Pitchfork vs. Push Kings

Unfortunately a quick bit of research on the Push Kings gives you the distinct impression that they do dodgy power-pop.

Why I think this review may be badly-written: Fountains of Wayne's Utopia Parkway did the exact same thing (i.e., glossy candy power-pop paired with sap-ass WB-teen-show type ballads and even a string-soaked weeper called "Prom Theme!") and it was great, because they were doing it very knowingly (although not!! ironically), and very well, and making no bones about any of it. Pitchfork didn't like that either, although it got a 5.1. I feel that in both cases, Pitchfork is (a) misreading these records, and (b) making the mistake of confusing genre for quality (i.e., "this is glossy softy sappy teeny, and glossy softy sappy teeny is always bad no matter how it's done.")

Pitchfork constantly makes the mistake of confusing genre for quality, especially when it comes to emo and indiepop. Although other people (people who actually like indiepop) have told me that the Push Kings record is horrible, the PF review does nothing to tell me why. Even when PF seems to like a record within one of these untouchable genres, the best they can do is say "it would be a good record if it wasn't an indiepop/emo/chartpop/whateverelse record."

I think the reason this happens is because the reviewer is completely ignorant of the genre and for that reason can't distinguish between good or bad, which makes me wonder why they even attempted to write the review to begin with. This is the reason that PF is crap.

That said, I stand in full agreement with everyone that the Push Kings review sucked. It seems the writer had a really horrible knee- jerk reaction to the music that she never got past... I think it's cool if she wants to use the review as a platform to, um, expose "vacuous pop music" or whatever for the shit she thinks it is, but I would like to see something in the form of "'Vacuous pop' musicians presume X. X is bullshit. Here's why." Unfortunately, she never gets past her own prejudices, or makes any attempt to examine them.

Incidentally, I think the word "elitism" is ridiculously overused in the worlds of music criticism and fandom. But the Push Kings review, is, I think, a case of it. Basically: "A fictional, rich 13 year old girl likes this music. Creed is too hardcore for her. She is a dumbass and thus you and I are better than her and you should not like the Push Kings." What? I'm all for taking yuppies and frat boys whose tastes in music are extensions of their opinions that they're better than you out to the street and beating them, but picking apart the tastes of a 13 year old girl, even a fictional one? That's just obnoxious.

The criticism of "Ashley" seems to be that she's tired of teen-pop and is now thirsting for "rock" credibility but is too young and vapid to actually "get" any of it. (See, for instance, the presumption that she'll move on to Jimmy Eat World and thence, we can imagine, to Pitchfork-approved releases.) This sets up this horrid false reality in which one has to listen to crap for 20 years before suddenly being able to "understand" the "good music" that Pitchfork likes. Whereas I think -- (and this is not to say that the Push Kings album is any good, cause I have no idea) -- that there is something to be said for records that can provide good, careful, quality bridges from uninformed pop listening to eclectic experimentalism or wherever else. But this is just the genre-as- quality thing, which I think reached a peak of badness in the mid-90s and is slowly coming back around to a reasonable level.

Agreed. I thought the Brent D. Tool review was way off the mark, but at least it was entertaining to read. The Push Kings review, on the other hand, does little more than reinforce the elitist attitude that Pitchfork is universally hated for. It's too bad, because this is the type of stuff that works to obscure all of the good writing that appears on Pitchfork.

As a side note, I remember being told that Ryan Schreiber removed a Tool review from the Pitchfork archives because it was favorably reviewed and that he also changed the rating on a Radiohead album to a 10.0 long after it appeared. Can anybody verify if this happened or not, and if not, can they do their best to spread the rumor?

Can't find any changed Radiohead numbers, but here's where Ryan Shriebs boasted aboot calling Cat Power "the Australian Mark Eitzel" (she of course being American).