#11

The Pitchfork review for Last of the Country Gentleman. More obscurely, I remember a Planet Sound review of Figure 8 by Elliot Smith that described him as something like “an American version of David Gray, but without the songs”. It absolutely infuriated me at the time, not least because pre-internet they were probably the most reliable music reviewers around (at least, as far as indie/alternative stuff went).

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#12

Pitchfork giving:

B&S - The Boy With The Arab Strap 0.8
Tegan & Sara - So Jealous 3.4

#13

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=21396.30;wap2

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#14
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#15

Maybe worst of all - in the sub-heading…YOU’RE album’s a bit overdue

Select was a terrible magazine by 1997.

#16

NME were so brave with their 7/10 What’s the Story review then!

I believe they had firmly chose Blur. They gave The Great Escape 9/10 iirc

#17

Pretty sure I remember Q giving Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’ a 3 star review.

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#18

Also, Earbuddy’s review of Low’s ‘Double Negative’… pffffttt… fuck off!

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#19

i dunno about this, it’s a bit too conspiratorial - the reality is that any big band releasing a hotly-anticipated album would be extremely likely to get the 5/5, 10/10 treatment for a good decade after this. Just look at Q Magazine etc

I mean maybe it’s the same thing that underlies it but Oasis were hardly unique if that’s the case.

#20

This is the moment the government should have nationalized Pitchfork.

Not everyone is going to like the same albums, but it’s clear they never really listened to it and had a vendetta against the band going into it (not saying this is limited to the Pumpkins, see their treatment of The Eels too). If you’re going to say it’s the same thing as Adore and then have the nerve to shit on Jimmy Chamberlin’s drumming of all things, you lose all credibility. Saying Billy has a baby-head was a charming touch too.

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#21

As always, my answer is this:

Original score was U.2 :face_vomiting: , now updated to an 8.2. The review has been left absolutely the same otherwise so it now makes no sense. I mean, this is exactly how you would expect an 8.2 album review to finish, right?

Do You Like Rock Music? sounds empty at its core, with a rock where its heart should be.

Megatwats.

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#22

No such thing as a wrong review

#23

Weird thing about that review is that it focuses on aesthetics that aren’t the reviewers preference, like

“Every track on MACHINA sits in a heavy syrup of synthesizer. Flood deep-fries the sound in golden calf fat. Guitars hiss like hig pressure hoses. Gelatinous bass issues from the crust like pus. The psoriatic sound comes off like infected yellow scabs growing on fragile frosted glass”

Given the band were deliberately going for a degraded rusty sound, that could just as well work as a paragraph in a positive review as a negative one

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#24

my theory with Be Here Now reviews is that all the reviews were written after 1 or 2 listens, under the influence of just as much sniff as the band were when recording

that record literally sounds like cocaine - very clean and all the treble in the world

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#25

People lost their minds when that record came out. There was so much hype. I queued up to buy it on release day like thousands of others.

I think there was a huge element of the music press burying their heads in the sand. They’d instigated the hype. The album release was on the national news as the first story. No-one wanted to believe it was shite. But shite it is.

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#26

Think with bands and albums like that it is in everyone’s interest to give good reviews keep the hype going, once the bubble has burst the readership will go with it.

Also think it is really hard to judge and album in the short term, they probably did like it at the time

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#27

I think this is more common than people will ever admit, it’s very easy to hype and will yourself into thinking something is better than it is

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#28

yeah Kid A/Amnesiac were received quite poorly critically and commercially in general originally. It was only as the decade rumbled on that people started to recognise how great/important they are

#29

The Everlasting Gaze is probably my favourite production on a Pumpkins track

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#30

Yeah that over the top wash of effects sounds amazing, been trying to replicate it, apparently it’s a short reverb going into a harmoniser going into a tape delay

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