This is probably the worst 'professional' music review I've ever read

[Perpetual Change]

Take the way DT fans go around parading the band's chops to people who don't even care about that or PT fans go around smileing over Steve Wilson production like there was no such thing as good sounding modern albums before him, and change it to Maynard fans praising everything Maynard's just said in interviews about like LSD, the cycles or the moon, spiritual experiences, the tide, math, or whatever, and that's pretty much what I remember.

I've heard of these people but I've always gotten the impression that make up a very small group of people that actually listen to the band.

Yeah, it's never good to judge an entire fanbase on people on the internet.

But those people were definitely there in terms of internet presence.

[SoundscapeMN]

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9164-floating-world/

Anathallo - Floating World
2.7

Well, we're not in Illinoise anymore, but it's not for lack of superficial similarities: Like Sufjan Stevens himself, Anathallo hail from Michigan, their turn-ons include Jesus and marching band practice, and they never saw an overly elaborate song title they couldn't preface with a word from a foreign language. Floating World, the septet's first album after a handful of self-released EPs, pegs hushed vocals and everything-under-the-sun arrangements to Japanese folklore.  Unfortunately, the result is comically overwrought.

Never less than wildly ambitious, Floating World is lavish enough for simple description to send most old-media typists careening over their word limits: glockenspiels, trumpets, trombones, flugelhorns, chains, harps, cellos, melodicas, bells, Velcro, feedback, "We Will Rock You" bleacher stomps, a cappella-group harmonies, Bible stories, Jeff Buckley balladic calisthenics, Ben Folds piano drama, a quick Rain Dogs-cum-Man Man hobo freakout, Appleseed Cast guitar sprawl, a surfeit of time-signature changes, one track with whirling drums that sound like "Chicago" (or really "Clocks"), and, on modern-classical-informed "The Bruised Reed", plenty of "love, love, love." Adds lead singer Matt Joynt, in choirboy melisma that intermittently froths with emo-kid angst: "See, all things are so bright and spiritual."

Oh, are they? The band's name may be Greek for "to renew", but criticism comes from the Greek krinein, or "to cut," and here on the world wide internet there's plenty of space for saber-baring. Floating World's ostensible centerpiece is the song cycle from caroling, discordant "Hanasakajijii One: The Angry Neighbor" to the, yes, "Chicago"-like "Hanasakajijii Four: A Great Wind, More Ash"-- although naturally, the tracks are out of order and interspersed with the rest of the album. They're based on a Japanese folktale about a dog digging up gold in a neighbor's yard. Typical lyric: "I, of wicked deeds, snarling mouth/ Wandered away, wandered by." Clearly, none of this is Japan's fault.

But as the old saying goes, when you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit-- and Anathallo love clichés, too.  "Out of sight, out of mind/ Someone said that to me, someone said that to me"-- but they've clearly taken the former advice to heart. Floating World is little more than a long list of insufferable pretensions that suggest some psychedelic aspirations. Complexity for complexity's sake is lame, and nothing inherently privileges music that tries to bring "higher" arts into plain ol' pop; you could fill shelves and shelves with bad art-rock, jazz-rock or classical-rock. Floating World makes Anathallo the Emerson, Lake & Palmer of fiction-workshop rock: All things go, all things go.

— Marc Hogan, July 11, 2006

[Gorille85]

Pitchfork is the worst fuck.

[lateralus88]

wat

Rage. That's what.

[Gorille85]

When I saw that Ulver review I knew that I just couldn't take this site seriously in the future.

[ThroughHerEyesDude6]

What has been read cannot be unread, and I don't even know if they guy was for or against Lateralus near the end.

[zxlkho]

When I saw that Ulver review I knew that I just couldn't take this site seriously in the future.

The Perdition City one?

[Gorille85]

Yeah.

[tri.ad]

Hmmm. I was planning on reading PF reviews for a laugh or two, but there's just too much facepalm material compressed in three paragraphs of a single review.

[faemir]

Pitchfork exist purely to troll people over the internet.

Just look at their review of The Fragile by NIN, it's a joke.

[Fluffy Lothario]

ST. ANGER REVIEW

You can quite clearly tell he couldn't remember much of the album when he wrote the review. Look at the amount of lyrics he misquotes, for example.

There were tons of St Anger reviews that praised the shit out of it before it came out. I remember reading both Metal Hammer and NME give it a 9 out of 10. I highly doubt most of the reviewers were giving their real opinions though. It was only a few months later that I heard some radio DJs saying they'd played it a bit and still thought it was shite, and I finally saw it get a bad review (and that was still a 4 out of 10). For a while, no-one who was being paid for what they wrote/played on the air wanted to say a bad thing about it.

[Marvellous G]

I saw this Lateralus review a while ago, and I do admit that it's actually kinda hilarious at points. But I'm with Sigz; this would have been fine as a blog post or something, but for P4K to actually put this up as their official review of the album is astonishing.

Still, I do actually like Pitchfork for the most part.

[Ravenheart]

Most of their reviews don't even contain comments about the content. It's just a game they play to see how many clever similes and sarcastic hypothetical situations they can pull out of their asses. By the end of the review, the readers are completely left in the dark as to how the critic who wrote is actually flt about the album.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Not enough bad things have been said of Pitchfork in this thread.


That's one website I never visit, and with good reason.

[orcus116]

This is awesome:

When Pitchfork asked comedian David Cross to compile a list of his favorite albums, he instead provided them with a list of "Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews". In it, he satirically piled over-the-top praise on fictional indie rock records, mocking Pitchfork Media's reviewing style.

https://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/6044-david-cross-albums-to-listen-to-while-reading-overwrought-pitchfork-reviews/

[MetalManiac666]

This is awesome:

When Pitchfork asked comedian David Cross to compile a list of his favorite albums, he instead provided them with a list of "Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews". In it, he satirically piled over-the-top praise on fictional indie rock records, mocking Pitchfork Media's reviewing style.

https://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/6044-david-cross-albums-to-listen-to-while-reading-overwrought-pitchfork-reviews/

Fucking brilliant.

[pain of occupation]

ST. ANGER REVIEW

You can quite clearly tell he couldn't remember much of the album when he wrote the review. Look at the amount of lyrics he misquotes, for example.

i wouldn't know if lyrics were misquoted; i DO remember some lame ass'd "kill kill kill" part, though.

[TheOutlawXanadu]

This is awesome:

When Pitchfork asked comedian David Cross to compile a list of his favorite albums, he instead provided them with a list of "Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews". In it, he satirically piled over-the-top praise on fictional indie rock records, mocking Pitchfork Media's reviewing style.

https://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/6044-david-cross-albums-to-listen-to-while-reading-overwrought-pitchfork-reviews/

That's amazing.

Is it funny to anyone else how Pitchfork is the most pretentious review site on the planet, but they hate all music with even a sliver a pretentiousness?

[orcus116]

They're pretentious in their pretentiousness selection.