Friday, February 23, 2007

Tsk Tsk Tsk... Fanboy Laments Marnie Stern's Pitchfork Grade

Pitchfork writer Brandon Stosuy decided the Marnie Stern album (which I was guessing would net Best New Music inclusion and a lower 9's score) a 7.7, with a mere recomended stamp. The review which is well written when compared to alot of recent fair on the fork, has a very positive spin for the first half. Then he calls the album "front loaded."

I hear no glut of songs leading towards the end of the album. I would say the momentum of the album means that by the end you have become comfortable with Marnie's sound just before she drops the grand finale and album highlight "Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling," which for my money may be the best piece of pop skronk in history. I don't like picking apart people's taste in a negative way but I was really rooting for Marnie Stern. And I'm sure she'll do just fine sanz glowing review but it just seems wasteful to use your Pitchfork powers to crown the new (same old?) Of Montreal album as "an album as harrowingly savage in its depiction of breakup psychology as it is inexhaustibly replayable," while complaining to such a fresh and vibrant talent that "An album needs pacing."

Vilsack Candidacy Sags


Iowa's Tom Vilsack has dropped out of the presidential poney show today. He is a casualty of the over-stuffed over-banked election season which has started at incredibly accelerated rate. I'm still rooting for Obama, but I was happy to have any moderate Governors sure to funnel moeny and attention away from Hillary Clinton for as long as they could stay in.

On a side note. Assuming that a senator with good foreign policy creds gets the nomination, Vilsack would make a super VP nominee.