(no subject)
I think most of you know that I interned for Paste Magazine two years ago (my god, it's been that long) for about 5 months and that it was the fantastic job experience that I wished didn't have to end. I have quite the soft spot for the place, the staff, the writing, the mission, pretty much everything. So of course, when something or someone one likes that much fucks up and when they fuck up regarding something one likes with similar intensity, one tends to take it a little harder. This is how you end up with things like the 0.0 review of Travistan.
I saw in the Paste email that there was a review of the new Animal Collective album which I have been listening to all but nonstop for the past two weeks. The Paste review of Merriweather Post Pavilion rivals the Pitchfork Le Loup review and for Worst Review I've Read From A Major Outlet. I don't count much of the drivel that comes out of Brightest Young Things.
It's not even so much that I disagree with him as that he completely missed the boat. He's talking about not understanding the lyrical content of "My Girls" - which is actually incredibly straightforward. Animal Collective has a penchant for stringing together lyrics that make no sense or else are inaudible through the other layers of sound, but "My Girls" doesn't employ any of those techniques. It really sounded like this review (and this was a full on review, not just a three sentence blurb) was written by someone (and it's no one I've heard of) who only has a passing knowledge of the band and pretty much wrote the review based more on what he read than what he listened to. A handful of the songs might make people dance, but calling it a dance album is selling the album's purpose short. Paste is not a publication like Pitchfork where people glance at the score and that's the end of it. People actually pay a lot of attention to the content which makes it sort of embarrassing that they let content this ignorant run. The fact that the writer refers to Avey Tare as a "she" one point is just the tip of the iceberg.
Read what I'm ranting about here and let me know if I'm being unreasonable. Or vindictive for wanting to put my own review up on DCist.
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/01/animal-collective-merriweather-post-pavilion-domin.html
I saw in the Paste email that there was a review of the new Animal Collective album which I have been listening to all but nonstop for the past two weeks. The Paste review of Merriweather Post Pavilion rivals the Pitchfork Le Loup review and for Worst Review I've Read From A Major Outlet. I don't count much of the drivel that comes out of Brightest Young Things.
It's not even so much that I disagree with him as that he completely missed the boat. He's talking about not understanding the lyrical content of "My Girls" - which is actually incredibly straightforward. Animal Collective has a penchant for stringing together lyrics that make no sense or else are inaudible through the other layers of sound, but "My Girls" doesn't employ any of those techniques. It really sounded like this review (and this was a full on review, not just a three sentence blurb) was written by someone (and it's no one I've heard of) who only has a passing knowledge of the band and pretty much wrote the review based more on what he read than what he listened to. A handful of the songs might make people dance, but calling it a dance album is selling the album's purpose short. Paste is not a publication like Pitchfork where people glance at the score and that's the end of it. People actually pay a lot of attention to the content which makes it sort of embarrassing that they let content this ignorant run. The fact that the writer refers to Avey Tare as a "she" one point is just the tip of the iceberg.
Read what I'm ranting about here and let me know if I'm being unreasonable. Or vindictive for wanting to put my own review up on DCist.
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/01/animal-collective-merriweather-post-pavilion-domin.html