pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I think we bitched about that Rooty review here at the time as well.

When did the 'We Are The World' singles column start? Pretty sure it would have been at the time of or a bit before Kish Kash. So in between 2001 and 2003 there was probably the biggest and fastest shift in Pitchfork's orientation that it ever went through (I feel like everything since then has been more incremental) and Basement Jaxx were the kind of artist best placed to benefit from it.

The funniest part of the Fat of the Land review is that the author — who showily uses Britishisms like "naff" and "necked" — doesn't seem to know "Charly" is slang for cocaine

Are we just gonna revisit every canon album out there and re-evaluate it using a woke-o-meter?

Most depressing (because true) explanation for why I can no longer read (retrospective) music criticism

otm

I get the feeling that the writer was no older than 5 when that album came out.

Yeah the Zaireeka and Soft Bulletin reviews were both written by the same guy. From what I remember, he only gave it a 0 because he didn't have five stereos to play the thing

it was a classic goof

endearing in the same way that we all feel for the kid puking in the lawn

i'm sorry that i arrived to this place tonight, but

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2231-forbidden-love-ep/

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yAA37ld6ydk/SPilcsCa-hI/AAAAAAAABU0/B9OTU3vYbJ8/s1600/Picture+3.png

Yes, they obviously know what they're doing. But they've still got to change that name. I suppose it's working for them, though, what with the Seventeen interviews and all. For now, just hold your breath and hope they don't get huge and make the jump to the "adult" market. You'd have to knock them substantial cutie points if they appeared in Cosmo as delegates from the Land of Sensitive Guys, or to weigh in on blowjob technique, or worse still, to appear photographed hanging out with Courtney Love. Or god forbid, Drew Barrymore. Come to think of it, maybe they ought to just add five members and change that name of theirs to God Forbid Drew Barrymore. Yeah!

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/news/a13864/zooey-deschanel-separates-from-ben-gibbard-5/

https://i.imgur.com/lSBHKrq.jpg

shit, i was the kid puking in the lawn the entire time

I'm not against looking at albums in hindsight, and I thought the one for 'Bell Biv Devoe' was very good: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/bell-biv-devoe-poison/ The problem with the one for The Prodigy is that it's kinda like shooting fish in a barrel, and it's sloppy to not explicitly point out that the chorus to 'Smack My Bitch Up' is sampled from Ultramagnetic MCs.

I'm fairly sure the words "Kool" and "Keith" showed up in the review

oh yeah, in the second sentence, right next to the words "Ultramagnetic MCs"

but you're right, at no point does the writer connect these words to the sampled chorus, leaving the reader bewildered

https://uproxx.com/music/mark-richardson-pitchfork-editor-celebration-rock-podcast/

Sort of interested in how candid Richardson might be, but ugh to Hyden.

The idea of a rave icon hadn’t really worked yet in America, in part because the movement of more or less anonymous producers rejecting the star system while taking drugged-up dancers on days-long trips didn’t easily fit into market capitalism

I'm confused about a few things here. Prodigy were icons? There hadn't been any dance music icons in America? There's a type of capitalism that doesn't ivolve markets?

and England wasn't capitalist?

By “market capitalism,” the writer seems to just mean “the record business”

snrk

There was a hard industry push for electronica as re Next Big Thing / killer of rock and roll, and Prodigy were absolutely the face of that trend-waiting-to-happen. Chemical Bros, Fatboy Slim, Underworld were all in the mix too but Prodigy had the biggest push. If there was some other icon of the “rave scene” that predated them and broke through to the mainstream, I can’t think of who it would be.

Moby?

nonetheless, even if the overarching point about their position/role in the market is correct, that review is really poorly written

https://wayoutradio.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/happy-mondays-mark-bez-berry.jpeg

Moby was in the mix in the mid-90s but Play was his big breakthrough, in 1999. Prodigy released “Firestarter” in 1996 and Fat of the Land was 97.

Anyway, not commenting on the quality of the review. Honestly not sure why digging this album up just to give it a 5.9 is a worthwhile endeavor at all.

Prodigy got the big push at that time and from those quarters i think specifically bc they resembled a rock band in a lot of ways. a very Poochie version of a rock band but still.

i did generally like that album but it didn't appeal as much as what i heard in early '90s dance music, but that was coming from an R&B direction and more a house music direction and it was a different demographic. in Chicago for awhile the biggest FM station was B96 and you'd hear this incredible music all the time on there, basically Black Box and Cathy Dennis and that sort of thing, mixed in with more R&B and pop rap and such. Prodigy et al were aimed at taking a bite out of the KROQ crowd.

Pedantic, but this--

On the album, Red notably sampled the 1983 crime thriller Scarface on the track “Balls and My Word”—even before Scarface joined the group.

--suggests some sort of coincidence, when it is well known that when Scarface joined the group, he was rapping under the name Akshen, and it was these very Scarface samples that inspired the change. In other words, the name followed the samples, not the other way around

googled for reviews of the Joe Armon Jones album and found this:

The six-song album opens with a stirring title track whose featured vocalist, Afrikan Revolution bandleader Asheber, proclaims, “Starting today, I’m gonna wipe the blood off these streets/ Starting today, spread love in the community.” Asheber’s reverential tenor casts him as something like the lost son of celestial jazz singer Andy Bey—and his improvised lyrics should resonate deeply in a Britain clouded by the murky haze of Brexit

Those lyrics are pretty clearly about London gang violence. Not every piece of British music is about brexit.

Growing up in the suburbs, you make formative bonds with people you might have almost nothing in common with. Most connections forged in high school—friendships, romances, career paths—don’t survive graduation. This includes Cap’n Jazz, a band that was created by two teenage brothers in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.

First paragraph, and I’m already giving this review the side-eye. How is this (obvious) observation about high school unique to the suburbs?

This is a very, very long review that gives zero indication of why I should care about this album or band

That review says Davey Von Bohlen explained, of the reunion, that:

...one thing that brought them together was the fear of losing “that emotional attachment where we feel like we could be defined for the rest of our musical lives by this one thing that happened in our teenage years.”

Actually he said almost the exact opposite:

This summer is 15 years since we broke up, and we’ve lost that emotional attachment where we feel like we could be defined for the rest of our musical lives by this one thing that happened in our teenage years.

A poor review. And, how one could write that review without mentioning Nation of Ulysses is beyond me...

I knew, after reading these posts, that this was an Ian Cohen review before I even clicked on it. Dude is consistently the worst Pitchfork writer, which is really saying something

he’s one of my favs for sure

I have no trouble believing that Cohen is a bottom-tier writer across the scope of his career, but I will just say in his favor that whenever I’m looking for a quick chuckle the Pitchfork review of Method Man’s “The Meth Lab” is one of my potential destinations

very cool interview with the band Girlpool on October, esp. since they basically seem to not even like or drink beer

Your manager says that y'all in general are not big beer-drinkers. Tell me a little bit about your relationship with beer.

Tucker: Harmony used to drink beer when we were teenagers, but then it just kind of didn't settle quite well, right, Harmony?

Tividad: Yeah, it makes me have gas, frankly.

Tucker: If I'm outside doing a thing [where] I'm sweating and it’s sunny out, I'm gonna have a cold beer—and it fucking feels amazing. I'll have a beer for enjoyment, but not to get fucked up.

Tividad: I feel the same way as Cleo.

Tell me about what kind of beers you like to have during these situations of casual drinking?

Tividad: I just don't have that strong a preferences honestly. I had a Modelo recently.

Tucker: You know, we would take whatever. I honestly [prefer] a nice vodka soda with lemon and mint.

haha

https://media.giphy.com/media/dt1W1NHhWxzvW/giphy.gif

Tell me a little bit about your relationship with chips.

yeah that piece blew. just do a normal interview. i would love to read an october interview with someone who's sober or just talks about grapefruit juice or something

The sunday reviews are good not bad: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/milton-nascimento-lo-borges-clube-da-esquina/

Agreed, that piece is very good.

(Only quibble is this dangling participle, which an editor should have caught: Born in Rio in 1942, Nascimento’s mom died when he was still an infant...)

“Suspirium” Is Thom Yorke’s Best Solo Track In Years
Best New Track

I might be worng but when was his last solo track?

he put a solo album out in 2014 that was extremely eh. new song is also extremely eh

Tomorrow's Modern Boxes was definitely hit and miss. The misses were enh, but the hits (mostly the last third of the album) were really good.

Eh, his solo stuff usually doesn't do it for me but this one hits the spot.

The Eraser is classic imo, not a bad song on there. Would pick it over several Radiohead records.

https://pitchfork.com/news/serial-season-3-announced-new-trailer-shared-listen/

Let this be the death of the “shared” concept.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/yves-tumor-safe-in-the-hands-of-love/

Hey look a 9.1!

first 9+ of the year, i'm excited to give it a listen

Wow, that's true, that's the first 9+ they've given this year. That's pretty unusual.

yeah, i noticed that they hadn't given one a few weeks back—it's been a weird year for both big ticket releases and ambitious indie darling albums, i guess.

Looks like they're doing a new "Best Albums of the 1980s" list next week. Let's see how it will compare with the 2002 one.