Sub-3.0 pitchfork reviews

Music
1

Someone’s collated pitchfork’s worst reviews:

How many do you own? Any that you think don’t deserve to be in Pitchfork’s dustbin?

I have 15 of them. Jeffrey Lewis’s Crass Song definitely shouldn’t be there, possibly my favourite album of his and should be an 8 point something score. I also quite like Andrew WK (and he got a much better Pitchfork review on rerelease). And whilst the boy with the Arab strap is far from good it shouldn’t be in the bin as it contains the song sleep the clock around.

But can’t argue with the rest of the ones I own.

2

Mars Volta album is at least a 9/10
Gomez a in our gun 4/10
NiN - 5/10
Brian Jonestown massacre 6/10
Tool 4/10
Audioslave 4/10

:man_shrugging:

3

I can’t help but feel in awe of that opening burn from the review of Childish Gambino’s 1.6 scoring ‘Camp’:

If you buy only one hip-hop album this year, I’m guessing it’ll be Camp .

26 Likes
4

Absolutely spot on with their review of Get Hurt. A terrible, band-killing album.

5

Quite angry that the Patti Smith covers album is in there - her Teen Spirit is sublime.

…and the FUCKING FRAGILE???

Turns out there is a very good reason I never read much Pitchfork

1 Like
6

They published a re-review of the Fragile and gave it 8.7 which seems more than generous:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22746-the-fragile-2017-definitive-edition-the-fragile-deviations-1/

1 Like
7

8.7 still feels stingy where the Fragile is concerned. Then again it is one of those ‘means-a-lot-to-me’ records that I’m incapable of judging objectively. I’d think at least a 9 though.

(it’s 10)

5 Likes
8

Tiny Cities…and the Anathallo album feel way too low. I like how certain artists become punching bags for the site (Clem Snide!)

9

Pitchfork has been unable to review Kozelek sensibly since he did that ‘War on Drugs can suck my Cock’ stunt.

I’m not the biggest cheerleader for some of his post-Benji work but they’ve really started killing him. They even pulled a positive review for one of his albums (Universal Themes) and replaced it with a far more negative one that seemed tossed together. Mad business.

10

Joan of Arc are also whipping boys for the site but I’m fine with that 'cause they are shite.

1 Like
11

I was just going to comment on that Anathallo album - sure, it’s overwrought in places, but it also has numerous soaring highs, including the following back-to-back:

Given that the second sentence of the review notes that “their turn-ons include Jesus and marching band practice”, you wonder if they were too straight edge for Pitchfork back in the day.

4 Likes
12

whilst not their best Malevolent Grain by WITTR is far better than a 2.8

3 Likes
13

I like Clem Snide, but they’re output is undeniably patchy

14

They really peaked with that Jet review.

Scrolling through that list, am I right in thinking they’re disproportionately British? Maybe that’s just the names that stand out to me more, maybe we just make shit music.

15

The D4 – 6twenty.

Silly but fun band and that album had some good songs on it. Used to hardly be the sort of band they had any interest in so not sure why they bothered other to shoot some fish in a barrel.

16

I think this was released before that happened though?

I’m also guessing it changed after he called out Laura Snapes rather than the war on drugs thing

17

Eels - Shootenanny! is criminally low, an 8 at least.

3 Likes
18

Yeah. Laura Snapes and Ian Cohen seem to have a thing for knocking down mid level British acts and garage rock revitalists respectively

3 Likes
19

I own 6 and don’t have much of an opinion of 5 of those. Love Lateralus though 8.5/10 m9s

1 Like
20

Can understand why they did it, but I would’ve liked to have read Cohen’s review of Universal Themes before it got pulled. His writing on Kozelek is always really good.