every mention of "lo-fi" in pitchfork record reviews over the last 12 years

courtesy of my pal zach:

http://osr-tapes.com/data/lofi.pdf

i saw this the other day -- A++

ya this is brill

this is really sad

Every mention of "broccoli":

Fever's still here but I'm full of yum. And a little broccoli. Excellent.
Beef and broccoli with a little white rice, that's good!
Cream of broccoli soup
they had left Kraftwerk, overcome their fear of broccoli,
In seven years' time, enough broccoli-loving souls may have plummeted into your originally- broccoli- hating system of souls to make you a broccoli freak.

something like lo-fi glam folk with a pinch of transience

loafy

as processed, smooth, and tasteless as a pimento loaf
as heady electronic music goes, it's like a loaf of hearty dark bread

OK, so I skimmed through this and appreciated the lols. But then I thought, "hey, as much as we're making fun of this, I bet there's some good songs in here". So I picked out "an eight-minute lo-fi house track", thinking "I don't know a lot about house, this could be interesting". Googled it up: it's the Superpitcher remix of I Dream of Evan and Chan. smdh.

haha, they really stuck it to a website who's entire business model is built on covering music recorded in a lower fidelity than most popular music

Well, maybe these self-proclaimed experts in so-called lo-fi could learn one goddamn thing about the recording techniques used by the artists they cover. Was Dream of Evan and Chan remixed using a Panasonic or an Emerson boombox? Or maybe Superpitcher just resang the whole damn thing directly onto a reel-to-reel. I don't fucking know, Whiney. They should be telling me.

GRENE DAYS NOT PUNK!!!111

proceeds the Weedian, lo-fi

and lo-fi beats for a faux-Le Tigre smackdown whose lyrics

will be warped in the lo-fi playroom phantasmagoria

haha, they really stuck it to a website who's entire business model is built on covering music recorded in a lower fidelity than most popular music

it's a lazy descriptor tho innit

GRENE DAYS NOT PUNK!!!111

― Mr. Zone A (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, November 5, 2012 8:30 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this joke is more sad than the whole Pitchfork thing.

a joke so lo-fi, so DIY, and so indie

when i was in college i had a pink sebadoh tshirt that had crappy line drawings on it and read "lo fi, yeah, fuckin, whatever"
i gave it away when i left NC, and i don't regret it because it was an awful shirt.

whineyz be whinin'. i just think its funny. you know, in total.

yknow now that i think about it, i think i got that shirt somewhere between '93 and '95 -- it was a last gasp at the end of the first lo fi backlash. i guess this is the end of another one?

scott does yr friend write much? i am curious

when I was in college, a certain musician ilx may be familiar with lived in the same town for a period. several of the local college radio djs were more than happy to trumpet this fact before playing his music. their favorites to play? his earlier work, recorded on a boombox tape deck. I think they said "lo-fi" about eighty times every play.

you were in college with conner smedley??

this thing wouldn't work if 'lo-fi' weren't a spondee imo

how'd you guess?!?

"scott does yr friend write much? i am curious"

he's a really good poet. or i think he is anmyway. and i don't like much modern poetry. he's funny. he makes funny "lo-fi" music too.

zach's label is pretty cool. not always my kinda thing, but some good stuff.

http://osr-tapes.com/

oh god pitchfork's review of said individual's newest album has "lo-fi" in it as well

chris weisman is very well thought of around here. he was in the band happy birthday that was briefly on sub pop. he lives up the road a piece. so does zach. they do stuff together.

it's a lazy descriptor tho innit

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, November 5, 2012 8:56 AM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not like "angular" or something that's been used in an attempt at colorful description so many times that it's become a meaningless cliche, at a certain point it's a useful shorthand and you can avoid it if you hate the term or are dying not to use it but i honestly see no great punchline in seeing how often it's used

i mean i really hope the guy wrote some kind of elaborate code that pulled up these things w/o much effort, the idea of working for hours upon hours on this is mind-boggling, and i say that as someone who spends hours on trivial 'research' all the time

yeah I really hope nobody's time was wasted by reading pitchfork

there it is

it's a lazy descriptor tho innit

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Monday, November 5, 2012 1:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalinkp

See, I don't really agree that it is, if it's used accurately to describe something that is recorded in a low-fidelity fashion. I mean, an awful lot of music criticism is completely subjective stuff about feelings and connotations and their own taste, so if something is an objectively true statement about music that also has connotations about style, of course you should put it in. It's when people start just chucking it into reviews as "well, it feels like it has something in common with my poor understanding of lo-fi aesthetics, so I'll call it lo-fi", that's when it becomes lazy.

the term makes perfect sense to me but also makes me giggle since it's kind of the flip side of 1970s home audio salespeople trying to make sure you're buying "HI-FI" because if you don't listen to this on a "HI-FI," man, you are not really hearing the music

In the early 2000s, when I was younger and still renting, I saw a handmade sign on the side of the road that said something like "Re-Fi low rates! Call (555) 555-5555!" I thought maybe it was for refurbished hi-fi's or something and called them up.

hahaha

yo scott show some of his other poetry if it's online would you

you know 555-555-5555 is a fake number right

I picked my current mobile number purely because it has 555 in the middle of it.

Occasionally when asked for my mobile # I say "Klondike 5" instead but no one ever understands me.

I think folks are wrongly interpreting this as an attack on Pfork when it's really just a pretty cool performance art-y thing

It would be like showing every mention ever of "butthurt" on ILM

somebody please do that

lo-fi Nuggets rock

^^stuff like this bothers me! all the nuggets shit sounds amazing! it was recorded on tape! that's hi-fi, shit like fun. and all that is way more lo-fi

maybe these writers are using lo-fi in the metaphorical sense

http://www.blastfromthepasttv.com/loafy.jpg

"lo-fi Nuggets rock"

this could just mean that it sounds like nuggets stuff but is recorded in a shitty/cheap/etc way. unless they are describing actual nuggets rock. we may never know...

is there such a thing is med-fi, and if so, can we start requiring all music to be it

any recording which does not meet the med-fi specifications will be immediately reshelved from "music" to "noise"

i mean i really hope the guy wrote some kind of elaborate code that pulled up these things w/o much effort, the idea of working for hours upon hours on this is mind-boggling, and i say that as someone who spends hours on trivial 'research' all the time

― some dude, Monday, November 5, 2012 2:58 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's pretty easy...I happen to have all the Pitchfork data on my computer for a never-completed project and I can just run grep over it.

does that include all the reviews they later deleted?

No, it's just what was up on the site earlier this year.

I demand a release of pitchfork.com's basement sessions

I think you can get it on Soulseek

It would be like showing every mention ever of "butthurt" on ILM

― Clarke B., Monday, November 5, 2012 11:05 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

somebody please do that

― movember spawned a nobster (Noodle Vague), Monday, November 5, 2012 11:06 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would provide ample free booze to the tech wizard that could accomplish such a feat

awaiting my booze

"serious question: are metallica fans the most butthurt fans in existence?"

can't believe people don't understand the power of our search function

I guess I meant seeing it all pretty and with lines and stuff like in the doc Scott's pal made

oh okay Mr Backpedal

I'm a man of my word: white, red, or rose?

white; red is good but it gives my wife migraines

looks like Pitchfork has never used "butthurt"

Hahaha... Italian, French, or Swiss?

I don't think I know Swiss wine! Leaning French but interested in learning

Switzerland produces badass wines. Virtually nobody imports them into the US because (a) they're esoteric, and (b) they're expensive (due to the triple-whammy of their strong currency, the labor required to farm in the Alps, and their lack of a need to export--they drink 99% of what they make). You can PM me on here or find me on FB; I'm sure we share Mr. Raggett as a common pal.

(with your address I mean)

better late than never. a message from zach:

hi! i made the pitchfork index manually using google. it is chronological. it took about 8 hours to complete all told. i think it's funny and telling. i think lo-fi is a ridiculous term & i think music criticism should be challenged creatively -- it may help it perform better. i think we can all agree that music writing is not held to a very high standard. but what if it was actually good? most of all i think it's fun to use a simple principle to make a bunch of material speak in a way that complicates & obfuscates its original meaning. i am not an academic.

here's a couple other pdf books i've made which use similar methodologies: http://osr-tapes.info/osr/ashleysjacket.pdf & http://osr-tapes.info/osr/chomoanalects.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_linguistics

It totally blows my mind how easy and fun corpus lx can be in the google era. (I wasn't posting that to be an asshole)

I don't see what's ridiculous about "lo-fi". (Or "angular" for that matter! I like "angular".)

yeah lo-fi seems like a reasonable term to me. it's weird as a genre because one "lo-fi" band is gonna be diff from another one. but if you're using it in the sense of "home recorded" sure why not.

If you look at the more recent instances, "lo-fi" tends to get paired more with "90's".

lo-fi musicians get pretty prickly about the term ime, i suspect because it's diminutive

And this is what I get when I make a Wordle out of all the lines in that document, eliminating all the mentions of "lo-fi".

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5985718/Lo-Fi

also, being in a huff abt being called "lo-fi" by pitchfork is kind of like when teenagers recoil at their parents' mocking (but not necessarily inaccurate) way of picking up on their subcultural signifiers. like, no one feels cool when their mom says "i remember when /i/ went through my punk phase" and the only way to react to it is "OMG SHUTUP MOM YOU DONT EVEN UGHHHHH"

still giggling about "loafy"

lo-fi musicians get pretty prickly about the term ime, i suspect because it's diminutive

― flopson, Thursday, November 8, 2012 11:16 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not true, imo. I've gone through periods of being a lo-fi musician and I like the term. Dude who made this is completely wrong in saying it is "ridiculous". If he'd said it has become meaningless through over-use he might be onto something.

I've gone through periods of being a lo-fi musician and I like the term.

i have, too, sort of, and wouldn't say i *like* the term but i definitely don't mind it. have found that people who care to have opinions on it tend to be crabby tho

downloading some loafy tracks on the wee fee

They should make a tent covered with these references and put it in a museum.

well when a word becomes meaningless through over-use, its use becomes ridiculous, no?
zp

ah lo-fi
going to see The Babies on Thurs night and wrote the show into a things-to-do article i write weekly and so went to their site and:
The one time side-project between Brooklyn lo-fi luminaries becomes a full-time concern
aw <3