sincerely, pitchfork

TO ALL ASPIRING INDIE MUSICIANS:

We can make you, and we can break you.

At the slightest whim we possess the power to catapult your band, who's discography may consist of nothing more than a 4-song EP, into the Next-Big-Thing stratosphere and subsequently into the MBAA (Most Blogged About Artist) spot on The Hype Machine.

Conversely, once you have ascended to an undeserved level of indie-bordering-on-mainstream stardom, it is likely that you will fall out of our favor and we will choose to exercise our ability to cut you back down to size.

Our earlier affinity for your music will in no way hold us back from unequivocally denouncing your future releases. For example, no matter how lavishly and articulately we may praise your first demo, we will not hesitate to wordlessly and humiliatingly dismiss your debut album. It may even be the case that we called said demo, "a record with not just a distinctive aesthetic, but also one single-worthy track after another," with four "catchy, tightly executed songs that put a memorable stamp on pop's classic themes." But even if the album that follows includes all of these songs, with the only notable difference being their improved production, we will have no qualms about giving it one of our worst ratings of the year and providing absolutely no explanation.

Sincerely,
Pitchfork Media, Inc.










P.S. Truth be told, the album isn't too exciting and I've already become a little tired of the high-school-flavored dilemmas of Black Kids' songs. But come on, I expect the indie-braintrust at Pitchfork to at least pretend it is more objective and less flighty than my personal predilections. Either they're getting lazy or they're indulging in an indie-rock power trip. And there goes my brilliant conceit.

Continue reading...

art and industry

Somewhere in the Northern Liberties hipsterhood of Philadelphia is a warehouse which bears the phrase "Art and Industry" in painted lettering, heavily faded by countless snowbound winters and scorching summers. It seems appropriate to me that it in this very same building that Dr. Dog does their recording. I can't explain why exactly, but maybe you understand. Their new album, Fate, comes out a week from today. It came into my possession today, and I was only able to listen to it three times through before I had to start writing about it here. Like their previous albums, most notably 2005's Easy Beat and 2007's We All Belong, Fate is a melting pot of genres and influences. Folk, country, and blues flavors accent Dr. Dog's achingly melodic indie-pop/rock gems, with the vocal duties being shared equally between Scott McMicken and Toby Leaman, backed as always by their 60's-pop-esque chorus. Pitchfork will probably give it a 6.3 or something. It will be another moment when you're reminded of why you don't care what they say. The album is great. If you don't believe me...

Dr. Dog - Old News (buy)
Dr. Dog - The Rabbit, The Bat & The Reindeer
Dr. Dog - The Ark Continue reading...

only one syllable

guess what you're going to be pumping on your boombox all summer long?




nas' new album, previously entitled 'n***er' is now simply being called untitled and comes out july 15th. arguably the best rapper alive. Continue reading...

functions of the sun

Our nation is officially 232 years old, congrats everyone. To celebrate, I'll be going to the Phillies-Mets game to watch baseball, as well as, fingers crossed, a few incoherently drunk fans who live less than 100 miles apart beat the shit out of each other (it gets good around 2:35) and get escorted out of the stadium by security. God Bless America!

Oh yeah and here's some music.

Lykke Li - Little Bit
A twenty-two years young Swedish girl with a voice like fellow-Swede Victoria Bergsman of Taken By Trees and instrumentation/samples that smack of The Tough Alliance, also of Sweden. In twenty years, after it has finished revolutionizing American pop music we will look back at the aughts as the emergence of the "Swedish Sound." One of the catchiest songs of the year.

Air France - Collapsing At Your Doorstep
Sharing a label with The Tough Alliance (Sincerely Yours) and a hometown with Jens Lekman (Gothenberg, Sweden), Air France sounds similar to the former, though free of the vocals of either, relying on samples for their verbiage. Like many a TTA banger, "Collapsing At Your Doorstep" is based on a loop of deftly selected dialog and evolves into a catchy dance number.

Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing
A mixtape from the next big thing in hip hop, DC's Wale (pronounced wah-lay). It's loosely based on Seinfeld, with a number of tracks beginning with dialog from the show or the comedy acts of its racist ex-stars (see track 6: "The Kramer"), with some great cover (?) art to boot (click his myspace link above).

Nas - Queens Get The Money
New track from Nas with a beat (with no actual percussion, just piano loops actually) by Jay Electronica. Some say the beat and vocal styles clash. I think the piano showcases Nas' lyrics and the changes add a drama to each verse which a "normal" sounding rap beat often fails to achieve.

I'll leave you with this. It is a short back-and-forth in the commenters section of a recent Kanye blog post, in which Nobel-eligible Yeezy fans discuss the mysteries of time zones.

sweetpea | June 24, 2008
@tues. Hello there... how are you?! What time is it in America?

tuesdainoelle | June 24, 2008
@sweetpea: I'm on the East coast---9:18 am :)

sweetpea | June 24, 2008
It is 15:20 here... Why is there a time difference? between the two coasts?

tuesdainoelle | June 24, 2008
@sweetpea: Ummm, I think it's function of the SUN calculates the difference between two dates...at least that's what I think...I could BE wrong...but if anyone else knows FEEL free to share :)

You heard her, feel free. Continue reading...

hordes and droves of caribooooouuuuuuuu

This video is way too big. However if it's obscuring the junk on the side you can click over to another tab on ya browsa and click back and that stuff'll be there. At least that's how it is for me.

Anyway, I'm going to tell you a little story. Fran and I scoffed at the previous owner of this domain name -- who also used it as a music blog, albeit a much less blogtastic one -- for many reasons. One of the most hipsterifically gratifying was his inclusion of PitchforkMedia.com in his list of cool links on the sidebar of his site. "Haha," we laughed to each other, "haha." But now that I personally have directed hordes and droves of readers over to content on Pitchfork.tv on a number of different occasions, who is laughing now? No one is laughing now.

P.S. I can't say the word 'caribou' in my head without elongating the 'ooouuu' a la The Pixies, can you? It is impossible. Continue reading...

does anyone remember the roots picnic?

I do somewhat. Dayna and I went to that shit a week ago but kept it a big lazy secret until now.

I'll set the stage. It was a billion degrees and a couple thousand drunk and sweaty people were all crammed on a glorified parking lot called Festival Pier in Philly on the smelly ol' banks of the Delaware. We got there late, missing The Cool Kids, Deerhoof, and probably a few other hip acts that ?uestlove loves, but we got in free through my domestic connects so we weren't sweating the sweaty (mid-day) part of the schedule.

Santogold didn't play because of a "scheduling issue" so she and the Roots played a surprise show at the TLA the night before, but only after the Air Guitar Championship wrapped up. The performance we saw was outdoors and the sound was iffy but they put on a great show, as they always seem to do in Philly (notably better than their 45 minutes at Rock the Bells on Randall's Island in NYC last summer). They ran through their usual grab bag of old hits, one of their patented we-can-play-any-hit-from-any-genre-and-make-it-as-good-if-not-better-than-the-original medley, as well as a bunch of cuts off their new Rising Down LP (which we've decided is good but nowhere near a classic, due to its reliance on boring and repetitive refrains).

After the Roots we caught Diplo and his Mad Decent crew spinning and spitting in the air-conditioned blow-up tent while Gnarls Barkley set up. Being somewhat fascinated by Diplo, I much enjoyed his set and was disappointed when Cee-Lo, Danger Mouse, and company finally came on. In regards to the Round Mound of Sound (see video below), before the show we were somewhat perplexed by their headliner status, as we couldn't imagine anyone thinking of Gnarls Barkley as their favorite band. A good portion of the fans stayed after the Roots to see about them, but the crowd (including us) began to peter out after a few songs, as Gnarls wasn't doing much to prove our skepticism wrong.

It was time to eat a popsicle and go home, so there is not much more to tell. Except this one last piece of advice. Now, granted, I am completely biased. But, if you are making a bucket list of musical acts to witness before you end it all, I would humbly recommend these two events:

1. Bruce Springsteen in an indoor arena in either Philadelphia, New Jersey, or New York.

2. The Roots, indoors in Philadelphia.

Both of those happen at least once a year because Bruce and ?uesto cannot not be on tour. So get to it!

Continue reading...

holy shit, the death set.

First of all, today is Fran's birthday. Happy Birthday Fran!


Look, I don't know much about Baltimore other than that a lot of people there apparently sell drugs and get murdered and make fucking crazy hiphop club music. Apparently the two snotty Australians in The Death Set knew something I didn't when they decided to flee from the idyllic-sounding (and -looking, judging from its Wikipedia entry) Gold Coast of Queensland to the streets of Baltimore, but it seems to have turned out for the best, as they've toured with Best Fwends and Bonde do Rolê, been remixed by Dan Deacon, and generated significant local buzz.

Pitchfork didn't love their debut LP, which culls together a lot of the songs from their preceding three EP's, and somehow spent a long time blabbering about their hip hop influences, which aren't to my ears as significant as their brash punk voices and guitar scuzz. Their best song is called "Negative Thinking", which condenses the theme of disillusionment at seeing people you admired give up their old convictions into one immensely shoutable chorus lyric: "In hindsight, I don't want to be like the people I liked." Combine that line with the best delivery of "Fuck that!" in recent memory, and you've got the perfect dance song for when your crowd is too cool to dance to the Black Kids. Listen to this song right fucking now!

The Death Set - "Negative Thinking"

And here are a few more, if you're interested:

The Death Set - "Had A Bird"

The Death Set - "Around The World" Continue reading...