A follow-up on some commentariat curiosity from a few weeks back: Pitchfork’s review of the indie-pandering soundtrack to the forthcoming vampire flick Twilight: New Moon, penned by Marc Hogan. The grade: 5.4. The crux of the issue: “The New Moon OST has all the touchstones of what is considered, by many who consider themselves cognoscenti, “good” music… but it uses its tastefulness to solidify the borders of what is acceptable, not to broaden them.” (Ahem.) The best probably unintentional pun, since the word “sparkle” wasn’t used once: “Like the rest of the tracks here, [the Lykke Li contribution] pales in comparison to the work on her own records.” [Pitchfork]
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That commentor was me. I think I’ve seen edgier criticism in People Magazine than in this pitchfork review.
Even it was a good soundtrack I doubt Pitchfork would have given it a good review — the Twilight franchise is everything their target audience despises.
This is exactly how they used to grade the OC soundtracks. No surprise there.
@Nicolars: That’s why it’s so funny, if they hadn’t reviewed it at all then the ommission would have been really obvious since they’ve been reporting on it for months. A good review would have pissed off their core fanbase and a bad review would eliminate any remaining shred of integrity that they still have since most of the performers fit the pitchfork “brand” perfectly and they’d be admitting that they’re basing the review solely on the Twilight image and not on the music.
“…the same restless disregard for boundaries that indie listeners– ideally, at least– aspire toward.”
bwa ha.
The author of the review is either totally having Pitchfork on or is stunningly unaware of the publication he writes for.
The giant assumption that this was made to constrict the borders of what is cool seem like a cop out to justify the rating.
Also, I discovered some bands from the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack when I was a kid. I’m glad there wasn’t a web site around to tell me how uncool I was to like it.