Best Album Rated 0.0 by Pitchfork Media Upon Its Initial Release

Good luck to all, and I certainly hope I didn't miss anything. It was pretty difficult to dig up most of these... a lot of the older ones are no longer archived on the site.

zaireeka will win this at an absolute canter

I'm not one to pile on Pitchfork, bc like who fucking cares, but wtf

plz nobody give ilxor any more ideas

NYC Ghosts WTF?

I fancy hearing that Francisco Lopez one. But "Music From the Elder", even more so.

Why bother trashing some 1/4 century old Kiss albums?

NYCGAF for me

plz nobody give ilxor any more ideas

I thought of this myself, but wasn't planning to run it until the 0.0 discussions really took off in the other thread.

congrats?

??

Feel free to leave the thread if you're not happy with it.

Zaireeka? Fuck me... I take it all back... Pitchfork sucks.

And that's arguably Sonic Youth's worst album but 0/0, what a bunch of cock.

But... like I say... meaningless without the text.

zaireeka reviewer was all 'fuck finding 4 cd players 0/10' iirc

twat

didn't m4rk r1chards0n write a 33.3333333333 about zaireeka?

Voted Liz Phair. There are some great songs on that record. I've never heard Zaireeka and I understand that it's not like anything else the Flaming Lips have done, but I also don't really like anything else the Flaming Lips have done.

tbf f finding 4 cd players 0.0

I've never heard Zaireeka and I understand that it's not like anything else the Flaming Lips have done

Not true. It's not that far off "The Soft Bulletin".

That's what I liked about Zaireeka, is finding 4 CD players – you'd have to invite friends over so they'd bring their CD players, so listening to it basically meant INSTANT PARTY. And the rare kind of party where everyone just sits on a couch & listens quietly to an album, together in a room. The experience of it was very fun. I think the favorite time I listened to it was when my friends & I each drove a car out to the foothills & parked the cars in a circle & opened their doors, and laid on the ground looking at the stars.

Maybe the reviewer didn't have any friends.

^^^this post. i've heard it properly once, with friends, at school, and the experience was a delight, from the carrying of hi-fis to the frantic pressing of play buttons and then the music, the delirious music, a treat for giddy teenage minds...

the mixdown isn't the same

yeah, MAKE THE FUCKING EFFORT. not all of life should be as easy as searching for an mp3 in your itunes library.

I've not heard a proper "mix" of Zaireeka, but have no interest in doing so. It is great precisely because of the imperfections and unique experience that comes with hearing it a bit differently each time, through new stereo equipment, synced as closely as possible but never really quite perfect.

nyc ghosts is good

Here's my I just bought Zaireeka! listening experience.

"The Elder"! GREAT album :)

voted Travistan, very flawed record that still has some really good songs

i think the Travistan rating is probably the most dick-ish move Pitchfork has ever pulled.

Black Kids - Partie Traumatic (briefly rated 0.0 due to "a regrettable computer error")

iirc this was actually kind of funny

Where is the BTO review?

I think "Free City Rhymes" is one of Sonic Youth's best songs BTW.

here's my morning challop: BTO is better than radiohead

i think the Travistan rating is probably the most dick-ish move Pitchfork has ever pulled.

Definitely... from a Wired article a couple of years back:

Chris Dahlen, a Pitchfork contributing writer and an IT worker who resides in New Hampshire, is a good example. If he hadn't found Pitchfork after college, his career as a writer might have ended at his school paper. "I didn't know anyone at the local alt-weekly, so I just didn't write for several years," he says.

Dahlen is the author of one of Pitchfork's most memorable – and notorious – reviews. In a September 2004 write-up of Travistan, the solo debut of Travis Morrison (former frontman of the Pitchfork-approved art-punk group the Dismemberment Plan), Dahlen gave the album a score of 0.0, declaring that it "fails so bizarrely that it's hard to guess what Morrison wanted to accomplish in the first place."

According to Josh Rosenfeld, the cofounder of Barsuk Records (which released Travistan), the effects of Dahlen's review were immediate and disastrous. Several college radio stations that had initially been enthusiastic said they wouldn't play it. "One indie record store even said that they wouldn't carry it because of the Pitchfork review," Rosenfeld says. "Not because they heard it – because of the review."

I think the most dick-ish move pitchfork has ever pulled was actually getting people to listen to the disemberment plan

They can flat blow me on this one. 'Zaireeka' is fantastic! Its too bad it got so much "hype" due to the 4-disc gimmick because that is one mindblower krautish psych excursion. There are plenty of "mixed-down" versions floating around & I would strongly suggest seeking that out if you can't swing the 4 CD players (or don't want to).

I'm really disappointed. I can't find the Francisco Lopez review either.

The most dick-ish move pitchfork has ever pulled was convincing dismemberment plan it didn't exist.

Sorry, that was horribly formed.

...and, poof! Just like that they were gone...

regrettable computer error

This will be my new generic work excuse (when I return to work).

dismemberment plan was awesome you twats

Sorry, regrettable computer error!

BTO forever

links to all of these review writeups?

"I think the favorite time I listened to it was when my friends & I each drove a car out to the foothills & parked the cars in a circle & opened their doors, and laid on the ground looking at the stars."

you should sell this memory to volkswagen! i can see it already.

lsd lsd lsd lsd lsd lsd

I saw Travis Morrison on tour for that album. It was a fun show. He had four keyboardists on stage, most of whom were cute, peppy girls. What's not to like?

yeah that lineup of the band was fun. the live arrangements of those songs that the D Plan did before breaking up, and that his solo bands did after, were probably better than the versions on the album overall.

It was funny, actually – when I went to see the Dismemberment plan at Kilby Court in SLC, I told him I lived in Boise. He said, "I've played at the Neurolux in Boise before, it's terrible. All these sad dudes who have permanent seats on the bar saying things like, 'I used to babysit for Doug Martsch.'" Then, when I saw Travis Morrison play his solo tour in the Neurolux, I told him I'd talked to him at his show in SLC, and had enjoyed both shows. "Oh man, Kilby Court, that place is the worst. All these people who think they're cool standing in the same spot every night, like they own the place, drinking Utah beer."

i have to vote for Flaming Lips. around this time i saw them do some crazy show with the audience and a bunch of tape recorders.

I wish I had seen a Boombox Experiment. They did do a show here where the audience got to use wireless headphones.

i went to that. couldn't really hear the headphones over the band, still fun though.

man love to ImprovSpirit no disrespect intended but how could anybody not like BTO unless they were kneejerking against dadrock or w/e - Randy Bachman is a goddamn genius imo

None taken. The thing is, I kinda AM "Dadrock". BTO sorta bored me from jump; nothing BTO did was as interesting as what Bachman had done with Guess Who. It was like he'd become a pudgy dork goofing on simplistic recycled rock riffage with the edginess & creativity removed, achieving a MOR rock sound that had lighters waving back & forth by the millions. (Likewise, Burton Cummings was in the process of transforming into a Canadian Barry Manilow who was more like Bill Murray's lounge singer parody on SNL than the under-rated rawk belter he had been.) Its cool though. BTO helped launch many a career for folks in cover bands who could easily reproduce their hits in jukebox-like fashion to get the high-school dances, frat parties & (later) oldies bars in high gear.

Its one of those things. FWIW, I never liked Foghat either.

Re: Strunk & White: I get it.

I kind of hate "Takin' Care of Business" TBH. I have to assume that Samir's had to hear it as much as I have. Still, "Let It Ride" > 0.0.

Who would you really rather spend an afteroon with, the guys with the BBQ blasting some BTO or some i-net indie rock nurd who slags on BTO and their fans in the burbs?
I'd bet the guys in the burbs would probably have even better weed. Ragging on BTO is like making fun of your uncle.

listened to NYC Ghostse & Flowers last night and damn Free City Rhymes is sublime. the album as a whole leaves me cold, which is due to O'Rourke's clinical digital production more than anything else.

lifetime supply of boat shoes.

confusing BTO w/Jimmy Buffett? anyway thanx new for the screen name

NYC Goatse & Flowers?

NYCGAF is my favourite SY album. No joke.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Zaireeka

the bto review really puts it in perspective how much beards took over indie rock

poor lil samir didn't know what hit him i bet

I've only heard of four of these and out of those four Zaireeka wins by light years. The listening party we had in Limehouse town hall in '07, complete with a showing of Fearless Freaks on a projector afterwards, is one of my favourite musical memories.

Voted for Zaireeka, if only b/c the one time I actually listened to it in its entirety was such a memorable experience. I was living in a college rental house w/ eight others at the time & the top floor was basically like a 10x10' landing/hallway w/ a bedrooms off of each corner of the square. Each kid had at least a boombox in their room, if not a full-blown cabinet set-up, so coordinating the discs was actually pretty easy & effective. We just set up some chairs in the landing & had four perfect channels of sound coming at us from each corner.

After this, our spirit of audio-visual adventurism was running at such a fever pitch that we ended up conducting the Dark Side/ Wizard of Oz experiment later that very night!

Tempted to vote for BTO, if only as a revolt against that review - It was published before pf started covering more general-title reissues, so literally the only reason it exists at all is so that some douchebag English major could feel temporarily superior to his douchebag accountant brother-in-law. If the same album were reviewed today, it would get a 6.5-7.7 like everything else.

Come on guys. If you'll look in your hearts, you'll see that only ONE of those albums can be the absolute best. Only ONE of those albums has the BIGGEST HITS in indie rock. Only ONE of those albums is WHAT'S NEXT. I think you see where I'm going with this.

Guys.

The Frusciante review:

John Frusciante: Smile From the Streets You Hold
0.0

Seriously now. Frusciante used to be the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and there've been all sorts of rumors and probably some truths about crazy-ass drug abuse, insanity and his all-out disappearance. Smile For The Streets You Hold would easily have to be the easiest cd to hate that I've ever heard, but hidden between the disturbingly twisted and tortured vocals there are a few gems.

Occasionally a riff emerges from the noise with the perfect clarity of a single snowflake, only to melt into the tumult again. Lyrics that are beyond scream, his voice shattering to bits in mid- incomprehensible verse, alongside sweet, feeling guitar melodies. Hard shit. Looking into someone's soul without sunglasses.

I saw a Frusciante BB somewhere filled with believers hailing him as a genius, as an inspiration, as true unrecognized genius. People wanted to know if River Phoenix had done the vocals on Height Down. An artist somewhere tells us that "John is no more mad than this message is a coatrack. He is simply a genius." Another says: "No words have taught me more than the ones coming from John Frusciante's mouth." Let's agree that it's fringe - way, way out there. I'm giving it a 0 % because you'll have to call this one on your own, sorry.

I likes me some BBQ now. ;-) Maybe I'll have a BBQ & beer throwdown for i'net nerds where we put some Rolling Stones, Ramones & VU on random play. Either that or I'll DJ the BTO BBQ. We could play a bunch of Free (better guitarist & WAY better singer), Lynyrd Skynyrd (better guitarists, better singer), Allman Bros. (WAY (!!!) better guitarists, better singer), Rolling Stones (do I have to say it?), the Who (WAY better songs, WAY better singer, better guitarist, WAY WAY WAY better rhythm section)... BBQ > BTO. LOL!!

it would only seem fair to add Andrew WK's first album to this list too. It got a 0.8 or something ridiculous. It might as well have gotten a 0. I would vote for that album.

on the whole, the 0.0's look more fun to me than the 10.0's

relaxation of the asshole was pretty disappointing. really sad, actually. even the part where he tries to give the underage kid a beer was like "ahh ugghhh"

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

Okay, who's the clown that voted for Jet? Haven't SBed anyone in a loooong time.

wasnt me

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/3543/shaggy.jpg

I think Boy with the Arab Strap was originally a 0.0

(IIRC it came with a review arguing, along some logic I will never be able to even conceive of following, that it was some kind of mind-boggling and reprehensible drop in quality from If You're Feeling Sinister)

Wikipedia sez 0.8., but archive.org ain't working right now

oh, my bad! I just remember being extremely confused by the idea that anyone would listen to Sinister, then get Arab Strap and be like OMG WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED

Interesting that Relaxation of the Asshole was 3x more popular as a 10.0

Btw. I thought Pitchfork was a website. So why all those pre-internet age albums?

Btw.

Between the whites

"If only BTO was able to self-referentially analyze Canada-U.S. geo-political discourse at the same level as the Guess Who"

Every day is an endless train
You've got to ride it to the end of the line
Be a troubleshooter
Blow the bad luck away
And you will make it to your station on time

And you'll find out every trick in the book
That there's only one way to get things done
You'll find out the only way to the top
Is looking out for number one

I mean you
Keep looking out for number one

Every night is a different game
We gotta work for our fortune and fame
Success is a ladder take a step at a time
And the people will remember your name

Yes i found out all the tricks of the trade
That there's only one way that you'll get things done
I found out the only way to the top
Is looking out for number one

Every day is an edless train
But i ride it to the end of the line
I'm a real troubleshooter
And i blow it away
Know what's gonna get me mine

I found out every trick in the book
And that there's only one way to get things done
I found out the only way to the top
Is looking out for number one

I mean you
Keep looking out for number one

And that's us
Keep looking out for number one

That's me
I'm looking out for number one

my all time fave bto song, by the way. one of my favorite songs of the 70's. top 100 probably.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4_0Pt3HAR8

It may not self-referentially analyze Canada-U.S. geo-political discourse at the same level as the Guess Who but "Takin' Care of Business" trenchantly details the soul-crushing, repetitious nature of capitalist wage-slavery:

You get up every morning
From your alarm clock's warning
Take the 8:15 into the city
There's a whistle up above
And people pushin', people shovin'
And the girls who try to look pretty

And if your train's on time
You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
If you ever get annoyed
Look at me I'm self-employed
I love to work at nothing all day

Cherry Red (through its Esoteric Records label) will also reissue the first two Aphrodite's Child albums. Both excellent late 60s psych pop albums that deserve to be available again.

Sorry wrong thread.

Posted this on the Pitchfork thread, but maybe here is a better place. Brent DiCrescenzo humblebrags:

https://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/15974586/%E2%80%9Ci-gave-sonic-youth-a-0-0-rating-on-pitchfork-%E2%80%9D

maybe belongs more on the guy fieri thread

It couldn’t have been more Manhattan art scene had it been Jean-Michel Basquiat reading slam poetry over John Zorn’s ringtones. Come to think of it, that’s basically what it sounds like. I hated its clichéd New Yorkishness.

Sometimes i feel the exact same way about Sonic Youth and Thurston. I just looked up a random NYC-era show on youtube and it starts with TM saying "Maybe we should send this next song out to the dear Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk..." i just had to LOL

Like oh dude you forgot Duke Ellington, Harry Smith, Lou Reed, Neil Diamond, etc

Thurston should have gone all Rollins on dude. DiCrescenzo actually has the cover of Kid A as his fb profile pic. barf

That Stones thing is interesting. I always thought e.g. "Incinerate" reminded me a bit of the Stones.

it always seemed like kind of a given to me that Thurston loves the Stones tbh

Is "Stones" about the Stones?