Lmao holy shit

Album Rating: 3.5

impatiently refreshing until he comments again

Album Rating: 3.0

That's my name, don't wear it out.

The Pitchfork review is terrible. The hypothesis of the piece is never resolved with a decisive point or example. It's very wish-washy.

I wish this lazy form of critique would die. If you're going to wrestle with the writing exclusively, then you should absolutely expand upon your interpretation of the work. Clipping lyrics and submitting an assessment is shite. Anyone could do that. Give us more of your mind. At the very least, give us the grander context from which the lyric exists within.

Album Rating: 4.0

I agree, it doesn't make for a very solid review



and they say the album "sounds terrific" but barely anything is said about the music haha

Music comes secondary when reviewing music. Everyone knows that. XD

Nah but honestly. Like okay, brushing over the supposedly fantastic but hardly quantified music, even if you commit your perspective to a singular aspect, at least put the legwork in and devote the time into it.

It has become all too commonplace in art criticism to assume that a quotation or reference speaks for itself. I feel like critics should be doing more to quantify their arguments.

Album Rating: 5.0

yeah that review was embarrassing and pretentious in all the worst ways



"the guy with the acoustic guitar, bleating his feelings like they were breaking news."



cringe. is he supposed to just come across as lazy and indifferent as opposed to expressive? it's a singer-songwriter album ffs.. also if I never hear the term "breaking news" again it will be too soon

bleat is a good word for TTMOE tbh

Haha too true, Atari. The trick to writing any piece of criticism is to rely exclusively on the simile to make your point.

X is like unrelated Y. Double points if it's delivered as a bad pun. This one isn't a good pun, so he gets no extra points.

Album Rating: 5.0

have no issues with bleating as a word choice at all, haha. indeed that probably fits his vocal style. it's the suggestion that the writer is somehow the arbitrator of whether Matsson's feelings (or how he expresses those feelings) have any sort of real meaning behind them. I handpicked that line but several others were just as bad or worse.



I'm all for a different viewpoints especially since I tend to have blinders and gush with a lot of my writing but this was just a lame take imo

oh yeah as per the last page, that rev as a whole is pure arse lol
+1 for bleat
+0.5 for hysterically misplaced Jonathan Richman reference
-5.0classic for everything else

@johnny lol ah here now. You can't be giving out the half points. Go big or go home.

i refuse to put the Richman reference on par with the bleat and i refuse to give the bleat more than a +1 you do the maths on that

@Colton

I'm all for writers writing what they are interested so long as they convey they are genuinely interested. This review in question doesn't seem all to interested in what they are writing about in the slightest to me.

There are numerous articles and debates about criticism and their lack of form in the respective art: that then branches off into whether the reader even knows/ cares.

Ultimately, there's no rule to follow but it's certainly derivative writing to pick an instrument, describe a simile and leave it. The music here is apparently great. Apparently because the critic isn't arsed much in telling you much else.

@johnny damn well... yeah you're stuck then.

Album Rating: 4.3

I just read the Pitchfork review and honestly didn't find it that bad (I've mocked plenty of their reviews in recent years though). I did roll my eyes at the line calling singer-songwriter folk almost as "dead" as jazz, seems like a ridiculous throwaway when you're writing that sort of review for a prominent artist in the genre.

@Sunnyvale That made me roll my eyes too. Is it even true? I wouldn't say so at all.

@Colton I suppose the key is to just not read that material. Pop music review mags can be sometimes decidedly homogenous in style. The commitment to more voices hasn't really materialised into text about music that is actually as diverse as the writer's penning it.

This doesn't just apply to music criticism.

Album Rating: 4.3

I mean, I'm big on folk so maybe I'm not an unbiased observer. You could certainly make a case that the genre isn't as "relevant" as it has been at times in the past, but there's plenty of artists in the style still quite popular. Case in point, my wife and I got tickets to Gregory Alan Isakov recently, and he's selling out decently sized venues quickly.



Even calling jazz a dead genre seems a little sweeping for a music writer who should be pretty knowledgeable on the subject, I'm not particularly in tune with the current goings-on in jazz, but it's my understanding that there's a good scene currently in London, if nowhere else.

I think it's fair to point at any moment in the last two decades and sat "look. Damien Rice. Glenn Hansard. Ed Sheeran."

Or folk rock revivals like Fleet Foxes, Mumford & Sons or The Avett Brothers. To conclude that folk or even the singer-songwriter has been absolutely unpopular I think is a little forgetful. That's not to speak of the branded styling of recent pop artists like Tay Tay Swifteroo dipping her toes in those waters too.

As far as jazz go, yeah I mean it hasn't enjoyed the same popularity as it has since the 50s but its more popular now. The notion that it is anywhere near close to dead with so many active and successful jazz artists reaching realtive popular in composite styles like Thundercat and Kamasi Washington - also suggests to me this wasn't a line that had much thought put into it.

Near dead doesn't equate to a bountiful genre of great music in all aspects of creativity, being toured and listened to in good measure. It's reductive to perpetuate it.

Album Rating: 4.0

Yeah this record was really nice, gonna listen to it again. It struck me a lot more than the last one I listened to with the brown cover