pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I know it was 5 years ago but

Santa Claus, the Virgin Mary, and Terrence "Turkeytime" Terrence just got the shaft this holiday season. Why bother with presents? 2005's Tickle Me Elmo was supposed to be a chicken-legged Sri Lankan with so much sex in her self-spun neons you might as well get wasted off penicillin with Willie Nelson at a secret Rex the Dog show

still makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth.

I haven't seen how this one is being presented by the label, but I imagine "Heartbeat Song" will inspire copy like "The Futureheads bring The Chaos back for their new album," an acknowledgment that the pursuit of maturity over their last two LPs came at the expense of everything that made their debut so exciting. But no amount of spin will make any of it true, at least here

this is a weird lede considering that Nui is a label that the futureheads created to release their records -- it's a bit weird to write as if there's a total separate press arm working independent of the band?

Enjoyed Pfork's Spiritualized review this morning, and glad they had the balls to give it the 10.0 it deserves. A bone to pick, though: the review is written as if the ~$190.00 collector's edition is the only new, remastered version available. It's not. The album is also available as a stand-alone rerelease, and as a 3xCD set without the twelve 3" pill-style CDs. Both are much more affordable; if you care about the bonus material, but not Jason Pierce's autograph and/or the individual CDs that are impossible to play in standard CD players anyway, then the middle option is the best choice.

but the pillbox is cool

Agreed, yes. But I'd rather have an extra $100 in my pocket...

I 'unno what a 'standard CD player' is but even the shittest ones I encounter can generally handle 3" CDs

macbook is the new standard

I 'unno what a 'standard CD player' is but even the shittest ones I encounter can generally handle 3" CDs

― sometimes I feel like throwing my glands up in the air (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, March 2, 2010 11:45 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

that's what she said

I 'unno what a 'standard CD player' is

Maybe "standard" is poor word choice. I meant they won't fit in things with CD drives -- car CD player, laptop, etc.

Plus I'd rather enjoy the album in one sitting, including the seamless transitions between songs on this record (right?), than be forced to switch tiny CDs in and out every 5-8 minutes. I mean, fuck.

lol as if any of these special editions are gonna get opened up and listened to anyway

A bone to pick, though: the review is written as if the ~$190.00 collector's edition is the only new, remastered version available. It's not. The album is also available as a stand-alone rerelease, and as a 3xCD set without the twelve 3" pill-style CDs.

"(The record is also being reissued as a single disc, with new artwork, and as a 3xCD set without a lot of the pricy trappings of the more extravagant package.)"

Damn... that's what I get for reading only 90% of it, I guess?

http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7772-poptimist-26/

Tom Ewing's CD-nostalgia prediction piece is very special. The highlight of your Friday.

Their 2.0-rating review of the new Jaguar Love record is sadly OTM.

"The Club" is the 74 Sessions, a monthly night in London dedicated to making and swapping CD-Rs, named after the original storage capacity of a disc in minutes.

iirc there was until pretty recently - maybe two years ago? - a real night like this in London called CDR-80, although I only know about it cos they used to spam my work inbox

Really like that piece btw

Their 2.0-rating review of the new Jaguar Love record is sadly OTM.

Really? Damn. Loved the first record. I'll admit that the clips on iTunes weren't promising at all, but I hoped that maybe they weren't representative of the album as a whole. Disappointed to hear this.

it's not a great record but 2/10 should be reserved for something seriously bad, imo anything less than like a 3 or 4 is like a stunt rating to make an exaggerated 'statement.' plus PF were on some bullshit taking months to review their first record and giving it a lower score than it deserved.

Yeah, I do remember being disappointed with the review of their first one.

But any rating is making some kind of statement? And what's the point having a scale unless you're prepared to issue any of the scores on that scale?

zzz

i mean a 'statement' beyond the actual quality of the record, something that goes deeper into "we do not approve of this sort of thing" or "it's not THAT different from their good records but y'know fuck this, you get a 0/1/2"

imo a 2 should be actively, horribly unpleasant or so devoid of content/merit that it barely registers, not something that's fairly similar to but not as good as a 6.8 record it's following up

Tom Ewing's CD-nostalgia prediction piece is very special. The highlight of your Friday.

― Davek (davek_00), Friday, March 5, 2010 10:34 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

no disrespect to ewing, but, really, if an article about cds on the internet is as good as your friday is going to get then...

http://www.tombrimmer.com/uploaded_images/King-sized-Crunchie-769682.jpg

not ILX, pictured earlier today

Tom's article is a treat.

While earlier physical-music movements fought to preserve analog formats in the face of digitization, CD revivalists see music's physical existence as a rebuke to a world where people's digital presence has overtaken their physical one. "It's not just about the music," explains Wolfe. "Words like 'social' and 'sharing' became absolutely twisted. It used to mean things people did together, now it's about how well you fit into algorithms. We leave snail trails of data everywhere, and all 'social' means now is that two trails have crossed and somebody's making money off it. Forcing people to collaborate for a fuller experience helps restore some of the real idea of 'social.'"

And, really, this is relevant in 2010 as much as it will be in 2022. This is why I buy CDs, being forced to spend a finite amount of money to curate my own collection relative to my evolving tastes. Have never downloaded music, legally or otherwise, and I have zero interest in doing so.

Liars - Sisterworld - Rating: 8.1 - Best New Music
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13991-sisterworld

These New Puritans - Hidden - Rating: 8.2 - not Best New Music
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13951-hidden

I realize the ratings are pretty much trivial, and I'm not bashing either record (enjoy both), but how does this *really* make any sense?? I think there have been other cases of maybe Baroness, Converge or someone too un-Pfork-y scoring in the 8.5 realm and not making Best New Music... what gives?

the two aren't really related? iirc they said something once about only giving bnm to things that they think the majority of their readership would like, regardless of score.

yeahhhhhhhhh that's a pretty silly thing to give a damn about

Pretty sure if you don't download illegally then you could still "spend a finite amount of money to curate (your) own collection".

cad is OTM tbf

only giving bnm to things that they think the majority of their readership would like

I guess this is what I'm getting at. Why play it safe with the Best New Music tags?

to make sure they appeal to a "majority," like cad said?

Pretty sure if you don't download illegally then you could still "spend a finite amount of money to curate (your) own collection".

Yes... and this has to do with what, exactly, in this thread/discussion?

a strikingly inventive and original rock record

hmm. from the New Puritans review. guess the majority of pitchfork readers don't like inventive rock records.

I don't think that's particularly surprising

lolz

Pfork readers do like inventive rock records, they just like it in the form of billions of haphazardly included "orchestral" backing instruments, e.g., Sufjan, Grizzly Bear and their kin.

bnm just seems like a shorthand to set editorial direction and make things easier for ppl who want to check out some records but can't/won't read every review. not a big deal imo.

yeah but the new puritans has that, sounds like

Similar to contemporaries Sigur Rós, Nico Muhly, and Joanna Newsom, These New Puritans challenge classical and popular value distinctions by fully integrating a 13-piece orchestra. A clutch of melodic motifs and variations weave through Hidden, keeping the song set extremely tight and aesthetically cohesive, so when "Orion"'s rabid beats and gothic choir feed into orchestral palette cleanser "Canticle", the transition is fluid and unpretentious.

listening to These New Puritans for the first time

what in the world is this

ok i have the first tnp record and have heard one or two things from the new one and i'm not really sure if "mass appeal" on any level is a tag that could be applied to them

afaict they're like a this heat tribute band or something?

wait, this video was posted by Domino in 2007. maybe i should be listening to something newer of theirs

pitchfork gave the knife electropera 6.9 which reveals them as the play-safe populist menks they've almost always been tbh

only heard 'we want war' from the TNP album; it's pretty good imo

why is the person who's mad about the choices of pfork's 'best new music' section also making fun of pfork readers?

Similar to contemporaries Sigur Rós, Nico Muhly, and Joanna Newsom

Do not agree with this assessment one bit.

ksh, start here:

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

why is the person who's mad about the choices of pfork's 'best new music' section also making fun of pfork readers?

A) I'm not mad, just pointing out the disconnect between ratings and BNM tags.

B) Not making fun of Pfork readers (I am one!) so much as Pfork's characterization of what makes a record "revolutionary." Waiting for that Broken Bells review... never mind, I'll stop there?

afaict they're like a this heat tribute band or something?

That's about as close as you can get, in a sentence.