- with its topless, panties- flashing private- schoolgirls kickboxing each other and chatting with little shoulder- monkeys. They have a surpluss of animated porn. It's all frighteningly pedophilic.

more kool & the gang fun with ryan

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180042/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/kool-and-the-gang/something-special.shtml

In my career as a high- profile, globe- trotting music journalist, I've seen a lot of live shows. Some were the bomb, and some just plain bombed. Yet through it all, two shows I've attended stand out in my mind as transcendent: that of James Brown in 1993, and Kool & The Gang in 1996. Actually, I've witnessed Kool & The Gang's raw energy on more than one occasion, and they never fail to leave me breathless. Jumping eagerly from hit ("Jungle Boogie") to hit ("Hollywood Swingin'") to hit ("Misled") to hit ("Too Hot") to hit ("Cherish") to hit ("Joanna") to hit ("Celebrate"-- in Spanish no less), their stage show is superglued tight as they whirl and spin across the stage in perfect funkadelic harmony.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180049/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/kool-and-the-gang/love-and-understanding.shtml

Ever since "Celebrate" established Kool and the Gang as one of the premiere pop/ funk bands of all time, they've been out to smash the stereotype.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180053/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/kool-and-the-gang/live-at-the-sex-machine.shtml

Live at the Sex Machine is largely instrumental, and more of a groove than a funk thing. Immediately, the wah-wah organ sounds and bass draw you in and thwack! You can feel the love tonight. Sex Machine takes you on an all-nite joyride through tunnels of love and the dark alleys of the soul. It's an experience you'll neither forget nor regret. As an added surprise, the previously unreleased "Kool It (Here Comes The Fuzz)," a trumpet-laden, jumpy soul number gets even the whitest of us on the good foot. Don't put these guys down for "Celebration." All they wanna do is take you higher.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816034906/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/kottonmouth-kings/royal-highness.shtml

I heard they were originally called the Whiskeydick Buttfuckers, but they changed it when they changed both their drug and sexual preferences.

What you've been waiting for: Ryan explains "Riot Grrrl"

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180338/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/l7/triple-platinum.shtml

The joke here, of course, being that L7 will never record an album that goes triple platinum (or even gold, for that matter) and they will never be beautiful. Here's why.

Almost ten years ago, they practically invented the riot grrl: a girl so hardcore that she offends everybody. So far, I like this girl. Well, the problem is that mainstream America doesn't. This music is far too intimidating for your high school's football players (if it were made by four guys with green hair, it'd sell millions of copies overnight) and too loud and crashy for the geeks. That means the only crowd L7 does well with is other riot grrls, and that's a dying breed since the grrls realized even their old friends didn't like them anymore.

Truth be told, The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum, albeit more than a little white-trashy ("Oh Shit / I lost my ID / Hook up the Jagermeister IV") is a pretty fine record. Ladies don't rock like this anymore, and that's just plain sad.

-Ryan Schreiber

this thread is like if someone found an album where Radiohead was a ska band for three years

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180611/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/lee_ben/grandpaw-would.shtml

You know how little boys sometimes punch little girls in the stomach to get their attention to show how much they like them? Well, I must have been a late developer because I was still doing that shit that when I was 16. Forget the prom, the only dates that technique ever got me occurred after they hauled my ass to the clink.

a ska band that covered "wang dang sweet poontang"

xpost

i think you found the ho_Oly grail

even if its some brent-influenced poetic license, whatta way to open your ben lee review.

...and now some hindsight lols

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180816/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/lifter-puller/fiestas-and-fiascos.shtml

Admittedly by no fault of his own, Craig Finn has inherited one of the most nasal, obnoxious voices in music. He makes full use of his propensity to annoy by ensuring that his lyrics are proportionately disagreeable. Each song on Fiestas and Fiascos recounts the tale of a wild episode in which a woman does something crazy, each beginning with "she said" or "she had," each nearly indistinguishable from the last. The lyrics are that derivative breed of "Baby slaughtered my grandparents with a hatchet, but she's perfect anyway" type thing that one would expect to hear on an Everclear record. All of this is spoken irrhythmically, rarely sung.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816180946/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/loeb_lisa/firecracker.shtml

And so I was talking to Beverly on the phone tonight. I casually mentioned that I'd gotten the new Lisa Loeb CD, and as far as I could tell, no eyebrows were raised. She doesn't know about me and Lisa, about what we used to have. I hung up the phone and turned on the TV and caught the tail end of "I Do" on VH-1... the part where she's squirming around on pink shag carpeting, not wearing any pants.

Here we go again.

-Lang Whitaker

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816040003/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/lords-of-acid/our-little-secret.shtml

To quote: "She turns into a tiger when she's ready to eat/ my pussy's always ready for a big chunk of meat/ so lay your little pussy right next to mine/ you can bring her over 'round dinnertime." 'Nuff said. Good for wanking, though.

-James P. Wisdom

The lyrics are that derivative breed of "Baby slaughtered my grandparents with a hatchet, but she's perfect anyway" type thing that one would expect to hear on an Everclear record.

Well, considering the Everclear album got an 8.2...

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816171950/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/e/everclear/so-much-for-the-afterglow.shtml

Glad Pfork got the Lifter Puller review/rating correct before they went nuts for the Hold Steady, btw.

I'm surprised it took this long to post the Live at the Village Vanguard review.

Also, that Negativland first line is hilarious.

xpost because we'd all seen it like 1000 times

http://web.archive.org/web/20030219043918/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/f/foo-fighters/colour-and-the-shape.shtml

Maybe it's just me outgrowing this kind of thing, but Dave Grohl's music seems sorely dated. What I'm saying is: The Colour & The Shape is like opening a time capsule from 1992 and realizing that the things you thought would transcend time had just become a bad joke.

-Ryan Schreiber, May, 1997

Adam Sandler
What's Your Name?
[Warner Bros.]
Rating: 5.5

Aryt, let's face it. What's My Name is typical Sandler as we love him, but none of these tracks compare to his last two records. Strangely, it's not impossible to like musically, with a splash of everything from country to reggae, not to mention a couple of Springsteen knock-offs. What's My Name is wall-to-wall loser ballads that get progressively more obscene as you get further in (which means you can skip the first seven tracks and go right to "Pantsin' And Dancin'," a hilarious tribute to '80s Studio 54 gender-bending: "Mr. Belvedere/ With his finger in his own rear/ Bernard King/ Showin' off his ding-a-ling/ Swimming Mark Spitz/ Playin' with his hairy tits/ Do the hustle with seven-footer Billy Russell/ (do the fuckin' hustle, jerkin' your love muscle)/ Shake your big, round ass with the ghost of Mama Cass.../ Come to the funkiest place in town/ The stars will show you how to move/ And dance/ Like you just shit your pants." Need I say more?

-James P. Wisdom

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816192453/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/t/tricky/pre-millennium-tension.shtml

Tricky
Pre-Millennium Tension
[Island]
Rating: 8.0

As far as musical inventiveness goes, he may even top the Beatles which is about as inventive as you can get (they only had a three-chord pop template to work from, so they changed things).

[...]

As usual, though, there's next to no filler and the songs blend together like a 3-D soundscape that fucks your body up and never lets you down. I won't be bitching about that. But damn! I can't stand it!

-Ryan Schreiber

The Schreiber horny streak continues:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001016133128/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/squarepusher/music-is-rotted-one-note.shtml

Squarepusher
Music Is Rotted One Note
[Warp/Nothing/Interscope]
Rating: 9.8

Oh, sexy, beautiful Squarepusher-- how I love thee! How I adore thy skittering beats, thy Atari sound effects, thy glorious, emotionless ways! Yes, I truly cannot wait to lie down upon thy latest effort, Music Is Rotted One Note, and to make sweet love to it, as is my personal and secret tradition for listening to thy records!

-Ryan Schreiber

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816190320/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/sir-mix-a-lot/return-of-the-bumpasaurus.shtml

Cover Art Sir Mix-a-Lot
Return of the Bumpasaurus
[American]
Rating: 7.4

Aw, yeah! Mix is back with his best release since Seminar. Return kicks off with Chris Rock complaining about Mix-a-Lot's "Put 'Em On The Glass" video. ("Whatever happened to 'Hi, how are you?' No. Put your fucking titties on the glass!") before the boom goes biddy with "You Can Have Her," a thumping dis to all of his ex-girlfriends.

The musical parts of the album lie somewhere between Cameo and Dr. Dre. You'll want to dance. It just made me drink two cans of Magnum 16. Yes, that's an endorsement. The only truly weak spot on the album is "Aunt Thomasina," a rant against black women who go Uncle Tom. Maybe I just don't get it (even though I am an octaroon.) There's nothing close to a "Baby Got Back" breakout hit on here, either. Mix is just content with doing what he does best. Next time out, he should hook up with the Super Sonic Soul Pimps. A meeting like that could make Seattle's grunge label a thing of the past.

-Jason Josephes

Soundgarden
Down on the Upside
[A&M]
Rating: 7.0

Like you need me to tell you about this disc. If you dig Soundgarden, you've already spun it a million times. If you hate Soundgarden, you don't care. Either way, you know what they sound like, and if it's your cup of tea (like mine), Down On The Upside will give you a double shot of grunge, no foam but plenty of caffeine.

-Jason Josephes

Maybe I just don't get it (even though I am an octaroon, btw)

If you dig ______, you've already spun it a million times. If you hate ______, you don't care.

criticism in the mp3 era

Those of us in the know have a clue as to what makes a great Cocteau Twins album: whether or not it gets you laid.

Nabisco OTM

Somewhere, Kid606 is laughing. Because right now, at this very moment, some young hipster type is lounging around his parent's basement, draped in a smoking jacket, drinking his Pale Ales, stroking his soul patch, awash in the glow of some thrift-store blacklight, and not only listening to Kylie Minogue, but enjoying it. And chances are (depending on just how hip our hypothetical neo-beatnik may or may not be), he doesn't even realize it . Meanwhile, the Kid can't stop chuckling.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030604213246/pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/kid-606/action-packed-mentallist.shtml

Maybe I just don't get it (even though I am an octaroon, btw)

― morbetoragus (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 8 September 2010 15:09 (21 minutes ago)

!!!

Garlands worked nicely on an occasion, now that I think about it.

good thing scott p showed up before these horndogs got caught up in a 4AD-soundtracked Tailhook scandal

Keep it in mind if you decide to press your nose into the wookie bush and take a taste of ol' lady Tangerine Dream. (Come on, admit it. The name sounds like either a cheap hooker or an even cheaper wine cooler.)

What really threw me was the damn beats which were all fucking over the place

The previous few sentences of that Tangerine Dream review are also golden:

Like this review, the album is long. How long? The sticker on the label says "Over 2 hours." Holy shit! That's pretty fucking long! Many of these songs clock in at 15+ minutes, but be forewarned that years of Guided By Voices and hardcore may sap you of tolerance for analog synth epics.

you're not here to dance; you're here to listen to creepy if not interesting music by people who (and I'm just guessing here) smell like a lazy librarian's chair.

Though avid readers of Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" will recall how the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, was born from her grandpappy's ballsack,

http://web.archive.org/web/20021020214834/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/aphrodite/aphrodite.shtml

wow!

tbh these are only funny in hindsight now that pfork has become a respectable, professional publication. back then it was obv just a bunch of dudes free-riffing and fucking around trying to be clever

shit, cat

probably gonna steal "lazy librarian's chair" and pass it off as my own, tbh

they're obv funnier in hindsight, but had I been in a position to appreciate it (rather than dateless and in college), I'm guessing oversexed indie rock reviews that protest too much would have been hilarious at the time too.

has anyone tried to hit on a review?

sort of...

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816181101/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/lords-of-acid/am-i-sexy.shtml

Imagine the slithery anticipation I felt! A hotty on the cover, legs akimbo, waiting for my hot reviewer's prod to plumb her depths.

from http://web.archive.org/web/20021012223107/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/p/plaid/peel-session.shtml

I am the hottest I have ever been. Not to bitch about it or anything. Actually, I think I am gonna bitch about it. In Chicago today, it was a murderous 98 degrees (heat index at 112), which I'm sure is nothing compared to... say... some African regions. However, as I type this, I have two large fans pointed directly at my luscious, naked body, and sweat is still-- quite literally-- dripping off my shapely 5'9" frame.

gah

http://web.archive.org/web/20021204064026/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/f/faint/blank-wave-arcade.shtml

Alright, who out there is naked? You. I see you. You're naked. You're sitting in front of your computer, perusing the web, and reading about some records. And you're doing it all with your secret parts exposed. Is that really necessary? The Faint seem to think so. On their latest effort, Blank-Wave Arcade, the Faint sound completely nude. You can imagine these guys standing perfectly positioned behind their sea of keyboards, their hairy chests and legs staring you directly in the face. And whether it's really necessary is not an issue-- it's fun.

Ooh! How exciting. Is that a throbbing erection in my pants, or just a wad of crusty tissues? And furthermore, is this a legitimate remix album worthy of your attention or just another CD soon to join the ranks of the Out of Print?

Was "James P. Wisdom" a real person or like the sexy "Secret Diary Of A Call Girl" alterego of some doughy Japancakes fan collecting a pool of sweat under his acne-flecked pot tits?

http://web.archive.org/web/20040604121431/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/buffalo-tom/smitten.shtml

Let me go into further detail with the example of rubbing a tattered white "USC 'COCKS" baseball hat across dirty blonde hair. Place this worn ballcap on top of a full head of dirty blonde lacrosse hair. Then slowly rotate the cap backwards so the brim points dorsal- wise. Listen closely! Hear that? Hear that gritty scruff? The sweat- stained inner ring of the cap grinds across the millions of hairs. Like a myriad of brass music- box fingers rolling across a bumpy brass cylinder, these hairs grate against the faded cotton producing soundwaves.

Now, deep in my lab I have amplified this noise 1000x and refined it to digital quality. You will be quite surprised to find that the noise a worn ballcap twisting backwards on a white guy's head makes is exactly the same as that of Buffalo Tom's Smitten.

someone should send this thread to the Pitchfork Reviews Reviews guy, I'd like to hear his take on all this.

I hope he's found a girl/boyfriend soon.

http://www.restrainedfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/lie_detector.jpg

don't shit where you cat

You know how little boys sometimes punch little girls in the stomach to get their attention to show how much they like them? Well, I must have been a late developer because I was still doing that shit that when I was 16.

I knew someone like this. Ended up randomly and brutally murdering some old lady. Watch oot.

Mobile Suit Gundams

can we find Ryan's Miles Davis reviews?

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7042-glass-ep/ pretty shit Sea and Cake review I found using google
Amanda sounds like a dickhead

"It's hardly unreasonable to crave something that makes your eyes roll back in your head, even if just for a few measures; it's far from irrational to require something you can holler at, or, at the very least, exchange satisfying pleasantries with."
(I think this says something about her love life)

"Synthesized and aggressively antiseptic, this stuff just makes me nervous-- I can't conceive of a single viable situation in which somebody would stumble home, pour a bowl of cereal, take off their pants, and say, "Man, I just really need to hear some of that effin' Glass EP right now."
(lol. A is for Amanda)

"There's nothing to grab onto here... none of the smelly, awkward, human stuff that really wets everyone's pants"

"It's hardly unreasonable to crave something that makes your eyes roll back in your head, even if just for a few measures;

The jokes just kinda write themselves , don't they?

they're obv funnier in hindsight, but had I been in a position to appreciate it (rather than dateless and in college), I'm guessing oversexed indie rock reviews that protest too much would have been hilarious at the time too.

― da croupier, Wednesday, September 8, 2010 8:25 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

indistinguishable from much of the old pitchfork language, admit it

Did all pitchfork reviewers back then lost their virginity until their mid 20s or 30s when they started writing in there? Why the need to boast about their sex life? I'd get it if they were reviewing the sexiest songs of all time or something but come the fuck on.

I don't know maybe I'm missing the point... these seems to me more like 'hey I have a girlfriend! look at me I had sex today!" than actual reviews.

Hmmm now I know whats missing from Foxy Digitalis...

THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT

That said, Halfway to a Threeway succeeds where Eureka failed. (Maybe Jim actually took my advice.)

[insert good advice from a different Schreiber review]

just read this entire thread..........JESUS

Lo-fi indie rock is probably the greatest thing since ejaculation, and I'm not taking any chances.

I still can't get over how hilarious this line is

Can someone post a direct link to the O'Rourke review please? I haven't laughed this hard in ages.

That Harmacy review should be framed and presented to Ryan S for him to put over his lavatory.

Can someone post a direct link to the O'Rourke review please?

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816183428/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/o/orourke_jim/halfway-to-a-threeway.shtml

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816190542/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/smith_elliott/either-or.shtml

Elliott Smith
Either/Or
[Kill Rock Stars]
Rating: 8.5

Whispering his way into your heart with the voice of an angel, Elliott's new solo record, Either/Or is the type of music you'd hear in Heaven's elevator: While everything's nice and pretty, you're still pretty bummed out that you died.

Smith shares all his personal secrets with us like other Smiths before him. (i.e. The Smiths, The Cure's Robert Smith, etc.) The result is nothing less than Zoloftian genius. I'll put money down that says this is the best album Kill Rock Stars releases for a couple of months.

-Ryan Schreiber

OH MAN

http://web.archive.org/web/20001001131004/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/i/incubus/science.shtml

Incubus
S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
[Up]
Rating: 8.7

As all of the varieties of music get smooshed together these days, you start to see a number of interesting hybrids. Y'know it's happening when you have to check three different sections in the CD store for the same CD. What does funk sound like? What does Rock sound like? What is Jazz, anyway? It seems you have to go back ten years to find them in their origin form. Definitely not a bad thing.

Incubus is an excellent example. This CD successfully combines all sorts of shit without sounding like a mess. Here you have a song: it's got a phat-chunk bass beat twanging fast in back, some crazy electro squornks and bleeps coming and going, sudden snatches of full-blown guitar-jam, a rapid-fire Patton-esque vocalist (Brandon Boyd), all the while someone scratching vinyl and a drummer back there hammering merrily along. They keep it sorted out and dynamic and the results are yummy. Can the total be more than the sum of its parts? You decide.

-James P. Wisdom

Totally waiting for Whiney to come along and defend this Incubus album, btw.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001010180925/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/beach-boys/pet-sounds.shtml

Beach Boys
Pet Sounds (Remastered)
[Capitol Reissues]
Rating: 7.5

The Beatles claim it inspired Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Some critics say it's better than anything the Beatles ever released. NME even called it "The Best Album of All Time." I guess I can see how someone might think that... but I don't.

See, at the time of its original release a mere 33 years ago, this was a historic recording, a classic. Brian Wilson's complex vocal arrangements, elaborate recording techniques, and orchestral flourishes were groundbreaking enough to permanantly alter the course of music. On the other hand, a lot has happened for music since Pet Sounds. For instance, compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer. To these young ears, Brian Wilson's masterpiece just doesn't stand up.

Sure, the genius of songs like "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)," "God Only Knows," and "Caroline No" is undeniable-- to this day, few people have come close to penning sweeter melodies. But this style of straight- forward pop music, despite its appeal on an instinctual level, has become passe and cliched. If this were not the Beach Boys, but some indie pop outfit on Parasol Records, it might make a few critics' Top 10 lists, if it didn't just vanish into obscurity.

Also, this long- awaited reissue contains both Mono and Stereo versions of the album, a pretty asinine manuever on the record company's part. The Mono version of the album has been available on CD for years-- there's not a Beach Boys fan in the world that doesn't already own it, and anyone interested in purchasing the album at this point will most likely not really be interested in having to skip ahead to Track 15 every time you want to hear the Stereo mix.

Of course, you've got to give the album credit for influencing people like Weezer, Burt Bacharach, and... oh, the Beatles. And it still remains a seminal pop album-- one of pop music's quintessential works of perfection. But, like its creator Brian Wilson, it just wasn't made for these times.

-Ryan Schreiber

"God this Beach Boys album is just so old-fashioned and passe... at least it inspired Weezer. RATING: SEVEN POINT FIVE!!!!"

OH I hate that logic so much!

"If this were not the Beach Boys, but some indie pop outfit on Parasol Records, it might make a few critics' Top 10 lists, if it didn't just vanish into obscurity."

My friend said that kind of thing about The Velvet Underground. It doesn't make sense because if you remove an extremely influential album from history as if it never happened and then pretend it just came out, then you'd be comparing it to a current musical landscape that would be much different due to the absence of that hugely influential album's proper moment in history! You can't remove something historic and assume the same future.

Of course, you've got to give the album credit for influencing people like Weezer

oh my

The Pet Sounds one is so, so much worse than shitcat. I'm always surprised it isn't the go-to pick.

compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer
compare Pet Sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless or Radiohead's OK Computer

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816185217/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/ride/tarantula.shtml

Ride
Tarantula
[Sire]
Rating: 5.4

Ride used to be one of the coolest bands on the planet. Although their first EP Smile didn't completely win me over, the thoroughly awesome Nowhere blew me away. Goin' Blank Again was almost equally majestic. Suddenly, Ride decided to give birth to a giant poop log and disguise it as a CD. 1994's Carnival of Light probably ranks as the biggest disappointment from a competent group to ever sour my ears. Now, they're calling it quits, and the swan song is called Tarantula. It's better than Carnival of Light, that's for sure. It's more stomp than swoon as evidenced by the lead-off "Black Nite Crash." Another number, "Castle on the Hill," is good vintage Ride music that made me smile. That's about it, though. A lot of the tunes don't fail to hold my interest, but they also don't give me that huge, superhero glow that songs like "Seagull," "In a Different Place," "Twisterella," and "Leave Them All Behind" did. Oh, well. We'll always have Nowhere.

-Jason Josephes

http://web.archive.org/web/20001009103100/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/o/oasis/be-here-now.shtml

Oasis
Be Here Now
[Epic]
Rating: 7.9

Other day, I was dragging my sand-filled shoes through the desert wasteland known as commercial alternative rock, the sun beating on me like a sadist with a whip, my brow the only moist thing in sight. I spotted in the distance some really pompous British guys with guitars who wouldn't give me the time of day, let alone water from their canteens. Some fucking oasis.

These were the rudest folks I'd met in my entire life, and somehow when they turned up the amplifiers, I couldn't resist their instantly memorable rock music. Realising I'd heard this stuff somewhere before (whether it be from their last two albums or old Beatles records), I started to feel guilty. Then I decided. Fuck it.

Oasis' third record, Be Here Now is, predictably, a lot like Definitely Maybe and even more like What's The Story, Morning Glory, but with a lot more pomp. What were formally unforgettable three- to- four minute pop slices are now six- to- ten minute long epics. It's like "Champagne Supernova" altered the course of their journey toward Edgar Winters' part of the universe.

Regardless of whether or not it's "cool" to like them (they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake), "D'You Know What I Mean," Be Here Now's first single, is the catchiest song of the year. So take your holier- than- thou, elitist musical tastes and sod off -- Oasis are cool in my book.

-Ryan "Defensive Man" Schreiber

(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)
(they're certainly not as safe- to- like as some of my other pleasures, Yo La Tengo or Nick Drake)

Just did a quick ctrl+f of this thread and saw that none have yet posted the long, unreadable side-article in which a "Brent S. Sirota" compared Kid A to Finnegans Wake.

The highest honor we can bestow upon Kid A-- yes, there is something that surpasses the trophy of Pitchfork double-digits-- is substantive discussion. Could a band whose fan mail alludes to Pynchon novels, whose liner notes cite Noam Chomsky, whose fiercely literate lyrics ("Riot shield/ Voodoo economics/ It's just business/ Cattle prods and the IMF") seem to presage the recent turmoil over the International Monetary Fund prefer grades to analysis? The recent Pitchfork editorial decision to print reader mail and writer responses suggests that there remains a great deal of room for conversations to go beyond alternating gushes and obscenities. The question of whether one should buy and enjoy Kid A speaks ultimately to a moot point: it will be bought and enjoyed by millions; others may dismiss it as emasculated dreck. But either way, Kid A will not be barred access to a canon of profound music that many hold sacred. Dumpsters of acclaim and denigration notwithstanding.

More: http://web.archive.org/web/20010124044900/www.pitchforkmedia.com/columns/mi/00-10-03/

Totally waiting for Whiney to come along and defend this Incubus album, btw.

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, September 14, 2010 10:13 AM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Man, I'm not gonna lie, I def had some kind words for Incubus back in the day...

ahahaha, totally knew it!

Weak.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000407142108/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/h/hawtin_richie/decks-efx-and-909.shtml

Decks, EFX, and 909 is a towering statement of Hawtin's ability to combine hard techno wax, effects pedals, and a Roland 909 drum machine. He utilizes the cream of the genre (Richard Harvey, Jeff Mills, Surgeon, Vladislav Delay) and creates an even more formidable futuresound than the source artists ever imagined. It's as though Hawtin's taking DJ Shadow's ...Endtroducing into new territory. A graph is even supplied with the disc to illustrate how Hawtin blends the album's 38 tracks together.

But be warned! Decks, EFX, and 909 is minimal and tough. However, if your tastes are more educated than the average sun-tanned gurner, and you wouldn't balk at a compilation devoid of arm-raising anthems, you're just the type of receptive head Hawtin wants to play to.

whatever tomorrows brings, I'll be there

Didn't even need to dig out the Archive.org search for this gem:

Stars
Heart
[Paper Bag; 2003]
8.4

Chalk it up perhaps to another case of Pitchfork Canuckophilia, but Stars comes as yet another Montreal act to keep the indie pop dream alive in '03. Less all over the map than the Voltron-like Broken Social Scene, and without the fetishist spice that off-kilters the otherwise straight-shooting pop of The Hidden Cameras, Stars could very easily be overlooked, or avoided like a couple prone to PDA. But as of yet we don't have immigration quotas on music from the Great White North, and Heart is a valuable pop record for those of us whose cardiac muscle hasn't stained completely black like that of, I dunno, Chris Ott.

— Rob Mitchum, August 14, 2003

Rob is such a fucking homer.

u should be honored

I could give a shit from any perspective.

OMMMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGG the "Live at the Village Vanguard" animation >>>>>> everything else on this thread

My friend said that kind of thing about The Velvet Underground. It doesn't make sense because if you remove an extremely influential album from history as if it never happened and then pretend it just came out, then you'd be comparing it to a current musical landscape that would be much different due to the absence of that hugely influential album's proper moment in history! You can't remove something historic and assume the same future.

I dunno, this doesn't bother me that much. Something can be historical and demonstrably influential and still not necessarily hold up as an enjoyable listen decades later. In fact, it may seem limp or boring precisely because it was so influential, i.e., subsequent bands have built and expanded upon its template in more exciting ways. Reviewing something like that does present an interesting dilemma. At the same time, Schreiber is pretty much straight-up challopsing in that review.

Which is an irresistible temptation for any young writer.

the long, unreadable side-article in which a "Brent S. Sirota" compared Kid A to Finnegans Wake

^^ this is a real guy. I met him once and thought he seemed nice/cool. I think he may have gone to the University of Chicago, which, if you know about the peculiarities of that place, might be pertinent.

I doubt I've ever been as put off by a band name as I was by Fountains of Wayne. In fact, I was extremely hesitant to put it in the disc player when I got the advance in the mail. But when I did, I was unexpectedly hit with an undiluted, overpowering mess of 100% pure power pop. I have to be honest: it felt like a hand job.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071224182406/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17823-fountains-of-wayne

Wow, that whole review is...wow.

absolutely insane
8.9 compared to 7.5 for welcome interstate managers

It is a very good power album imo

Somebody please find the other entries in their original "Best Albums of the 90s" list. I definitely remember a mock-ral review for Check Your Head "But we still have Check Your Head / It's got more rhymes than the Grateful's got dead"

i still need to, like, dredge up the majority of my 30-some reviews that are no longer on the site

this was pulled from the website for a while but it's back now

Animal Collective
Danse Manatee (2001)

3.9

So, let's say the ideal of all progressive music is Freud's phallic phase: "Wow, this feels good when I touch it! I'll just keep doing it." Then, Danse Manatee might be located firmly in Freud's anal phase: "Mommy, look what I made!" But we must try to be reassuring. After all, Pitchfork has never been in the business of invalidating feelings. So, boys, we're not mad, just bitterly disappointed. And even the stinkiest dump provides an occasion for personal growth. Besides, Avey Tare, Panda Bear and the Geologist are always entitled to seek a second opinion. But before they do that, they should know that some kid I met at a party last week pretty much confirmed my whole diagnosis. And he was almost a psych minor.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7941-danse-manatee/

This review

One man that seems to be getting ignored in the frenzy of "best of the '90s" journalism is Jon Spencer. It really surprises me that Orange didn't make it into Spin's Top 90 (let alone the Pitchfork list). Especially since it seems they just called up the Village Voice and said, "Umm, we've been doing cover stories on Britney Spears and Kid Rock for the past few months, and before that it was the Backstreet Boys... uh... let's see. Spice Girls. Dang. The last hip thing we covered was Nirvana. What was cool in the '90s?" And then the Village Voice would say, "Well, for a while there we liked the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, but they didn't turn out to be gay enough for our tastes." "Then it's settled, we'll put another PJ Harvey album on the list, and finish 'er off with Basement Jaxx."

This review, I mean.

Sure, there are still loud guitars, smacky bass lines, and monsterous skin power, but there's no screaming.

by monsterous skin power, does he mean ... drums?

monsterous skin power is the original big dick energy

As if to pay even more blatant homage to the indie scene of a decade ago, Herrmann and Kleine cover a 'lost classic'-- Slab Happy's "Blue Flower." The fanboys amongst you will immediately point out that elegant maudlineers Pale Saints and Mazzy Star have already covered "Blue Flower," which makes it kind of a shoe-y standard, I suppose.

I love you. I really love you. How do I know? How am I able to confidently make such a blunt, forward statement so early in our relationship? Quite simple, really. I've subjected myself to Francisco López's new work, Untitled #104, twice in its entirety. But after each grueling, painful moment, I reminded myself that I was doing it for you, and I trudged forward. Surely you and I were made for each other.

Here's a review from 2002 that slipped past the retroactive Pitchfork censors. The edit below is mine. The review is live.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/184-i-get-wet/

Been months since I last heard "Party Hard" on the radio or saw WK thrashing about on M2 like a hyperactive r****ded kid whose parents failed to give him a disciplinary shaking.

Is the increase from 0.6 to 8.6 the most significant rating adjustment over time?

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16836-i-get-wet/

Personally, I'd average it out to 4.6 as a respectable middle ground ... but that's none of my business.

My God this thread delivers.

the Harmacy review is one of my favourite things ever. It’s so hard to believe it was real

Ejaculation gets a 9.8

That Air review is still up, incredible!

Shit, cat. The internet was fun in the early days.