pitchforked in the head

when did drew daniel (of matmos) start writing for pitchfork? and more importantly, why? why, drew, why, in the name of all that's holy? you can't possibly need the money that badly, can you?

god, i hate pitchfork... bunch of indie-rock hipsters trying to prove their hipsteria by writing a bunch of "clever" record reviews. unfortunately many of their reviewers seem to spend so much time being "clever" that they seemingly forget to listen to or review the actual records in question. sometimes they do actually seem to "get it" and i'll read a review i agree with. what else could explain a site that give's mc paul barman's paullelujah a 2.0 out of 10? come on, kids. i think of pitchfork as being the spin magazine of the '00s: trendy for trendiness's sake.

so i was reading the pitchfork top 100 albums of 2000-2004. (don't ask why i was reading it when i knew i wouldn't like it. it was probably because someone on imn suggested there was "far too much electronica" and i was like "too much electronica, on pitchfork, a site that reviews maybe 1 electronic record for every 10-20 indie rock record?") that was when i stumbled across the name "Drew Daniel" as one of the reviewers, and sure enough, it is indeed that drew daniel.

of course, the problem with electronica on pitchfork is not that there's too much: it's that most good electronic music these days flies beneath pitchfork's radar. by the time an electronic artist is mentioned on pitchfork, they've pretty much hit mainstream & are already darlings of the indie rock press. and having drew as a staff member does not fix this problem. maybe he feels compelled not to write too much about his buddies; i don't know.

then i saw this blurb, for #67, bodily functions by herbert (reviewed by drew daniel).

I'll never forget when my friend Heather showed me that she could rotate her head and her hips not only in different directions, but at totally different speeds. I just didn't know that you could do that with your body. Which brings me to this album...

arrgh! that's precisely the kind of clever-but-ultimately-ridiculous review that i despise pitchfork for! give me a break!

anyway, one good thing came of that list: it inspired me to listen to radiohead's kid a last night, which is ranked the #1 top album of 2000-2004. i don't think i agree, but it's a good record, anyway.