The piece hit the Web at an interesting time for me; the day before, prior to a weekly happy-hour DJ gig I do in Seattle (Havana, Pike between 10th and 11th, Wednesdays 7 to 9, stop by), I had decided to dive back into vinyl a little bit. God knows what prompted this: I have plenty of CDs and two fully loaded iPods to play off, and not much in the way of vinyl. Still, I put some money down for a needle (the bar has twin tables but you have to bring your own needles, standard operating procedure for many places) and picked up a couple of 12-inches. I was amazed at how expensive they were: one was a domestic (Lloyd's "Girls Around the World") and only $7, but the other, an import, was $13. As Sherburne explains,

[D]ance music is suffering from some very real maladies, many of them economic. Record sales are declining— labels that once could confidently move 1,000 copies of a 12" single now struggle to sell 250— and legal downloads, while presumably growing, aren't taking up the slack. In the U.S., a falling dollar and rising petrol prices have jacked the price of an import 12" single to $12 or more— and that's when you can find a record in shops (or, indeed, a record shop) at all. Recent high-profile closures of key dance-music distributors are both a symptom of a market in crisis and a cause of further problems: Unless you want to resort to mail-ordering from Europe or the UK, it's all but impossible to get your hands on most overseas vinyl these days.

Even if you can get the stuff, and even if you decide that it's worth shelling out $12 or more for two tracks you could purchase digitally for $3, playing vinyl is increasingly a pain in the ass for DJs, between carry-on limitations and rising fees for checked luggage. (I recently shelled out $80 to check a record bag I had carried into the UK on a flight out of Luton, owing to security restrictions that prohibit travelers from carrying aboard more than one bag. Forget about that "personal item.") The airlines' increasing behind-the-scenes disarray is translating into more lost luggage. (Remember Radio Slave's CD-only performance at MUTEK, after the airline misplaced his record bag.) And foreign DJs who want to play the U.S. without going through the onerous and expensive process of applying for an artist's performance visa are forced to forsake the black wax and perform only with a laptop, or risk being turned away at customs and immigration.

Tough times indeed—and that aspect of things, more than simply the music, is Sherburne's real concern here. Most of the responses (a couple of them private e-mails from colleagues, as well as many blog and message-board posts that Sherburne links from his own blog) have focused on the idea that the music itself is in grave danger, usually dismissively: there are lots of good tracks, what is he talking about, etc. And I understand them: I've found loads of good techno this year so far thanks to sites like Resident Advisor and Little White Earbuds, which have their ears to the ground and regularly review new tracks I've wound up loving that I might not have known about otherwise. (I'm a dance-music patriot for sure, but I've never been a real DJ and the amount I seek out has varied wildly over the years.)

Nevertheless, the idea that little new ground is being broken is hard to ignore—as it has been for some time now. Again, that's music-wide, not just in dance music. Maybe the innovations going on now are under the map—Sherburne's column is called "The Month in Techno," so you wouldn't necessarily expect him to be tracking, say, bassline/4x4/niche or the "funky house" that Tim Finney wrote up here (and elsewhere) a little bit back. And maybe they're happening too incrementally to reliably track on a record-by-record basis. But that sort of defines a style in stagnation, doesn't it?

That said, the thing I liked best about the piece was the "manifestos" that make up its second half. The two that knocked me over come from Marco Freivogel, who runs Mobilee (which recently issued an excellent 2CD compilation, Back to Back Vol. Two). Not just "No more plicky-placky" (amen, and I say that as someone who often likes plicky-placky), but this: "Nobody owns music. It comes to you and it leaves you. Music has its own way." Words to live by, I say.

The Month in Techno [Pitchfork]

danielgibson77: are they apologizing to their readership?
danielgibson77: for promoting the band in the first place?
mauraatidolator: i think so
danielgibson77: i would appreciate a more extensive apology, then.
danielgibson77: i've had to tell my son this, but part of apologizing is trying to be better in the future.

(And for you eagle-eyed readers who were up at 5 and saw an earlier, more sternly numbered version of the review—hey, I know there are some of you out there—Scott Plagenhoef has provided a semi-official statement on the whole thing. Honestly, I'm just glad that this review ran on the same day as their writeup of Ida Maria, i.e. an artist who actually deserves the coverage-slash-hype.)

Partie Traumatic [Pitchfork]

• The '90s had zines, e-mail lists, and people writing letters. The '00s have music blogs and, uh...

• This video:

Look! A sense of humor! Something that is sorely missing from so many of the "hey my pal has Flash from an old job of his want to borrow it" clips of today.

• When it comes to shitty omnipresent mainstream rap songs, I'll take the "Superfreak"-sampling "U Can't Touch This" over Flo Rida any day.

• Helium. Slant 6. Unrest. Pavement. Classic Stereolab. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. Green Mind. Different Class. Pre-Hilary-Duffed Liz Phair. New Jack Swing. Heavenly. Female-fronted groups on commercial rock radio. That New Radicals song. "Female Of The Species." Beavis And Butt-Head. I'll give you that scripted TV has probably improved overall (although Law & Order is nowhere near its Briscoe-Logan-McCoy-Kincaid heights), and that the Mets are much better now, but those are kind of different debates, no?

Anyway, feel free to make your case for your favorite decade here. This is gonna get bloody, I suspect.

Lemuria: Get Better [Pitchfork]

Look, we're not saying this song isn't a perfectly pleasant '60s homage. But how can you play these guys off as babes in the woods when a simple Google search reveals that they make their bread helping bring snakes on a plane alongside Gabe Saporta and whoever the lady keytarist is at the moment? These aren't just touring members. Cobra Starship actually has a song named "Pleasure Ryland." Here's Gabe, Alex and Ry-Ry dropping that bomb on the acoustic tip.

So just say it, OK? "Featuring members of Cobra Starship." It's not that hard, trust me. It's actually kind of fun to type the words "Cobra Starship" in a post. Anyone who wouldn't listen to their anonymous little Rutle of a number just because they're in Cobra Starship isn't a fan they'd want anyway.

[The Forkcast post has been edited to note that the band's press release didn't mention they were members of Cobra Starship, and really, how could they know something that wasn't in the press release? We sympathize.]

Cobra Starship - Pleasure Ryland acoustic [YouTube]
New Music: This Is Ivy League: "The Richest Kids" [MP3/Stream] [Forkcast]

1. Call Pitchfork a music blog. Never mind that it's been around, as you point out in your article, since 1995—two years before the term "weblog" was invented, and four before Peter Merholz coined the shorter version; never mind that the only aspects of the site that vaguely resembles a music blog are the Forkcast and the News section, neither of which have the coronation power of a "Best New Music" from its reviewers. Who aren't bloggers (well, at least not for Pitchfork, anyway).

2. Use as your new media "expert" a futurist whose recent forays into the digital-music world ended in failure. Remember the guy who coined the term BlogJ? Yeah, his "blogs will be the next record labels" spiel is quoted here, although left out of the piece is the fact that his recent experiment in Web 2.0 widgetry went tits-up last week.

3. Fill your story with data-free anecdotes, because they make lovely window dressing. Music blogs apparently have "young readers." How is Sandoval aware of this? We don't know, because there aren't any actual numbers in the story at all aside from the number of unique readers Pitchfork gets a month (1.5 million) and the number of words Rolling Stone's Nathan Brackett thinks that the average Man Man blurb has (50).

4. On that note, never, ever press for details. Would you be interested to know that eMusic's Yancey Strickler (who, it should be known, is a friend), who's given space to pontificate on music blogging, writes a music blog for his employer, which could make for some interesting discussion of blogging-for-dollars in a story that mentions corporate influence? Want to know how BrooklynVegan "developed a reputation for being the must-read blog for concert information"? Like to know what, exactly, was inaccurate in the reporting about Stereogum's sale, as Scott Lapatine claims? Too bad, because Sandoval isn't interested in making those details known. (At least not yet! Maybe there's a sequel to this piece coming—Music Blogs II: Return To WordPress!)

5. Get an old-media type to comment on how the blog kids should get off his fact-checked lawn—and then fail to fact-check his comments. "The blogs do the really quick 50-word update on what a band's doing," Brackett tells Sandoval. "They'll write about (singer) Lilly [sic!!!] Allen releasing a new EP or (the band) Man Man is preparing an album. The way Rolling Stone competes is we pick up the phone and bring original reporting. We take advantage of our access. Most blogs don't have the staffs to pick up the phone." Well, most blogs also aren't subsidiaries of huge magazines that can be sources for repurposed content. And really, does recapping a reality TV show count as "original reporting" these days? I guess it's a good thing that I got cable in my office after all.

Music blogs: The new wall of sound [CNet]

FRIDAY, JULY 18
The Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow's Parties present "Don't Look Back" featuring
PUBLIC ENEMY performing It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
**SEBADOH performing Bubble and Scrape
MISSION OF BURMA performing Vs.

SATURDAY, JULY 19
Animal Collective
Jarvis Cocker
**The Hold Steady
!!!
Vampire Weekend
No Age
Atlas Sound
Dizzee Rascal
Extra Golden
Fleet Foxes
**Elf Power
**Caribou
Ruby Suns
Fuck Buttons
Jay Reatard
**Icy Demons
A Hawk and a Hacksaw
**Boban Markovic Orkestar
**Titus Andronicus

SUNDAY, JULY 20
Spoon
Dinosaur Jr
Spiritualized
M. Ward
Ghostface & Raekwon
Les Savy Fav
The Apples In Stereo
Boris
Cut Copy
Dirty Projectors
**Bon Iver
Dodos
**Times New Viking
Occidental Brothers Dance Band International
El Guincho
King Khan
**HEALTH
**High Places
**Mahjongg

Hilfiger has been sponsoring European concerts featuring the likes of Wyclef and one of the Destiny's Children who isn't Beyonce for some time, so why not slap that footage up on the web? Users will be able to contribute their own content and enter online talent contests and the like, so there's that difference between this site and the eighty others that have opened in the wake of YouTube. Seriously, when is it going to stop? I didn't need another opportunity to hear Wyclef freestyle, especially if it's going to require another laptop-killing Flash upgrade.

TommyTV [Official site]

So instead I'll just point you in the direction of the Pitchfork-premiered video for one of my favorite songs this year, M83's "Graveyard Girl," and leave you all to argue whether or not a site that's so rich on content that actually requires paying semi-close attention to for kinda long periods of time, instead of quickly skimming numerical ratings/download links, will be as runaway a success as its parent. I'm not sure myself, but my head for business is a little cloudy these days.

Pitchfork.tv [Official site]

Wayne's drastic improvement from his Cash Money days, coupled with the South's moment in the sun, ensured that narrative-hungry writers would annoint someone sub-Mason-Dixon as the new king of hip-hop. With Scarface and Andre 3000 falling back and half of UGK locked up, Wayne seemed like the best bet. In a way, his rise seemed tailor-made for the zeitgeist of this jangled Internet age, his songs blessed with a sense of ephemera that jibes with the notion of constant content fit to be devoured and forgotten ten minutes later. There are as many Wayne songs as there are blogs, and like the blogosphere, the quality is wildly uneven. For every show-stopping moment like "Cannon" or "Upgrade U," there are ten tracks filled with repetitive simile-laden boasts that Wayne's champions would like to call free-associative genius, but really just prove that it is somehow possible to be both the hardest working man in hip-hop and incredibly lazy at the same time.

Given the chance to appear on Graduation and American Gangster, two rap albums from 2007 that were good enough to receive burn beyond the turn of the decade, Weezy whiffed—squandering the rare opportunity to broaden his fanbase beyond his key constituency of Southerners, 13-year olds, and white music critics with 180+ IQs, prestigious liberal arts degrees, and questionable taste in hip-hop. Wayne apologists scoffed that their hero had already had so many great moments that year, but his detractors sagely pointed out that anyone purporting to be the best rapper alive shouldn't suck this much on both of the year's big-ticket rap records.

That's perhaps the most frustrating thing about the Wayne question: only two opinions seem to exist, both of which are wrong. (Wayne is neither savior nor Satan. What he is a talented rapper with absolutely no concept of quality control.) The first swallows his hyperbole and concludes that he is the greatest rapper alive, a prolific, infallible genius who operates in a Bizarro galaxy heretofore reserved for such king weirdos as Mike Tyson, Cam'ron, and Kim Jung-Il. The other labels him complete garbage, a walking, talking, Baby-kissing plague on humanity responsible for SARS, Ebola, and the assassinations of both Kennedys.^** Ultimately, what this yields is bad criticism, with his admirers refusing to acknowledge his myriad atrocious moments and his "haters" never conceding an inch, with both teams waiting for the "classic" album that will either confirm his place in the pantheon or halt the critical love train.

The notion of needing to drop a classic album seems slightly antiquated, but in fact it isn't. While short stories, short films, and single MP3s obviously have their merits, no amount of postmodernist revision will ever alter the fact that the novel, the feature film, and the album will remain the standard-bearers of art. (Sorry.) Lil Wayne has not dropped a classic album, though if you lopped 20 minutes off Carter II, you could arguably state your case. Logically, Carter III would be make-or-break time, the chance for Wayne to either shut up the peanut gallery^*** or leave the heads of the hype machine with a whole lot of omelet on their face. Neither of these two things will probably happen.

While it remains to be seen what exactly would convert Wayne's naysayers, it is certain that no matter how bad Carter III is, some corners of the critical community will stop at nothing to convince you of its greatness. In particular, no two critics have been more strident in their homerism than Tom Breihan, of the Village Voice and Pitchfork and Marc Hogan, the main writer of Pitchfork's Forkcast. ReadBreihan's love letter to "Lollipop," a song that he himself manages to call

a blatant sellout-move capitulation to everything lame in today's pop-music world: gallingly obvious central lyrical sex-as-candy analogy, T-Pain-esque layered-up autotuned vocals, simplistic snap-music drum-pattern, hushed trancey synth-whooshes playing something that sounds suspiciously like the melody to Flo Rida's "Low," no rapping whatsoever and... screaming butt-rock guitar solos.

Forget the fact that "Lollipop" does have rapping, however terrible it may be; forget the fact that Breihan somehow manages to compare "Lollipop" to Earth Wind & Fire's "Let's Groove," a piece of spin that would make James Carville smile. The review concludes by telling us that we should "celebrate the fact that Lil Wayne has made his "Candy Shop" without compromising his inner weirdness."

In fact, there is nothing weird about "Lollipop," a song that feels more cynically calculating than almost anything released in 2008. It's lyrical content is a clumsy homework assignment from 50 Cent's School Of How To Write Songs For 14-Year-Old Girls With Tacky Sex Metaphors For Hooks. (In particular, "Shorty Want a Thug/Bottles in the Club/Shorty Need a Hug" makes Benzino look like Arthur Rimbaud.) Meanwhile, it completely style-jacks T-Pain, a guy who stole every one of his ideas from Roger Troutman, never mind Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction." Hell, even the "Lollipop" video is corny, a glitzy, formulaic romp through Las Vegas that feels suspiciously like a cliched combo of the videos for 112's "Only You" and 2Pac's "How Do U Want It."

Incidentally, there is one defense for "Lollipop": It's a big, absolutely retarded pop song that you enjoy dancing to at clubs. This is its sole intent. As rap music, it's garbage; as pop, it's middle-of-the-road filler fit to be played until Labor Day and not a moment later. What it isn't is "sly, heady... melodrama," as Breihan puts it, or a "savvy pop move," as Hogan calls it. What Snoop did was a "savvy pop move," the sort of desperate sellout look that artists need to do when there's nothing left in the well; "the greatest rapper alive" shouldn't have to resort to singles you can Xerox (no Hillary Clinton).

If "Lollipop" is a shameless, poorly executed, but well-thought out play for the charts, "A Millie" is the opposite, a half-baked and sloppy street single with Wayne once again in mixtape mode, stringing together simile after simile for five and a half minutes of banal shit-talking. Of course, there are a few clever lyrical turns. "I don't owe you like two vowels" is as good as anything Lupe Fiasco has written, but like Weezy's entire discography, "A Millie" is maddeningly inconsistent. Its beat is a hiccuping, overly repetitive, minimalist mess that sounds like it could only have been selected by someone under the influence of too much drank and drugs. Meanwhile, Wayne attempts to mask his empty-calorie lyrics by relying on his now-familiar grab-bag of vocal tics, forcing syllables to stretch that shouldn't stretch, modulating his voice without purpose, everything strictly for schtick and effect. At one point, he even boasts that "none of this shit is written down," but that goes without saying. After all, any rapper who writes a lyric as lazy as "we pop 'em like Redenbacher" deserves his MC pass revoked. (Can we all admit that Jay and Big's claims that they never wrote down lyrics have caused more harm than any trivia tidbit in music history?)

But Hogan dismisses anyone with a gripe: "haters are already foaming at the mouth... the rest of us know better than to rush the flow." God forbid, anyone gets between Hogan and Wayne's uh..."flow." "A Millie" is just mediocre, a boiler mix-tape track that would be met with yawns were it released by Papoose, most frustrating than is the one-sided nature of its criticism, with its arrogant tone and nebulous taunts at "haters." Flip through the Pitchfork archives, and you'll be hard-pressed to find inasmuch as a negative word about Wayne, with the one universally loathed Wayne record, Like Father Like Son, weirdly never getting a review despite its single, "Stuntin' Like My Daddy," receiving a glowing, four-star review from Breihan.

Granted, Wayne's detractors are notoriously venomous and often misguided, but their anger partly stems from a critical vogue that refuses to praise anything that isn't crack rap and/or nakedly commercial. In the past six months, hip-hop has seen strong output from a new generation of rappers—Jay Electronica, Wale, The Knux, Pacific Division, Blu and Clean Guns—yet not one of these worthy artists has gotten their own post on the Forkcast or Status Ain't Hood, despite obviously needing the exposure a whole lot more than the platinum-plus "Young Money Millionaire." It remains to be seen whether Carter III will be the masterpiece capable of validating the slavish Wayne worship that has taken place over the past few years. But what is certain is that judging from the reviews of its first two singles, you'll be hearing the praises of its unmistakable brilliance.

Besides, no matter what, it can't be worse than Mike Jones or Paul Wall.

^* On another note, if "Loungin" is not the most quintessential mid-'90s rap video, than what is?
^** Though if one were to judge Wayne strictly off his appearance—which is not unlike that of a drank and pills-addled Whoopi Goldberg—SARS seems like a reasonable guess.
^***Likely filled with fans of Peanut Butter Wolf.

Friday, July 18: Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow's Parties present "Don't Look Back"
Public Enemy performing It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
* Mission of Burma performing Vs. *
+ one more to be announced

Saturday, July 19:
Animal Collective
* Jarvis Cocker *
!!!
Vampire Weekend
Dizzee Rascal
Fleet Foxes
No Age
* Jay Reatard *
* King Khan & His Shrines *
Atlas Sound
* The Ruby Suns *
* A Hawk and a Hacksaw *
* Occidental Brothers Dance Band International *
+ many more!

Sunday, July 20:
* Dinosaur Jr. *
Spiritualized
M. Ward
* Ghostface and Raekwon *
* The Apples in Stereo *
Boris
* Dirty Projectors *
* Cut Copy *
Extra Golden
El Guincho
* Fuck Buttons *
+ many more!

• The Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow's Parties present "Don't Look Back" featuring PUBLIC ENEMY performing "It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"
• ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
• SPIRITUALIZED
• !!!
• M. WARD
• BORIS
• VAMPIRE WEEKEND
• DIZZEE RASCAL
• NO AGE
• ATLAS SOUND
• FLEET FOXES
• EXTRA GOLDEN
• EL GUINCHO

DeRogatis' magical Pitchfork score: 9.4. He mentions that number three times when giving examples of how bands blessed by the "Best New Music" tag could fare in Pitchfork's other business dealings—a high-rated band dealing with low-viewership video on Pitchfork.TV, for example, or the prospect of bands feeling "bullied" by Pitchfork into participating in their other ventures because they're afraid of getting dinged with a low rating. Why 9.4, though? Is it a Lost spoiler?

Schreiber wasn't allowed to stay up late and watch The Cutting Edge and 120 Minutes as a child. "I watched MTV all the time growing up. I was obsessed with music all throughout my childhood, and I watched it incessantly. And, um, as I got more turned on to music, I was like, 'Why was there never anything like this on MTV? Why was there no exposure for these things anywhere else so I could have heard it, being as big a music fan as I was my entire life, and only discovering independent music and alternative rock at like 13?' "

DeRogatis thinks that MTV founder Bob Pittman is "Satan!" Stereogum not available for comment.

Schreiber uses that sweet Pitchfork revenue to... pay off his parking tickets. The rock and roll lifestyle: It doesn't really mesh with the whole "alternate side of the street" concept.

DeRogatis is still kinda bitter about that whole Hootie and the Blowfish incident, but he won't come out and say it. Replying to Schreiber's assertion that everything he does now is borne of sincere impulses: "Well, by all of the accounts I've read, that was what Jann Wenner was like at first. When he was taking acid with the Grateful Dead in '67, he was sincere, too." Insert your own adjective for how DeRo thinks Wenner behaves now here.

Pitchfork doesn't like everything that every Animal Collective member oozes out. See?

"Synergy" is a four-letter word in DeRogatis' book. Much of the back-and-forth between the two revolves around the idea of Pitchfork, heretofore regarded as a predominantly critical enterprise, getting into the business end of promoting bands through the Music Festival, Pitchfork.TV, and picking out wildly inappropriate songs for video games. First, I'd argue that the Forkcast and the news section, both of which are less critically focused than the reviews that have been Pitchfork's bread and butter for so long and more in tune with the "new" and keeping readers informed, have a heightened prominence and importance in the RSS age. Second, while I understand his qualms about critical enterprises getting involved in the promotion of bands, and have for a while—hello, blogs!—I do have to say that if yesterday's review of Ghostland Observatory's Robotique Majestique inspires the inspid duo to stay far, far away from this year's Pitchfork Music Festival, which takes place July 18-20, the consequences aren't 100% bad.

Is Pitchfork a media empire? Yes. No. Maybe, but not really! From the e-mail Schreiber sent to Derogatis after their conversation ended: "If we were interested in broadening our readership or viewership or trying to be all things to all people, the logical step would be to start trying to get interested in records with a little more widespread appeal. But then we wouldn't be covering what we liked, or what our readers like; our lives would be a living hell listening to all that garbage and our readers would understandably turn their backs. Staying true to our vision of Pitchfork and what it represents is the easiest thing in the world for us because we aren't tempted by the alternatives." I can't help but wonder if the fact that those alternatives are currently floundering around in search of a business model is helping along that conviction at least a bit.

Pitchfork founder and indie-rock tastemaker Ryan Schreiber talks about branching out to TV and video game soundtracks while keeping the integrity in his Web zine's journalism and criticism. Can it be done? [Jim DeRogatis' Blog]
[DeRogatis pic via jimdero.com; Schreiber pic via NYM]

Where do you go when you want to watch new music videos but don't feel like trying to decipher what's happening through the gnarly transfer? Have you ever wondered how your favorite bands get along on tour, or how they work together in the studio? Ever wonder what it'd be like to go to their house for dinner, or watch them play secret sessions on rooftops and in basements? Too bad that imaginary music video portal doesn't exist.... yet.



But on April 7, it's time to unplug your HDTV speakers and connect them your laptop, because Pitchfork, the world's most trusted independent music publication, is reinventing the concept of music television with Pitchfork.tv.



Since 1995, Pitchforkmedia.com has dedicated itself to exploring the independent music world and beyond, covering emerging and classic artists in reviews and news stories, and capturing their personalities through interviews and features. A logical extension of the journalist music coverage the site has provided for more than a decade, Pitchfork.tv will update and advance the music television format, bringing you closer to the artists that matter.



"We're documenting artists and featuring them in ways we've never been able to," says Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber. "Pitchfork.tv is really an extension of the kinds of features we've been doing on Pitchfork for years—it's a new way to see these artists and get to know them better as people."



In addition to the latest music videos and long-lost classics, Pitchfork.tv will present hours of original and exclusive programming- behind-the-scenes takes, band experiments, jam sessions, the concerts you missed, and the creative process you've never been able to witness:



• One Week Only makes Pitchfork.tv the first online video channel to screen full-length feature films, vintage concerts, and music DVDs free of charge: From the Pixies' 2004 reunion tour film LoudQuietLoud and Todd Phillips' notorious GG Allin documentary Hated, to Jimmy Joe Roche & Dan Deacon's acid-drenched visual art piece Ultimate Reality, Pitchfork.tv will highlight a different film each week in its entirety.



• You want full concerts? Pitchfork Live brings you on stage with your favorite bands, with intimate camerawork and carefully mic'd performances that put conventional soundboard mixes to shame, launching with a sweat-soaked night at NYC's Cake Shop with garage-punk maniac Jay Reatard.



• Ever wonder how artists spend their time off tour? Daytripping puts you in the passenger seat for a day out with some of the most vibrant personalities in independent music. The premiere voyage: A trip to the Man Man house and studio in Philly to witness the making of their forthcoming album, Rabbit Habits.



• Wish you were watching bands in your basement instead of fighting for a drink in crowded clubs? Welcome to Juan's Basement. Orignially developed by upstart network Plum TV, the Emmy-nominated series is now exclusively booked and produced by Pitchfork. First up: Liars.



• What happens when disparate artists are chosen to spend a day recording together in a Brooklyn studio? Treefort Sessions documents the unique artistic collaboration process from start to finish.



• Ever thought the best place to see your favorite band would be as the sun was setting and the Empire State building glistened behind you? Don't Look Down brings artists to rooftops around New York and Chicago and says go. The series kicks off with a pitch-perfect set from Sub Pop rockers The Thermals, 24 stories high.



• And, finally, The Interview Show brings today's best and most respected artists face-to-face with the Pitchfork critics who write their features and review their albums, opening with a colossal dual interview between two of the world's greatest metal bands: Mastodon and Neurosis.



Revolutionary content is just the beginning. With one of the web's largest, crispest, and highest-resolution displays, Pitchfork.tv truly invites full-screen viewing. And, with all content available on-demand, we're putting you in control of the music you want, how and when you want it. Soon, we'll add personal playlist capabilities, so you can watch all your favorites like ducks in a row. And later this year, as part of a massive redesign effort, Pitchfork.tv will integrate with its parent site, presenting innovations and further advancements to the world of online music journalism.



Like Pitchfork itself, Pitchfork.tv is an independent company, with no investment dollars or special interests, allowing us the freedom and control to stay true to our creative vision. We've waited decades for a music channel that respects our intelligence and reflects our ideals. Now that the technology is here, we're finally able to do it the way that people who really care about music have always wanted to see it done.



Welcome to Pitchfork.tv. The music channel cable never gave you.

(Oh, come now. Was that last line really necessary?)

Pitchfork.TV [Official site]

Nonetheless, Pitchfork is a lost cause for advertisers. Music labels can't get anywhere near the site, lest that one of the bands it hypes winds up on the receiving end of one of Pitchfork's meanie-pants barbs. Gizmo makers aren't a good fit because the site's ahead-of-every-curve-ever-always-4-life influentials are already onto the next big thing by the time marketers get around to touting the previous one. Indie-ish movies or books, maybe? I dunno. It's a little sad, really, that the trickle of Google Ads on Pitchfork's "Reviews" page is the best the company can do.

Oh really, Lar? You might be right. We've certainly noticed lately that a lot of Pitchfork's ad space seems to be taken up by in-house banners and .gifs. But here's the thing: there's a fucking Jagjaguwar ad right in the screencap you've used to illustrate your piece. Pretty sure they're one of those record labels that's supposed to see Pitchfork as a "lost cause." And anyone who's ever opened Pitchfork only to be visually assaulted by a half-naked hipster (whether being sold by Suicide Girls or American Apparel) knows exactly the sort of advertising the site has courted in the past.

But if all those in-house ads are a sign that Pitchfork is suddenly a "lost cause" for advertisers, well, that would have made a somewhat interesting, informative article. (Even if not exactly a newsflash, considering the current bubble-on-the-cusp-of-bursting state of good ol' Web 2.0.) Unfortunately, it would have required two things: 1.) a little investigative digging and 2.) actually noting a change in the advertising habits of a publication you're supposed to be covering. Guess the problem is that "the internet allows us to proclaim" opinions so easily and "loudly, taste and common sense be damned," regardless of how many articles have already proclaimed those opinions into the ground.

Pitchfork Sure Is Cutting Edge, And That's The Problem [Advertising Age]

^* Full disclosure blah blah used to write for Pitchfork blah blah.

THE GOOD: Consensus cynicism be damned, it's kind of heartening that, after all the first-listen reviews and release date hype hype, people actually do seem to be repeat-listening to and enjoying the Most Important Album Of 2007. (You can decide which one we're talking about.)
THE BAD: That said, consensus keeps great records from Roisin Murphy, Dude N' Nem, and the Dirty Projectors, which "most often received first-place votes," off the singles list in favor of two Arcade Fire joints, two Radiohead songs, and (less irritatingly) two Spoon and LCD Soundsystem tracks each. Democracy!
THE WHAAA?: We've only included the Best Albums and Best Singles list after the jump, but interestingly, or perhaps just keeping with this year's vibe of established artists comfortably trouncing even well-regarded upstarts, only three of the winners in the Best New(ish) Act category make the album and/or singles lists, all down in the lower reaches save the expected Top 10 finish for Justice's "D.A.N.C.E."

Albums
1. Radiohead: In Rainbows
2. LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
3. Panda Bear: Person Pitch
4. The National: Boxer
5. Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam
6. Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
7. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
8. Of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
9. M.I.A.: Kala
10. Battles: Mirrored
11. Feist: The Reminder
12. Okkervil River: The Stage Names
13. Jens Lekman: Night Falls Over Kortedala
14. Sunset Rubdown: Random Spirit Lover
15. Wilco: Sky Blue Sky
16. Menomena: Friend and Foe
17. Justice: †
18. Burial: Untrue
19. Deerhunter: Cryptograms
20. Iron & Wine: The Shepherd's Dog
21. The Field: From Here We Go Sublime
22. Andrew Bird: Armchair Apocrypha
22. Kanye West: Graduation
23. Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
24. The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
25. Band of Horses: Cease to Begin

Singles
1. LCD Soundsystem: "All My Friends"
2. Panda Bear: "Bros"
3. M.I.A.: "Paper Planes"
4. Battles: "Atlas"
5. Animal Collective: "Fireworks"
6. LCD Soundsystem: "Someone Great"
7. The National: "Mistaken for Strangers"
8. Feist: "1 2 3 4"
9. Justice: "D.A.N.C.E."
10. Arcade Fire: "Keep the Car Running"
11. Radiohead: "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"
12. Radiohead: "Nude"
13. Arcade Fire: "Intervention"
14. Spoon: "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb"
15. Of Montreal: "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse"
16. Spoon: "The Underdog"
17. Okkervil River: "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe"
18. Animal Collective: "Peacebone"
19. Beirut: "Elephant Gun"
20. UGK [ft. Outkast]: "Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)"
21. Rihanna: "Umbrella"
22. Wilco: "Impossible Germany"
23. Jens Lekman: "A Postcard to Nina"
24. Caribou: "Melody Day"
25. Band of Horses: "Is There a Ghost?"

2007 Pitchfork Readers Poll [Pitchfork]

THE GOOD: U.K. post-punks Life Without Buildings' career-capping live album and Stars Of The Lid's six-years-in-the-making follow-up to a sleepy ambient classic sneak into the upper reaches. Plus all the other records everyone else with even a toe dipped into indie rock liked this year.
THE BAD: Way too much tooth/brain-rotting twee Nordic indie pop/dance. What's that you say? That's only like three or four albums out of 50? It's still too much.
THE WHAAAA? "With Burial's 2006 debut, it helped to have some investment in dubstep; Untrue is for everyone." Really? Everyone?

50: Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life
49: Dizzee Rascal, Maths + English
48: Robert Wyatt, Comicopera
47: Yeasayer, All Hour Cymbals
46: Marissa Nadler, Songs III: Bird on the Water
45: Ricardo Villalobos, Fabric 36
44: Les Savy Fav, Let's Stay Friends
43: Stars of the Lid, And Their Refinement of the Decline
42: Ghostface Killah, The Big Doe Rehab
41: Life Without Buildings, Live at the Annandale Hotel
40: Beirut, The Flying Club Cup / Lon Gisland EP
39: The White Stripes, Icky Thump
38: Wu-Tang Clan, 8 Diagrams
37: Grizzly Bear, Friend EP
36: Iron and Wine, The Shepherd's Dog
35: Black Lips, Good Bad Not Evil
34: James Blackshaw, The Cloud of Unknowing
33: King Khan & the Shrines, What Is?!
32: Sally Shapiro, Disco Romance
31: Deerhoof, Friend Opportunity
30: Caribou, Andorra
29: Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
28: Dinosaur Jr., Beyond
27: Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
26: Various Artists, After Dark
25: The Tough Alliance, A New Chance / New Waves EP
24: Dan Deacon, Spiderman of the Rings
23: Studio, Yearbook 1
22: Okkervil River, The Stage Names
21: Dirty Projectors, Rise Above
20: Liars
19: Feist, The Reminder
18: Kanye West, Graduation
17: The National, Boxer
16: Lil Wayne, Da Drought 3
15: Justice, &8224;
14: Deerhunter, Cryptograms / Fluorescent Grey EP
13: Jay-Z, American Gangster
12: No Age, Weirdo Rippers
11: Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala
10: Burial, Untrue
09: The Field, From Here We Go Sublime
08: Battles, Mirrored
07: Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
06: Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam
05: Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
04: Radiohead, In Rainbows
03: M.I.A., Kala
02: LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
01: Panda Bear, Person Pitch

Top 50 Albums Of 2007 [Pitchfork]

THE GOOD: The Top 10 belongs to what are by now the usual suspects (try to guess the precise order before clicking!), but this is probably the only year-end wrap-up where Sun City Girls guitar magus Sir Richard Bishop shares space with the handbag R&B of T2's bassline house anthem "Heartbroken," a soppy memory from the heyday of U.K. garage that grows on me with each listen. And unlike the bulk of 2007's best-of lists, most every entry comes with an MP3 or audio stream (or at least a video clip) so that you can decide in real time just how much you disagree with it.
THE BAD: Pretty light on dance/electronic music for a site with a monthly techno column by one of the best critics covering the beat and hip-hop's been more or less whittled down to the handful of expected/accepted 2007 Inter-faves (Kanye, Jay-Z, Wayne, etc.) in favor of Pitchfork's indie wheelhouse (which had a better-than-average year). Plus they didn't even have the balls to rank the Black Kids higher than No. 68.
THE WHAAAA? Pitchfork's (institutional) embrace of the pop charts is still so odd. (That it was one of the weakest years for American pop in my living memory notwithstanding.) For instance, nothing by Lloyd, Ne-Yo, Amerie (who they favorably reviewed, even if she scored no American hits this year), Keyshia Cole, Timbaland, Bobby Valentino, Beyonce, Chris Brown, etc. makes the list, which would be fine if there was a blanket ban on non-"Umbrella" R&B. Except why did a negligible soundtrack inclusion from one-hit ex-model Cassie (a song the entry even acknowledges is initially "devoid of any distinctive qualities") make it in?

100: Ost & Kjex "Milano Mugolian (A Thrilling Mungophony in Two Parts)"
99: Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew "Backed Out on the..."
98: Old Time Relijun "Indestructible Life!"
97: Sir Richard Bishop "Ecstasies in the Open Air"
96: Times New Viking "Teenage Lust!"
95: Groove Armada [ft. Mutya Buena] "Song 4 Mutya (Out of Control)"
94: MGMT "Time to Pretend"
93: Antibalas "Beaten Metal"
92: Air "Mer du Japon (Kris Menace Remix)"
91: Menomena "The Pelican"
90: Miranda Lambert "Gunpowder & Lead"
89: Air France "Beach Party"
88: The New Pornographers "Myriad Harbour"
87: Sophie Ellis-Bextor "Me and My Imagination"
86: Rekid "Next Stop Chicago"
85: BARR "The Song Is the Single"
84: 50 Cent "I Get Money"
83: Sonic Youth "I'm Not There"
82: Tinariwen "Matadjem Yinmixan"
81: Modest Mouse "Dashboard"
80: Grizzly Bear "Little Brother (Electric)"
79: Magik Markers "Taste"
78: Amy Winehouse "Tears Dry on Their Own"
77: The National "Mistaken for Strangers"
76: Klaxons "Golden Skans"
75: Escort "All Through the Night"
74: Black Lips "Katrina"
73: The Twilight Sad "Cold Days From the Birdhouse"
72: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists "La Costa Brava"
71: The Shins "Turn on Me"
70: Cassie "Is It You?"
69: Roísín Murphy "Overpowered"
68: Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You"
67: Devin the Dude [ft. Andre 3000 and Snoop Dogg] "What a Job"
66: King Khan & the Shrines "Welfare Bread"
65: DJ Khaled [ft. T.I., Akon, Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Birdman & Lil Wayne] "We Takin' Over"
64: No Age "Neck Escaper"
63: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings "I'm Not Gonna Cry"
62: Cool Kids "I Rock"
61: !!! "Heart of Hearts"
60: The White Stripes "Rag and Bone"
59: Lil Wayne "Upgrade U"
58: Shellac "The End of Radio"
57: Electrelane "To the East"
56: Aesop Rock "None Shall Pass"
55: Studio "No Comply"
54: Joanna Newsom "Colleen"
53: Bat for Lashes "What's a Girl to Do?"
52: The Clientele "Bookshop Casanova"
51: Kanye West [ft. T-Pain] "Good Life"
50: Dude 'N Nem "Watch My Feet"
49: Yeasayer "2080"
48: Liars "Plaster Casts of Everything"
47: T2 "Heartbroken"
46: Deerhunter "Wash Off"
45: The Honeydrips "Fall From a Height"
44: Pantha du Prince "Saturn Strobe"
43: Deerhoof "The Perfect Me"
42: Spoon "Black Like Me"
41: Los Campesinos! "You! Me! Dancing!"
40: Beirut "Elephant Gun"
39: Sally Shapiro "He Keeps Me Alive"
38: Matthew Dear "Deserter"
37: Blonde Redhead "23"
36: Okkervil River "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe"
35: Dirty Projectors "Rise Above"
34: The Tough Alliance "Silly Crimes"
33: Dinosaur Jr. "Almost Ready"
32: R. Kelly [ft. T.I. and T-Pain] "I'm a Flirt (remix)"
31: Cortney Tidwell "Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up (Ewan's Objects in Space Remix)"
30: Dan Deacon "Wham City"
29: Arcade Fire "Keep the Car Running"
28: Dizzee Rascal "Pussy'ole (Old Skool)"
27: Lil Mama "Lip Gloss"
26: Jay-Z "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is...)"
25: Kanye West "Can't Tell Me Nothing"
24: Gui Boratto "Beautiful Life"
23: Simian Mobile Disco "I Believe"
22: Animal Collective "Peacebone"
21: M.I.A. "Boyz"
20: Radiohead "All I Need"
19: The Field "A Paw in My Face"
18: Chromatics "In the City"
17: Burial "Archangel"
16: Feist "1 2 3 4"
15: Jens Lekman "A Postcard to Nina"
14: Caribou "Melody Day"
13: Of Montreal "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal"
12: Spoon "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb"
11: Grinderman "No Pussy Blues"
10: Jay-Z [ft. Beanie Sigel] "Ignorant Shit"
9: Animal Collective "Fireworks"
8: Justice "D.A.N.C.E."
7: LCD Soundsystem "Someone Great"
6: UGK [ft. Outkast] "Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)"
5: Rihanna [ft. Jay-Z] "Umbrella"
4: M.I.A. [ft. Bun B and Rich Boy] "Paper Planes (Remix)"
3: Panda Bear "Bros"
2: Battles "Atlas"
1: LCD Soundsystem "All My Friends"

Top 100 Tracks Of 2007 [Pitchfork]

Blinded is he who takes for granted the "joy" of downloading MP3s and perusing the Internets for tunes. Obviously this album isn't for him, or for most of us for that matter. With a tracklist that reads like the top 15 Elbo.ws tracks of the last two years, this is a compilation for the uninformed, the casual shopper; or, people with priorities that exist outside the musical underground - a term used very loosely in this context, but perfectly on point for the potential owners of the disk. ...

Kudos for pointing out irrational fickleness from the indie folks, but then again the entire review can be summed up as so: "This is Next is shit. People should just buy these bands' albums." Which of course would likely be followed by another F-bomb laden tirade from the news desk should the Wal Marts of the world start carrying the latest Merge releases. Confused yet? So am I. Clearly Mr. Average Joe living his day ignorant of this little niche in the music world benefits by the availability of these compilations, because that guy is never going to purchase the Of Montreal album. However, after listening to "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" (included in the comp.) he might just go out and buy the amazing Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? which of course is the point of these releases. Am I missing something here?

Not really, no, although I would have sniped at the bitching about the sequencing—"Would Neko Case into Bright Eyes into Of Montreal make more sense than Neko Case into Of Montreal into Deerhoof?"—by asking, "I don't know, how did you guys sequence them on the Forkcast?"

Anyway, what's confusing me about this project right now is the process of actually getting the comp to those casual shoppers beyond just sticking copies in endcaps at Target. And the one thing that's striking me so far about the marketing for This Is Next is that it seems to be aimed at, well, Pitchfork readers. For example: the other night I was watching the latest TiVoed episode of MTV2's Subterranean, and it was completely devoted to the comp—there were ads for it all over the episode, and the videos were hand-picked for maximum cross-promotional purposes—and I spent most of the episode thinking two things: "Are these ads running on TRL?" and "Shit, could they have made these commercials any more boring?" The first question, one would think, would be answered "yes," since the Subterranean-viewing demographic probably knows its Yeah Yeah Yeahs from its Spoons—and that might even explain away the Time-Life nature of the ad (hey, we don't want to confuse the kids with irony). This whole enterprise is just mystifying me more and more by the day, and I'm seriously starting to think that it was designed expressly for the purpose of giving Internet-chained music nerds something to complain about in the slow-ass news cycle of late August. (And if it was? Seriously, thank you.)

This Is Next: 0.0 [Merry Swankster]
Various Artists: This Is Next [Pitchfork]

Earlier this afternoon, Chicago Reader critic Jessica Hopper called out Pitchfork's Jessica Suarez on her charmingly titled blog tinyluckygenius aka the Unicorn's tear:

I'm really no longer in the business of being upset by what Pitchfork does and doesn't do—but— there's some emails flyin' fast an furious on back channels discussing the flip self-sexism of Jessica Suarez's Tegan and Sara review. "Tegan and Sara should no longer be mistaken for tampon rock, a comparison only fair because of the company they kept." (The company they keep? Vaginas? Cos their lesbians? is it a joke and ps. who is tampon rocking? Is that post-Lilith fair? Or just music by people who get their periods? ?!?!?!?!?)

Ahhhh! It's exciting, right? Can't you just feel a 1,000-post thread on I Love Music brewing? It's like when it's really, really humid out and you can almost smell the rain coming!

I definitely disagree with the gist of Suarez's review—The Con is a reasonably strong pop album, and I don't think it's nearly as mawkish as she makes it out to be. In the other corner, Hopper's "self-sexism" charge seems to go a bit too far, but then again, she's not exactly a stranger to that sort of thing. On one hand, the whole "tampon rock" thing does seem weirdly misogynistic and unfair to the band, but on the other, it doesn't seem all that angry in context. If anything, it's just kinda snotty and dismissive in a way that isn't overly invested in why "tampon rock" would be an obviously bad thing.

It's hard to say whether or not Suarez will choose to step into the ring, but with or without inter-Jessica warfare, everyone here at the flophouse expects to see at least five or six blog posts about this by Monday morning, especially since it's supposed to rain a lot in New York this weekend.

Tegan And Sara: The Con [Pitchfork]
LETS FURTHER THE DISCUSSION [tinyluckygenius]

The Pitchfork Music Festival, held in Chicago's exceptionally lovely Union Park, was this weekend's other weekend-long rock marathon—and it was an exceptionally well-run collection of 'Fork-approved artists, sunshine, and opportunities to buy actual records. You can read about Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich busting out "Trigger Cut" and the heroic reception that Of Montreal garnered in lots of other places, but I had a more pressing question: What do fans of the site look like when they're AFK? I grabbed photographer/former Idolator guestblogger MTS and we ventured into the crowd.

The sensational pumpkins and pitchfork can inhale my penis of ten inches! Both.of.them is horrible insults to which it is good in music! Memory to buy one ton of albums of pitchfork and PISSED that aspired. I mean, is perhaps the lost set in the thing of the translation that ignites, but these are not good albums. The Fire Of the Arches? My tea purse is not thankful to him!

In any case this does not surprise to me. Billy Corgan (also known like old girl four years that obtains violet in the ass) is a money that digs to puta corporative. Steve correct Albini when he said that they were like the following foreigner! Now mírelos that tries to be a bandage.

Well of the Oh. That bassist was quite hot and Siamese dream is an obvious wonderful album. So perhaps I do not think that they are that bad one. Even if Mr. Corgan still sounds like dinosaurio of great energies with the incapacity to crush people!

It's either a Babel Fish translation gone awry, or a parody of lost-in-translation message-board posts (we'll bet on the latter, but hope for the former). Either way, it's a meme just waiting to happen.

Smashing Pumpkins [atease.web]

Dear Pitchfork...

What does a band need to do to get reviewed by you guys? Yes, yes... we all know you are the current fantasy... the big bull goose on the block... the cheese, if you will, right now and for who knows how long. I'm not convinced a bad review hurts a band but we all know what a good one can do. Ok. None of this is what concerns me... what irks me is that by refusing to review our three albums so far you are suggesting we play NO PART in the mass tapestry that is modern music. Now... if you only reviewed acts like, say, Springsteen, I would shrug my shoulders and eschew my lips and move on.... but we all know you don't. There are thousands of reviews on yr site but none of The High Strung. Really... what does a band need to do?

Is it timing? I hear your review process works something like a round table with a pile of CDs in the center and someone has to say YES I'LL DO IT for it to "pass" into review. Is it timing then? Have our albums crossed the eyes of your brass at the same time that dozens of "bigger" (hate this word) bands? Hmmmm. I don't buy it. What I think it is is that you guys are simply not aware of what we've been up to. It's ok. We all have gaps. I still haven't seen Fast Times At Ridgemont High and you don't know much about the High Strung. We'll call it even. But I'm also gonna tell you a little about us... maybe show you that we are (on some level) a part of this tapestry you refuse to grant us:
1.) 300 shows a year for 4 years. that's 1200 shows.
2.) toured with Bob Pollard and Son Volt and Ok Go and the Capitol Years (all bands you review on the spot)
3.) forever entwined with the Rock N' Roll Hall Of Fame for "donating" our first tour bus to them (leaving it on their doorstep at 2 AM... if that isn't rock n' roll then you guys are not doing yr job)
4.) albums have been reviewed by other landmarks: Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, Playboy, Blender, Stuff. If it's validation yr after... can't some of it be found there?
5.) A song of ours was named runner up for SONG OF THE YEAR in The Washington Post. NPR named our first album one of the top ten of the year. Even if you totally didn't agree with this... shouldn't it warrant a review?
6.) NPR's THIS AMERICAN LIFE did a feature on us... that's right boys... for doing a library tour before that Potters band... a band you highlighted as a "show of the year" for how inovative they are a full year after we were standing on our amps and singing about over-acheivers and gravediggers to an all ages crowd.
7.) Our rhythm section is the best rhythm section in the country.
8.) What other band writes about devious museum curators? Neighborhood gentlemen? John Rambo? Look... fellas... we've done the work... we've sold out some good sized venues... we've put enough work into this that Harp prediciting we'd burn out (this was 2 years ago HA!). But the fact that they predicted it must mean we're at least in the musical map, right? Well. Do us both a favor... the next time the High Strung album lands on the royal round table in Pitchfork Media's golden meeting room... remember these few credentials (I can right 100 of them if it's heart and spirituality you're looking for) and review a band that a lot of other people already know about. Dig?
Until then... I'll write another... and another...

JOSH MALERMAN

The High Strung

Dear Pitchfork... [The High Strung's MySpace Blog]

Pelican: City of Echoes: Pitchfork Record Review [Pitchfork]

"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 Mod