the best rock critic ever: an introduction to Brent DiCrescenzo

earlier in the day it came to my attention that Brent DiCrescenzo is the new music editor of time out chicago and it pleases me immensely to see his considerable talent focused once again on music.

where does one begin to talk about Brent DiCrescenzo, a former contributer at pitchforkmedia.com? I know I can't begin to explain his meta-review appeal fully and there are hordes of people who sincerely think he's the worst music writer ever, but, for better or worse, I think I've learned more about what music is from his writing than any other reviewer's. he may have been attempting to cast himself as a new lester bangs (an ignoble end, to be sure), but I really think that he accomplished something unique and interesting during his time with pitchfork.

because I feel ill-at-ease trying to write about writing, I thought that this post would be best as a compilation of some of his most interesting/snarky/funny/insightful reviews along with some songs by a few of the artists under review.

for a good sampling of DiCrescenzo's weirdest writing, his review of franz ferdinand's first album (which is a pretty weird review in and of itself) contains links to many of his most winding and strange, expository 20-paragraph reviews:

review: franz ferdinand- (self-titled)
song: '40''

more amusing/interesting reviews:

his review of aphex twin's 'windowlicker ep' is a fictional conversation between tony blaire, a tea maid and england's defense minister:

review: aphex twin- 'windowlicker ep'
song: 'windowlicker'

a portrait of the artist as a young music critic:

review: black grape- 'stupid stupid stupid'
song: 'the reverend black grape'

one of the weirder moments in DiCrescenzo's career:

review: metallica- 'st. anger'

the harshest review imagineable; I feel slightly less insensitive about having said this album was unlistenable when my then-girlfriend played it for me:

review: sonic youth- 'nyc ghosts & flowers'

where are (is) they (he) now?

DiCrescenzo wrote an infamously inflammatory review of the beastie boys' 'to the 5 boroughs' in which he

#1. resigned from music criticism
#2. called the head of the beastie boys' publicity firm, nasty little man, a 'prick' and sited fictious instances to prove the deservedness of his ire
#3. (as usual) he talked very little about the formal qualities of the music he was supposed to be reviewing

pitchfork quickly withdrew and edited DiCrescenzo's review to only include #1 and #3:

review: the beastie boys- 'to the 5 boroughs' (censored version)

in the review DiCrescenzo mentions a creative project he was working on at the time of the review that (as I infer from the following article by 'the legendary john toes') was an independent film that premiered in 2004:

pitchfork news item: screenings of corey & corey

now, as music editor of time out chicago, it's back to business as usual, if not a tad reigned-in (for the moment):

time out chicago blog: 'chinese democracy' leak

some of my favorite albums as reviewed by Brent DiCrescenzo:

review: blur- '13'
song: 'mellow jam'

review: pulp- 'this is hardcore'
song: 'party hard'

review: suede- 'sci-fi lullabies'
song: 'to the birds'
song: 'he's dead'
song: 'killing of a flash boy'
song: 'together'

I was and remain confused by his review of jonathan fire*eater's 'wolf songs for lambs'; it's short and very positive but it carried a very low score. later I saw that DiCrescenzo listed it among his favorite albums of the 90's. I wonder what he would have thought of stewart lupton's recent royal-trux-lite (hold on, that's not necessarily an insult) band the childballads...

song: the childballads- 'we gambled with our lives' (radio session)
song: the childballads- 'where the tear drops fall' (radio session)

miscellaneous

finally, here are a couple of neat features and articles DiCrescenzo put together while he was at pitchforkmedia.com:

the worst album covers of all time
DiCrescenzo #2
DiCrescenzo #3
DiCrescenzo #4
DiCrescenzo #6

enjoy


joshua
http://www.joshuacaleb.tk