Album: Thug Motivation 103: Hustlerz Ambition

Reviewer: Jayson Greene

Pitchfork, 2012

Writing Disorders: Jargon Palsy, Ambiguity Sickness

Hi Jayson. I’m going to start with something you all seem to like:  a long analogy.

I’m reading Game of Thrones, on page 134. And in Game of Thrones, there’s pretty much the Dothraki and the white folks. And before every nerd drops his nob to get it through my idiot head that Dothraki are ACTUALLY based on Abyssinian warriors or something…just give me a minute here.

Anyway, Jay, reading your review of this black man’s album got me thinking about the Dothraki and what it’d be like if some bookish little Lannister got a grant to study the way they do things out in the open like that. Maybe he’d write how their body of song “somehow seems both airless and over-inflated” too.

And for anyone itching to mash whatever racism button’s closest…relax. I’m just saying that a man writing things like “satisfyingly huge- and evil-sounding” about a guy’s rap album is making me laugh.

Now Jayson, it’s cool to find fault with any or every rap album. And hell, feel free to write about it — that’s why the keys are there. But really man, roll your shoulders a bit…get those kinks out — relax — ain’t a black guy gonna jump through the window and knife you in the kidney if you write in plain English that his brother can’t rap past a 6.8.

So for the love of Christ, please never write “satisfyingly” or “shockingly” or “baldly” again. The first two shouldn’t even be adverbs and the other one looks like BADLY — like Jayson Greene writes BADLY.

I could crack your writing in half it’s so stiff. READ THIS. Really. Read it.

“The hoary details of the song’s poverty lament”

“appearance by of-the-moment ATL star Future aside”

“You can hear the lack of organic excitement”

Enlighten me, Jayson. What organically excites a man like yourself? I’m reading that, wondering if there’s more or if I’m supposed to guess. Well, I’m going to guess.

“You can hear the lack of organic excitement you’d get from juicing a grapefruit”

Silly? Well at least then you’re giving me a vantage point instead of just moistening the sideline of black culture with ambiguous jargon so you don’t upset anyone. Maybe if you took half a second to remember it’s possible to write without sounding like NPR’s anus, you wouldn’t swing with goofy-ass nonsense like this:

“Nothing much is visibly wrong with Thug Motivation 103“

Ah, right, because you usually hear music instead of see it. Or since there’s nothing visibly wrong (to the ears), you had no choice but to push deeper into dog whistle frequencies. Oh, sorry, am I being too literal? Okay, let’s go back to you being a ginger snap

“a verse…that induces misplaced nostalgia shivers for classic Lauryn Hill”

Jeez Jay, I was beginning to think all this crummy writing was really just a Batman alter ego to your everyday Bruce Wayne sense of clarity. Now I’m not so sure. So you’re telling me if you got a chance to tell this fellow what you thought of his music, you’d say it makes you think of Lauryn Hill — and shiver — but not in the right place? That’s hella…oh, what’s the word…weird.

What I’m really getting at here, Jayson, is that you’re making the road to breezier race relations a nudge harder by writing about rap like it’s a very interesting type of slime mold. If stuff written about black music by white men is going to be this graham cracker stiff, then maybe we should just go back to listening to the stuff because we like doing it and telling our friends what we think.

…not probing “dubious sociopolitical implications” or describing a “head-spinning cross-breed of trap-rap and cloud rap.”  Speaking of that, why does trap-rap get a hyphen and cloud rap doesn’t? And speaking of THAT, wtf is cloud rap? Again, is there more to that or am I supposed to guess? You might enlighten your readers, because I’m pretty sure, like, 14 people on the Internet are aware of that particular subgenre.

Jay, it’s been a year and a half since I last featured you here, and this is your third appearance. I’m not asking you to dumb it down.  Just for the love of God, loosen up a bit. It’s easy. Just let it flow…like rap.

Album: Spills Out

Reviewer: Paul Thompson

Pitchfork, 2012

Writing Disorders: Jargon Palsy, Infectious Punctuation

Word Barf: “Pterodactyl wrest cohesion from calamity by soldiering surefootedly through all these far-flung juxtapositions”

Paul, there’s usually gentle irony when music lice grope albums in their public diary entries. Like Ian Cohen writing 1,500 words about an album with “Hurry Up” in the title. Or something like this:

“…manages to revel in its own clutter.”

I’d invite anyone with a free semester to sort through Paul’s opening paragraph and persuade me it does anything else but that.

You know son, a few months ago I had to listen to an engineer lecture for five hours on stainless steels in nuclear power plant construction. He managed to make more sense than you.  And from what I salvaged out of your trainwreck, you’re just talking about men hitting drums and strumming strings, not lamellar tearing processes in boilers. Believe it or not, people actually listen to this stuff called music for what’s called fun, or what you might call:

“marching its way directly into your pituitary region”

Ah, but it’s much more complicated than that — stupid me. Like this, for example:

“something of a mid-album mini-suite of thick, woozy psych.”

Paul, I think you could drop the “something of” when you’re being that anally specific. Read this:

Dixon Bainbridge:  Indeed, upon the ridge, I observed something of a rare species of Okapi only seen in the light of the Djibouti moon!

What are you afraid of? Someone might write you a stern email asserting it was NOTHING of a mid-album mini-suite of thick, woozy psych? By the way — if that ever happens, please forward me his contact info.  I want to study him.

But what miffed me most is that underneath all that word crap is really just you phoning in an article. Maybe I’m way off the mark, but the following phrases scream, “I really have nothing to say, but I have to not get paid for this article by Thursday COB.”

“sometimes smacks of eclectic overextension”

“they’re downplaying their strengths in favor of an experiment”

“…melody’s always fared best when matched to forward motion”

Ohhhhhh…forward motion! I just KNEW the Backward Billies had it wrong. You see Paul, the big reason Pitchfork really corkscrews my bunghole is the way it works like a puppy mill, churning out thousands of words on albums that the writers couldn’t care less about half the time. Couldn’t you just write 10 words about your favorite track and post a link instead of rewriting the Affordable Care Act on an album’s melodies?

I’m old and deranged, so maybe you can help me out since I’m struggling to understand why you even wrote this. Fame? Enjoyment? Posterity? Chicks? Any of that? I think we need to have a Miyagi moment and wax off together because your priorities seem royally screwed up, Paul, whatever they are.

*And before the comments roll in to ba-ZING me, I wrote this because I think this man writes like a catheter gives oral sex.

Album: Isis/Melvins Split

Reviewer: Jess Harvell

Pitchfork, 2010

Writing Disorders: Infectious Punctuation, Idea Fever, Scorn Disease








Use a Thesaurus: “a bit of a dull”

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: “I don’t mean that in a disparaging way at all”

HA: “climaxes are so restrained you can almost miss them,” “tight but heavy”




Jess, we both have our shortfalls. I write like a dick and you write like a bitch. Apples and oranges. Bands seem to like me though. Maybe because I don’t tee off like this:

It’s probably asking too much of two songs…Nonetheless, it’s a bit of a dull adieu.

Glad you went ahead and asked too much anyway, since the world could always use more people who ask too much.  By the way, what’s a real dull adieu?

Jess, this is the third time you’ve been heckled here, and it’s not just a lurid sexual fetish.  I haven’t muscled my way to your level of unpaid gigs, but I don’t think writing’s your strong suit.

(Admittedly with a few stylistic changeups along the way.)

What is that?  An advertising disclaimer?  Two questions are jostling to the fore here, Jess. Why the parentheses and why the period?  Am I supposed to imagine you whispering racy secrets about “stylistic changeups” in my ear? Good, because I am.

Tell you what — let’s put your last bit behind the one from the Sentence Protection Program so they can hump. I want to see why the catcher doesn’t want an independent clause in the chute:

Then Isis… kept going. (Admittedly with a few stylistic changeups along the way.)

Jess, there’s a reason no 50-foot spaghetti gun popped up in Doom.  Using something like that to kill an imp would be ridiculous, just like penning a whole new sentence in parentheses when a comma would have worked wonders.  (Readers, she did this again. She clamped the same curvy chastity belt on a 40-word sentence down the line. Read this quietly though, maybe in a Clive Owen voice. I don’t want her to hear.)

You know what I think your problem is, Harvell?  You write like you’re still in high school. Not just the emotalics and the crummy punctuation either. I’m talking English class on puberty. You know…why say a story includes something when you can say it’s PLAGUED by it?

The same problem plagues “Way Through Woven Branches” and “The Pliable Foe” here.

…

Two more Isis songs are wheeled into the ER…

Nurse: They keep coming in.  What’s wrong with these PEOPLE?

Doctor: I don’t know, Emma, I don’t KNOW.  But I suspect the music is too static to achieve any sort of real grandeur!

…

I hear the cure for the plague is recording something better. Oh, but that would take work and creativity. My bad.

I don’t want to be here all morning, Jess, so let’s take a quick look at those emotalics:

surprisingly nimble

didn’t plan

finally let loose

adieu

Am I supposed to shout that stuff in my head or are they breath markers to remind me not to pass out from boredom? Sure glad I gulped some air before I was told that I could “only hope they’ll explore it for a little longer.” Wasn’t a total loss though. Try reading “surprisingly nimble” without picturing the Melvins prancing like leprechauns. Hardee’s har har, $2.99.

Jess, let me know when senior year’s over.  I’ll clap you through graduation from times when girls pick on girls, and those girls pick on music.

Album: Recovery

Reviewer: Jayson Greene

Pitchfork, 2010

Writing Disorders: Infectious Punctuation, Scorn Disease








Longest Sentence: 64 words

Irony: “he actually sounds clumsy”




Jayson, I always enjoy when music lice write about rap releases they don’t like. They usually devote at least one full paragraph to how awful they think the rhymes are, and whoa, you didn’t break precedent. I’m one to favor an artist over a louse, so let’s see how your own lines stack up. How about your opening sentence for starters?

“Watching Eminem attempt to re-situate himself in the pop landscape the past year or so has been a bizarre spectacle.”

If you’re gonna pluck a man’s pubes one by one, try aiming straight. Read that sentence again closely. In case you didn’t smell the fish, I’ll move it closer to your nose:

“Watching Eminem attempt to re-situate himself in the pop landscape the past year or so has been a bizarre spectacle.”

How was watching alone a bizarre spectacle? Were you stuffing beef liver up a tube sock with your feet while you shot the upskirt? If you meant the guy’s attempt to re-situate was bizarre, you might have written it that way. The editors of Pitchfork seem to be doing everything but reading the opening lines of featured reviews. Thank god for good Samaritans, huh?

Jayson, if I didn’t think rating music was for parasites, I’d still say a review in the 2/10 range shouldn’t include the words “almost,” “nearly,” and “sort of” in any context. Despite giving this album a definitive failing grade, you still kinda/sorta’d your way to bareback fence sitting:

“seeming almost puppyishly eager”

What does that even mean? What’s almost puppyish? We talking 2-year-old mutt behavior or are you just afraid to make a point without two adverbs dry humping the adjective?

Coming back to you hating his rhymes, I wonder if you loathed Eminem’s “Donkey with Parkinson’s” bit because it hit too close to home. After all, you’re prone to tics and stutters that could crop up in any given music review on any given site, Jayson. Most involve hyphens:

“post-Encore slumber”

“Diane Warren-esque”

“unwieldy rap-rock hybrids”

OH, this one’s my favorite though:

“the body of 1999-era Slim Shady”

Jayson, a year is not an era. It’s a year. Or it’s The Slim Shady LP.

I still need to beat my meat and water the plants this morning, Jayson, so I’m going to wind this down. There was one line in your review that really made me cringe:

“He reels off an astonishing amount of cringe-worthy lines”

I suppose it would ruin the journalistic integrity of the piece if you wrote that Eminem’s lines made YOU cringe. Jesus, do you even read what you’re writing down half the time? You’re suggesting that this guy’s lyrics are worthy of displeasure, as if it’s a blue ribbon at the Inquisition. All these retarded phrases might be written in music lice DNA for all I know. I can’t imagine why anyone would write them otherwise.

Now that you’ve brought it up, let’s see if you’re cringe-worthy, Elaine. I’ve featured a video you might recognize and readers might enjoy. Underneath, they can record their reaction. I recommend turning off the HD before watching.







What do you think, folks? Record your vote now!

Who knows, dude?  Maybe you’ll get featured a-fucking-gain on RipFork for a third time. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll get there.

Album: Omni

Reviewer: Ian Cohen

Pitchfork, 2010

Writing Disorders: Jargon Palsy, Ambiguity Sickness








Most Emo Phrase: “You confront that awkwardness from the first second”

Beer or Music?: “lite-funk trappings”




Ian, I originally planned on featuring you in a post about Pitchfork’s dugout being bereft of black folk. And yes, through the magic of Facebook and Google, I’m able to check such things. I settled on you because whenever Pitchfork probes a record with two scowling black men on the cover, there’s a good chance your name’s in the byline. In the end I figured it wasn’t worth inciting hysteria by suggesting it’s dumb reserving beats and rhymes for a white guy who writes about hip hop like Victorian cabinetry. I fully support people’s God-given right to type pretentious jargon about any genre of music regardless of color or race. The more the merrier for me. But it’s still queer how most music jargon’s typed by hands lighter than a latte.

Anyway, I decided not to blow the racial powder keg, but focus on your review of a band that would get red at the beach. There’s still plenty to joke about. Let’s start with your opening:

“Indie rock has often had an uneasy relationship with sex. While some bands in that realm are capable of carnality and seduction, many would rather let the sonics do the work, and lyrically, it can be tough to reconcile base sensations with music that prides itself on its intelligence.”

Um…judging from that, I’d say your unease is squirmier than any band’s. “It can be tough to reconcile the base sensations?” Wow. Do you make partners flash zoning permits before entering your bed or are you still in the planning phase? If you can’t knock a band’s bedroom jazz without making it sound clinical, maybe you should ease off the barb pedal. Half your review was devoted to niggling the singer’s idea of fucking after all:

“adding a creepy dimension to the keg-hovering come-ons”

“You don’t need to be a soul-papa belter in order to talk about the passion”

“lyrics about the pleasures of the flesh that would be sketchy enough”

Hey, at least the guy sings about what’s coming out of his pleasure center. Maybe you could have provided us some of your own sexual poetry for comparison, Ian. I certainly would have enjoyed it. Moving on…

There’s heaps of junk here I could rattle about for days, but I’m bound by editing. Here’s a good example of the opposite of that:

“for a veteran band like Minus the Bear, newly signed to Dangerbird Records and known in the past for knotted, prog-spiked populist indie, it’s a move of baffling awkwardness.”

Female: Whatcha listening to?

Male: Minus the Bear.

Female: OH, I’ve heard about them! Aren’t they known for knotted, prog-spiked populist indie?

Male: [coldly]…Not anymore.

Jesus H. Christ, how about writing, “It’s an awkward move?” You know, like applying 3 levels of made-up taxonomy to a band is AN AWKWARD MOVE. Baffling awkwardness…yeesh. I ’ma drop another editing fail of yours, Ian. You could use the help admitting you have a problem.

“And yet, in a weird way Omni is actually kind of admirable.”

I had a high school English teacher who used to embarrass students by saying “kind of” like Yogi Bear every time they dropped word junk in discussions. If only you were so lucky. You already wrote “in a weird way.” You don’t need to follow it with “kind of.”

I wondered how you burned so many words on an album you detested ‘fore I realized you fluffed things up with critical catch phrases. You got a manual compiled for quick reference? This review’s chock full of cotton balls. Here’s a few in case you can’t pick them out on your own:

“it also boasts an immediacy and pop smarts”

“the issue lies in the incongruity of the delivery”

“pop and sheen that would make the most anonymous of 1980s corporate rockers proud”

Ian, if you click on “Read a Random Rip” on the right side of RipFork, you’ll probably come across something like those featherweights in other crappy reviews. They’re a common affliction in your occupation.

I’m sure you need to study up on the latest pseudo-underground hum-thump populist-hop, so I’m going to cap this off with your one piece of faint praise for the band:

“And credit Minus the Bear for aiming to be something than just another competent indie band.”

If only they weren’t so clueless about what Ian Cohen likes.