I wrote about how my process for making music has changed over the past twenty years and six albums in my newsletter. It's pretty wild to look back and examine my quirky methodology from back in the day.
cadenceweapon.substack.com/p/notes-on-p...
I sincerely regret naming my two cats Yasmin Kara-Hanani & Kiernan Shipka's Character on Industry
Look it’s simple: AI saves you the time and labor that would normally go into “thinking” so you can spend half that time laboring about whether or not AI is “thinking” like a human, and the other half of that time on Instagram Reels
'The Hangover' bit in Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie is the perfect joke. It should be in a museum. I'm laughing at it even now, right now, again
My favorite mode of jazz isn't all the way out, but stuff that's looking out from the doorway, dreamy, grounded. And this Tomeka Reid record is right in that sweet spot: heavy, in the pocket, but a full trip outofyourheadrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dance-...
Better know the indomitable "Iris" through this tender piece of writing pitchfork.com/reviews/trac...
One of the bosses in the Heads Only game I play in life is this 14-minute Dutch reggae cover of "Watchtower" — shouldn't even approach it if you're not properly leveled up www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubw4...
I’ve been laid off by The Washington Post
Serving as this newspaper’s pop music critic for the past 16-plus years has been my privilege, my joy
Endless solidarity to my righteous colleagues, endless gratitude to our faithful readers
SATURDAY TRACKS. They're like Sunday Reviews but shorter and for songs. This week it's Eddie Stats unspooling one of Sly Dunbar's greatest. Heater on a heater pitchfork.com/reviews/trac...
Proud to share that the 2nd ever Saturday track review on @pitchfork.com is a review of "Murder She Wrote" which is really my tribute to the genius of Sly Dunbar but also a love letter to @basementbhangra.bsky.social & all the versions of Bam Bam as yet unborn:
pitchfork.com/reviews/trac...
Ate hotdogs, got tiki drinks, and holed up in a snowstorm with Ratboys, who've never sounded more like their truest selves than on this album
a fascinating and excellent review that is much funnier than it has any right to be, shoutout to smart criticism imho
You're so kind and thank you for reading
For the Sunday Review, I wrote about Tool, the perfect joke pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...
thanks austie my brother
Yeah, lotta ins and outs, lotta what have yous, way, way too long and complicated of a conversation for social media
If you want to read something let me know I'll send you a PDF
Yeah I hear you, the thing is: advertising won't keep the lights on at any publication anymore. Has been a downward trend for over five years (arguably a decade), and it will not be reversed. That + A.I. + YouTube will push everyone to subscription. Substack / Patreon was early. Pitchfork is late!
Genuinely curious, what would that look like to you?
For the Sunday Review, I wrote about Tool, the perfect joke pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...
Lastly, and maybe I'm feeling myself, but I feel like our criticism is good enough that we don't need to center it. It's a foregone conclusion. This is for the readers, which is who the critic should serve.
There is no world in which ad revenue can keep websites afloat anymore, this has been true for years and years. It's unsustainable, see: every other good music website with a subscription. I wish music crticism was a public utility, but that's not the reality.
All that makes sense, and I can definitely see it that way, and I don't really feel like plugging my nose to defend a Corporate Magazine online for too long. But I would say if anything, Pitichfork subscription is not the harbinger of a troubling future, but finally catching up to the past.
I want to engage with this in good faith, I really do, but I’m having trouble seeing how all of the very real things you bring up are connected to subscribing to a music website, and that scare quote is a deeply uncharitable, almost willful
misread of the announcement! Help me out here
those were internal documents
A couple thoughts: I think the music criticism we publish is exceptional and worth paying for. I think music as an art form is inherently personal & lends itself to communal engagement and individual authority, which can live side by side. And though Pitchfork means a lot to me, it's only a website
The famous Jet review is mentioned in the Letter from the Editor, if you would like to read about that reference in a professional setting
We've unveiled a version of our scoring rubric pitchfork.com/news/how-to-...
Some professional news at Pitchfork, where I work and edit music writing and criticism pitchfork.com/news/a-new-e...
I wrote many words about the greatest hits compilation Legend by Bob Marley
pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...
