pfork and the hype machine. reaching new levels?

It feels really good to get that off my chest.

one could say, don't read pfork if it annoys you, just as i could say, don't write at this thread if it annoys you!

I'd rather they not inundate readers with their band of the week, relentlessly.

re: mark--that could go on and on. enuff

xpost

[B]ZZZZ
Palm Reader
Polyvinyl
(Reviewed by zZz)[/B]
Accompanied by the Nina Hagen-like vocals of Ellen Bunch, ZZZZ is experimenting with classical genres, creating a very authentic sound. They are like a hyperactive Phillip Glass who meets Steve Reich doing avant-garde punk cabaret on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The uptempo rhythm section is accompanied by staccato klezmer saxophone licks, which gives the majority of the album a speed-polka-punk feel. The themes on Palmreader are short, mathematical and without sentiment. Key words: ain't grooving. After a few songs, the ordered chaos tends to get on your nerves a bit. Well, ours anyway. The last two tracks (“Railroaded” and “Buncerto”) are the most accessible on Palmreader. Although still from planet ZZZZ, the tempo is turned down a notch, which gives you time to bang your head for a few minutes. All in all: ZZZZ is not really our thang, but their sound, concept if you will, sure as hell is unique. We're curious about their live show, which must be a thrilling experience.

I think you're ascribing too much conscious deliberation and strategizing to the site, which is something I see a lot of people do. Do you really think Schreiber called up Rob Mitchum all panicked and said, "Quick, review the Believer disc! ILX and The Times have scooped us!!" It's equally likely the review had been in the pipeline for a while, but they decided to wait to run it until they'd already reviewed some more notable releases. The only thing I can see the attention given by Sanneh and others as having some influence on is Ryan making it the lead review today.

mark i suspect that the widely-ciculated, not to say "notorious," Arcade Fire interview offers clues - it was clear there, and seems apparent elsewhere, that p-fork takes some pleasure in thinking of itself as a tastemaker. so much so that sometimes it appears (as in the present case to some ppl) that there's been some kinda meeting: "ok, we really like the new White Magic, we're gonna push the shit outta that thing. X, can you get a track review? Y, email Drag City and see if there's anything we could make the lead news piece next week. Tell 'em I'm giving their ad prime real estate and a bargain," etc. etc., much chomping of cigars and slow ceiling fans in play

naturally the truth is i'm sure more complex but when a publication seems to be telegraphing its intention to increase somebody's profile, rather than responding to something already happening at shows/on radio/etc., people are gonna point fingers

xpost - jaymc, what'd I write?: "accordingly, they made it their lead review."

much chomping of cigars and slow ceiling fans in play

See, this is what I disagree with.

I mean, yes, the site has a particular vision, but it's not like Ryan and Scott are sitting at a conference table every day, stroking their chins, thinking of new ways to be a hip, indie hype machine.

yes jay i was sorta pointing out that the actual situation isn't like that, that the vision of meetings where these sorts of things occur is a noir-ish fantasy of the way things work. at the same time, i don't think the believer cd would have gotten a drop of ink without the one-two punch of kelefa & ilx - it's an effin' free covermount cd. and again, it really does seem like pitchfork relishes thinking of itself as Kingmaker.

Arcade Fire too
they think they are the shit
adn to a certain extent their hype works,
but they GOTTA be first
that's for sure

bummer for the bands that they DON'T catch on to first
then they never get any pfork love

haha

Really? It's got a lot of notable indie artists doing covers of other notable indie artists. For a site that reviews around 1,000 CDs a year, you don't think they were planning on making time for this one?

haha, that is golden. I don't know, I get the feeling that PFork is kind of innocent with regard to this kind of stuff. Which is to say, management of a site with that kind of influence could be way more aggressive/insidious in the right/wrong hands.

I think it's really high for spin, fifty fifty for RS

Pitchfork: It's really funny. It's like we can't exist independently in the press. I mean, are you as sick of that as we are?

Pitchfork: I suppose people need their angle. But I almost just feel bad for you guys. Like we tend to get really carried away when we love a record, and while that tends to help a lot of bands we think deserve attention, there can also be negative repercussions if we go too nuts.

Pitchfork: On some level, it does suck for us to love a record, praise it, and then have it be instantly perceived as overexposed by some people. But to me, it's an incredible record that would have been going places regardless of what we said or did.

But perhaps Ryan Pitchfork really is just enthusiatic, and I'm being cynical about the whole thing.

Give me one example of this.

I hadn't read that Kelefa piece. Which is odd, I usually read most of the NYT music content. (looking at it now, it ran on my bday and I went out that night and of town for the weekend the next day.)** Not sure if Rob has. I'm almost certain Ryan hadn't. Hell, if something close to the same piece we were planning on running was printed elsewhere it would make it *less* likely that we'd go ahead with someting. (e.g., a piece like andrew untenberger's stylus rhino 90s box thing was going to be a weekly pfm feature the week the set is released; now it's scrapped.)

Also, bands the editors like get bigger pushes shock, etc. (goes double for bands ryan likes). can't see how that is unique to pfm or would be surprising to anyone. (how the bands are presented - the dialogue around them - is something else entirely) (no coincidence perhaps which recent pfm reviews made indierock4eva)

**anyway, this stuff isn't whipped together at the last second (insert your own jokes). KS' piece ran five days ago, well after Rob had been assigned to write this as a headline review. e.g., we have an ideal headline sched through July set at the moment. It would be pretty odd for us not to know what a headline review is going to be in a few days' time, which is the situation being imagined by conspiracy theorists here.

re: t.i. and trx: trx is more haphazard and on-the-fly than lps, and due to unforeseen etc etc we needed a track headliner- even if it wasn't timely- asap (no pun intended)

yeah, I thought that was pretty bizarre.

Um, because Ryan heard the album and really liked it? Seriously, someone listens to an album, decides to give it a score between 8 and 10, it goes in Best New Music. More or less.

ha

PFork wins.

Outrage that the Pitchfork editors don't reflect your personal tastes is pretty dim. They don't reflect mine either; in fact no single publication does, *gasp* shock horror etc.

it's just annoying, there's a difference mr. sleepy

I don't think I'd be divulging trade secrets if I expanded a little on Jaymc's "more or less," up above. The process of assigning something to Best New Music, beyond the individual critic liking the album, also includes plenty of the sensible everyday stuff you'd imagine it would: discussion around the staff, comparing different takes on the record, and I assume plenty more discussion between the editors. There isn't some complex, magical system, or some hype-fueling tastemaker dictatorship, or some key rating point above which things are automatically included -- just the standard organization of editors and their writers, making decisions about which records seem most appropriate. I'm sure different people have different notions of what the Best New Music tag should ideally mean -- say, whether it's just for anything remarkably good in any genre, or whether it's a kind of generally-accessible recommendation to the core audience -- but it seems to me that the editorial side has kept up a pretty consistent vision for it.

Thanks, I feel better now.

-- Ned Raggett

What do you mean?

For all my bitching, I've never had a problem with what Pitchfork likes, I just object to what they dislike and their particular critical vocabulary. The latter is especially a problem with the Wilderness review. But "hype"? Not so much.

Hi,

I've been looking for a t-shirt that says "Baltimore-The City That Reads" for a long while, and your post is the first mention I've seen of it. I know you said you got it in exchange for writing a review, but do you have any information for me as to where I might be able to find one for myself?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Ian xxxxxxx