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helicopterp
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Joined: 13 May 2006
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Location: Philadelphia
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 Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject: Fork You, Pitch! |
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I didn't think this discussion had any place in the Games News thread, so I'm going to try to send it here.
| Swimmy wrote: | Ok, Pitchfork rant time.
Read this review.
Maybe you'll think it's not representative of their content. But if you think it's a good review, congratulations, you're a pretentious hipster, because this is the most meaningless bullshit ever written.
First and foremost, what is up with every Pitchfork reviewer insisting that you know how much they hate music? And why is the logical consequence of this that anything with a fast tempo (except Britney Spears' "Toxic") is beneath their listening standards?
And it just gets worse from there. "I See a Darkness is not music" because, hey, it'spretty good, and music is pretty bad, amirite? Then. . . Christ:
| Quote: | | A friend of mine said this: "I was listening to it the other day and someone called. I had to turn my stereo off. I couldn't just have it on in the background. It felt wrong." |
In other words your friend is someone who regularly treats music as background noise, but s/he thought Bonnie "Prince" Billy was actually good enough to pay attention to. Don't you think that makes your friend, I don't know, kind of ignorable when it comes to criticizing music? Does your friend also talk on the phone while watching movies or reading books? Oh wait, I forgot we're supposed to hate music, never mind.
| Quote: | | I See a Darkness is warmer than the title would have you think, and darker than the warmth of the stellar musical backdrop-- the songs feel both familiar and eerily strange. Virtually every note feels like a universe. It's the type of record that demands solitary reverence. No, this isn't music. It can't be. It's something else. |
See, this is what we mean when we say "pretentious hipster." (I usually avoid the "artfag" part.) There is not a sentence is that paragraph that means anything. Virtually every note feels like a universe? How do you tell the notes that feel like universes apart from the ones that don't? They all kind of sound like notes to me! Notes that, when placed in time and played on various instruments make this thing called music, some of which (in this particular instance) is good and some of which is kind of boring. Seriously, how are you going to give an album 10 stars, put it in the top 10 of your "best albums of the 90s" list, and not actually say anything that couldn't be said about a million other albums?
No, this isn't music criticism. It can't be. It's something else.
(Also this.) |
No, Swimmy, I don't find this representative of Pitchfork's content nowadays. Furthermore, you're right. It's complete rubbish, and it certainly act as a "vehicle" for its author--although I can't imagine why anyone would want to claim that particular ride.
A couple of examples of well-written current reviews are:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/46899-american-gangster
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/46159-cease-to-begin
I used to take issue with pitchfork's practical ignorance of hip hop, but they seem mostly to have overcome that shortfall these days.
| Dracko wrote: | | helicopterp wrote: |
True confession: I'm teaching a music criticism unit with my 11th graders right now. Today we're looking for trends in Pitchfork reviews.
Another true confession: I like pitchfork. Despite all the snark and the general idea that they are somehow the purveyors of cool, it's a very thorough website, and if you actually read the text of the reviews, they stuff them with interesting information. |
Why would you do this? |
We're doing it because I wanted to show my students the type of content that is typically featured in a review (some background about the artist, some insight into the creation and production of the album, other artists or individuals involved in the production of the music, descriptions of the way the music sounds, what works and what doesn't, etc.) as well as some of the technical information that should be supplied (brief lyrics quotes, song titles, name of the record label, name of the artist and album. It's also an attempt to show them diverse ways to make a career with writing, which is not something many of my students consider. I teach students who are almost entirely--there are few enough exceptions that I can count then on one hand--poor and black, and careers in fields like music criticism are extremely remote concepts in their minds. It's exposure for the vast majority of my students, if not all of them.*
Harveyjames, I'm sorry about that obnoxious review of your friend's stuff. It was, like Swimmy's example, worthless as music criticism or, indeed, writing of any kind.
*that's the really, really, extreeeeeeeeeeeeemely short version of my sociopolitical motives for the decision. If you want to talk more about them....set up a different thread?
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dhex
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Joined: 13 Dec 2004
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Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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pitchfork is pitchfork.
i.e. they do an interview with david tibet and go like "wow you use a lot of christian imagery, why?"
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helicopterp
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Joined: 13 May 2006
Posts: 1435
Location: Philadelphia
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| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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Dhex, I rarely understand your references, and that is hindering our relationship.
I've been holding that in for a long time.
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dhex
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simplicio
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Joined: 03 May 2005
Posts: 1091
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| Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:11 am Post subject: |
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this was always my favorite "pitchfork gets served" moment, from an interview with doseone just after his group subtle got big:
| Quote: | PFM: When you released the Season EPs [four records of the band's early work], they were a work in progress. But was it weird to read the fan response to that? Or did you pay any attention?
D: Well the Winter one [a 37 minute ambient improv work] was hysterical, dude. Because we have, I mean, God bless 'em all, unGod bless 'em all, I love our die-hard rap fans, from the raw rap and battle days. But those dudes, they're the ones who really don't know what I look like, they assume I'm like 7'3" and Puerto Rican, you know what I'm saying? Or a goblin, a Puerto Rican goblin or something. So they come up and they do this whole, [b-boy voice] "Yeah man, Subtle, this Spring shit's cool, it's like a bunch of choruses, that's dope. But the Winter dude, where's Dose and Jel?"
And then there's this guy Jim Kaiser at Amoeba, a good friend of ours who plays a bicycle wheel. And his favorite thing, hands down, is the Winter session.
PFM: The flipside of that is, you get a lot of support from the Wire magazine.
D: Yes.
PFM: And the Wire runs reviews like, "Hey, it's 80 minutes of static!", and their readers will put up with anything.
D: "Put up with anything"-- that's an interesting way of...
PFM: I don't mean...
D: No, I know what you mean. Okay-- so what we do, whatever charm there is-- whatever worth there is in it to a third person-- one of the things about our music, is that it's been called egregious, or pretentious. We get these words that are mean compliments. You know what I mean? It gets a star for this, but it's not a good thing to have a star for.
What sometimes gives me an empty feeling is that I read these fucking descriptions of my writing and [they say it's] obsequious, and vague, and I just don't know what these people read-- do they think I'm on tabs of acid...What I remove from my writing is linear context. It's not really important to me, because it doesn't give me chills to see, "you flip the latch and the lock opens and then you can open the top of the chest and inside the chest is this." That doesn't give me chills, to think in that vein. So I've always kind of avoided it.
We make selfish music. The pace is dictated by us. If I want a breakdown here, I put a fucking breakdown here. I am not concerned about the 80 BMP consistency law of popular music. I'm concerned with other things, and they're very valid.
People have perceptions of our press and our acceptance in the press, and I have a very clear one. It's all The Wire. And then some magazines have known Sole and I since we were sending out our first 12"'s, like the XLR8R's-- we're sort of in the sea, but we're not picked. So it's interesting, what is it about the consistency of the palettes at The Wire, and is it experimental music, or is it just...?
I guess they're just open to all forms of music. And we only lay cleanly right now today across their palette, as being what we are and what we're worth. That's very curious to me. This is a point beyond which I cannot come back with answers.
We were a cult rap fetish, so if you were really into the dopest mainstream rappers in '95, then you kept looking, and Company Flow happened, and you got into that movement and you kept refining and trying to find the best rappers. And if you went all the way with it, you found us. So it was like Eminem, Slug, Buck, me, Sole, you know, and we went from that, having this sort of cult clutch rap thing, to our only safe bet being Wire readers. When we go play Sonar, it's like our fucking audience.
[Say] you have this guy at a record store counter, an indie record store counter, and a nice person comes in and says, "I want a record," and this guy looks behind himself, there are some new releases. He looks at the Anticon and he goes, "I love this shit, but I don't know if this guy will like this shit." But there's all these great records that you can safely recommend, whether it's Radiohead Kid A or Notwist's Neon Golden. Or Savath and Savalas, the first record, is fucking perfect, right? Or the Boards [of Canada] record. That may be the people we are in bed with, but we can't be recommended like that. We can't be recommended in the same handful. |
Oh! I went and searched pfork for Robert Wyatt, remembering their laughable interview with him recently vs. the absolutely transcendent one with David Toop in Wire, and came upon a whole treasure trove, wherein half his back catalog is rated between 2.4 and 7.1! Rock Bottom? That's somewhere in the 4s. Brilliant!
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:58 am Post subject: |
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ha! i'm allergic to thesaurus rap but that was great.
i like the wire, myself, even if i don't like about 80% of what they cover. (it might be closer to 70 but i have no real interest in avant jazz)
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simplicio
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Joined: 03 May 2005
Posts: 1091
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| Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:09 am Post subject: |
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The Wire's absolutely my music bible. It took some conscious effort to get into it, but now I devour those. I've been looking for a secondary source too- Signal to Noise is pretty good, and so's The Sound Projector, except that one has nearly everything written by one of two writers so parallel tastes are very much required.
I've never found anything online to match any of them, especially since Brainwashed turned their reviews over to user contributions.
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aderack
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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 1105
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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This thread is fun, nestled up against the Rake one.
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Scratchmonkey
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Joined: 02 Mar 2005
Posts: 1439
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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If it makes anybody feel any better, 2K Sports just Announced an In-Game Soundtrack and Music Partnership with Pitchfork Media for Major League Baseball 2K8*.
* - I worked on this game. |
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aderack
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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 1105
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 1:05 am Post subject: |
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What does Pitchfork say about "Baby Elephant Walk"?
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helicopterp
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Joined: 13 May 2006
Posts: 1435
Location: Philadelphia
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Pitchfork wrote: | | The clarinets blow with a little too much 'we've-been-there-post-post-post-pop' blasé, but still manage to graze the soul in their incessant syncopated honks. |
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bleak
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Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 258
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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Hahah, wow. Pitchfork's gone so far down their own rabbit hole that they've become a parody of a parody of themselves.
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helicopterp
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Joined: 13 May 2006
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Location: Philadelphia
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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That was actually a legitimate parody of pitchfork. It's not their quote; I wrote it.
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bleak
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Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 258
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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ah, well, good work then.
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 3636
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:20 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah Joe there's no actual Pitchfork review of Baby Elephant walk, what are you, an apedog |
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helicopterp
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Joined: 13 May 2006
Posts: 1435
Location: Philadelphia
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:17 am Post subject: |
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I bet "Baby Apedog Walk" could be a pretty interesting song if anyone wanted to write it.
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bleak
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Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 258
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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look james, I didn't actually read that post in the context of being a review for baby elephant walk, I just thought it was a silly excerpt, of which there are probably hundreds. 
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 3636
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm sorry |
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Lestrade
Bug Fister
Joined: 24 Mar 2005
Posts: 1760
Location: Toronto
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:08 am Post subject: |
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| Argh, I meet Pitchfork-quoters all the time. I feel sites like this kind of ruin music for me. I don't read 'em and they don't read me; everybody's happy and I don't have to wear a neck scarf, you know? |
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daphaknee
just enemies now
Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 892
Location: YAY AREA
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:41 am Post subject: |
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if someone quotes pitchfork around me they're going to get punched in the face
if someone quotes their favorite stupid movie around me i might just yell at them
but like, i wish people would just say this album is out it sounds like this band and it has these influences, you might like it!
instead of getting
ugh daphny utopia
anyway dhex i really liked your SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNN article okay i just read your brass bed article and iuts like UGH you just have to read reviewers that you agree with and its just soo
dfklfjfhjk |
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dhex
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Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:51 am Post subject: |
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thanks.
boredoms are playing march 30 at pier 5 in the city, for those in the city who don't already know.
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helicopterp
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Joined: 13 May 2006
Posts: 1435
Location: Philadelphia
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| Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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anyone i should see between march 15th and 18th? i'll be around that town.
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dhex
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Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:59 am Post subject: |
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there's a pogues show on the 16th, iirc.
today is the day is playing on march 17th at the knitting factory.
no doubt there's a few hundred other events going on as well. villagevoice.com is a good rough guide.
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daphaknee
just enemies now
Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 892
Location: YAY AREA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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IF YOU HAVENT SEEN TEH POGUES LIVE DO IT
shane will be dead any minute now |
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