RipFork

Artist: DOOM

Album: Gazzillion Ear EP

Reviewer: Nate Patrin

Pitchfork, 2010

Writing Disorders: Jargon Palsy, Infectious Punctuation

Critic Foul: Using “burble” twice in one review

Funniest Line: “And even through the rawness, he rode on that beat so securely”

Nate, I’m very disappointed that you’ve been sent to the RipFork office again. This behavior has got to stop, young man. The run-on sentences, the bewildering frequency of hyphens and parentheses, the adjectives measuring 3 words in length – all of this reflects poorly on your character. And since it’s already questionable character belonging to someone who rates artwork to the tenth decimal, you could stand to learn a few things.

Your biggest problem is your seeming inability to write a thought out in less than 30 words. Take this sentence, for example:

DOOM united those two movements with a tour de force rendition of his characteristic hookless, free-associative pop-culture cliché-disemboweling that stands up to any of the top three verses on Madvillainy.

Now here’s how you COULD have written that sentence to make it accessible to people who don’t finger-read on their computer screens:

DOOM united those two movements in a way that stands up to any of the top three verses on Madvillainy.

What you end up with there is something that’s easy to read. And even though it doesn’t contain that hyphenated monstrosity, I’m going to venture a guess and say that most readers didn’t care in the first place. It was a pretty dumb insight, Nate, and it says little about the album you’re reviewing. Let’s move on to some more longwinded confusion:

The EP also includes the original track, largely for completion’s sake, and a brief, shrugworthy bonus beat entitled “The.Green.Whore.Net”; it’s probably for the best that most people who already own Born Like This (by which I mean pretty much anyone who would already be interested in “Gazzillion Ear” in any context) can pick this one up piecemeal.

Speaking of shrugworthy, it took me three reads just to place this huge sentence into any context. As I’ve explained before with other music critics who seem addicted to the junk, you don’t do your readers any favors when you cram a 20-word parenthetical aside into the middle of a sentence. I don’t think I was alone in wondering who or what could “pick this one up piecemeal” the first go round.

Continuing…

hearing his voice drop out every so often to let Yorke’s distantly twitching, wordless-murmur ambience burble for a moment sabotages the momentum.

Dude, do you think you could have just written the word “murmer” with maybe an adjective to go with it? “Distantly twitching, wordless-murmer ambience” doesn’t exactly flow when it’s used as one noun attached to a verb. It’s ok, we’re not going to rat you out to the snark police if you choose to use one word instead of five to describe something fairly straightforward.

One more example of your bloated writing, then we’ll move on. I promise.

But it’s Jarel’s other contribution that steals the show: the Dr. Who Dat? mix is boom-bap that breathes through deep, thrumming digital bass, riding on zone-out synths and hi-hats that melt and freeze into crystalline sonics

Nate, you could have just ended that sentence at the colon. That way you would have provided some ambiguity, some reason for readers to look up the song and take a listen. People might wonder why Jarel’s other contribution steals the show and be motivated to find out. Instead, you make what is probably a cool song sound like the most uncool thing this side of Neptune. What is the chance that someone is going to be motivated to check out the album or track because of “zone-out synths” or “crystalline sonics?” I think they’d be more likely to forget about the track and fixate on how deep the reviewer’s nads were locked in icewater to write such silly stuff. Oh, in addition, you might have significantly cut the length of a 540-word review of an EP composed of 9 remixes of one song. Just a thought.

Now that we’ve canvassed your hatred of brevity, let’s take a brief glance at a couple of your more dubious points:

While Yorke’s remix doesn’t supplant the original, it doesn’t bother to try

How do you know it doesn’t? You don’t think maybe Yorke had his one good eye on the mixing board and the droopy one fixed on his evil design to supplant the original song? Either one’s a possibility, Nate, which is why you should use the phrase “I think this” or “I figure that.”

DOOM’s flow on the Yorke remix is both faster-spitting and more intense, a reserved yet intimidating raspiness on some Clint Eastwood business.

What business is that? Making Oscar-nominated films? Squinting? If Clint Eastwood is somehow a part of the lyrics or delivery, then you might try writing that. Otherwise it just reads like a cryptic personal joke that was tacked onto a clause for scant purpose. Actually, I’m hoping this review was just that – a joke. That’s the vibe I’m getting, Nate.

Please clean up your act. I’m going to get sick of writing about you eventually.