Pitchfork

[the captain]

Mentioned in the Weezer thread, I thought I'd start one about them. Please include your favorite criticism, rant, or (if possible) example of terrible, terrible ranking/writing.

I, for one, think their review of The Delgados' minor masterpiece "The Great Eastern" was atrocious. I forget the score just now, but it was something like a 2 or less. Like, "Oh, these dramatic horns and strings, these big melodies....nope."

[sugarandspice]

 I dig me some pitchfork... they have been know tho to totally be off the mark, and exstreamly harsh with some of their reviews, I cannot thing of one specifaically...  But I generally dig the merda they like.......... if it werent for pitchfork I wouldnt know about some of the albums that I now love.

xoxoxo
suga

[Old Rake]

Here's a link to their UTTERLY CLUELESS, POINT-MISSING Neil Diamond review. 4.0 out of 10. Crack smoking errant nonsense. Every other magazine and paper in America called it a masterpiece and it made tons of best-of-the-year lists, rightfully so. Ian will stand by it loudly, as will I.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/d/diamond_neil/12-songs.shtml

Here's a "hey, I'm bucking the trends! I don't give this album a good review OR a bad review!" 6.0 review of Wilco's peerless "A Ghost Is Born," one of the most enigmatic and brilliant records of the last 10 years. Wishy-washy claptrap by a writeer who isn't sure what to make of something but pontificates nonetheless.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/wilco/ghost-is-born.shtml

Here's a clueless review of Mercury Rev's gorgeous, lush "Secret Migration" by a guy completely predjudiced by his "love of the old stuff". Phooey. It's just bad criticism.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/mercury-rev/secret-migration.shtml

And I'm sure plenty folks HERE will agree with this, I think this is an example of backlash-biting, and its total hoo-ha, and wrong besides. They *overrated* the 2nd one and *underrated* this one while riding the ol' backlash wave.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/strokes/first-impressions-of-earth.shtml

And they CRIMINALLY underrated "Get Behind Me Satan" AND "Elephant." The latter aint' really my cup of tea but I have to tip the hat to the Stripes nonetheless -- its certainly better than 6.9! Backlash, anybody? Typical.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/white-stripes/get-behind-me-satan.shtml
http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/w/white-stripes/elephant.shtml

And here's somebody reviewing not the ALBUM of Zaireeka by the Flaming Lips, but merely the CONCEPT. He couldn't have gotten 3 friends? Irresponsible claptrap. He gives it ZERO STARS.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/f/flaming-lips/zaireeka.shtml

[b.dfzo]

I remember when I read their review of the "Smiley Smile/Wild Honey" twofer.  It was very extreme - I mean, I like "Smiley Smile", but I wouldn't give it a 9.5, especially in light of their 7.5 rating of "Pet Sounds", and their rating of "Wild Honey" - a measly 3.5.  Wha?!?  THe reviewer says that album "barely deserves a paragraph"!

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/beach-boys/smiley-smile.shtml

[sugarandspice]

 I vaugely remember the review of pet sounds, if I recall correctly the  reviewer had a thing against  pet sounds simply  because it seemed "in fashion"  to like the album..  I mean they gave it a  good review, not as  high as  I percive pet sounds... but thats me..  I prefer  pet sounds to smile anyhow......

xoxoxooxox
suga

[Jason]

Pitchfork sucks. That's all you need to know. Wanking disguised as journalism.

[sugarandspice]

 I disagree, sure they are can be snobish, elitist, pieces of sh*t, but they do have good taste in music,  if it werent for them there is some music, that I wouldnt know about.

suga

[the captain]

Belle & Sebastian, Boy With the Arab Strap, 0.8. I mean, seriously...

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/belle-and-sebastian/boy-with-the-arab-strap.shtml

Of Montreal's Adhils Arboretum, partly for its disappointing rating, but more for its stupidity in the review text itself.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/o/of-montreal/aldhils-arboretum.shtml

There's more and more... Annoying, idiotic, anti-trend (thus trend...jst differently), uber-hipster f u cks.

And yet, I've yet to find a legitimately good, cross-genre, intelligent source for reviews. So I check Pitchfork daily.

[Old Rake]

That "Boy With The Arab Strap" review is the most retarded piece of journalism I've read in a long time. MORE hilarious if you look back and notice that "Boy" and "If You're Feeling..." are near-identical albums, and both about equal levels of good. Hilariously, retardedly OTT -- to go from like a 9 star to .8? Please. Even if the album sucked, .8 should be reserved for like Ashley Simpson. Or not even: for Korn or something.

[OLD GREGG]

Pitchfork represents the very bottom of humanity, a range of blithering idiots who so consistently miss the point and reason why music moves people and why it's a special thing, that it's fodaing tragic, these people should be removed from this world of 'hip and happenin' journo bullmerda' like the remains from a very messy lunch. Everything has to be weighed up on their scales, "Can I like this?? AM I ALLOWED To like it?"

here take this from the review of musicology by Prince, it's not the score that irks me, its the way they explain why they dont like it..

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/p/prince/musicology.shtml

"One of the first things a rock critic learns is not to emphasize the character on the other end of the speakers when reviewing records. This person, who is playing the tunes and singing the songs, isn't to be treated as a performer so much as the instigator of all the terrible/wonderful noise infesting the writer's world, and should be judged accordingly. That is, by the social rules of rock criticism, one shouldn't judge the musicians at all, merely their music-- and even then, only in terms of how it affects the writer, and in turn, how it might do the same for other listeners. The "argument" comes during the moments when you either agree or disagree with the writer's experience.

The next thing writers learn is that just thinking of one's own experience isn't enough, because there's a whole world out there giving clues to the real value of the music. If music "matters," it follows that its impact should be obvious outside the window; "relevance" is paramount at this stage of criticism, though since bitter humility is a daily part of any rock writer's life, it pays to phrase arguments stressing relevance in ways that don't obviously indicate its bias. This kind of criticism may seem harsh (and pretty unrelated to the actual musical experience), but it also shares much with traditional journalistic aims of reporting and immediate interpretation, and as such, is a method emphasized at most mainstream music pubs."
Please read the rest of the review, but note the highlighted sentence, this pretty much sums up why the way they go about reviewing and the skill with which they apply to the task is so utterly backwards.. MUSIC is NOT like anything else. Therefore it should NOT be lumped in with 'traditional journalistic aims'. There is no love in anything I've seen in Pitchfork, nothing seems to move them, like Jon highlighted about the Zaireeka review, I mean seriously, what was that about? He didnt even hear it and hes still reviewing it??? What the hell is that about? The fact that this guy is only listening to music on a crappy little half broken cd player says so much of the drivel that they print.

The Smile Shop is a hundred times the music site that Pitchfork ever will be.

[dude ll doo]

The one review I read in Pitchfork was fot XTC's recent single "Spiral" . They panned it. I heard it, and loved it. Havent been back since. As far as new music goes, for the most part, you can have it. 

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

It's just another website.  Does anybody really care what any "rock journalist" thinks about a work of music?  Pitchfork, like any other good commoditized entity, has merely chosen a schtick and stuck by it.  They're influential for a reason in my opinion; they don't pander to anybody but themselves.  If you try to please everybody then what are you?  I think that any music criticism can help you figure out whether you might like a certain reviewed work.  In the case of pitchfork, you take a cross section of maybe 15 or 20 reviews of albums you have, then weigh that against your own reviews.  From there you're all set.

If you don't like it, don't read.  Or do.  Take their advice, or don't.  I don't see what the big deal is.   

Besides, it is a nice place to go for news, if nothing else.

[Boxer Monkey]

I've never liked Pitchfork, aside from an occasional news item here and there. So if a review is disliked ... fine by me.

[Old Rake]

Does anybody really care what any "rock journalist" thinks about a work of music?

I do, very much. I'm certainly not of the school of "all rock journalism is useless" or whatever, that's nonsense. If you read a writer you care about -- for me its folks like Lester Bangs in the olden days or Chuck Klosterman in the new days, people who feel *passionately* about music and write accordingly -- they can make you enthusiastic about albums in a way you forget you can. Those people are tastemakers. They have impeccable, intriguing taste that takes you into unheard territory. You read them to learn new things.

If you try to please everybody then what are you?

Nobody is saying they should "please everybody." What I'm saying is that more often than not their reviewers fail to think for themselves. Too often they hype or pan based on trends -- they follow commonly-held "backlashes" and hype the same-old-same-old, and fall so often into patterns. You can PREDICT their reviews based on what you'd figure any hipster dufus would think. Oh, its the band's second album? BACKLASH TIME, baby. Yawn -- its like reading reviews generated by a "hipster generator".

I just wish their reviewers were about 90% less catholic in their taste. They have the "indie canon" and nothing more.

I don't see what the big deal is.

The big deal is that, as witness by this very thread, lots of people do follow their advice. That's great when it means checking out new bands. But how many people were steered clear of those great albums they panned and *utterly missed the point*? That's when Pitchfork sucks, and that's why I think that they need to up the ante of the reviewers they hire. These ones care too much about hipster cache.

[Chris D.]

Bugul, great post.  I totally agree, and that's why I can't stand rock "journalism" or review criticism for any medium.  It's worthless.  I've read it, hated it, tried it, and hated it.

MORE hilarious if you look back and notice that "Boy" and "If You're Feeling..." are near-identical albums

No way.  "Boy With the Arab Strab" is much lighter, but sounds like it's from an older band because they'd already become hip by then.  It's really probably closer to "Tigermilk," with the little "electronic" song in the middle, but not as good overall.  And they do have different sensibilities.

[Old Rake]

It's worthless.

By no means is the work of Lester Bangs "worthless." You might not *like it* but it is not worthless.

[I. Spaceman]

Nor is the work of Nick Kent, Greil Marcus, Peter Guralnick, Paul Williams, Jon Hunt, Bugul, Chris D. and me.

[sugarandspice]

No citque is really worthless, nor is the critic, I mean sh*t they must be doin something right if they are inighting a flame undersomes ass to spark conversation, or someone buying that record.. any publicity is good publicity so they say...

xoxoxooxo
suga

[Chris D.]

For the most part, the only writing about music I like is stuff that focus on history.  I like England's Dreaming because he's not trying to be witty or anything.  He's talking about the music and its impact.  I give Lester Bangs credit for having his own group, but with a lot of people who review music I get the feeling that they're really trying to use words to create the same feeling as rock music.  Not going to happen.  If you want to hit people the same way as rock music, make rock music.  The fact that he tried doing music says to me that he understood this, at least to a point.  But, to explain myself more, let's look at  some of an article he wrote on Eno.  The whole thing is on Perfect Sound Forever.

The other day I was lying on my bed listening to Brian Eno's Music For Airports. The album consists of a few simple piano or choral figures put on tape loops which then run with variable delays for about ten minutes each, and is the first release on Eno's own Ambient label.

So what?  You've (Lester) described something I should be listening to.  In the first two sentences of the article Lester Bangs has described exactly why writing about music to put the reader in the critic's place doesn't work.  If you're writing about the tape loops to describe their influence on people, fine.  If you're doing it to make me feel like I'm listening to the music, put down the pen.  Tell me where to buy the record instead.

Like a lot of Eno's "ambient" stuff, the music has a crystalline, sunlight-through-windowpane quality that makes it somewhat mesmerising even as you only half-listen to it.

Read more.  "Sunlight-through-windowpane quality" is sophmoric -- it sounds literary, but you know someone has written that before, and it probably didn't have much (replay) value then.  It's a little too trite.  Makes you cringe.

I had been there for a while, half-listening and half-daydreaming, when something odd happened: I starting thinking about something that didn't exist.

More pain, for me.  "I starting thinking about something that didn't exist."  This is like a bad Rimbaud line or something.  This is a tactic I can't stand -- saying something pretentious to shock the reader.  Trying to draw us in by acting like you're in on a secret because you're a journalist.  Just give me the information.

I was quite clearly recalling

"Quite clearly"?  This isn't the 1800s.

a conversation I'd had with Charles Mingus, the room we were in at the time and the things he'd said to me, except that I had in reality never been there and the conversation had never taken place. I realized immediately that I was dreaming, though I had no memory of falling asleep and had in fact passed over into the dream state as if it were an unrippled extension of conscious reality.

This is the first taste of Bang's talent.  "Unrippled extension."  That's good.  It flows well.  It describes what's going on, not himself.  I'm not reading this for him.  I'm reading to see what he's discovered.  This is what he should focus on.

So I just lay there for a while, watching myself talk to Mingus while one-handed keyboard bobbins pinged placidly in the background.

"Bobbins pinged placidly..."  Why?

Suddenly I was jolted out of all of it by the ringing phone. I stumbled in disorientatedly

"Disorienttatedly" is superfluous.

to answer it, and hearing my voice the called asked: "Lester, did I wake you?"

"I'm not sure," I said, and told her what I'd been listening to. She just laughed; she was an Eno fan too.

The ending is a little smug.  "She laughed because she was an Eno fan," would work better.  Instead he makes Eno sound like some lame club no one else would ever want to touch.

Brian Eno, one of the emergent giants of contemporary music, can be a truly confounding figure.

"Emergent giants" -- this is a horrible phrase.  I'm sure you can find it in a million rock articles.  All it says to me is I'm going to have to wade through a shitload of hero worship that I don't care about.  Tell me about the guy.

Everything about him is a contradiction. He's a Serious Composer who doesn't know how to read music. What may be worse, he's a Serious Composer who's also a rock star. But what kind of rock star is it that doesn't have a band and never tours, also enjoying the feat of being allowed by his various record companies (mostly Island) to put out an average of two albums a year since 1973 when none of them has sold more than 50,000 copies? (In the midst of this prolific output, he was quoted in pop papers everywhere, insisting that he was not a musician at all.) A man who (artistically speaking) goes to bed with machines and lets chance processes shape his creation, yet dismisses most other modern experimental composers for the lack of humanity in their work. Everybody's favorite synthesizer player, who says he hates that instrument.

There we go.  That's good.  It moves pretty quickly and gives me a little glimpse into Eno's personality.  Capitalizing "Serious Composer" is funny, but only a little, which is perfect for this kind of writing.  I don't get confused by a writer who wants me to know more about him than the subject of the writing.  He can give me Eno, so Bangs does understand some of what style is for.  It takes him a while to get into really writing, but he's got talent.  Obviously, my complaints revolve around the fact that I hate journalists who insist on forcing their personality over the whole article.  Some people like that style.  That's fine.  But to me it's worthless.  I can definitely say that.  I find no value in it.  Other people do and that's cool, but I stand by everything here.  He has some talent, but so do a lot of people.  If it were directed elsewhere then I'd like him a lot more.  The article is actually pretty good because he mostly focuses on Eno.  But the other stuff...ugh.  And I think that's too many rock writers.  I don't care about their personalities or their ability to recycle the same tired phrasing.

[I. Spaceman]

I think that's one of Bangs' worst pieces. He rarely wrote well when talking about something he liked.
Where he shined was writing about what truly moved or angered him. A job reviewing new product on a regular basis didn't become him.
A very erratic writer, his best stuff, such as the Troggs essay and James Taylor Maked For Death is mindbending because he when he stops trying to describe music, his writing becomes music for the mind, the closest approximation to rock in the literary world that there is. Word-jazz.

[Boxer Monkey]

As a writer, Richard Meltzer is a lot stronger than Bangs, but his critical instincts aren't as acute. I like Bangs, but I prefer Meltzer. And both of them are better writers than their legions of Pitchfork imitators.

[I. Spaceman]

Ahhhhh, I forgot Meltzer. Man, he's just incredible. Nick Tosches too.

[Chris D.]

And both of them are better writers than their legions of Pitchfork imitators.

No argument though.  My stylistic tastes aside, Bangs is a pretty human guy who really does care about what he writes about.  As other people have said, Pitchfork is more about following trends.  You can find nice reviews on the site, but it's rare.  Most of the writers only care about music as a status symbol.  I don't think Bangs was every really about that.  More like Lou Reed, but as a reviewer.  Music was another thing to get him through the day.

[I. Spaceman]

"from Notes on PiL’s Metal Box"
by Lester Bangs (published in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, Greil Marcus, ed.)
 
 
Buried deep in the Sex Pistols’ The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, one of the greatest albums ever made, is Johnny Rotten singing to San Francisco: "Belsen was a gas I heard the other day / In the open graves where the Jews all lay / Life is fun and I wish you were here / They wrote on postcards to those held dear." At the end of the song he begins to shriek: "We don’t mind! Belsen was a gas! Kill someone! Kill yourself! We don’t mind! Please someone! Kill someone! Kill yourself! We don’t mind! Please someone! Kill someone! Kill yourself!" Then there is a moment of silence and the crowd screams. It’s one of the most frightening things I’ve ever heard. You wonder exactly what you might be affirming by listening to this over and over again. On one level Johnny Rotten / Lydon is an insect buzzing atop the massed ruins of a civilization leveled by itself, which I suppose justifies him right there, on another level he’s just another trafficker in cheap nihilism with all that it includes—cheap racism, sexism, etc. I’m still not comfortable with "Bodies." But then I never was, which may be the point. But then I wonder if he is. After which I cease to wonder at anything beyond the power of this music.

In life things never do what they should. In rock ’n’ roll things always do what they should. That’s why it’s fascist.

I am surrounded by psychotics. Often I suspect I am one. Then certain records come out and I know I am not alone.

Man on radio: "I’m not here to teach you to think."

Neither am I. What I am here for is to con you into buying anything by PiL.

I would not presume to say the audience in San Francisco wanted to die, but dying takes no courage now. That may be why John Lydon / Rotten quit the Sex Pistols immediately after that night. There are only so many times you can tell somebody something in plain English till you realize they don’t get the irony even in that; they don’t hear the words. All they see is a reflection of a spurious notion of the self and a spurious passion too, so you stop attempting to communicate. If people want to think Belsen was a cheap joke, that’s their problem. So Rotten / Lydon retreated to England, where he formed Public Image Ltd., which people on both sides of the pond have not been shy in telling me they think is also a joke.

But then most people don’t listen to music, as the Sex Pistols proved conclusively.

I don’t give a f*** about John Lydon. I suspect him to be a pompous little putz. Let him blab in NME. Still, I think he knows what he’s doing, and PiL is the proof. Because The Metal Box is one of the strongest records I’ve heard in years. PiL’s first was just a big f*** you to all the people who bought the Pistols on sight and never heard a word and this album continues that tradition from its film-can packaging to its music—but even the first album contained "Theme," one of the best arguments for not committing suicide I know.

The first words in this new album are "Slow motion." Like Jean Malaquais: "Please do not understand me too quickly." I think that could be Lydon’s motto. This group never tours—the result is that they spend all their time working in the studio on this stuff, shown by the fact that there are three different versions of "Death Disco," their second single, and two radically different versions of "Memories," their third. One, the twelve-inch, is a fairly straightforward indictment, no, rant against nostalgia culture. I read in NME that is was directed at the "Mod Revival" in England but then I don’t believe anything I read in NME anymore. Whether or not it applies to "Happy Days," Grease, all the proliferating falsifications of what I and everyone I know experienced once in what it is now so convenient to call "the fifties" or "the sixties," as if life was really measured or lived in arbitrary decades, when the history books are sold like comix I for one will still be listening to Lydon: "You make me feel ashamed / Enacting attitudes / Remember ridicule? / It should be clear by now / Your words are useless, full of excuses, false confidence / Someone has used you well / Used you well."

Then, on the album version, the whole sound shifts, into a new and hotter realm. It’s something I have never in my life heard anyone do in the middle of a track, and as the grooves begin to burn themselves away he resumes: "I could be wrong / It could be hate / As far as I can see clinging desperately / No personality dragging on and on and on and on / I think you’re slightly late / Slightly late..."

There aren’t many pieces of music that (his next lines: "This person’s had enough of useless memories") express completely how I feel as a human citizen of this—whatever you want to call it. I don’t mean to glorify such a feeling, it’s just that it’s lonely and there are I suppose only a few people who’s alienation matches anyone else’s. Maybe someone else finds it somewhere else. For me, I’ll stake ten years of writing about this sh*t on Blank Generation and The Metal Box. And On the Corner and Get Up with It by Miles Davis, which got kudos from jazz critics who never listened to them again and were rejected by the fans. The reason is the same: this is negative music, in all cases this is bleak music, this is the music from the other side of something I feel but I don’t want to cross, but if you feel the same then perhaps at least you can affirm this music, which knows that there is nothing that can be affirmed till almost (and that’s my word, not theirs) everything has been denied. Or you can laugh hysterically at it, like a friend of mine who has actually attempted suicide a couple of times. When I played him "Theme" and said "Can you relate to that" he laughed harder. "Sure," he said, "Who couldn’t?"
 
 

 
 

[Chris D.]

I haven't read that in a while, but it is the better article overall.  I couldn't disagree more with his opinions, though.