Artist: Pterodactyl

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.

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