This is mostly for music nerds of a certain pre-Spotify age, but I found it fascinating: the oral history of Pitchfork from Slate magazine.
Greene: It was always, and only ever, a bunch of nerds writing essays about records. It was that before it became famous. And it was that after it became famous. It was only ever that, and those are the people who still come to Pitchfork, but I guess it wasn’t enough.
I read this morning that Pitchfork, the music review site that basically set the tone for criticism and indie approval in the early days of weblogs, is being folded into GQ Magazine after mass layoffs. Apparently they were bought by Condé Nast a couple of years ago and weren’t getting the kind of eyeballs some algorithm required. They lost their hold on the critical pulse of modern music years ago but they were still good to check in on every couple of days to see what was new. Stereogum is still going (and is an independently owned site again) and there are a couple of others out there, but this is sad news.
Pitchfork just posted their list of the 200 Best Albums of the 1980’s. There are so many excellent albums to choose from in that decade; I guess their top 10 is a pretty good (if not uninspired) group.
I’m happy to see Boards of Canada and Massive Attack in the top 10 of Pitchfork’s 50 Best Albums of 1998 list. There are a bunch of other good ones in there too.
Underworld’s never had trouble getting listeners to their feet. This gorgeously love-drunk finale makes Barbara a record that can bring them to their knees.
This lineup totally motivates me for a road trip to North Carolina in June: Chvrches, Death Cab for Cutie Announce Joint Tour. Interestingly, Death Cab is touring with Metric up in Canada right now–another Venn diagram of music I like. Related: M83 is releasing a new album and will be at Meriwether Post Pavilion, about 10 miles from the house, in June.
The Cure just re-released Disintegration, their seminal album from 1989, to excellent reviews.
A whole lot of this album’s appeal is that it’s comforting, practically womblike– big, warm, slow, full of beauty and melody and even joy. The trick, I think, is how well it serves as a soundtrack to that feeling that everything around you is meaningful, whether it’s beautiful or horrible or sublime…
I’d have to say I agree. This album was in heavy rotation my freshman year of college, along with Metallica’s Master of Puppets and Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkins. There’s an interesting mix of music, huh?
Wow. Apparently, somehow, an album of vintage live La’s recordings was just released. Pitchfork gives it an 8.1, comparing it (unfairly, probably) to their ’90 studio release. The band’s chief songwriter is brilliant, perfectionist, reclusive, and unstable, so this is a nice surprise. More information, via Wikipedia.
Date posted: February 20, 2007
| Filed under music, shortlinks | Comments Off on Pitchfork Review of new La’s Live Disc
Here’s an earworm I’ve got at least a slight connection to: the Drop Nineteens just re-released their demo album from 1991, which was reviewed by Pitchfork over the weekend. In the recap the reviewer mentioned a vocalist named Hannah who joined the band briefly during that demo session, who then left and transferred into MICA while I was there, and who came through the design program a year behind us. I knew her from the scene and remember hearing she’d sung on an album by a famous band (I’d heard it was the Sneaker Pimps) but this makes much more sense now.
Anyhow, the song Daymom is really good—it’s got a lot of the things I know and remember of the music from that time. It’s got a very chill vibe even though the tempo is fast, and I’m a sucker for a double layered male/female vocal with bass guiding the melody. There’s a lot of Cure/New Order happening here, and that’s not a bad thing.
If you’re a US citizen, “you have the right to say no” to a search, “and they are not allowed to bar you from the country,” Hussain said. But if you refuse, CBP can still take your phone, laptop, or other devices and hold onto them.
File this under Things I Learned today: my work MacBook Pro and personal MacBook Air can charge from both the MagSafe port and one of the two USB-C ports on the side. I found this out quite accidentally at work when I plugged my work machine in and it made the happy “I’m charging” ping when it was connected to a Dell power brick/port extender.
I’ve got two sets of Apple Airpods Pro: my original set, which I bought in 2020, and a Pro 2 set, which I bought in the middle of 2024 to upgrade the first set after the microphone started failing. I had the originals replaced under warranty in 2022 when one side went bad and started clicking constantly, and they returned to faithful service. I use the good ones for everything but working in the garage, and I relegate the first set for getting dirty under the truck or painting a bedroom. They’ve been crackling in my ear for several weeks now, and I finally took the time to look up a solution: the noise cancelling circuitry is going bad, apparently. Turning it off solved the problem immediately, but leaves me without a cocoon.
Blind elevated their ethereal sound into a more mature exploration of the imperatives of existence. It’s more subdued, at least from a production standpoint, but finds its niche in luminant melodies and the band’s elegant yet spare musical arrangements.
I’ve written about The Sundays before; they are one of my favorite bands of my college years. This is a thoughtful retrospective of their second album, which came out in 1992 with a different vibe from their first record. Melancholy, yes, but still beautiful and inspiring. I wish they’d continued making music together, but we have three excellent albums to look back on.
