POLL: WORST Music Criticism of the 2000s

Fuck this poll horseshit!! The second choice is actually "Rolling Stone's review of Mick Jagger's Goddess in the Doorway that may or may not have been ghostwritten by someone other than Jann Wenner"

I actually REALLY like Brent D's review of Kid A!

Best line:

Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper.

I'm not trying to be contrarian here, either. I've always liked this piece from the time I first read it on P4K a few years ago.

He says some pretty OTM shit about the record in there:

Kid A sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Radiohead hated being Radiohead, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Radiohead record yet.

Another great passage:

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. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Nigel Godrich included) created this, it's clear that Radiohead must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

when i was 13, i shared that Kid A review with the Writing Club at my junior high school (really). my appreciation for it has since sharply decreased.

Those adjectives make my brain hurt.

That review was how I found Pitchfork in the first place, and part of the reason I started posting on the Pitchfork forums ... so I could make fun of that review and all the goddamned Radiohead fans who gravitated there.

Never read that Kid A review before, but find it strange that I also got into my only real car accident ever while listening to OK Computer.

yes, that is strange

i was at Pitchfork when that review ran, thought it was hilarious then and still do. always been amazed at how he manages to mention 3 Radiohead songs in the first 6 paragraphs, none of which are on the album he's reviewing.

good thing it was "Airbag" that was playing

Brent has a nice imagination but that review is like an overblown parody of a cliche Pitchfork review.

if kshighway isn't revealed as a sock or sb'd by oct 1, 2009, I'm not posting on this board anymore, real talk.

It was mean for me to single him out (sorry dude). I think I'm getting too cranky to post here anymore :/

the correct answer is actually this: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2771-the-eminem-show/

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Black eyed angels swam at me," Yorke sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.

the correct answer is actually this: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2771-the-eminem-show/

― galumphing lummox (bug), Friday, August 7, 2009 10:15 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

lmaooooooooooo

how had i never seen that

I love that ethan review so much

i humbly nominate this guy and his collected dusted works
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/writers/beckerma
even though i'm almost convinced beckerman's a pen name for someone like ian williams who's having a laugh or two, in which case it's all genius. i mean, i don't think a single song title is mentioned in any of those reviews

This one's even better, and USED to have Brent DiCrescenzo at the end of its credits, now sadly removed: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8242-cheers/

xp

in a normal pfork review there would be some more bullshit here all like 'ha ha he makes fun of that stupid trl but he's on it!!' or like 'his rapping style is a direct copy of gab from blackalicious' like yeah dude timbaland is biting aphex twins white ass too haha i dunno fuck it here are some more bullshit things about the actual record like right on schedule pfork review style

NEXT LEVEL

I'm not sure it's bad criticism, but fwiw, I did not like this fellow's Miles Davis reviews.

Pretty sure it was all written this decade (looks like around 2005).

I mentioned those Miles Davis reviews in the BEST Music Criticism of the 2000s thread. Diffrent strokes, etc.

I thought you were being sarcastic!

But yes, de gustibus non est disputandum, and all that.

I just love how his readers set get monstrously pissed at him, even though he apologizes again and again about how much he hates jazz.

did this quick hatchet-job edit of the Kid A thang just for kicks (yes i am that bored):

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Radiohead were hunched over their instruments. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. A rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Egyptian Song," was certainly momentous, I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Radiohead had the heavens on their side.

............................................

Kid A makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world.

This is an emotional, psychological experience. Kid A sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Radiohead hated being Radiohead, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Radiohead record yet.

"Everything in Its Right Place" opens like Close Encounters spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide whether the tones are coming or going, Thom Yorke's Cuisinarted voice struggles for its tongue. "Everything," Yorke belts in uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "There are two colors in my head" is repeated until the line between Yorke's mind and the listener's mind is erased.

Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the track "Idioteque," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "National Anthem." Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn. Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot. The horns swarm as Yorke screams, begs, "Turn it off!" It's the album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps raisers.

After the rockets exhaust, Radiohead float in their lone orbit. "How to Disappear Completely" boils down "Let Down" and "Karma Police" to their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to bridging Yorke's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "I float down the Liffey/ I'm not here/ This isn't happening," he sings in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album shifts into its underwater mode. "Treefingers," an ambient soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's Low, calms after the record's emotionally strenuous first half.

The primal, brooding guitar attack of "Optimistic" stomps like mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Try the best you can/ Try the best you can," before revealing the more resigned sentiment, "The best you can is good enough." For an album reportedly "lacking" in traditional Radiohead moments, this is the best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a light jam before morphing into "In Limbo." "I'm lost at sea," Yorke cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor beams as Yorke is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned "Idioteque" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "band." For all the noise to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the music. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing Kid A.

Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Morning Bell." Yorke's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust. "Walking walking walking walking," he mumbles while Jonny Greenwood squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Motion Picture Soundtrack" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead mother, "Julia"-- with Ringo and Paul's maudlin, yet sincere LP2 finale, "Goodnight." Pump organ and harp flutter as Yorke condones with affection, "I think you're crazy." To further emphasize your feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Yorke bows out with "I will see you in the next life." If you're not already there with him.

Tempted to go for that "Kid A" review. I mean, obviously the album wasn't all that fantastic, and it was a huge letdown compared to the glorious "OK Computer".

That ethan review!!±±

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

A close-won fight for the king of annoyance.

i always thought that Kid A review was supposed to be in jest, or at least intentional self-aware hyperbole