why Pitchfork is a fag

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

um i think disparaissant was kind of joking, take it easy man

 

nope shes on my nuts all the time on this forum

haha what? i've had maybe three conversations with you, all of which were you needlessly antagonizing me and failing at reading comprehension over and over and over again. persecution complex much?

 

and for the record: i was, in fact, joking. sung tongs is one of my favourite albums of the last decade.

 

lol reading comprehension..

maybe if you dont want someone to think you are spoiling the last level of a game you should refrain from saying "this is what happens in the last level"...

you cant expect everyone to get your secret hidden meanings every time

 

are you dyslexic? you must be dyslexic.

also lol at you saying i'm "on your nuts." i can't decide whether that's wishful thinking or projection.

anyways, enough threadshitting.

 

[GORDO]

to me, pitchfork is a few steps up from listening to the radio and developing your musical taste based on that.

Pitchfork are undeniably influenced by payola

 

 

evidence?

[GORDO]

there is so much much music out there that navigating it all in search for something you might like is really an impossible task, you HAVE to rely and other networks of people to guide you trough the process and improve the hit/miss ratio, whether this network is a friend or a music journalism institution.

[Alzado]

pandora is more of a 'if you're famous enough well put you in the database' type of thing.

 

I'm not so sure about that point. I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about all things punk/garage (especially 70's and 80's underground stuff), and Pandora has recommended several obscure bands/albums that I wasn't aware of previously and cannot find on iTunes or any of the usual distributors. It may be that they are more complete with some genres than others (I haven't really used it for electronic music very much), but my experience suggests that their database is pretty deep.

[awepittance]

thats good that its been growing, last time i used it it was pretty meager so maybe they've hired some knowledge people to increase their library. Im just principally opposed to a radio station with so little people generating content for it, i wish it was more open ended. It's bothersome to me that something with such a small handful of people managing it has gotten so ubiquitous. They may have a lot of punk music from the 70s which is admittedly cool except they still don't have one of my favorite bands, zoviet france. So what this means to me is that the people working for them don't know who zoviet france is, and that kinda sucks.

[awepittance]

there is so much much music out there that navigating it all in search for something you might like is really an impossible task, you HAVE to rely and other networks of people to guide you trough the process and improve the hit/miss ratio, whether this network is a friend or a music journalism institution.

 

you can't possibly be serious, conflating a network of anything as the same as relying on the opinion of a music journalist you dont know. I mean i would consider searching on myspace for music using friend links to find similar musicians pretty awesome, and a lot less lemming like than listening to a music reviewer for opinions.

 

 

friends and colleagues is great, because see you know these people you have reason to find their opinion enriching. Going out and listening to every new thing pitchfork talks about as your #1 priority for checking out music is quite shameful in my opinion for anyone in the year of 2011 with limited music searching knowledge

[awepittance]

to me, pitchfork is a few steps up from listening to the radio and developing your musical taste based on that.

Pitchfork are undeniably influenced by payola

 

 

evidence?

 

 

as soon as i find their ad rate card ill post the rates for you. Have you met any reviewers for magazines or web you get paid? You will find that most of them will be willing to admit in private that they make money in 2 days, via payola and actual real paychecks.

[beerwolf]

Pitchfork intellectualize music far too much for me. Like you need a fucking PHD before you play some music. When they review albums it's like a green light to prove how clever they are. I have never got through an entire Pitchfork reveiw, as I usually loose the will to live by the end of it and just click off it.

 

Their pitchfork guide book they published which I got for christmas a few years back is so dull. And they describe themselves as 'a braintrust' on the back. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

[remy marathe]

my radio comment was comparing pitchfork to major radio stations, not college or local. there are some fantastic radio stations out there, but to me, pitchfork is basically akin to, as you said, a clear channel station that just happens to market slightly "cooler" music.

 

my experience with pandora has been pretty negative. last fm has far more music on it, and i trust the democratic user base more than whoever decides what music is played on pandora.

i'm still not really satisfied with lastfm though, either.

[GORDO]

there is so much much music out there that navigating it all in search for something you might like is really an impossible task, you HAVE to rely and other networks of people to guide you trough the process and improve the hit/miss ratio, whether this network is a friend or a music journalism institution.

 

you can't possibly be serious, conflating a network of anything as the same as relying on the opinion of a music journalist you dont know. I mean i would consider searching on myspace for music using friend links to find similar musicians pretty awesome, and a lot less lemming like than listening to a music reviewer for opinions.

 

 

friends and colleagues is great, because see you know these people you have reason to find their opinion enriching. Going out and listening to every new thing pitchfork talks about as your #1 priority for checking out music is quite shameful in my opinion for anyone in the year of 2011 with limited music searching knowledge

 

problem is, friends and colleagues don't like the same music i do.

 

there's no difference between a friend and an unknown being if what you're looking for is variations on a common interest, internet forums are succesful beacuse of this, it doesn't matter that you have no idea who the other person is, all it matters is that there's a common interest. so friend in this context means absolutely nothing.

 

you have limited time to listen stuff.

 

so, preferably you want to avoid listening to shit, and just skip to the good stuff.

 

if something worked before you will try it again.

 

simple.

 

if 10 times out of 10 you loved immensely what someone recommended to you, it would be pretty stupid not not make that person the priority go to place if you needed a new one.

 

if it were 9 out of 10, same thing.

 

what would be the ratio of success when doing intense myspace exploration? pretty low I'd bet, and very time consuming, and i doubt that it's the best music listening environment, so unless your living is finding new shit no one can afford to make use of their time like that.

 

to sum up: if it works for you, use it. if it doesn't, don't. but don't try to attribute reasons as to why people like what they like and question its authenticity.

[awepittance]

but don't try to attribute reasons as to why people like what they like and question its authenticity.

 

if i did that i apologize, but i still wont retract my statement about people who rely on pitchfork or any music journalism are lazy music 'fans'. i don't think you can offer a convincing rebuttal of this.

 

if you have no one in your life to share common musical interests, not even the smallest of internet acquaintances and you are on a music forum with thousands of music fans with complimentary music tastes, you are missing out significantly.

 

and you never really addressed the other things here like Last.FM, facebook, youtube, myspace, soulseek or GASP Pandora which don't offer any sort of opinion filter whatsoever, you hear the music and if you like it you can easily (as an internet savvy citizen of the modern era) find connections to other similar music by following responses, links, friends. It's beyond easy to find unsigned or signed music on here of any genre you can type in a search box. What say you to not being able to harness the power of social networks and music sharing sites? Is there a reason you think this (direct listening and following up similar songs you like) is on an equal plane to relying on the opinions of others? What excuse do you think others have for not taking the initiative to do this besides laziness or lacking ingenuity?

[awepittance]

my radio comment was comparing pitchfork to major radio stations, not college or local. there are some fantastic radio stations out there, but to me, pitchfork is basically akin to, as you said, a clear channel station that just happens to market slightly "cooler" music.

 

my experience with pandora has been pretty negative. last fm has far more music on it, and i trust the democratic user base more than whoever decides what music is played on pandora.

i'm still not really satisfied with lastfm though, either.

 

yeah last.fm as an actual radio player has gone in waves of quality for me, it used to be awesome now with the changes theyve made im not really using it anymore.

 

i guess when i mentioned Last.fm i was mostly talking about in the context of using it to find out about new music. It would be a 2step process if you dont use the radio, but for me doing it without using the streaming radio is more helpful in the end. For example, type in an artist you love and start exploring the list of artists who are most similar. Sometimes its not accurate, but i find most of the time it is. Then look up these artists elsewhere on the internet, chances are some of them have free songs, whole releases or full videos on youtube.

[GORDO]

I couldn't do a rebuttal because i don't see an argument, just a judgment call, one could say that about any other method people rely on. and yes, people are lazy so, what would be the point of putting more work into discovering music (the phrase alone sounds stupid) if you're just gonna find the same things?. people will just do what is more comfortable/rewarding for them, and it may turn out that these could be a myriad of things.

 

 

but meh... i put too much thought in this already, stop dragging me in lol

[TwiddleBot]

Pitchfork pseudointellectualize music far too much for me.

 

fixed.

[beerwolf]

I think there is more important things to worry about. But each to their own.

[GORDO]

but don't try to attribute reasons as to why people like what they like and question its authenticity.

 

and you never really addressed the other things here like Last.FM, facebook, youtube, myspace, soulseek or GASP Pandora which don't offer any sort of opinion filter whatsoever, you hear the music and if you like it you can easily (as an internet savvy citizen of the modern era) find connections to other similar music by following responses, links, friends.

 

I don't see them as alternative, i see them as complements to each other.

 

It's beyond easy to find unsigned or signed music on here of any genre you can type in a search box.

 

why would i want to find unsigned music? im not a record label.

 

What say you to not being able to harness the power of social networks and music sharing sites? Is there a reason you think this (direct listening and following up similar songs you like) is on an equal plane to relying on the opinions of others? What excuse do you think others have for not taking the initiative to do this besides laziness or lacking ingenuity?

 

afaik pandora and things like that do have an opinion filter, they use statistics. so it's not the opinion of some guy, all you get is results based on some algorithm, based on what other people like. so i don't see why is it any different on a qualitative level, both are indicators of how could you like it. using pandora would appear even lazier, akin to using the 'genius' playlist maker for finding new stuff. but in the end they are on the same plane, they are both based on opinions of others.

 

what excuse? i dunno, i don't know and can't imagine a serious music lover that wouldn't at least explore all these options if presented to him.

[Guest disparaissant]

http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/6044-david-cross-albums-to-listen-to-while-reading-overwrought-pitchfork-reviews/

the best page on the pitchfork site.

[awepittance]

 

 

why would i want to find unsigned music? im not a record label.

 

 

a better question is why would you not want to? It doesn't take any effort to , anyone can post their music up these days. Just peruse soundcloud user community to see what i mean, the majority of artists on here are unsigned.

 

the only reason i can think of someone wanting to omit unsigned music to their listening is because they have a false notion that if something is unsigned it's not good.

[awepittance]

 

what excuse? i dunno, i don't know and can't imagine a serious music lover that wouldn't at least explore all these options if presented to him.

 

but you're contradicting yourself, you just said why would one want to find unsigned music 'im not a record label' it honestly sounds absurd to me to say this in 2011 as someone as seemingly equipped as you to easily find ANY music signed or unsigned. Of course one should explore all options for whatever they choose to be interested in. MY argument is that to value the written opinions on other people's music tastes over actual first hand listening experience (which you can do on Pandora, sure it's an algorithm but at least you can listen to something FIRST before you READ someone elses opinion on it )On pitchfork your interest is stemming from the colorful writing of someone else who's listened to it for you before you've actually heard it. This is the part that confuses me, it's almost as if people don't trust their own abilities to be discerning.

also at this point i feel like you're moving the goal posts a little bit, i never said that people who read music journalism are lazy, i said people who use music journalism as their #1 form of music intake (while not valuing friends/colleagues, refusing to search for music on the net via youtube, google, soundcloud, myspace, pandora, lastfm, etc) are lazy (And new insult: probably very boring). I don't see how this can be denied, unless you feel compelled to be defensive because you don't go outside of this box yourself. Which in that case i could understand, if you're trying to make an argument to me about why it's ok to be lazy and still call yourself a music fan, i can go with that. Pose however you want, but don't be a full on pitchfork (or other music press) lemming, that's what i'm complaining about.

[Alzado]

I don't know about the rest of you panty sniffing twats, but I often like to read a review after I've heard an album and formed an opinion. It's interesting to compare opinions, etc. I actually find reading reviews more useful and enjoyable this way than reading them beforehand.

[awepittance]

I don't know about the rest of you panty sniffing twats, but I often like to read a review after I've heard an album and formed an opinion. It's interesting to compare opinions, etc. I actually find reading reviews more useful and enjoyable this way than reading them beforehand.

 

im with you on this LOL, this is part of why i subscribe to the Wire. i live in the US and sometimes they come to me like 2 months late so almost inevitably they will have reviews of stuff inside that ive already heard.

One of the most pleasurable experiences doing this i've had recently was when the Wire tore Brian Eno a new asshole for his Warp records album, sometimes music reviews can be extremely entertaining to read.

[bubbhasdance]

this i can get on board with. I'd like to reinforce what i said earlier, that it's not idiotic to call it lazy if you rely on Pitchfork for all of your new musical exploration. It's not lazy perse, but you are missing out on a lot of good music if you entirely rely on music press in general to fill you in on the good stuff.

 

Caribou - Swim

 

 

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

 

 

Women - Public Strain

 

 

Grinderman - Grinderman 2

 

 

Swans - My Father Will Guide me up the sky

 

 

Twin Shadow - Forget

 

 

Kanye West - My beautiful twisted dark fantasy

 

[GORDO]

 

what excuse? i dunno, i don't know and can't imagine a serious music lover that wouldn't at least explore all these options if presented to him.

 

but you're contradicting yourself, you just said why would one want to find unsigned music 'im not a record label' it honestly sounds absurd to me to say this in 2011 as someone as seemingly equipped as you to easily find ANY music signed or unsigned. Of course one should explore all options for whatever they choose to be interested in. MY argument is that to value the written opinions on other people's music tastes over actual first hand listening experience (which you can do on Pandora, sure it's an algorithm but at least you can listen to something FIRST before you READ someone elses opinion on it )On pitchfork your interest is stemming from the colorful writing of someone else who's listened to it for you before you've actually heard it. This is the part that confuses me, it's almost as if people don't trust their own abilities to be discerning.

also at this point i feel like you're moving the goal posts a little bit, i never said that people who read music journalism are lazy, i said people who use music journalism as their #1 form of music intake (while not valuing friends/colleagues, refusing to search for music on the net via youtube, google, soundcloud, myspace, pandora, lastfm, etc) are lazy (And new insult: probably very boring). I don't see how this can be denied, unless you feel compelled to be defensive because you don't go outside of this box yourself. Which in that case i could understand, if you're trying to make an argument to me about why it's ok to be lazy and still call yourself a music fan, i can go with that. Pose however you want, but don't be a full on pitchfork (or other music press) lemming, that's what i'm complaining about.

 

re: unsigned. cus i'd want to find good music, don't care if it's relatively unknown or not, and hopefully not spend much time in the search until i find a diamond.

 

i guess we're arguing blindly then. i just don't think many people do what you describe, in my case, i don't really read much of the reviews unless i already know the subject and want to compare points of view (but i also find most of the writing on pitchfork unbearable). but i will often browse through the 'best new music' section and check (read: download the crap of) stuff from there if it sounds interesting to me, some of it i've liked a lot, some of it i haven't liked at all. I will also check stuff other sources recommend, this subforum and the new releases one are a good source, my friends aren't because either we either have diametrically opposed tastes or i'm usually the one breaking artists to them.

 

to be honest i don't really seek that much new music anymore, and i don't even listen that much music anymore, but i always feel this hatred of pitchfork is a bit off, it's a good source, you can use it or not. i've merely described (i think) why would someone use it as a source of names to check out.

 

and since we're getting personal, i don't like that approach of listening something first before you try it out because i don't think i could make my mind about something unless i've listened to it properly. so i'd want to avoid 'listening properly' a bunch of shit if I can. maybe it's a stupid cold approach, but as an example, before broadband made it easy to check everything out, if I heard a name of a project that sounded worth checking out, i'd go to a forum of fans of said name and ask them what was the best thing i could buy, my line of thought is that i want to find the best stuff not just merely listen something new.

[beerwolf]

It's proberbly just me, but I have no idea what you lot are on about.

 

In fact, this thread is a bit like a Pitchfork record review (making a massive mountain out of a teeny-weeny molehill and really mother/father/granny/goat fuckingly dull).

 

If I was the big fat toad at Pitchfork, I'd employ the lot of you. You all sound like Pitchfork writers, hahah the irony of it all!

[Guest disparaissant]

It's proberbly just me, but I have no idea what you lot are on about.

 

In fact, this thread is a bit like a Pitchfork record review (making a massive mountain out of a teeny-weeny molehill and really mother/father/granny/goat fuckingly dull).

 

If I was the big fat toad at Pitchfork, I'd employ the lot of you. You all sound like Pitchfork writers, hahah the irony of it all!

does that make you the hipster who constantly talks about how awful pitchfork is, yet continues to read it anyways?