Pitchfork's Marc Hogan tweaked the noses of the blogosphere this morning when he gave Robbers and Cowards, by the elbo.ws-adored Cold War Kids, a 5.0. The pile-on continued on Pitchfork's homepage, where the review was teased by the taunt to your right. As one might expect, this sent people straight to their keyboards, with one irate reader going so far as to put up a fake Marc Hogan blog. (At least, we think it's fake.) While we investigate the man behind the Blogspot, you can sample the loud cries of "NOOOOOO!!" that went up in other corners of the music blogosphere.
- "whoever's running that show now is surely misguided, foolish and well, let's be honest, entirely predictable." [The Music Slut]
- "The last straw for me was his comparing a line from a song to a George W. Bush quote about accepting Christ as your savior." [Sound On The Sound]
- "Unfortunately, eight paragraphs of comedy gold does not make up for shit taste in music." [Web Vomit]
- "A more effective technique might have been to film a video in which the actual CD was used to bludgeon effigies of Dodge and GvB." [blogsarefordogs.com]
- "How many times does Pitchfork mention bloggers in reviews of buzz bands they love?" [I Guess I'm Floating]









Comments
Awww, humourless music geeks...
I'll be over here, pointing and laughing.
Who's side are you on?
Vicious & thin-skinned is an awful combination, Blogosphere.
And yet it's an excellent album title.
This is SO embarassing.
This is by far the biggest thing that annoys me about the 'fork nowadays, the whole crapping on bloggers for liking albums they don't, and pretending they don't exist when blog-hearted albums get rave reviews on P-fork. And the list of offenses is long: Mew, Peter Bjorn & John, Tapes n Tapes, Asobi Seksu, on and on. Can't have it both ways. I say let it go, 'forkers, we can all live in peace.
Sorry for the ramble...liquid lunch at work today.
I like seeing the Fork smash down an over-hyped band; it's kind of like putting out your own fire.
Oh, and by the way -- can't we just call a truce, or something, Blog-o-teria and Pitchfork? This is literally becoming the most boring and annoying thing about trying retain one's sanity as a music blogger. Is it too much to ask that everyone grow up?
Oh wait, that's like asking the clerk at the comic book store not to stare at my rack.
but honestly, cold war kids DO suck and so do birdmonster and sound team. the bloggers are just sore losers. that said, IGIF has a point, they shouldn't act like bloggers ONLY write about music they don't like
but i'm pretty happy they shat on CWK, b/c that band is so forgettable and crap
Change the word "bloggers" to something else
he might as well have said "people who buy records, raise your standards!"
Marc Hogan once declared Christ as being overhyped and much better in the bible then at the live resurrection.
I think the review was actually fair, something that's hard to find these days on the 'Fork. Cold War Kids are good, but they're not earth shattering. Which was the gist of the review. What you hear is the crying of a thousand bruised egos.
Oh, bless Marc Hogan!
I want to make a t-shirt that says "Not every band will change your life" and hand them out to bloggers and 'forkers alike.
And, honestly, I think the CWK's record is more in the 6-6.5 range. It's true they're not earthshattering, but they are kind of interesting in that Fleetwood Mac kind of way.
The CWK review later went on to read:
Hey! You call this slop? Real slop has got chunks in it! This is more like gruel! And this Chateau le Blanc '68 is supposed to be served slightly chilled! This is room temperature! What do you think we are, animals?
So Hogan probably gave Cold War Kids a 6.5 and the Blogosphere a -1.5. Pitchfork printed the sum of the two rather than separate them.
After reading the review, I'm not what to think of the Cold War Kids album. But I'm definitely not going to buy the Blogosphere album.
i think a lot of shit sucks and it should be rated as either a 1 or a 10. the best bands you'll ever hear get a 10, and all the rest get a 1. why should we have to wade through the middle of the road shit?
errr... excuse me but can someone explain to me who are pitchfork and why does their opinion supposedly matter so much?
The only online music critic I take seriously is Dr David Thorpe.
dude, you are bullshiting like an idiot funkyj
Yeah, pretty sure that's not a fake blog. The John Mayer link is the dead giveaway.
This comment totally sounds facetious. I swear it's not.
Yeah, it was originally a fake blog. Then whoever put up the fake blog took it down, and I got the URL. Now it's my blog.
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