"Modest Mouse generate a divide between the venerating and violent like few other bands. The latter of which currently questions my ascertations. Wipe the slate clean. You officially have not heard Modest Mouse until you have heard their major label debut. The growth, bravery, and confidence are staggering for a trio that most recently hammered through a song about 'doin' the cockroach.'" - Modest Mouse, The Moon and Antarctica (a 9.8 by Brent DiCrescenzo sometime in the depths of 1999 or 2000 or whenever the hell that record came out, and 13.6% of the vote)

"I can think of few pop songwriters who've delivered their diaries with enough conviction to transcend the medieval, lifeless nature of oral tradition, and I can think of only one other rock critic as touched by The Final Cut as I've been over the years. Kurt Loder awarded The Final Cut Rolling Stone's sacrosanct five star rating in issue 393, comparing Waters' gripping linear narrative to its only conceivable peer, master storyteller Bob Dylan. An unflinching, out of control spiral toward the center of paternal identity, Britain's stiff upper lip, and the idiocy of war, The Final Cut fulfills the promise of The Wall's most poignant moments, gutting sons, soldiers, and the unknowing inheritors of their sacrifices eight ways from Sunday."- Pink Floyd, The Final Cut (a completely inexplicable 9.0 by Chris Ott on November 3, 2003 and 18.4% of the vote)

"There's something irresistible about that Chan Marshall. Recording under the Cat Power moniker, she's got a magic coolness that only certain guitar-totin' girls come equipped with. You know what I'm talkin' about— Beth Orton's got the Magic Cool, too. You can't really pinpoint any particularly cool things these girls; they're just cool. And somehow, the new Cat Power record is proof positive that Marshall is the coolest on the planet." - Cat Power, Moon Pix (a 7.4 by Ryan Schreiber on November 1, 1998 and 38.8% of the vote)

"'She's the One' stretches the strums of the Champion Versions EP across a full 70mm print, pumping the mix full of Technicolor detail. It's not saying much except "I'm in love," but it does so with such swirling, ringing conviction that even professional cynics like me have used it as a soundtrack to going head over heels. "Dr. Baker" starts out hungover in bed watching drips of piano against the window, but, by the second verse, a lost calliope has burst into the bedroom." - The Beta Band, The Best of the Beta Band (a 7.2 by Jess Harvell on October 4, 2005 and 29.1% of the vote)

Pitchfork [pitchforkmedia.com]

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A) "Over 40 minutes, despite generally clear transitions from pattern to pattern, the sonic range of choral parts is relatively small, and the actual harmonies being sung can be distractingly same-y— which makes sense when you consider they were borne out of a single chord that was merely pitched up or down."

B) "But that tripped-out triptych can't carry the entire album, which revels in its own base desires, while simultaneously pretending to be merely observing them for a neutral audience—an audience that probably doesn't hit the clubs at night just to stand in the corner and gaze at their own pierced navels."

C) "If he would address the political through this personal lens, exploring his own complicity in the military-industrial complex he currently lambastes from a false outside perspective, he might arrive at commentary that's more about insight and confrontation than moral flattery."

D) "Other people's dreams can be beautifully told, as in Michel Gondry films or Cocteau Twins LPs, but most of the time they're just boring: Some dude tells me he had a nightmare about his boss turning into a mule-hung Valkyrie (TMI, bro), and I'm all, yeah, let me tell you about the dream I had snorting sea monkeys with Billy Corgan."

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""...instead of the expected high-voltage guitar squeals we get an immersing, opium-den torch song guided along slowly by bongos and flute flourishes, Herrema investing its French-folk-song melody with a fading diva's empty-ashtray regret."" RTX, Western Xterminator (6.1 from Stuart Berman, and 7.9% of the vote)

"One of my musical pet peeves is the incompatibility of punk rock and its cousin subgenres with anything that smells of a concept album." Call Me Lightning, Soft Skeletons (a 5.2 from Rob Mitchum, and 32.9% of the vote)

"The woodwind texture flows into the next song, "I've Always Loved the Fall", which in turn splits open the center of the album (and its own pastoral atmosphere) with a decidedly ungodly church organ passage." Lost in the Trees, Time Taunts Me (a 7.1 from Joe Tangari, and 30.3% of the vote)

Pitchfork

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"The Shins and the Arcade Fire...had relatively short histories before raising their profile beyond college campuses, while more seasoned groups with major-label money-sacks like Built to Spill and Mercury Rev never cracked the Billboard top 50." Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (7.8 from Rob Mitchum, and 11.6% of the vote)

"Not like it's a bad time for it, since a relatively sparse stretch of the year like this— Arcade Fire notwithstanding— feels like a good occasion to revisit a moderately slept-on album that, if anything, at least transcends its gimmickry." Beck, The Information: Deluxe Edition (a 7.4 from Nate Patrin, and 30.7% of the vote)

"Swollen piano waltz "Playing Cards With Gingerbread" takes a similar misstep, capping the album with a pompous reflection on touring life that builds into Neon Bible-reading sound and fury." WinterKids, Memoirs (a 6.4 from Marc Hogan, and 42.7% of the vote)

Pitchfork

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"Now any monster jam like this needs to ebb and flow, but this breakdown feels particularly forced, as if the players weren't sure where to take the piece and decided to take an aesthetic coffee break instead." Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Damo Suzuki, Please Heat This Eventually EP (6.0 from Stuart Berman, and 25% of the vote)

"The keyboard's playful, ascending scale acts as a cheerful motif as the song twists off in unexpected directions with sudden melodic breaks and interludes, and juxtaposes Wolf's lyrical darkness with sonic brightness." Patrick Wolf, The Magic Position (an 8.3 from Liz Colville, and 16.5% of the vote)

"A surprising trick to their craft— one akin to shouting "Boo!"— is an abrupt tempo change attack, usually in the form of complex and note-y Mastodon-like fractals. Frequent sprinklings of deep-fried-and-battered Iommi solos only help matters." Rwake, Voices of Omens (an 8.0 from D. Shawn Bosler, and a Clintonian 42.4% of the vote)

Pitchfork

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"The aforementioned post-rock ensembles like to tinker with musical narrative like the post-modernists they are, and for every bold crescendo, an incongruous tangent can disrupt the music's linearity": Explosions In The Sky, All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (6.0 from Brian Howe, and 25.5% of the vote)

"...but then come the stunners, ringing out perfectly with a baroque stylishness and slaying explosiveness that, if maintained for an entire album, would suffocate the hearts of even the proggiest": Shining, Grindstone (a 7.6 from Brandon Stosuy, and 28.7% of the vote)

""The pair erects a spire-shaped theme only to bury it in a noisy midsection, a tone akin to that of Christian Fennesz' signal manipulation morphing melody into dynamic static": Benevento/Russo Duo, Play Pause Stop (a 7.6 from Grayson Currin, and 25% of the vote)

Pitchfork

This week's Pitchfork-sourced sentences, and their accompanying reviews:

"The secret to a successful indie pop song in the ADD mode is that each section is actually incredibly focused and catchy, not that it features a tuba.": Envelopes, "Pink Christmas" (two stars from Dave Maher, and 18% of the vote)

"But a hunch: I could play 10 other similar soundtracks and you'd have a difficult time passing the Pepsi Challenge.": Clint Mansell ft. Kronos Quartet & Mogwai, The Fountain OST (a 5.9 from Brandon Stosuy, and 25% of the vote)

"Must've been right about this point when M.C. Hammer wished he'd reconsidered buying that mansion.": Babyshambles, The Blinding (a 6.1 from Marc Hogan, and 31% of the vote)

Pitchfork

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This week's Pitchfork-sourced sentences, and their accompanying reviews:

"Rather, it's that their intertexuality and pastiche still seem kind of innocent and imaginative— groping less for cultural capital than sustenance and the movement of bodies.": Tine, "Cobrinha" (3 1/2 stars from Bret Gladstone, and 31% of the vote)

"Four years ago, this would have been a new love, but, by now, it's a well-rehearsed, consistent climax.": Explosions In The Sky, "Welcome, Ghosts" (2 1/2 stars from Grayson Currin, and 26% of the vote)

"The music here ultimately mirrors the film's setting in the big-sky country just east of the Rockies more than it does the fattening subject of its critique..." Various Artists, Fast Food Nation OST (a 7.5 from Joe Tangari, and 25% of the vote)

Pitchfork

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Our candidate—"Because her voice is so annoyingly insistent, even guitars that are meant to chime sound as brain-splitting as a 6:30 a.m. alarm."—was spotted as the fake by 22% of you. The remaining sentences, and their sources:

"...singing lines like "My style is di bom digi bom di deng di deng digigi" to boast about her je nais se quois.": Robyn, The Rakamonie EP (a 7.8 from Stephen M. Deusner, and 30% of the vote)

"...the bros most brazen with their veggie burritos and schizophrenic record collections.": The USA Is A Monster, Sunset At The End Of The Industrial Age (a 6.7 from Grayson Currin, and 17% of the vote)

Pitchfork

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Interview: Joanna Newsom [Pitchfork]

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And that 34% tally was only a hair ahead of No. 2, "... boy sees girl, girl snaps thong, boy's eyes go 'awooga!' and tongue rolls out into a red carpet.". Was that our decoy? No, it came from Ryan Dombal's 3 1/2-star take on Akon's "I Wanna Love/Fuck You [ft. Snoop Dogg]"; 33% of you thought it was written by your Idolators, even though we spell "awoooga!" with three o's, not two.

Our fake sentence? "Never mind the verse-chorus-verse paradigm—here's the ringtone." It came in last, garnering a mere 16% of the vote. Clearly, we need to use "paradigm" more often when we're writing these things.

The final contestant:
"This would have been the perfect opportunity for a concept review. The situation almost demands it.": Rock Plaza Central, Are We Not Horses? (8.4 from Stephen M. Deusner, and 18% of the vote)

Pitchfork

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The three real Pitchfork sentences, and their sources:

"Yeah, dudes, I've kinda had enough of the blame-American-Idol-first crowd."—Takka Takka, We Feel Safer At Night (a 5.6 from Marc Hogan, and 26% of the vote)

"As a chipper punk at Corpus Christi grammar school I once asked: Why didn't the frogs eat all the bugs?"—Various Artists, Plague Songs (a 5.5 from Brandon Stosuy, and 25% of the vote)

"Upon hearing this, Steven Patrick Morrissey promptly hung himself, buried his own corpse, and rolled over in his grave."—The Isles, "Flying Under Cheap Kites" (2 1/2 stars from Matthew Solarski, and 16% of the vote)

Pitchfork

We'll post the results of the poll—and links to the original reviews—later today. Happy guessing!

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In honor of our sentence—"They own the complete catalog of We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It, and boy, do they use it."—coming in second place (23%), we're going to post an MP3 of the band's contribution to the C86 compilation. Get it now, so you get the references later!

The remaining contenders, and their tallies:

"Not only does it jump genres like hobos jump trains..."—Georgia Anne Muldrow, Fragments Of An Earth (6.3 from Joe Tangari, and 22% of the vote)

"The shit would be like the old dudes in Cocoon fighting for the last dip in the pool."—Ghostface, "Ghost Is Back" (four stars from Peter Macia, and 23% of the vote)

We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It - Console Me [MP3, link expired]
Pitchfork

We'll post the results of the poll—and links to the original reviews—later today. Happy guessing!

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A mere 15% of you picked out the Idolator-penned sentence, which was the following: "It's hard to be loved, and they know this, so they drape their sad-sack romantic rhyme schemes in black clouds of guitar fuzz. Their message: 'Don't touch.' " We're not going to trumpet our awesomeness just yet, but we will say that this week's triumph has restored at least a little bit of our writerly egos.

The remaining contenders:

... intuitive leaps between lo-fi bedroom folk that emphasized monotonous gloom and cacophonous samples to comparatively laid-back country biased toward majestic arrangements and electronic beats."—Bright Eyes, Noise Floor (a 6.4 from Brian Howe, and 25% of the vote)

"It's the Age of Chaos and all, but in what club outside of the Epcot Biergarten would this be hot?"—Gwen Stefani, "Wind It Up" (One star from Peter Macia, and 24% of the vote)

Pitchfork

We'll post the results of the poll—and links to the original reviews—later today. Happy guessing!

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The other candidates, and their ratings and tallies:

"...meaningless nuggets of Dr. Phil babble that would even have Zach Braff's eyes rolling." Badly Drawn Boy, Born in the UK (2.8 from Ryan Dombal, and 25% of the vote)

"Wardrobe-restaging the first few TLC videos does not a revolution make." Klaxons, Xan Valleys (7.7 from William Bowers, and 19% of the vote)

"[They] make a show of sloppy-cum-cute, like a cross between Pavement and the soundtrack to a Peanuts cartoon." Alan Singley and Pants Machine, Lovingkindness (6.9 from Jason Crock, and 12% of the vote)

See you next week!

Pitchfork

The drill: Read the four sentences below, then pick the one that didn't run in Pitchfork sometime over the past five days. We'll post the results later this afternoon—enjoy, and once again, no peeking!

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Pitchfork

This week's other honorees, and the reviews from which they were taken:

"Yet for all the omg! surrounding this British pop chimera, it plopped onto the internet like a hunk of molasses." The Good The Bad and the Queen, "Herculean" (Three stars from Adam Moerder, and 22% of the vote)

"And don't forget to rap like Cookie Monster's pretzel-munching grandpa for a few bars too." Ying Yang Twins, "Dangerous (ft. Wyclef Jean) (One and a half stars from Ryan Dombal, and 16% of the vote)

"The song in total describes a gentle pitch and yaw, like liquid sloshing in a bucket..." White Magic, "The Light" (Four and a half stars from Brian Howe, and 11% of the vote)

See you next Friday!

UPDATE: In the meantime, you should take a gander at what Law & Order's Lennie Briscoe has to say about some records that were recently reviewed by Pitchfork. (Who knew that he'd like "Chain Hang Low" so much?)

(Free)basin' with Briscoe [Just Sayin 2000]
Pitchfork

Results—and links to the original reviews—will be posted later this afternoon. Happy guessing, and remember, no cheating!

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Pitchfork

Our decoy sentence came in second: "...phoning it in so aggressively, you can hear the hum of a dial tone underneath the paint-by-numbers sound." (We had just received a call from a telemarketer, you see.) Nearly 20% of you picked correctly.

The remaining contenders:

"More on influence: Put together their CD collections, these five gentlemen probably have the entire Fishbone discography among them." HoAg, The Word From Pluto (7.6 from Jason Crock, and nearly 17% of the vote)

"Girl parts, offered by bassist Nikki Monninger, are welcome respite; also, she's way cute." Silversun Pickups, Carnavas (5.0 from Rachel Khong, and about 15% of the vote)

See you next Friday!

Pitchfork

The poll is below; the answer, and links to the reviews we yanked the other three sentences from, will be revealed later this afternoon. Happy guessing!

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Pitchfork

Well, after this week, our spirits are higher. Because, you see, the sentence that almost 35% of you picked as this week's fake—"With all due respect to Josh Homme, meet the true Eagles of death mettle." — was not our decoy (despite some cluck-clucking in the comments) ; it was actually from Stuart Berman's 7.2 review of Akron/Family's Meek Warrior. Our decoy sentence ("They try on their influences like an insecure teen samples 'looks' the week before starting a new school.") actually came in third place, garnering about 20% of the vote.

The other two sentences, and their tallies:

"[The album] compartmentalizes its touchstones with the organization of a spice rack." The Black Neon, Arts and Crafts (6.2 from Adam Moerder, and 28% of ballots cast)

"You know, maybe having a planet doesn't suck. There's David Brooks, yes, but at least there are songs." Bowerbirds, "In Our Talons" (four stars from Marc Hogan, and 17% of the vote)

See you next week!

Pitchfork

We'll post the results of the poll—and links to the articles we swiped the offending sentences from—at the end of the day. Have fun guessing, and no peeking!

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Pitchfork

"The band's best shows are an orgiastic symphony of hypnotic build-up and cathartic discharge." Wolf Eyes, Human Animal (8.2 from Marc Masters, and 101 votes)
"Fans of...the shrieky Nintendo-scrape of Crystal Castles should not miss this (man-hating, or merely phallus-juggling?) track." Mis Violetta Beauregarde, "I Can't Believe Hedgehogs Have a Bone Inside Their Cock (three stars from William Bowers, and 91 votes)
"But Muldrow's strength is in chiffony harmonies that are twisted a bit by her affection for dissonance." Georgia Anne Muldrow, from Interrobang (?!) #19 (no grade—it's Julianne Escobedo Shepherd's column—and 64 votes)

We'll post the results of the poll—and links to the articles we yanked the offending sentences from—at the end of the day. Have fun guessing!

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Pitchfork

Below, a breakdown of the three other contenders, including the subject, the reviewer, and the all-important Pitchfork rating.

"... Brian May's pomp-adore meets Ziggy's eyeliner and GN'R's grand illusions in a spectacle of crashing chandelier proportions." My Chemical Romance, "Welcome to the Black Parade" (three stars from Ryan Dombal; 234 votes)
"I sense that dancing away this terror will be about as effective as loving away war, but I like the idea of trying." The Capitol Years, Dance Away the Terror (a 7.8 from Joe Tangari, and 189 votes)
"It's the emotional distance that makes the genre so mysteriously bittersweet, and the song so much more than polyester pageantry." Escort, "Starlight" (four and a half stars from Roque Strew, and 95 votes)

In honor of Pitchfork's prose, we present our weekly Pick of the 'Fork. You are charged with guessing the following: Which of the excerpts below did not run on Pitchfork this week? Vote for whichever one you think came from the bowels of our imagination. We'll close the poll — and show you the sources for the real quotes — later this afternoon. And please, no peeking! We want this to be a fair fight.

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Pitchfork