Pitchfork in Not Being Very Smart Shockah.

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http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/m/merritt_stephin/pieces-of-april.shtml

"Any Merritt fan worth their daintily-held white burgundy probably owns five of the ten songs on here. When we use calculus, we find that this means the average Merritt fan will be spending upwards of $11 on thirteen minutes of new music. That's about $1.20 a minute, and unless you're receiving aural, intellectual and physical pleasure during that period, that's just too much."

So we've got that going for us now.

― stephen morris, Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Pitchfork in OTM shockah!

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm with Matos here.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:38 (twenty-two years ago)

No no no, 13 minutes of music at $11 /= $1.20. It's around 80 something cents per minute of music. So therefore the purchase is justified. See what a little math can do for you?

― stephen morris, Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll be publishing a report on it soon if you're interested.

― stephen morris, Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:41 (twenty-two years ago)

PFork is right.

13 divided by 11 = 1.1818181818

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait I'm wrong

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'll be publishing a report on it soon if you're interested.

I'd prefer you continue working on the next New Order album.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I was confused by this: 13 minutes of music at $11 /= $1.20

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but it's dollars per minute. $11 over 13 minutes. 11/13.

― stephen morris, Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:46 (twenty-two years ago)

music should have a DPM rating, so you know if you're getting decent(ish) value

― the surface noise (electricsound), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:46 (twenty-two years ago)

1. 14/1/5 (pitchfork thread)
2. if thread=pitchfork then towel

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I knew I wasn't safe having this name here.

― stephen morris, Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm beginning to see why I didn't major in the more math-based sciences.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:48 (twenty-two years ago)

The Surface Noise will sympathize, Stephen.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:48 (twenty-two years ago)

it's less "not smart" than "misused the calculator," though

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:48 (twenty-two years ago)

No way, Dom.

1) 4/8/8 (indie guilt) will counter that perfectly.

― stephen morris, Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, I think you'll find (insert copy and pasted article from other webpage).

― Mace (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Injokes from other webpages hammered without mercy into other forums: C/D?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:51 (twenty-two years ago)

It's like the math problem equivalent of an Escher piece! arrghh (implodes)

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:54 (twenty-two years ago)

hahaha someone should do a 'dollars-per-minute' value rating of every album ever -- that'd be awesome. i imagine it'd get tricky, though, because if you wanted to do a really good job you'd have to do your calculations with a lot more than two variables. i want multi-dimensional matrices and graphs and everything

― geeta (geeta), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

hahaha someone should do a 'dollars-per-minute' value rating of every album ever

With the price of CDRs these days we're talking pennies per minute -- micropennies if mp3s are used.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 01:58 (twenty-two years ago)

JSP's box sets are very good on the $/minute measure. The Carter Family set is 5 70+ minute CDs for about $25. That works out to something like 7 cents per minute, I think.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 02:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Mudhoney's March To Fuzz is 52 songs over 2 filled-to-the-brim CDs for 17 bucks. Plus it keeps you from needing to buy another Mudhoney album ever. Less than 33 cents a song and if we assume the CDs are at least 70 minutes each that's about 12 cents a minute. With hilarious liner notes to boot. I guarandamntee that all involved are going to heaven.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 02:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Mr. Miccio is quite accurate on this point. The description of the origins of "Run Shithead Run" is one of the Best Rock Stories Ever.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 02:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Probably some classical music box set. Those things are ridiculously cheap.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 02:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Music critics poor at math. SHOCKAH.

― Xii (Xii), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 02:17 (twenty-two years ago)

shorter albums are worth more per minute because they do not bore the fuck out of the listener. albums that exceed forty-four minutes begin shedding value-per-minute exponentially as their length increases. the best album of all time is the bay city rollers' "saturday night" 7" obviously

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 03:35 (twenty-two years ago)

5/19 of this post is worth 3/137 of my time.

― peepee (peepee), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 03:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd like to note that I didn't use a calculator for my math upthread. LONG DIVISION, baby!!!

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 03:38 (twenty-two years ago)

shorter albums are worth more per minute because they do not bore the fuck out of the listener

Every time I hear this argument I picture someone who can't find the stop (or for that matter, the skip) button on their CD player. It's not an encouraging mental image.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 03:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Long division is so 20th century.
Retarded estimation is where its at.

Just ask the ...

...oops, no politics!

― peepee (peepee), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 03:42 (twenty-two years ago)

The description of the origins of "Run Shithead Run" is one of the Best Rock Stories Ever.

Does this have to do with Mudhoney's coincidental tour path with a certain L***y Kr***tz at one point?

― donut bitch (donut), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 03:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha! No, but it's good as an Illustration of Business Idiocy. Might as well type it up:

Mark: They sent us a clip from the movie With Honors of some jock running through the snow with EMF's hit "Unbelievable" scoring the action. They said they were looking for an upbeat song like that for this part of the film. We told that we had a bitchin' little instrumental that might work. They insisted on a song with words. So, I put some words on it and we sent down both versions, figuring they'd have to choose the instrumental. They didn't. This was the last Hollywood soundtrack offer we got.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 04:03 (twenty-two years ago)

(And again, the name of the track -- "Run Shithead Run")

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 04:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Thomas Tallis 100% OTM.

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 04:17 (twenty-two years ago)

This reminds me of an old pointless vinyl I have which has emblazoned across the front "More than 40 minutes of listening pleasure!"

Also, the fact that any of you had any doubts about the mathematical invalidity of the Pitchfork article makes me extremely disturbed.

― Andrew (enneff), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 04:33 (twenty-two years ago)

pfork was adding in sales tax. duh.

― sean marvin (williamtell), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 06:38 (twenty-two years ago)

shorter albums are worth more per minute because they do not bore the fuck out of the listener

Every time I hear this argument I picture someone who can't find the stop (or for that matter, the skip) button on their CD player. It's not an encouraging mental image.

Person #1 is more OTM. People piss away their time making albums 50 or 60 (or 70) minutes long when they could have spent their time on fewer, shorter songs and made them cooler. Also having shitty songs certainly makes an album worse even if for the sheer fact of having to hit the skip button.

Most bands should just stick to the single format. Goddamn I could go for some Bay City Rollers right about now.

― christhamrin (christhamrin), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 09:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I always pronounce OTM mentally as I read it like 'autumn', so it's always like people are praising others' musical judgements because they wear tasteful earthtones and hats. Shallow cunts.

― Le Coq (DarrenK), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

That Farmers Manual DVD-ROM cost me 23 euro, so, at the current exchange rate, that's 0.51c/min of audio.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Dividing 11 by 13 (or vice versa) isn't calculus(as Pitchfork claims),
it's arithmetic.

― Joe Kay (feethurt), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

I haven't heard the new Maximo Park, so I don't know if their song, "Isolation," is, in fact, a cover of the John Lennon song. I'm inclined to believe so, as the reviewer quotes some lyrics, then goes on to call them "dreck:"

"...but I still can't abide that first verse: 'The world is just a little town/ Everybody's tryin'a put us down/ Isolation,' etc. Mouthing such without-a-point dreck, Smith's voice ceases to convey sweet, slightly sarcastic indifference, rather coming across achingly precious."

Not to mention the Lennon connection seems to me to be quite an oversight. Any thoughts?

― skoolbus39 (skoolbus39), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:47 (twenty years ago)

I suppose that should've read, "To not mention the Lennon connection..."

― skoolbus39 (skoolbus39), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:51 (twenty years ago)

You prefer the split infinitive?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:02 (twenty years ago)

Beam me up, Scotty.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Try "Not mentioning..."

― Dan (Helping) Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:06 (twenty years ago)

Thanks for the grammatical assistance, folks. I'm glad I can count on ILM. :)

― skoolbus39 (skoolbus39), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:11 (twenty years ago)

Message board critic inarticulate in critiquing inarticulate website on a message board shocker.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:11 (twenty years ago)

Well here's a thread that didn't need reviving...

― cdwill (cdwill), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:40 (twenty years ago)

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