All right, I'm breaking my Pitchfork moratorium (you knew it would happen) because I gots to comment on Chris Ott's Young Marble Giants review.

Geez Louise, Captain Meta: you give Marcus a half-jab about repetitively pushing Laura Logic, and one sentence (and two colons) later, you're taking a random, contextless swipe at The Raincoats. What gives? Everyone I know thinks they're keen, so while there may be a different received wisdom in your particular social circle (such that everyone you know read the jab and nodded sagely and murmured, "Yes, that's quite true"), in the context of a published music review (about a totally different band, natch), you're going to have to provide a bit more rationale so the rest of us can know why, in fact, you think The Raincoats aren't very good.

And then--oh my sweet lord--two paragraphs later you actually say, "their first two recordings are about their best"! Without a hint of self-consciousness! Did you just morph into Jaded Robot or what?

Anyway, it's actually a pretty good review, albeit in a kind of Casablanca way, if you know what I mean. Overall, it coulda used a bit less history (not that much less--I recognize it's a reissue review) and a bit more, you know, description of the music. I was way more interested in hearing the Giants from reading Brendan Reid's Repeat entry on "Final Day" which did the courtesy of describing a song in a bit more detail than you ever seem to give it over the duration of your review. But so it goes.
posted by Mike B. at 12:00 PM 0 comments