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: Hurley

Reviewer: Gabe Vodicka

Tiny Mix Tapes, 2010

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease








Most Emo Phrase: “awkward cultural references…hardly qualify as anything resembling emotion.”

Outback Special: “a solid slab of hooky pop-punk”




I jumped for joy when I found out about Hurley. Just as you can predict riots like the weather if somebody threatens a Quran burning, you can count on pasty men in their 20s scribbling angry prose about a new Weezer album. 14 years after Pinkerton, some dudes are still sour on a middle aged band no longer satisfying their emo cravings.

To me that’s hilarious, but I can see you’re not giggling, Gabe. I reckon most balanced people would just let Rivers sell Raffi to the kids and listen to something else, but most music critics aren’t balanced.





Of course this isn’t your first Tiny Mix tantrum over an album that didn’t milk your nut. Not that I blame someone fresh out of college for wanting the title of angriest dude on the subject of radio music. I was that guy too. And after listening to you recreate Iron and Wine in every minor key imaginable on MySpace, I can understand why you’re so incensed. You’re still a dick about it.

But hey, to each his own, eh? You do your thing and I’ll do mine. And the angrier you get about an album of music, the easier it is for me to make fun of you. Let’s start with a slice of irony from your review:

“it’s also hard to excuse Hurley for its general laziness”

Wow, what a coincidence. Read this:

“This band used to be pretty good, and now they’re not so good. That’s that.”

Beyond the obvious, this review was one big salute to general laziness, kid. I got the impression reading it that Weezer was just a dude singing a handful of lines. You spent half the review moaning about how Rivers Cuomo doesn’t mope hard enough to write lyrics as heavy as “So how does this go/and how do I let go.” There was no mention of guitar, bass, or drums other than “fuzzed chords,” but you still found plenty of space for a paragraph-long quote from a disgruntled fan and other richly nuanced stuff like this:

“Weezer’s slow transformation from geeky alternative heroes to mainstream rock bottom feeders has been pretty well-documented elsewhere, so I won’t bother with any over-thought meta-analysis here.”

But…but…we’d been so looking forward to another over-thought meta-analysis of that transformation! Think of the children, Gabe! Seriously though, if by “well-documented” you mean other unpaid writers grousing the full nine about a band’s change in direction, then let’s go ahead and add you to those hallowed rolls.

Speaking of bottom feeder…

“The announcement of Hurley, the band’s eighth album, offered a glimmer of hope in that it would be the group’s first-ever release outside the major-label confines of Geffen.”

Dude, I think the glimmer might just be you taking a break from being a complete asshole. It’s not like you give any indication you listened to this album more than once. But forget about that for a second. “In that it would be”? I’ve seen clearer glass in a nudie booth. Anybody teach you the word “as,” or would using it drop you to the level of Weezer fans after 2000?

Even Jehovah might forgive this muddy corncob you shat onto the internet if you did it in a drunken rush. But you sure made a pageant out of a cam show. Here, read this:

“mechanical dreck that has peppered”

That’s some serious assonance, Gabe, and it tells me something. This review was no crime of passion. You actually put some hours and a can of moxie into sucking off someone else’s effort. God knows I do the same stuff, but there’s a difference.  Far as I see, I’m the bird who eats the louse feeding on the rhino’s hard work.  So if we go by nature’s rules, I’m the predator and you’re a parasite. And I don’t have a problem with that, parasite.

I do have a problem with your horn tooting. You sure 600 words was enough room for your high horse?

“I’m being generous”

“Maybe Weezer deserves the benefit of the doubt”

Right, but only after you spend five paragraphs banging them in the neck. You need me to call a specialist to confirm you’re just being a douche? Yeah, I’d say men who give the gift of music deserve something more than you’re giving. But before you rush to write some more safely anonymous tunes, why don’t you go ahead and cook me a burrito, Gabe.

Album: Teenage Dream

Reviewer: Rudy Klapper

Sputnikmusic, 2010

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease, Infectious Punctuation








Truth Brother: “and threesomes (nothing screams rebellion like an Eiffel tower)”




Rudy, I’m a prick. Even before I started scrawling red ink on your review, I combed the net for emo autobiographies and juicy photos – anything to ridicule. I’m not above poking fun at a dude’s BMI if he gropes musicians with enough adverbs. Trouble is you’re a good-looking cat. As the pinnacle of manhood, I know it’s hard roughing up a handsome man on the basis of his looks. You’ve got a crummy hairdo, but there’s Lou Reed in your face and that’s cool with me.

So I’ll have to settle on picking this salty booger you wrote. I don’t need a pie chart confirming Katy Perry’s low rank in line to rimjob your ear, but maybe some of my readers could use the visual aid:





Since you love analogies so much, here’s one to chew. Picture a dude writing an angry 700-word product review on Amazon because Mall Madness didn’t live up to his expectations for a board game. Got that image? Good. Now read this:

“those wretched lyrics”

“front-loading your record with terrible tracks”

“it’s a terrible song with a double entendre so blunt”

“cheesy synths”

Were they cheddar synths or provolone? Seriously, what’s wrong with you? It’s a pop album, dude. I can only speak for myself, but even if I still had the gall to dump on musicians, I’d probably take it down a notch here. After all, it’s a naked babe on a cloud. Who knows…maybe chicks pose nude for reasons OTHER than selling out. You might’ve sucked more from your headphones if you pictured Katy Perry slamming your dong like a Liu Kang uppercut. I’m sure you’re already denying any possibility of holding an erection to this album’s music, but you could have at least tried thinking dirty thoughts. Or maybe not…

“why do you spend four minutes demanding to see my tool?”

“a song so repulsively crass and soulless that it makes “Dirrty”-era Aguilera look like Mandy Moore.”

Well shit, John Calvin, maybe you should try the Buggles. If Katy Perry’s repulsively crass, what’s Cannibal Corpse? You sure you’re not just heaving hyperbole around like a lead sock? I’ll duck just in case.

Like most other folks who nitpick music instead of making it, you had a royal problem with this musician’s lyrics. Since you wrote enough horizontal beat markers into your review, let’s see how your lyrics stack up, champ. Hyphen away:

don’t-give-a-damn

run-of-the-mill

semi-anthemic, hormone-baiting…sing-a-LOOOONGS

don’t-give-a-damn

run-of-the-mill

limelight-stealing, front-loading…faux-SAXOPHOOOOONE

Whoa, now I’m screaming sing the chorus again. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Rudy Klapper singing “Can’t Find a Thesaurus.”

I can’t really carp on technical stuff since your review was actually readable, but I still managed to find a couple really dumb points. You know, like scolding “desperate” adolescents as if you were more than two years out from being one.  Or this:

“You could have been the next Gaga”

Oh, because Gaga was big in the ‘80s and Katy Perry’s poised to explode in the ‘20s? There’s a one year age difference between the two singers, and Gaga’s the younger one. Generally someone isn’t hailed as the “next” fill in the blank when the blank’s a contemporary who ain’t leaving the mountaintop anytime soon.

Rudy, you’re not a bad writer. At least you’re nowhere close to some of the fools I feature on RipFork. But from one prick to another, “there’s nothing sadder than wasted talent.” A great Klapper taught me that.







*Yes folks, I understand that I spend my time criticizing music critics. That is the point.

Album: The Illusion of Safety

Reviewer: William Grant

Drowned in Sound, 2010

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease, Jargon Palsy








Stuffiest Phrase: “an ironic stab at the vacuous nature of that which it fit into”

Spoon uppa Ass: “I by no means profess to be any sort of modern pop obsessive”




William Grant, if you’re a girl, I apologize. Jess Harvell ruined my boner when she ended up being a dude, so I’m taking names with a grain of salt these days. I can take a better stab at what’s in your pants with a picture, but more on that later. Don’t soil your ovaries if I got your gender wrong, he-man. Now let’s focus on your review.

I didn’t like it. Almost as much as you didn’t like this Hoosiers album. I’d still have beef with you giving bands the rusty trombone even if you weren’t a bad writer.  But you are a bad writer, Will, so let’s run with that:

So, with that in mind, what can be said about The Illusion Of Safety is that if you have any inclination towards the beautifully intricate synthesized pop of the Eighties, and hence a lot of modern accessible Shiny Songs, then the opening double gambit will, remarkably, make you quite happy.

So…after all that cotton, you’re saying folks who like ‘80s synth pop will like two songs on this album? I’m guessing none of your teachers ever graded for editing. Try rereading your stuff every once in a while without a hand down your waistband and you might catch the declutter bug.

You write like most other music lice in their twenties, but a couple times you broke free of the pack. That’s no compliment. Nothing blue balls my brain worse than the word “esque,” and you really took it to a whole new level of pussy footing:

Lead single ‘Choices’ has an almost Hot Chip-esque synth line

Ugh. Dude, consider what you wrote there.  Almost-esque.  You’re saying this lead single was hardly almost like something.  That’s like saying Claire Danes’ peaches are almost Heather Graham-esque.  I mean, they ARE breasts, but not quite. Consider something in the future, kid. If you’re gonna compare, try standing on a leg stronger than a used tampon.

I don’t reckon your listening rivaled the time spent making the album, but you rained down static all the same. After mentioning the first two songs, you had this to say:

Unfortunately, despite their gallant strides, the rest of the album is a chore.

So let me get this straight, Will. You’ll burn time dissecting a synth line down two levels, but 5/6 of an album of music is just a chore? Like emptying the trash or cleaning the fish tank? Thank god you explained all the lazy with a whole new paragraph. It was even 11 words longer than your opening anecdote about serving cider to men! Phew. For a minute I thought you were being lazy.

Well shit. Let’s back up the smack with some staggering William Grant prose:

as well as a a serious not to the idea of the ‘hook’.

Hold on a second while I pen a quick note. Dear Drowned in Sound editors – when one of your minions writes himself into a seizure, it’s your job to clean up the mess. Two typos in the span of three words? Put that on a resume.

Okay. Sorry about that, Will. For the love of Christ, edit your own shit, dude.

I’d wrap this up so you can go find another hobby, but I’m not going to let you off so easy. I promised more about that picture of you after all. I peed myself giddy at this new evidence suggesting Drowned in Sound writers shop at the same creepy milkman store:





Will, take a knee. Do you understand what you look like in those things?  You look like a sex offender.  I’m sure you’re just expressing yourself or something, but I don’t reckon rapist glasses are pushing you almost-esque toward a straight girl or gay man’s favor.* Men need to bang, and those things aren’t helping.

Baby steps though. Keep niggling musicians for not pleasing your ear. Can’t be making drastic change right out of the gate. I’ll be checking in.




* Or whatever combos they have these days under the T and Q.