Condé Nast buys Pitchfork Media.

Wednesday are honest chroniclers of the Southern everyday, surveying a no-frills landscape of ashen Dairy Queens, run-over dogs, and pissed-on wallpaper. Their stories will make you laugh, wince, recoil, and reminisce. On “Chosen to Deserve,” the lead single from the Asheville band’s debut studio album, Rat Saw God, singer and guitarist Karly Hartzman details a messy adolescence full of fuck-ups and first times: skipping school, having sex in the back of an SUV, witnessing friends overdose on Benadryl. “Now that it’s been awhile I’ll get around to tellin’ you all my worst,” she informs a lover, not looking for absolution but just saying it like it is, “just so you know what you’ve been chosen to deserve.” Between the meandering, relaxed verses, the band takes it back to a slamming country guitar riff that’s part–Lynyrd Skynyrd, part–Drive-By Truckers, with whom the band toured last year.

The accompanying Spencer Kelly–directed music video is an ode to down-home North Carolina, with home-video footage interspersed with newly-recorded scenes of the band in the neighborhood where Hartzman’s parents live: golf cart rides around the trailer park, geese swimming in the local pond, trips to the pool with the slide shaped like a frog’s tongue. Though in the last verse Hartzman confesses that she’s outgrown her teenage antics—“Now all the drugs are gettin kinda boring to me/Now everywhere is loneliness and it’s in everything”—the song still indicates fondness for the good ol’ days, surrounded by community. 

(Band Name) are (unprovable and overgeneralized statement), referencing (random shit that their lyrics mention). On "(Song Title)" they (general description of things that happen in song): (specific things that are mentioned in song). "(Song lyric)." (Vague statement that seems to support and prove the thesis of the review so far).

(Credibility-boosting anecdote about the band's personal life or description of some adjacent media to the song). "(Song lyrics)." On ("Song name)," (band name) proves they are (whatever the fuck is hot right now).

BGwaves wrote:Most times when I read an old pitchfork review of an album from the early 00s, Brent D is shitting on that album. I don’t remember how he was a SOMB poster but his reviews come across as a wannabe Lester Bangs. He’s cruel just for the shitz and that was sorta the rock critic template at that time. The review of Braids album today led me to his review of their double disc comp from the late 90s. In his review he invokes Burning Airlines as a band who has the ‘mantle’ but in 2023 Braid are reissuing their landmark album, anyone heard from BA lately?

undo wrote:https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/wednesday-chosen-to-deserve/

Wednesday are honest chroniclers of the Southern everyday, surveying a no-frills landscape of ashen Dairy Queens, run-over dogs, and pissed-on wallpaper. Their stories will make you laugh, wince, recoil, and reminisce. On “Chosen to Deserve,” the lead single from the Asheville band’s debut studio album, Rat Saw God, singer and guitarist Karly Hartzman details a messy adolescence full of fuck-ups and first times: skipping school, having sex in the back of an SUV, witnessing friends overdose on Benadryl. “Now that it’s been awhile I’ll get around to tellin’ you all my worst,” she informs a lover, not looking for absolution but just saying it like it is, “just so you know what you’ve been chosen to deserve.” Between the meandering, relaxed verses, the band takes it back to a slamming country guitar riff that’s part–Lynyrd Skynyrd, part–Drive-By Truckers, with whom the band toured last year.

The accompanying Spencer Kelly–directed music video is an ode to down-home North Carolina, with home-video footage interspersed with newly-recorded scenes of the band in the neighborhood where Hartzman’s parents live: golf cart rides around the trailer park, geese swimming in the local pond, trips to the pool with the slide shaped like a frog’s tongue. Though in the last verse Hartzman confesses that she’s outgrown her teenage antics—“Now all the drugs are gettin kinda boring to me/Now everywhere is loneliness and it’s in everything”—the song still indicates fondness for the good ol’ days, surrounded by community. 

Do you ever read this shit and feel like it's just following a Mad Libs template?

(Band Name) are (unprovable and overgeneralized statement), referencing (random shit that their lyrics mention). On "(Song Title)" they (general description of things that happen in song): (specific things that are mentioned in song). "(Song lyric)." (Vague statement that seems to support and prove the thesis of the review so far).

(Credibility-boosting anecdote about the band's personal life or description of some adjacent media to the song). "(Song lyrics)." On ("Song name)," (band name) proves they are (whatever the fuck is hot right now).

Years of reading this style of writing has cut grooves into my brain that just won't heal, I wish I could show you how I think review writing ought to be done instead but the damage is permanent.

Pitchfork wrote:This deluxe reissue is the holy grail that fans of Tim have dreamt of: a new mix that instantly becomes the best and most definitive album in the Replacements’ catalog.