Category Archives: Reading

Pitchfork’s Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s

I’d been wait­ing to write how awestruck I’ve been by this, but I can’t con­tain myself any longer. This list has been facemelt­ing­ly per­fect, at least from the per­spec­tive of any­one who’s been read­ing Pitch­fork since the days of dial-up. I can hard­ly be both­ered with the snooty crit­ic’s picks, but what fas­ci­nates me are the entries for the cor­po­rate rock enti­ties that defined a gen­er­a­tion who thought they were rebelling against cor­po­rate entities.

Favorites of the moment include the entry for Oasis’ “Live For­ev­er” and the Verve’s “Bit­ter­sweet Sym­pho­ny,” to say noth­ing of New Order’s “Regret,” the song that intro­duced me to their entire cat­a­logue. Those open­ing strains still stop me in my tracks.

Am I a lit­tle bummed no one has out and out shocked the read­er­ship by includ­ing the Verve Pipe? Am I amazed that nei­ther Live nor Dave Matthews Band have made an appear­ance? Which U2 song will make the list? I hope they pick some­thing from Zooropa. The ’90s weren’t per­fect and nei­ther were we. I hope they acknowl­edge that somehow.

Gil Scott-Heron in the New Yorker

Recent­ly read Gil Scott-Heron’s pro­file in the New York­er and was absolute­ly gut­ted. I’m among the few crit­ics who did­n’t imme­di­ate­ly fall in love with his new album on Mata­dor, and the arti­cle did lit­tle to con­vince me that it’s not the most exploita­tive release of 2010. Can’t help but feel awful for a guy who’s life is com­plete­ly dic­tat­ed to him by crack addic­tion. It’s like tak­ing advan­tage of old blues­men if you ask me.

Watch the video for “I’m New Here” above.

Will the Real Phillies Please Stand Up?

I spent a love­ly day with fam­i­ly in the Penn­syl­va­nia hin­ter­lands, which means I’m read­ing Beer­lea­guer com­ments to get a feel for today’s unlike­ly win over Ubal­do Jimenez and the Rock­ies. One read­er shared this gem from today’s Philly Inquirer:

Putting a nice lit­tle bow on the pro­ces­sion of no-com­ments, Phillies gen­er­al man­ag­er Ruben Amaro Jr. was not avail­able to talk about the change in hit­ting coach­es or to update his com­ments about the rotation.

After the Phillies optioned Kendrick on Tues­day, the gen­er­al man­ag­er said, “I think we know exact­ly what we’re going to do [Sat­ur­day]. I just choose not to tell you.”

We now know why. Who would have believed him if he said Kendrick was being replaced by Kendrick in the rotation?

Ouch, Ruben. That’s got­ta hurt.

You know what will hurt more? The Phillies acquir­ing Roy Oswalt, going on a tear, yet falling just short of the wild card. As always, the Phils will prob­a­bly have to win the divi­sion to make the play­offs. The NL West is doing the oth­er two divi­sions no favors.

Thanks for noth­ing, Padres! Why did­n’t you just suck like every­one expect­ed you to so we could grab Heath Bell for our run to the World Series?

Drew Lazor on Philly Pizza

I’ve doc­u­ment­ed my strug­gles with piz­za here in the City of Broth­er­ly love. It ain’t easy to find a good pie in town. Philly food­ie phe­nom Drew Lazor has a great look at all the best spots to get a slice in town in the most recent issue of City Paper and it’s worth check­ing out. Read it here.

N.B. he does­n’t high­light any spots that deliv­er or even are known for take-out. For what it’s worth I’m thrilled that he did­n’t pro­file the exe­crable, over­priced Rus­ti­ca in NoLibs either. Do I even have to men­tion that I’m absolute­ly in love with Zavi­no’s Ken­nett pie?

Want more Lazor in your life? Fol­low him on Twit­ter. He’s a hoot. He also con­tributes to City Paper’s Meal Tick­et, which has swept me off my feet since Kirsten Hen­ri left for Philly Mag. Now with Adam Erace! They’re a powerhouse!

My Part in the Spiral Stairs Snafu

I had no idea that any­thing I’d ever writ­ten, least of all a review of a mid­dling album by Spi­ral Stairs, would ever gain this degree of infamy, but then this sto­ry broke this week. Turns out Spi­ral Stairs is upset at Pitch­fork for their appraisal of his body of work post-Pave­ment. That’s total­ly his pre­rog­a­tive, but would­n’t it have helped if he did­n’t insist on rewrit­ing “Coolin’ by Sound” and just giv­ing it new titles?

For the record, that review stands as one of the most puerile pieces of crit­i­cism I’ve ever writ­ten. Bear in mind that it was writ­ten at a time when peo­ple actu­al­ly wrote neg­a­tive reviews about music, and those reviews were often long than 140 char­ac­ters. Want to know a secret? The orig­i­nal was longer AND mean­er. Hard to believe, right?

For what it’s worth, I loved Pave­ment. I’m not a hope­less nos­tal­gic for the band, how­ev­er, and I’ve felt that both Kannberg and Malk­mus over­es­ti­mat­ed their tal­ents in their solo efforts. I lis­tened to Mon­soon hop­ing to hear some­thing dif­fer­ent from Kannberg. How do you root against the under­dog? The unfor­tu­nate thing was that I did­n’t find any­thing to like and he’s been shock­ing­ly con­sis­tent in under­whelm­ing crit­ics and con­sumers. This may be why he was so frus­trat­ed in Pave­ment. Malk­mus was too shrewd an edi­tor to allow him to con­tribute mate­r­i­al like this.

I’d be remiss if I did­n’t note the praise I lav­ished on Kannberg for real­ly work­ing to pre­serve Pave­men­t’s lega­cy as one of the great acts of the ’90s. I meant what I said about him under­tak­ing the thank­less task of unlock­ing gems from old tapes that he had to lit­er­al­ly cook before they could be pre­pared for remas­ter­ing. I think I can speak on behalf of Pave­ment fans every­where when I say that effort was appreciated.

It’s a shame he can’t get past these bad reviews and just move on. He should­n’t be dis­cour­aged by a hand­ful of bad Pitch­fork reviews. At least some­one’s lis­ten­ing to these albums and pro­mot­ing them at all. Will he ever play sold out tours across mid-sized venues as a solo artist? No. But he’d do him­self a favor by low­er­ing his expec­ta­tions and maybe enjoy the fans who do come out to see him per­form. Is that so much to ask?