[SYRFox]

9.2

for sure

[atsonicpark]

Since it's a sonic youth board, and since SY's on Matador now and Matador has purchased some ad space recently, Pitchfork'd have to give it about... oh... an 8.1 at the highest, 7.7 at the lowest.

[SYRFox]

8.1 would give it a "Best New Thread" mention.
I think it will be 7.9

[atsonicpark]

I never understood the point system, actually. 0.0 to 10. That's, what, 101 possibilities for a score? How do they factor this? How can you listen to a record and know, out of 101 possibilities, what to score something? I can understand.. you know.. rating out of 1-5 or 1-10, or whatever; that seems pretty simple. But 101 different possibilities for a score?

Can you imagine the dilemmas (you know, if their scores weren't based upon ad revenue, rock-star-cocksucking, record label handjobs, and their own public image): "Man. I just gotta call somebody up. This record is totally deserving of an 8 or 9. But I gotta think of the number after the demical point. An 8.5? No, too high... 8.4? Eh. That looks like I don't know if this deserves an 8 or a 9! Dilemmas!"

(oh wait, somebody just called the writer up and said, "Such and such shit band's record label just bought ad space! You better give them a good score!"

"Oh shit," says the writer, "This record is 8.6 yo! Problem solved!"

[pbradley]

I thought pitchfork articles were supposed to be shroomed-up creative writing abortions followed by an unrelated safe-but-favorable number.

[Toilet & Bowels]

it doesn't make sense to use decimal places for all the number from 0.0 to 9.9, but they not 10.0 to 10.9

[atsonicpark]

The last Pitchfork review I read, before I realized not to take them seriously, was when they reviewed "Kid A". That has to be the worst review ever written.

[atsonicpark]

Haha, I think pitchfork banned my ip address as well!

Not really, but... I typed in "pitchfork radiohead kid a review" so I could post that monstrosity of shit and I clicked on the link to the site and it seriously took 5 minutes for me to actually be able to access the page. So I clicked around on a few other pages on that site and it took forever to load them. Everything else, every other site, is loading fast as fuck. So, either a) Pitchfork is experiencing the most insane amount of traffic ever and their servers are like a dick trying to fuck after cumming 20 times in an hour or b) My browser hates pitchfork. Pitchfork hates my browser.

Either way, this has to be the worst review ever penned by a "critical music site" (some will say the nyc ghosts and flowers one is worse, but at least it was FUNNY, if misguided; this is just embarassing... read it aloud!):


I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Radiohead were hunched over their instruments. Thom Yorke slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Colin Greenwood tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Radiohead's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.
The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. "Black eyed angels swam at me," Yorke sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.
The Italians surrounding me held their breath in communion (save for the drunken few shouting "Criep!"). Suddenly, a rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Egyptian Song," was certainly momentous, but wasn't the response more apt for, well, "Creep?" I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Radiohead had the heavens on their side.
For further testament, Chip Chanko and I both suffered auto-debilitating accidents in the same week, in different parts of the country, while blasting "Airbag" in our respective Japanese imports. For months, I feared playing the song about car crashes in my car, just as I'd feared passing 18- wheelers after nearly being crushed by one in 1990. With good reason, I suspect Radiohead to possess incomprehensible powers. The evidence is only compounded with Kid A-- the rubber match in the band's legacy-- an album which completely obliterates how albums, and Radiohead themselves, will be considered.
Even the heralded OK Computer has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. Kid A makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world.
This is an emotional, psychological experience. Kid A sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Radiohead hated being Radiohead, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Radiohead record yet.
"Everything in Its Right Place" opens like Close Encounters spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide whether the tones are coming or going, Thom Yorke's Cuisinarted voice struggles for its tongue. "Everything," Yorke belts in uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "There are two colors in my head" is repeated until the line between Yorke's mind and the listener's mind is erased.
Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the track "Idioteque," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "National Anthem." Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn. Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot. The horns swarm as Yorke screams, begs, "Turn it off!" It's the album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps raisers.
After the rockets exhaust, Radiohead float in their lone orbit. "How to Disappear Completely" boils down "Let Down" and "Karma Police" to their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to bridging Yorke's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "I float down the Liffey/ I'm not here/ This isn't happening," he sings in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album shifts into its underwater mode. "Treefingers," an ambient soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's Low, calms after the record's emotionally strenuous first half.
The primal, brooding guitar attack of "Optimistic" stomps like mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Try the best you can/ Try the best you can," before revealing the more resigned sentiment, "The best you can is good enough." For an album reportedly "lacking" in traditional Radiohead moments, this is the best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a light jam before morphing into "In Limbo." "I'm lost at sea," Yorke cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor beams as Yorke is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned "Idioteque" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "band." For all the noise to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the music. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing Kid A.
Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Morning Bell." Yorke's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust. "Walking walking walking walking," he mumbles while Jonny Greenwood squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Motion Picture Soundtrack" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead mother, "Julia"-- with Ringo and Paul's maudlin, yet sincere LP2 finale, "Goodnight." Pump organ and harp flutter as Yorke condones with affection, "I think you're crazy." To further emphasize your feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Yorke bows out with "I will see you in the next life." If you're not already there with him.
The experience and emotions tied to listening to Kid A are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Nigel Godrich included) created this, it's clear that Radiohead must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

[atsonicpark]

And don't get me wrong, Kid A is a good little record but god damn that review is just... ugh. It's just wrong on so many levels. That last paragraph! A breathing person wrote that review!

[Rob Instigator]

I never read pitchspork's review of the eternal

[floatingslowly]

I never read pitchspork.

I just can't understand PAYING another music geek for their opinion.

all the new music info one could ever need can be found absolutely fucking free on the interwebnet.

[atsonicpark]

My favorite reviews are on amazon.com. I always get a laugh out of those.

[automatic bzooty]

 

[joe11121]

Haha, Pitchfork review suck and have the stupidest ratings. Half of the records that give below a 5 are actually really good. Then they give a shitty album, let's say In Rainbows, a 9.something it's so retarded.

[atsonicpark]

the definitive rant.

[GeneticKiss]

Pitchfork are living proof that any band hailed as "groundbreaking" and "refreshingly original" are overhyped crap whose sales are fueled by label-generated media buzz.

When was the last time a band that was truly "groundbreaking" and "refreshingly original" found success through word-of-mouth from and by people who actually believed in them?

[atsonicpark]

Never.

Because most people don't actually like "groundbreaking" music. They like some band who commercialized a sound that they ripped off of a band who ripped off of a band who ripped off of a band who ripped off a TRULY groundbreaking band that no one gives a fuck about.

I'd like to see a band like Make A Rising become word of the mouth superstars of music, since they're amazing and groundbreaking. Instead, I think last I looked, they had 500 listeners on last.fm. What a fucking joke.

[SuperCreep]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvogqD8NIS8

[automatic bzooty]

"shit, cat."

i repeat

"shit, cat."

[vulva]

I heard Pitchfork once gave Music as a whole a 6.8.