Pitchfork Is Seeking Editorial Interns!

And what's this about "either Al B. Sure!'s Sexy Versus"? Did they leave out the "or Momus' Stars Forever"? Or do the cognoscenti know that there are two Al B. Sure!s, and that they both made records called Sexy Versus? (Maybe it was a bit like "the Real Roxanne" clash?) Or is this just evidence that they need those factcheckers and transcribers real bad, and like now, even although they can't pay them?

By the way, Pitchfork, now I have your attention, would you please review my new album, Otto Spooky, because it's FUCKING GREAT! Seriously. We've sent one to Leone and one to Schreiber. If you fail to review it, people will mark it as the beginning of the end for Pitchfork (look what happened to the USSR the NME).

"Yes sir."

"And you want credit for this."

"Yes."

"What did you do there?"

"Well, I spell-checked some indie rock reviews and helped Mr. Harvell come up with an Ashton/Demi joke for a Digweed review."

"Not bad. Okay, five credits."

i don't think this is an unreasonable distinction to stress, however dubious i am about the intern-for-free practice in general (it's not like pf invented it though)

their current reviews ed = a former slave

[mark, no corridor for me, helas my position = incredibly TBC and contingent...]

Yes, I am reduced to begging for reviews from the likes of Pitchfork! Except it's not "reduced", because I have always been in this position, down on my knees! I sell a couple of thousand albums in America, and I have always sold more or less that. I get reviews, but press officers and adverts are expensive, know what I mean? I'm an indie recording artist, and this is what life is like for indie recording artists.

Nevertheless, extremely interesting and creative ideas come out of indie recording artists, and it's a worrying sign when publications like Pitchfork start ignoring people like me, because it means they're following the dollars and following the herd. It is actually the beginning of the end of their credibility, and of the value of their niche service. Artists like Momus are like the ravens at the Tower of London, if we leave the tower will crumble!

The listener concensus on the new album is that it's actually a career high. I partially agree with Pitchfork's assessment of the last one, but they really should assess the new one. I would hate to think they just got tired of artists after five years or something. You know, giving you 9s when they first notice you, then slipping to 3s and 4s when you've been around for five years, even if your work actually gets stranger, better, more creative, whatever. That would just be lazy, wouldn't it? (And oddly enough, it would be the opposite of their treatment of their staff, who get rated very low when they start and have to prove their worth little by little, eventually getting... paid.)

as far as i can tell, any music journalism follows this trend. Which i why i dont look at any review site at all, or buy print magazines.

a single "this is amazing" on ILX is more useful and interesting to me than a million pitchforks, OMMs, or any of the others.

(this is not meant to be rude)

in fact a better statement of the law is that indie and alt domains are good at picking up on and picking over those "interesting and creative ideas" which actually mainly ARISE within the hyper-pressured mainstream (where innovation is simultaneously prized and cast aside - the new always erasing the less new)

sub-cults then form around the exploration/formalisation/examination-for-implication of such ideas: they are reflective backwaters more than they are hothouses of invention

"following the dollars" = encouraging an eternal fast cycle of innovation-overthrow (cf "planned obsolescence")

Really, what did they say? Gulp, condemned by the ORACLE!

momus's generalisation was just too sweet a target to pass up (esp.as he has elsewhere bigged up the catholic church as a good model for creative culture)

my argt wd i guess be that the very intense streamlining pressures of mainstream culture - pressures generally not "directly" cultural — give rise, given the many many folks collectively yet peripherically involved in the MAKING of mainstream culture, to all kids of epiphenomenal effects not yet perhaps RECOGNISED as "ideas": marginal culture is where they are fashioned into ideas

but yes this is also a generalisation (i just think it's less in hock to the ultra-capitalist zeitgeist!!) (i'm sorta teasin there) (sorta)

Chicago is the Berlin of America, isn't it? Low rents, hipsters, post-industrial live-work spaces, terribly serious musicians always scurrying off to rehearse, slightly-too-fanciful hairstyles, lakes but no sea, and millions and millions of desperately poor black people.

-- mark s (mar...), March 17th, 2005.

Could you give an example?

i feel ashamed to admit this.

if you want a crappily designed review website to be let into your world nick .. then just let me know ..

m.e

there's nothing in the technology of mixing desk, track layering, use of echo as ambient space etc, which hadn't occurred IN PASSING somewhere within mainstream pop or rock and rock'n'roll production prior to the mid-60s, but the jamaican record makers turned it from an occasional novelty effect into the central THING round which the whole of the music wz organised

Seriously, tho, unpaid internships are definitely commonplace, & giving the Fork a rash of shit for offering folks (high school / college aged) a chance to put a plum li'l thing on their resume (even if it's not for $$$) is totally wonky.

-- Momus (nic...), March 17th, 2005.

see, detroit to me is more the berlin of america. cheaper, still, than chicago!

-- ken taylrr (or...), March 17th, 2005.

My friend seriously pays $300 a month for a huge loft in Detroit. That's not uncommon.

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=6949

And how much would that be if he paid funnily? Just kidding. I'm just jealous of him paying such a low rent.

And *sigh* another PF bashing thread.

Aw, I feel all warm and tingly now!