Premier Rock Forum

They are a heavyweight and they seem to love to throw their weight around and be bullies.

Eventually you will have one major selling artist who tells them to fuck off to their face and it will all come down like a house of cards.

wilco, do your duty.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/r ... y-blue-sky


Rating 5.2

madlee wrote:They are a heavyweight and they seem to love to throw their weight around and be bullies.

Eventually you will have one major selling artist who tells them to fuck off to their face and it will all come down like a house of cards.

wilco, do your duty.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/r ... y-blue-sky


Rating 5.2

Yeah but Wilco can eat a dick too. I never understood their appeal. They only move me towards the "stop" button.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:Sweet lord! I haven't actually read a Pitchfork review in years, so I clicked a random entry, only to have my eyes brutally raped by the following:

"...a strange thing happens as you spin: the ceiling turns to a black velvet cloak of night that extends to the horizon, flecked with pinprick stars; the demure oom-pah-pah figure morphs into a brassy alarum. Cold winds whip your face as the round-and-round refrain slips a gear and goes rolling swiftly away, a soft clatter of brass rings marking distance behind. Repetition's but the clatter of hooves; everything else ribbons out towards the unknowable."

Since when does Thax Douglas write for the fork?

Eierdiebe wrote:

Steve V. wrote:It's like a lot of Chabon stories; wordy, pretentious, and stuck in first gear for what feels like twenty thousand pages.

I've only read his first novel, Mysteries of Pittsburgh, but even so, based on that alone, I'd say Chabon's a good writer and that your description of his style is way, way off.

I also enjoyed the Hollywood film Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand. In fact, I own it on DVD! And I'm guessing the book it's based on is pretty good too since the writing in the film is quite well done. (The book also lacks Katie Holmes --- which is undoubtedly a feather in the not crap cap.)

I agree with you though about Pitchfork... their lack of quality control makes for insufferable reading.

I find Chabon awkwardly wordy and very very uncapitivating. The point of attack in his novels in particular come so late in the game, it is fucking torture to get the meat of the book. It's always dozens to hundreds of pages written by a guy who can't write clearly. It is clunky, tedious, tiresome...it seems like he wrote the book, then got out a thesaurus, changed every third word, and that's what went to print. The fact he won a Pulitzer is upsetting. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was a great book, but it required a lot of hard swallowing. Definitely NOT the best book to come out that year.

The more I talk about Chabon, the more I get angry at the fucking waste of time his work is. He's just a terrible, pretentious writer. At first I thought maybe I was a dumb shit because I didn't know what a lot of the words he used meant...then I went to a used bookstore once and picked up a Chabon collection of short stories, and every "difficult" word in the book was highlighted...hmmm. Incredibly overrated...if he had more of an urgency or if he could keep his collegiate-style in check, his stories would be brilliant as opposed to shit.

Like I said, I've only read one of his books, so I'm in no position to judge his entire body of work, but still, based on that, "pretentious" doesn't seem like an accurate word to describe him. I've read a couple short stories, essays by Chabon, plus an interview or two, and he didn't come across that way _at all_ to me. If I didn't know any better I'd think you've mistaken him for someone else. Which novels, if I may ask, are you referring to?

I would like to read Wonder Boys at some point. It would be interesting to compare and contrast it with Richard Russo's Straight Man, since they both have similar subject matter, and the two author's writing styles, as far as I can gather, have an even deliberateness about them which lends them to being the very opposite of the sort of baroque, abstruse, and self-indulgent writing you're describing.

But yeah, Pitchfork sucks.

Pitchfork is the indie rock version of FOX News.
Much like the way FOX News' reporting more or less dictates what the other news channels will say, Pitchfork tells us and a majority of the other music sites and mags as to what's hip and what's not.
All Pitchfork needs to do is add pinups of weather girls to make my comparison complete.

stewie wrote:Contains some of the most pretentious reviews ever written.

that's exactly why it's not crap. it's entertaining as fuck. it's hilarious. plus, they used the phrase "overwhelmingly mediocre" to describe (i think) zwan that alone deserves a not crap. however, that phrase rules in almost any sufficient context.

fiery jack wrote:apologies if this is kerblable

I was just emailed about this Onion article. Pretty good, though a little reserved. Doesn't quite lampoon the fact that Pitchfork's target audience is 15-year-old boys who don't really like music.