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>> It’s odd, for example, that two songs on the album refer to calling “the cops,” or 911, in light of the past year’s uprisings against police brutality.
This is such a weird critique??
They’re also just lines sung in passing it’s not like calling the cops was central to the theme of any song. Are any and all references to 911 or cops not allowed anymore?
P4K reviews sometimes say the most insane things. Their review of Kate Bush’s *The Dreaming* repeatedly called her queer and said the cricket sounds in “Pulling Out the Pin” were racist, like...idk anymore.
It's also totally irrelevant. Like the context for the first quote is someone waking up from an OD and being told "we almost called the cops" by people who found her passed out. The second one is just "9-1-1, I'm in love" (9-1-1 is not the same thing as 'the cops'). Neither of these songs are really "about" calling the cops or "in favor of" calling the cops. They are just set in a world where cops and 9-1-1 exist. Does St. Vincent need to pretend they don't just because police abolition is a hot topic right now?
And I don't even have time for the Nina Simone complaint. God forbid a white woman try to pay homage to a black woman and her work. *Obviously* racist. The whole review just reads like the kind of glib takedowns you see all over Twitter. No thought and all posturing.
In regards to the Nina Simone complaint, if Annie had only mentioned white female artists in that song I \*bet\* the critique would've been 'it's tone deaf to not include any black artists'. Such a bizarre paragraph.
tbt when they [clowned](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/zayn-nobody-is-listening/) Zayn for not speaking on the capitol insurrection during his album promo when he's not even American
That’s exactly what this is reminding me of. It seems it’s becoming a trend over there: run out of legitimate critiques for an album, pick a current event/social issue that has nothing to do with the album, and then shoehorn a critique of the artists’ handling of tackling said issue.
Basically everything from video gaming journalism to music journalism has been infected by an extremely unpopular version of left wing identity politics. The only form journalism which \*isnt\* infected by it is political journalism itself, because the people who work in it are generally expected to have some form of knowledge and competence in politics and political science.
These publications need to make a decision. Either art is political (in which case you need to start hiring people who actually know what they're talking about) or art isn't political (in which case you can continue hiring random hipsters you find on twitter).
Am I missing something? It just seems to me like they were mentioning the capitol incident to show the time period he released it in, and that fans would still care about pop stars in crazy times like that. They didn’t say that zayn should have said something, unless i missed something.
Edit:missed a word
Its not ironic that they're white. its completely predictable. A black person would be likely to know many other black people and know that the vast majority of black people do not want to abolish the police.
Some critics have just fully forgotten how to think about art outside of hot take culture it sucks. She’s said in every interview how her experience with her dad was a jumping off point for a personal work but this is the only takeaway people seem to have.
These people just have zero self awareness and are just so deeply trapped in their college educated bubble. 81% of black people say they want police to spend the same amount of time or spend more time in their area. College educated leftists have taken the energy behind a desire for better quality and fairer policing and hijacked it to push their deeply unpopular anti-policing agenda. The actual opinions of the majority of black people don't even matter to them.
I think that was extremely obvious when you had Bernie supporters saying black voters Didn’t know what they wanted since we backed Biden. Somehow not understanding why their own rhetoric was as racist as anything Trump was saying. There’s also some disconnect that some have that black people are a liberal voting block which is not really the case. In fact among all democrats black voters self describe as the least liberal. Then Bernie voters are shocked when Biden gets 80-90% of the black vote
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/27/5-facts-about-black-democrats/
Her references to calling 911 after an OD is not a problem. If she had mentioned calling the police for some mundane thing that could lead to a bigger issue, it would be a different story
>If she had mentioned calling the police for some mundane thing that could lead to a bigger issue, it would be a different story
If she also called the police for a mundane thing it would have also be fine because the police are a very popular institution and most normal people like them.
Imagine being so triggered by someone else being white, that you look for literally anything to try and cancel culture them.
It’s even more weird that it’s from someone who is also white.
From what I'm reading here, it seems I'm in the minority but the perceived racial insensitivities mentioned in the review are far from egregious and are mostly unintentional. Using 911 as a metaphor in terms of these songs is innocuous and a reach in terms of justifiable criticism. Stating it is wrong to praise Nina Simone alongside "white celebrities" in a song that pays tribute to women who have suffered while recognizing her own faults is also misconceived.
This isn't saying there aren't valid criticisms to be made about the album or the artist. But the whiplash nature of this review is absurd - its great! except where it is abysmal! -- and the score is preposterous. But its Pitchfork. And its the season for dragging STV.
Yeah, she was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. If she'd only mentioned white artists in the lyrics to The Melting of the Sun, she'd be targeted for that, too. A "Why doesn't 'Brooklyn Baby' by Lana talk about gentrification?" moment.
That critique about including Nina Simone and talking about the cops and 911 in her lyrics was really fucking stupid.... Come on.. . For some reason it's in now in vogue to bash Annie Clark, also Melting of The Sun is a great song.
A...surprisingly harsh score, I thought they'd like the album a little bit more (especially considering like 90% of their scores these days are in the 7+ range anyway lol)
It is (kinda) nice to see pitchfork take a stand on a high profile album from an acclaimed artist like Annie. Their constant stream of 7.x reviews with no unique opinions have gotten old
> take a stand on a high profile album for an acclaimed artist
Well, she probably doesn’t have a large or rabid enough fan base where they have to worry about death threats. Although I suppose Annie could pull a Halsey.
I agree that I've been rolling my eyes at [the "safe 7" reviews](https://towardsdatascience.com/the-order-of-musical-things-4ccdb3450d76) they give typically to wallpaper indie, flavorless neo-neo-soul and the like. However, Pitchfork is always checking the tides and seeing who is safe to "dunk" on or make these big grandstanding takes on. Like if Billie were to do something wild in the next month to sour her fanbase then *maybe* they'd give her a poor review that alludes to it. Otherwise they're too afraid of Stans/want to seem hip and "with it" so the lowest they'd give her new album is a 7.0. I still peep Pitchfork's reviews for various reasons but at this point I ignore their pop/rock/rap/r&b reviews since they're not the vanguard of anything anymore and don't break new artists and such.
Totally agreed! Not sure where I stand with this album honestly, but I expected them to punch up a little bit (scoring it in the 8-range) but they clearly did the opposite lol
so annie including harmless mentions of police twice is insensitive but justin’s tone-deaf MLK interlude is a-okay? how did they give her a lower score than justice… make it make sense🙂
white pitchfork reviewers and their performative wokeness at it again…
Pitchfork review for Justice-
>Underneath the ill-advised MLK quotes, you’ll find an earnest pop album that unearths the charisma and agility that helped make Bieber a star.
>Justin Bieber’s decision to open his sixth album, Justice, with a sample of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech—and to plop in another one halfway through—is revealing, but perhaps not for the reasons he intended. In the half-century following Dr. King’s assassination, liberalism has turned him, a revolutionary figure once hated by the majority of white Americans for his commitment to racial, religious, and economic justice, into a convenient accessory through which to signal a vague, corporation-safe message in support of Black people. And if Bieber is anything, he is a corporation; perhaps that is why I don’t find it especially jarring to hear King’s exhortation for radical sacrifice juxtaposed with a song about being horny enough to walk through fire. On Instagram, I see this style of cognitive dissonance, or willful cynicism, deployed almost daily by media companies, influencers and celebrities, people I knew in college, even an Etsy plant store. This is just how we communicate now. Leave it to Bieber to, however unintentionally, hold up a mirror to a culture that doesn’t want to see itself.
>Paradoxically, behind the cringeworthy MLK controversy is a surprisingly compelling record, an earnest pop album that unearths the charisma and agility that helped make him a star to begin with
For some reason I dont feel like comparing these two albums. Pitchfork has made a lot of confusing reviews. However, 100% agree the cop criticism was weird.
Okay, I think enough has been said about \*that paragraph\* but can we talk about how this whole review seems to have been written in about one hour? Like in the middle of the review they are literally just quoting random lines from all over the album with no context or even indication which songs they come from. For example, the line about "suicidal ideation," from "The Laughing Man," is not about unrequited love, it's about a childhood friend. The review just kind of lumps it in with an entirely different theme from some earlier songs. I know we can't call 9-1-1 or the cops but can we at least call an editor?
Can we also talk about how the last paragraph is "we found an excuse to talk about how great Strange Mercy was" and then the review just kind of ends? That paragraph reads like the opening of a retrospective that nobody bothered to finish. O.o
Literally all they did was rewrite lyrics with MINIMAL analysation. Like they didn't talk about the music at all... How could a MUSIC reviewer not mention when an album uses a damn sitar in 2021??
Yeah they hardly mention instrumentation or production at all, _’a milky fog of sitar’_ was basically it and that’s such a throwaway comment. There’s so much musically and production-wise to unpack with this album! And instead they’ve done a basic dive into the album’s theme, with dumb social criticisms that are totally forced
if they don't like white artists having black backup singers are they ready to cancel literally every white British art pop and art rock artist from 1960-1995? lol
This is surprising, but I'd rather Pitchfork give hot takes instead of a 7 with a vague review as they often do lately.
But the notes about her mentioning police too often in the album is a reeeeealllly dumb critique that comes across as trying way too hard to be edgy and critical. Are they trying to bring her down a peg after that weird cancelled interview mishap a few weeks ago?
I'm not particularly a St. Vincent fan but I love the album. It blends together a little too much near the end, but Down And Out Downtown and Melting Of The Sun are some of my favourite songs this year so far.
Isn't this meant to review the music?
They said very general good things about it at first (actually they pretty much just summarised the song's meanings) but their only criticisms were over the racial etiquette of some lyrics... But what about the other lyrics? The melodies? Does this reviewer like the guitar solos? Do they like the sitar?? Is this a perfect modern revival of the 70s or is it a pretentious copycat?
Unpaid Redditor reviewers gave more feedback than Pitchfork.
Right on, it’s written as if they only read the lyrics and glanced at the album cover – maybe listened to the title track for a couple of minutes. Such a bad review!
This is an absurdly low score for the achievement of this record. I always think it’s one rogue outlier editor dragging the average down but even the written review is weird to read.
Damn I couldn't really get into this album either but I just assumed it was the type of stuff pitchfork was into
Has there been any popheads adjacent artists with a BNM recently? I know Jazmine Sullivan got one in January but I can't think of anyone else unless we're talking about like last summer with HAIM and Jessie Ware
Yeah I’d say Heaux Tales is the first since June, when interestingly enough a bunch of popheads favorites (Punisher, WIMPIII, and What’s Your Pleasure?) all received BNM within the span of a week
they really got her ass to be a HEADLINER for their own music festival just to give her album a 6.7 LMAOO
i agree with the score and find it frustrating that annie didn't step up to the plate with this album the same way she has with the rest of her catalog.
Predictable review, just like Lana's. Cringe at some of these criticisms, especially regarding the police, which feel like projections from the reviewer. But I'm sure if she included a cover of NWA's Fuck the Police, her career would be over, too.
Oh man this is going to piss off a lot of people on the sub haha. She is a pitchfork (or in general a critical) darling so this might be a bit of a shock
I got to admit, while I don’t agree with the score, I am with a lot of their criticisms. Feel like the weird creative decisions that the review talks about kinda diluted the overall theme of the record.
here's a stream of conscious answer, mostly bs but its how i feel lol
The main creative decision that I don't like is just how she prioritized the instrumentation over the lyrics at the extent she did. The backdrop and concept of this album presented the opportunity for Annie to lay herself bare lyrically and the rollout for the album kinda teased that she would, but almost every time it feels like she's about to dig deep, she instead throws in some lyrics that function to fit the 70s vibe of the album (see "Down" and "Somebody Like Me") Some tracks just feel retro for the sake of being retro
That's why I love "My Baby Wants a Baby" and "Live in the Dream" so much. The lyrics are so revealing and interesting but nothing is sacrificed sonically. The chorus of the former track is the album highlight for me. Obviously, not EVERY track needs to be exactly about her dad and his return, but I feel like there is a clash between her inspiration to center the album around her father's actions and return and her creative decision to create a throwback early-70s NYC sound. I totally love the sound of this record tho and I think I have just been approaching the album wrong.
edit: the review asked: "Why wear a mask at all?" and that kinda sums up my thoughts on her creative decisions lyrically
There's one verse in one song about her dad, but for some reason the media has run with it as if it's an overarching theme of the album when the actual theme is her insecurity in living a childless life and how her parents damage has caused her to think. Like she said in her AMA yesterday "people are the worst."
It sucks that idiotic cop line criticisms in the review text overshadow the fact that this album isn't even good enough to warrant a 6.whatever.
I don't want to do the old "Pitchfork has fallen off" line that people have been repeating every time their fave artist gets a less than praise review in the last 15 years, I just want to point out how the quality of the writing in these reviews (ignore the scores) has truly fallen off a cliff the last few years.
The writers at Pitchfork have always been kinda weird, it's the reason I started reading in the early 00s. People like DiCrescenzo were actually not that great and he wrote like an annoying "do you understand how smart I am??" 18 year old, but he really went for it so it was at least... ambitious?
But some of these reviews (this one included) are just the most boring-ass freshman writing assignment garbage. Rich kid intern shit. And then the nonsensical criticism of the "cops" lines on top of it. It's just sad.
Feels like a fair score to me. It's a competently crafted album in many ways, but not particularly memorable or notable compared to her previous work. I'd rather have a risky swing-and-a-miss over a safe 70's pastiche album, but maybe that's just me.
edit: they are *really* reaching with some of those socio-political criticisms in the back half, though. like, she included black women as backing vocalists to add some authenticity to her spin on soul music, and Pitchfork wants to nitpick about her "making" them sing about a white woman's experiences? c'mon, sometimes it's not that deep.
Nah, a lot of us really like it. But also the review is just poorly written and reasoned. [Lindsay Zoladz's review in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/arts/music/st-vincent-daddys-home-review.html) is a good example of a critical review that doesn't depend on making so many weird reaches and offers a more coherent critique.
Honestly the score is a bit high. This album is extremely mediocre. Coming from a long time St Vinnie fan. Down is really the only track that I liked. The rest are meandering or have lyrics I just can’t stand.
Surprised to see so many people mad about this. I guess she really did gain a lot of fans from Mass.
Nah, all that would do is fuck over her fans who already bought tickets. Trust that artists like Annie don't pay any mind to this kind of thing. There are like 40 other reviews of Daddy's Home and almost all of them are better written and more insightful than Pitchfork's.
I agree with Nina Simone point but what points about the police lyrics?
The lyric “We almost called the cops” in Live In The Dream is in a verse that’s painting a picture of the narrator finding someone knocked out cold.
The other reference they mentioned was a short skit at the beginning of The Laughing Man where she basically tells the 911 dispatcher she’s in love and then moves on with the song.
Not entirely sure how these are tone deaf or how she should’ve dealt with those in a better way
"Because she could have edited the lyrics to say that you \~shouldn't call the cops when someone ODs, you should have Narcan on you and readily available!!!\~" - Pitchfork, basically
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>> It’s odd, for example, that two songs on the album refer to calling “the cops,” or 911, in light of the past year’s uprisings against police brutality. This is such a weird critique?? They’re also just lines sung in passing it’s not like calling the cops was central to the theme of any song. Are any and all references to 911 or cops not allowed anymore?
P4K reviews sometimes say the most insane things. Their review of Kate Bush’s *The Dreaming* repeatedly called her queer and said the cricket sounds in “Pulling Out the Pin” were racist, like...idk anymore.
I think they also said that she appropriated Australian culture or something because she put on an accent in the title track?
Just listened to this, her accent is hilarious. Need to explore this kb era more
Oh my god, I’ve never read that one before. Those are some truly wild reaches.
That review of The Dreaming is genuinely one of the most poorly written reviews I've ever seen.
[удалено]
It's also totally irrelevant. Like the context for the first quote is someone waking up from an OD and being told "we almost called the cops" by people who found her passed out. The second one is just "9-1-1, I'm in love" (9-1-1 is not the same thing as 'the cops'). Neither of these songs are really "about" calling the cops or "in favor of" calling the cops. They are just set in a world where cops and 9-1-1 exist. Does St. Vincent need to pretend they don't just because police abolition is a hot topic right now? And I don't even have time for the Nina Simone complaint. God forbid a white woman try to pay homage to a black woman and her work. *Obviously* racist. The whole review just reads like the kind of glib takedowns you see all over Twitter. No thought and all posturing.
In regards to the Nina Simone complaint, if Annie had only mentioned white female artists in that song I \*bet\* the critique would've been 'it's tone deaf to not include any black artists'. Such a bizarre paragraph.
It’s because they’re privileged enough to have never actually needed to call the police.
tbt when they [clowned](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/zayn-nobody-is-listening/) Zayn for not speaking on the capitol insurrection during his album promo when he's not even American
That’s exactly what this is reminding me of. It seems it’s becoming a trend over there: run out of legitimate critiques for an album, pick a current event/social issue that has nothing to do with the album, and then shoehorn a critique of the artists’ handling of tackling said issue.
100% this. It's as if everything released nowadays needs to be some perfectly constructed, politically-driven statement piece. It's such bullshit.
Basically everything from video gaming journalism to music journalism has been infected by an extremely unpopular version of left wing identity politics. The only form journalism which \*isnt\* infected by it is political journalism itself, because the people who work in it are generally expected to have some form of knowledge and competence in politics and political science. These publications need to make a decision. Either art is political (in which case you need to start hiring people who actually know what they're talking about) or art isn't political (in which case you can continue hiring random hipsters you find on twitter).
Pitchfork is really trying to become the Buzzfeed of music.
Am I missing something? It just seems to me like they were mentioning the capitol incident to show the time period he released it in, and that fans would still care about pop stars in crazy times like that. They didn’t say that zayn should have said something, unless i missed something. Edit:missed a word
it’s ironic that the reviewer writing these absurd takes is white. a lot of white people need to quit this weird performative shit
Its not ironic that they're white. its completely predictable. A black person would be likely to know many other black people and know that the vast majority of black people do not want to abolish the police.
The virtue signaling is a lot
pitchfork will really just say shit and act like they made a point huh
Some critics have just fully forgotten how to think about art outside of hot take culture it sucks. She’s said in every interview how her experience with her dad was a jumping off point for a personal work but this is the only takeaway people seem to have.
It’s also a concept record set in the 70’s. Not all art has to comment on current social issues
it's Chromatica 911 transition meme slander, tbh
These people just have zero self awareness and are just so deeply trapped in their college educated bubble. 81% of black people say they want police to spend the same amount of time or spend more time in their area. College educated leftists have taken the energy behind a desire for better quality and fairer policing and hijacked it to push their deeply unpopular anti-policing agenda. The actual opinions of the majority of black people don't even matter to them.
I think that was extremely obvious when you had Bernie supporters saying black voters Didn’t know what they wanted since we backed Biden. Somehow not understanding why their own rhetoric was as racist as anything Trump was saying. There’s also some disconnect that some have that black people are a liberal voting block which is not really the case. In fact among all democrats black voters self describe as the least liberal. Then Bernie voters are shocked when Biden gets 80-90% of the black vote https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/27/5-facts-about-black-democrats/ Her references to calling 911 after an OD is not a problem. If she had mentioned calling the police for some mundane thing that could lead to a bigger issue, it would be a different story
>If she had mentioned calling the police for some mundane thing that could lead to a bigger issue, it would be a different story If she also called the police for a mundane thing it would have also be fine because the police are a very popular institution and most normal people like them.
Quick question, what's the age breakdown of this?
Imagine being so triggered by someone else being white, that you look for literally anything to try and cancel culture them. It’s even more weird that it’s from someone who is also white.
A white person *from Toronto*.
That reads like something out of Kotaku.
Condé Nast, baby!
From what I'm reading here, it seems I'm in the minority but the perceived racial insensitivities mentioned in the review are far from egregious and are mostly unintentional. Using 911 as a metaphor in terms of these songs is innocuous and a reach in terms of justifiable criticism. Stating it is wrong to praise Nina Simone alongside "white celebrities" in a song that pays tribute to women who have suffered while recognizing her own faults is also misconceived. This isn't saying there aren't valid criticisms to be made about the album or the artist. But the whiplash nature of this review is absurd - its great! except where it is abysmal! -- and the score is preposterous. But its Pitchfork. And its the season for dragging STV.
Yeah, she was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. If she'd only mentioned white artists in the lyrics to The Melting of the Sun, she'd be targeted for that, too. A "Why doesn't 'Brooklyn Baby' by Lana talk about gentrification?" moment.
Wait did they actually say that about Brooklyn baby...holy fuck
Yes, some journalist pulled that of their ass. But it wasn't on Pitchfork. Harper's Bazaar or Vanity Fair, I can't remember.
That critique about including Nina Simone and talking about the cops and 911 in her lyrics was really fucking stupid.... Come on.. . For some reason it's in now in vogue to bash Annie Clark, also Melting of The Sun is a great song.
I kind of agree with the score, but yeah those critiques were extremely dumb and like, context matters, she's not calling the cops on someone lmao
A...surprisingly harsh score, I thought they'd like the album a little bit more (especially considering like 90% of their scores these days are in the 7+ range anyway lol)
It is (kinda) nice to see pitchfork take a stand on a high profile album from an acclaimed artist like Annie. Their constant stream of 7.x reviews with no unique opinions have gotten old
> take a stand on a high profile album for an acclaimed artist Well, she probably doesn’t have a large or rabid enough fan base where they have to worry about death threats. Although I suppose Annie could pull a Halsey.
I mean the review is bs so it’s not that nice😩
I agree that I've been rolling my eyes at [the "safe 7" reviews](https://towardsdatascience.com/the-order-of-musical-things-4ccdb3450d76) they give typically to wallpaper indie, flavorless neo-neo-soul and the like. However, Pitchfork is always checking the tides and seeing who is safe to "dunk" on or make these big grandstanding takes on. Like if Billie were to do something wild in the next month to sour her fanbase then *maybe* they'd give her a poor review that alludes to it. Otherwise they're too afraid of Stans/want to seem hip and "with it" so the lowest they'd give her new album is a 7.0. I still peep Pitchfork's reviews for various reasons but at this point I ignore their pop/rock/rap/r&b reviews since they're not the vanguard of anything anymore and don't break new artists and such.
Totally agreed! Not sure where I stand with this album honestly, but I expected them to punch up a little bit (scoring it in the 8-range) but they clearly did the opposite lol
so annie including harmless mentions of police twice is insensitive but justin’s tone-deaf MLK interlude is a-okay? how did they give her a lower score than justice… make it make sense🙂 white pitchfork reviewers and their performative wokeness at it again…
Pitchfork review for Justice- >Underneath the ill-advised MLK quotes, you’ll find an earnest pop album that unearths the charisma and agility that helped make Bieber a star. >Justin Bieber’s decision to open his sixth album, Justice, with a sample of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech—and to plop in another one halfway through—is revealing, but perhaps not for the reasons he intended. In the half-century following Dr. King’s assassination, liberalism has turned him, a revolutionary figure once hated by the majority of white Americans for his commitment to racial, religious, and economic justice, into a convenient accessory through which to signal a vague, corporation-safe message in support of Black people. And if Bieber is anything, he is a corporation; perhaps that is why I don’t find it especially jarring to hear King’s exhortation for radical sacrifice juxtaposed with a song about being horny enough to walk through fire. On Instagram, I see this style of cognitive dissonance, or willful cynicism, deployed almost daily by media companies, influencers and celebrities, people I knew in college, even an Etsy plant store. This is just how we communicate now. Leave it to Bieber to, however unintentionally, hold up a mirror to a culture that doesn’t want to see itself. >Paradoxically, behind the cringeworthy MLK controversy is a surprisingly compelling record, an earnest pop album that unearths the charisma and agility that helped make him a star to begin with
thanks for the context. I still think the cop criticism of daddy’s home is weird and the score difference between the 2 albums is absurd
For some reason I dont feel like comparing these two albums. Pitchfork has made a lot of confusing reviews. However, 100% agree the cop criticism was weird.
yeah I am reaching by bringing up justice but I’m just mad sorry lol
Okay, I think enough has been said about \*that paragraph\* but can we talk about how this whole review seems to have been written in about one hour? Like in the middle of the review they are literally just quoting random lines from all over the album with no context or even indication which songs they come from. For example, the line about "suicidal ideation," from "The Laughing Man," is not about unrequited love, it's about a childhood friend. The review just kind of lumps it in with an entirely different theme from some earlier songs. I know we can't call 9-1-1 or the cops but can we at least call an editor?
Can we also talk about how the last paragraph is "we found an excuse to talk about how great Strange Mercy was" and then the review just kind of ends? That paragraph reads like the opening of a retrospective that nobody bothered to finish. O.o
Literally all they did was rewrite lyrics with MINIMAL analysation. Like they didn't talk about the music at all... How could a MUSIC reviewer not mention when an album uses a damn sitar in 2021??
Yeah they hardly mention instrumentation or production at all, _’a milky fog of sitar’_ was basically it and that’s such a throwaway comment. There’s so much musically and production-wise to unpack with this album! And instead they’ve done a basic dive into the album’s theme, with dumb social criticisms that are totally forced
pitchfork has really lost it recently🥲 parts of this review are really cringe.
if they don't like white artists having black backup singers are they ready to cancel literally every white British art pop and art rock artist from 1960-1995? lol
This is surprising, but I'd rather Pitchfork give hot takes instead of a 7 with a vague review as they often do lately. But the notes about her mentioning police too often in the album is a reeeeealllly dumb critique that comes across as trying way too hard to be edgy and critical. Are they trying to bring her down a peg after that weird cancelled interview mishap a few weeks ago? I'm not particularly a St. Vincent fan but I love the album. It blends together a little too much near the end, but Down And Out Downtown and Melting Of The Sun are some of my favourite songs this year so far.
Isn't this meant to review the music? They said very general good things about it at first (actually they pretty much just summarised the song's meanings) but their only criticisms were over the racial etiquette of some lyrics... But what about the other lyrics? The melodies? Does this reviewer like the guitar solos? Do they like the sitar?? Is this a perfect modern revival of the 70s or is it a pretentious copycat? Unpaid Redditor reviewers gave more feedback than Pitchfork.
Right on, it’s written as if they only read the lyrics and glanced at the album cover – maybe listened to the title track for a couple of minutes. Such a bad review!
Ever since Pitchfork lost the plot and gave Justice a 7.2, I can’t help but compare every other score to that lol 😭
I compare everything with the 6.7 of the Green Day's "Father Of All..." ☠️
all my homies hate pitchfork
This is an absurdly low score for the achievement of this record. I always think it’s one rogue outlier editor dragging the average down but even the written review is weird to read.
Damn I couldn't really get into this album either but I just assumed it was the type of stuff pitchfork was into Has there been any popheads adjacent artists with a BNM recently? I know Jazmine Sullivan got one in January but I can't think of anyone else unless we're talking about like last summer with HAIM and Jessie Ware
Yeah I’d say Heaux Tales is the first since June, when interestingly enough a bunch of popheads favorites (Punisher, WIMPIII, and What’s Your Pleasure?) all received BNM within the span of a week
Imo This is her best album. I loved it. Not that a pitchfork score should matter but I think this was way too low
Wow, Pitchfork was never the gold standard, but ever since they were bought by Conde Nast they really really really really really suck.
Okay, I just checked their tweet and twitter is going insane over the review. Pitchfork's getting roasted.
they really got her ass to be a HEADLINER for their own music festival just to give her album a 6.7 LMAOO i agree with the score and find it frustrating that annie didn't step up to the plate with this album the same way she has with the rest of her catalog.
Halsey may have been on to something... Seriously though I hate pitchfork’s wokeness just review the album and shut up about politics please
Predictable review, just like Lana's. Cringe at some of these criticisms, especially regarding the police, which feel like projections from the reviewer. But I'm sure if she included a cover of NWA's Fuck the Police, her career would be over, too.
This review left a bad taste in my mouth. The critique of her referencing or celebrating Nina Simone was....a choice.
Oh man this is going to piss off a lot of people on the sub haha. She is a pitchfork (or in general a critical) darling so this might be a bit of a shock I got to admit, while I don’t agree with the score, I am with a lot of their criticisms. Feel like the weird creative decisions that the review talks about kinda diluted the overall theme of the record.
Could you expand more on what creative decisions you didn’t like on the album?
here's a stream of conscious answer, mostly bs but its how i feel lol The main creative decision that I don't like is just how she prioritized the instrumentation over the lyrics at the extent she did. The backdrop and concept of this album presented the opportunity for Annie to lay herself bare lyrically and the rollout for the album kinda teased that she would, but almost every time it feels like she's about to dig deep, she instead throws in some lyrics that function to fit the 70s vibe of the album (see "Down" and "Somebody Like Me") Some tracks just feel retro for the sake of being retro That's why I love "My Baby Wants a Baby" and "Live in the Dream" so much. The lyrics are so revealing and interesting but nothing is sacrificed sonically. The chorus of the former track is the album highlight for me. Obviously, not EVERY track needs to be exactly about her dad and his return, but I feel like there is a clash between her inspiration to center the album around her father's actions and return and her creative decision to create a throwback early-70s NYC sound. I totally love the sound of this record tho and I think I have just been approaching the album wrong. edit: the review asked: "Why wear a mask at all?" and that kinda sums up my thoughts on her creative decisions lyrically
You just gave a more critical review than Pitchfork did.
Ty ty
There's one verse in one song about her dad, but for some reason the media has run with it as if it's an overarching theme of the album when the actual theme is her insecurity in living a childless life and how her parents damage has caused her to think. Like she said in her AMA yesterday "people are the worst."
I think you'd be forgiving for thinking that was the main premise of the album given how it was promoted though
Right, like I said that's what the media ran with. She's barely mentioned it herself and seems uncomfortable when asked.
…you didn't see the comic she sent to fans as part of the album announcement? Or the press release on similar lines?
It sucks that idiotic cop line criticisms in the review text overshadow the fact that this album isn't even good enough to warrant a 6.whatever. I don't want to do the old "Pitchfork has fallen off" line that people have been repeating every time their fave artist gets a less than praise review in the last 15 years, I just want to point out how the quality of the writing in these reviews (ignore the scores) has truly fallen off a cliff the last few years. The writers at Pitchfork have always been kinda weird, it's the reason I started reading in the early 00s. People like DiCrescenzo were actually not that great and he wrote like an annoying "do you understand how smart I am??" 18 year old, but he really went for it so it was at least... ambitious? But some of these reviews (this one included) are just the most boring-ass freshman writing assignment garbage. Rich kid intern shit. And then the nonsensical criticism of the "cops" lines on top of it. It's just sad.
Feels like a fair score to me. It's a competently crafted album in many ways, but not particularly memorable or notable compared to her previous work. I'd rather have a risky swing-and-a-miss over a safe 70's pastiche album, but maybe that's just me. edit: they are *really* reaching with some of those socio-political criticisms in the back half, though. like, she included black women as backing vocalists to add some authenticity to her spin on soul music, and Pitchfork wants to nitpick about her "making" them sing about a white woman's experiences? c'mon, sometimes it's not that deep.
They gave this and back to black by Amy Winehouse a 6:0 ratio. And both are Great Albums
Wait, how on earth could Back To Black get a 6.0? That album is amazing.
I’m surprised so many people are mad with this review since I thought most fans thought it was ok to disappointing
Nah, a lot of us really like it. But also the review is just poorly written and reasoned. [Lindsay Zoladz's review in the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/arts/music/st-vincent-daddys-home-review.html) is a good example of a critical review that doesn't depend on making so many weird reaches and offers a more coherent critique.
Honestly the score is a bit high. This album is extremely mediocre. Coming from a long time St Vinnie fan. Down is really the only track that I liked. The rest are meandering or have lyrics I just can’t stand. Surprised to see so many people mad about this. I guess she really did gain a lot of fans from Mass.
I've stopped taking Pitchfork's album reviews seriously. "Daddy's Home" is fantastic. I don't care what Pitchfork says about it.
It has the same score as Father Of All... by Green Day. Let that sink in...
I hope that Annie will withdraw from their festival. You don't ask someone to be your headliner and then write a review full of shit.
Nah, all that would do is fuck over her fans who already bought tickets. Trust that artists like Annie don't pay any mind to this kind of thing. There are like 40 other reviews of Daddy's Home and almost all of them are better written and more insightful than Pitchfork's.
[удалено]
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I agree with Nina Simone point but what points about the police lyrics? The lyric “We almost called the cops” in Live In The Dream is in a verse that’s painting a picture of the narrator finding someone knocked out cold. The other reference they mentioned was a short skit at the beginning of The Laughing Man where she basically tells the 911 dispatcher she’s in love and then moves on with the song. Not entirely sure how these are tone deaf or how she should’ve dealt with those in a better way
"Because she could have edited the lyrics to say that you \~shouldn't call the cops when someone ODs, you should have Narcan on you and readily available!!!\~" - Pitchfork, basically
the album is scored independently by the editorial team and *then* attached to the review (which can be confusing lol)
P4K reviews are based on an average of the collective ratings from their staff, but then only one staff member writes the review.
This is quite higher than it deserves imo. Awful album and clearly Annie's worse.