Pitchfork: RipFork | Ripping Music Critics Since 2009

Artist: Eminem

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!