pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I wonder if it's going to serve anyone's needs. I don't think a web- only publication can attract readers interested in Alanis Morissette and Kylie Minogue. To my knowledge, no one actually hunts down information about such artists. People just hear about it on tv and that's it. Let's give Pitchfork a few months, until the corporate contributors pull the plug.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR.

the first thing i thought (after, well, this is no all cure all the time) was that i wished they really had "sold out" (what the fuck, is this 93?), because maybe it would mean LESS GODDAMN PROG.

Well, the Albini thing practically is...

Makes sense, really.

Well, the Albini thing practically is... huh???

You have completed your learning of life's lessons. Now, you suck ass just like all the other bores before you. Kylie, Alanis? Whatever, bitch. I am sure you already have the defense mechanisms in place so, this will mean nothing but, another exercise in...oh, who cares. Looking elsewhere for reality...or maybe I can pretend to be a rubber worm like pitchwhore.com...here big fishie, look, I rounded 'em up for you in a arrel. A whole demographic!

Not Funny

Y'know sometimes they really are asking for it:

"White Williams issues a debut album layered with impeccable influences-- including Roxy Music, Beck, and T. Rex-- and a sense of calculated disaffection."

Well shit SIGN ME UP.

Yeah, that was a bit of a repellant blurb if I ever saw one.

Wait, are you saying that doesn't seem accurate?

I read 'White' as 'While' and thought "The Saul Williams album sounds like that?"

it's more that they used that as their _hook_

x-post

The front blurbs are always stripped/condensed summary descriptions from the review inside -- in this case

His songs are thin and languorous, with impeccable influences and the sort of calculated disaffection that comes from an MFA in design and a good weed connection.

omg that is horrorshow

The blurb >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the article quote

I assume that's an article quote; nabisco, if you just made that up then SHAME ON YOU.

why would a critic ever try to guess where a song comes from?

I'm more bothered by beck as impeccable influence

Wait, are you saying that doesn't seem accurate?

The description of "a sense of calculated disaffection", a combination of words that makes me imagine the shittiest band of all time, followed by "recommended" was repellant for me. I guess I like my disaffection to be natural, not carefully planned, so I would never recommend something like that.

Then again, I've never heard it so what do I know and so on.

b-but someone at pfork said "hm, how can we get people to read this review? I know! we'll mention the artist's impeccable influences and calculated disaffection! that'll reel 'em in!"

RIP satire etc

they could have collaged+mis-used _anything_ from the article, and they collaged+mis-used that

The White Williams album reminds me much more of late 10cc and Bread than of Roxy Music. That bit was like the classic "Let's over-hip our influences" review.

The description of "a sense of calculated disaffection", a combination of words that makes me imagine the shittiest band of all time, followed by "recommended" was repellant for me.

See, this sounds like the blurb WORKED for you -- i.e., efficiently let you know you would probably not like this act.

I agree, though, it looks kind of weird to have such a neutral-to-disparaging summary blurb on a recommended album.

I like how they gave the new Babyshambles, which is actually tuneful and a good all around album, a 4.0, but gave the first one, which is dreadful and hard to listen to / bloated, a 7.3,

Yeah, it was definitely TWICE as good as the new one. Fuckin' morons.

ugh, "impeccable influences" is really repulsive.

(xpost) was that a parody or are you really getting worked up about an internet score for babyshambles

He was worked up?

wait, i thought the grading scale was logarithmic. like 5 is twice as good as 4. somebody email ryan schreiber to find out.

shit, now i need to reevaluate all my purchases of the last five years.

It's actually modelled after the Richter Scale, hence the superlative designations of various well-reviewed albums as either "Reccomended," "Best New Music," or "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On."

But yeah, every month I see a musician make a public response to a bad review and it has never been a good look. Jury is still out on Ice-T telling Aimee Mann to “eat a bowl of dicks”, that was a guilty lol.

My main takeaway about this topic has to do with a particular expectation of entertainers (esp musicians) in relation to society, even if we’re extremely talented and work really hard, our role remains that of a jester, a provider of diversion, and it’s important that entertainers not forget their place, I guess

Aimee Mann wrote an Ice-T review?

xp to J0rdan, that was my thought when I read the Tennis response a week or whatever ago when it was posted, was that I was most-struck by the inaccuracy of certain of its assertions; but also sympathy for the feeling, Tennis!

In defense of Whiney’s entire schtick, I appreciate now and have always appreciated that his knee-jerk dismissals are reflective of the views and feelings of a substantial subset of the audience, he’s basically saying what the silent majority is thinking and I appreciate him for that

The P-fork review to which fgti alludes is a smart, empathetic review that nevertheless misses how many queer artists (re)construct identity.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, May 21, 2025 11:27 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Can fgti have an opinion or you have to do your Cap'n Save a Pitchfork Writer schtick on every thread?

Pitchfork: https://web.archive.org/web/20090821143234/https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8036-the-illusion-of-safety/

Alfred: Actually, this is John Updike

even if we’re extremely talented and work really hard, our role remains that of a jester, a provider of diversion, and it’s important that entertainers not forget their place, I guess

Hey that Japanese band had something to say about that...

道化の化粧　派手な衣装で　芝居がかってるチャリティーショー
意味もなく喚きちらし　あとでひざをかかえる

悲しい詩人　酒に溺れて　神秘の影をまとう
涙をほんの少し　貰えたら幸せ

人気者はごめんだ　人気者は僕じゃない

With clown makeup and gaudy clothes
I'm doing a charity show
Meaninglessly shouting all over the place
And afterward, hugging my knees

A sad poet drowning in drink
Dressed up in the shadow of mystery
If he gets just a few tears, he's happy

I'm sorry about the celebrity
The celebrity isn't me

haven't kept up for a while but the first three Tennis albums were really good

No, Aimee Mann posted a series of tweets saying that Ice-T couldn’t act and that it was weird he was cast in whatever show he was cast in, and wondered why musicians got acting roles. He told her to eat a bowl of dicks. She apologized and called him “Mr T” which was also weird. I remember thinking at the time “but Sam Phillips upstaged everyone in Die Hard 3 without even trying”

xp Whiney you misread Alfred’s reply I think

And I love your dn so much Whiney lolll

Can fgti have an opinion or you have to do your Cap'n Save a Pitchfork Writer schtick on every thread?

― gioia thoing (Whiney G. Weingarten)

the fuck are you talking about?

as far as I can tell, fgti and Alfred are on the same page here and no one's trying to do a blanket amnesty for all pitchfork reviews, let alone a completely unrelated terrible one Whiney's digging from the ashes of time on the internet archive

No, I do love Alfred and I understand that he agrees with the criticism, but the fact that he always has to Kool-Aid Man in and glaze the writer is annoying!

fgti and I were discussing how writers approach queerness in their reviews. I don't talk much about Pitchfork and it's strange that you think enough about it to keep a dossier.

And I love your dn so much Whiney lolll

― calm potatoes (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, May 21, 2025 11:59 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thank you. I still haven't recovered from J0rdan not liking it

Just on this topic, it has caused me some identity-quaking to observe that the most successful queer musicians have either achieved household-name status while in-the-closet, or have leaned heavily into expected-tropes of what queerness is meant to look like to non-queers as to feel like it’s self-stereotyping. This, coupled with the fact that the aforementioned success stories are people I respect and admire and do not wish to criticize; like, it has always made me feel like I want to cheerlead things like, say, “Enlightenment” or “I Am Love” or Backwash and any other queer art that actually subverts and redefines what queerness can look like and sound like. [/digression]

My current dn is just a note-to-my-future-self to start a thread about invented fake recipes: calm potatoes, fish pops, German bun burger

good discussion here. no thoughts from me, just wanted to give you guys a shout.

ime as a lofi music maker and then lofi critic, i wrote bad reviews for smaller acts that i thought knew better, but only after i got criticized about some insignificant bullshit that wasn't even present during the making. my critiques never deterred anyone, nor did anyone else's deter me. so yeah. no harm, no foul?

also this whole thing made me think of "desperate journalist." surely an acceptable, if not outright good, example of this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaVpFpxhRn0-
the cure ― "desperate journalist in ongoing meaningful review situation (john peel session)" (1979)

in retrospect, that didn't seem to affect their pr much.

And that goes for all you punks in the press
That want to start shit by printin' lies
Instead of the things we said
That means you
Andy Secher at Hit Parader
Circus Magazine
Mick Wall at Kerrang
Bob Guccione Jr. at Spin,
What you pissed off cuz your dad gets more
pussy than you?
Fuck you
Suck my fuckin' dick

Negronis for everyone!

Being a critic 100% helped me deal with criticism better as an artist, keep it in perspective and see it from the other side of the desk (although I still take care to avoid reviews if its at all humanly possible). Raymond OTM about how it really is a no-win situation in a lot of ways. I once gave a positive review to a posthumous release by an artist and got an email about it from their surviving spouse. It was brief & complimentary, thanking me for the review, but it still fucked me up majorly, just the whole situation.

Alfred sometimes I picture you living in a pineapple under the sea except it's a cottage-sized Negroni in a short tumbler

I hope my posts earlier weren't obscuring my point by leaning too hard on my personal experiences, which was simply that "being subject to reviews" can elicit deeply weird and surprising emotional responses, and that I'm generally sympathetic to artists when they feel compelled to respond (whilst agreeing that it is never a good look)

I drink Negronis out of skulls.

alfred owns in south florida so he will be living under the sea soon enough

https://i.imgur.com/sJv1vo1.jpg

Alfred now must drink Negronis from cut open pineapples

is there an ilm topic for when musicians directly respond to criticism? even just like a list post?

i find it a fascinating phenomenon and am inclined to agree with fgti in the sense that i know it's probably a bad idea, but i still want to hear them out. feel like i owe it to them a little bit.

(unless i find their records crap, then who cares right)

Alfred, you should have posted the Little Mermaid cover with all the penis towers.

Such wonderful things surround you
What more is you lookin' for?

I drink Negronis out of skulls.

Collect the heads of loser bands, and
Put 'em on my wall

I drink Negronis out of skulls.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, May 21, 2025 1:43 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I challenge you to either start or end a poem this way

Sounds like if Tom Waits and Jimmy Buffett had collaborated on a song.

Did Waits ever cover “Margaritaville”?

I think Tennis is a good name for a band, but ONLY if they go down the 'horrible 70s album titles' route and all their records are called things like Anyone for Tennis?, or Racket with a cover showing people clutching their ears and grimacing as the band plays

Their mature album “40-Love”

Double Fault...Live!

Googling these guys and seeing their hilarious 80s wigs, clothes, and facial hair and i feel like just reviewing that, forget the music

I met a friend for a pint a minute ago and walked in and said “wow is this a dance-pop cover of This Woman’s Work?” and it revealed itself to be a song by the band Tennis. Not to dunk I like camaraderie among creatives but I thought it was funny

Haha

Tennis album called You Cannot Be Serious and the cover is them making these facial expressions but they're also wearing clown makeup

https://www.billboard.com/wp-content/uploads/media/Tennis-press-by-Luca-Venter-2020-billboard-u-1548.jpg?w=942&h=623&crop=1

Serving with Tennis
Tennis Follows Through
Back to Baseline
Singles: The Greatest Hits

My Fault

I feel like I saw this band open for ... Haim? That was a long time ago, had no idea they were still around, but if memory serves they were indeed pretty mid.

You Cannot Be Serious IS a pretty clever album title, gotta give em credit there

i don't think that's a real album of theirs, just a pitch in this thread for the more self-aware band they shoulda been

in that timeline, it was followed by their second album, Deuce!

i'm being 100% genuine and i'm sorry for the total sidebar but... is there a thread for stuff like that? like, made up alternate band history? maybe The most interesting pieces of pop music trivia that you know (that are 100% false) ? but i wanna dig into some lore, y'know.

why? because i think it's fun and you guys are doing good work here. as you were.

One review said that if you know one thing about Tennis you know that they were born on the sea.

their music sounds like what an AI would spit out if you put in "lo fi study beats but with a female singer"

i don't think that's a real album of theirs, just a pitch in this thread for the more self-aware band they shoulda been

not entirely their fault, this is the kind of actionable takeaway that Pitchfork reviewers were failing to provide them with

They look like a Mad TV sketch.