Pitchfork's Chris Ott takes No Prisoners

john who packs bags at my local grocery store has a 6th toenail

This is same question Ott asked himself when he started the piece. Trouble is, he didn't bother to find out before writing.

I checked out about 3/4 of that before I started getting bored.  Isn't Ott's own participation in a forum he decries as self-serving and masturbatory a little suspect?  Especially because he's writing about his own writing (yawn) and basically by the end just trading imprecations with other board dwellers...?  Way to build credibility, champ. And why does any musical discussion that reaches an impasse invariably devolve into guys calling each other homos?

So my criticism of this article is that not enough of it reads like that, there's not enough surprise or pleasure. Too much of it feels like the kind of pat opinions I'm prone to giving out in the pub when I've had one too many.

Sorry to be negative.

It's clearly not a consistent stance though - as I said earlier, I went looking for other reviews to see if you could say anything positive about anything. I found the 'Forgotten Mixtape' piece you wrote, in which you excuse a lot of what's on it because, well, it was 1988, wasn't it... although you do defend Phil Collins and Robert Palmer...

Is that why almost all of your favourable reviews are for greatest hits, or reissues, or by big artists - because you've already decided you like them? (Or most bizarrely, for the Pavement reissue, because they sound like a band you were in?)

IMHO you had done yourself no favours in the debate up to this point, and coming back in today in the manner you have isn't winning you any points.

I'm with Tim.

Chris, what's the point of spitting out old opinions? I'm being serious. For me, half of why I write has to do with discovery. What kind of pleasure do you get out of the kind of writing you do?

Well, if you'd read the post, you'd see that I was quoting someone else, not expressing my own opinion.. As far as I'm concerned, your credibility as a music journalist is measured by your knowledge of the material, and your ability to convey/contextualize/communicate based upon the facts regarding that material. I'm not entirely convinced that your grasp of the material is that well versed. Thus, what you have to say is moot.

nah.

that's pretty cool that pitchfork got free advertising on radio though.

maybe because "mid-90s" = "early-90s"?

- Ott refers repeatedly to certain acts as "signatures" (i.e a band that has been signed to a record label). I may be mistaken about this, but isn't the conventional term "signings" instead of "signatures"?

- Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks has been sporting dreadlocks since at least as far back as 1988 (the last time I saw the band live). Thus, this in no way renders his chosen hairstyle "recent".

- "TV II" by Ministry could hardly be considered "proto-grindcore", given that Napalm Death (inargualby the preeminent grindcore band) debuted in 1987, a good half a decade prior to the release of Psalm 69.

- Ned's Atomic Dustbin a "shoegaze" band? Love'em or hate'em, Jonn [sic] Penney and co. could never be accused of playing dreamy, ethereal pop, much less boasting a stage presence particularized by somnambulistic stasis. They were one of the most hyperkinetic live acts of the time (lots of rampant leaping about).

- I hate to differ with the estimable Chuck Eddy, but calling the KLF a "grebo" band is decidedly not simply a matter of opinion, but rather a sizable error. The KLF are as much a 'grebo' band as Celine Dion is a New Romantic. As much as it's a remarkably trivial distinction, 'Grebo' (a truncation of "greasy boy") referred very specifically to guitar-based bands like Gaye Bykers on Acid, Crazyhead and the hirsute, garage-clatter era of Pop Will Eat Itself. The KLF, meanwhile, were an entirely different breed of cat, concentrating more on chill-out ambient music and house (something PWEI wouldn't get involved in until later on). I'm not suggesting that one is greater than the other or that any of them are worth a damn, but if you're going to allude to them -- let alone lambast them in print -- at least get your facts straight.