Don't Give a Shit About...

Kanye West's new album. I had a hip-hop 'phase' in my teens when I listened to Public Enemy, Jurassic 5 and Wu-tang Clan. Pretty soon I lost interest once the novelty of burning around Hereford in my mums car with Method Man crumbling out of the speakers wore off. So it would be fair to say I'm not big into the hippety or the hop, which is why I read pitchfork and DiS. So when I read a review like this one and another review like this one, it was a real wtf moment. Virtually NOTHING gets a 10 (!?) from the Pfork and certainly plenty of stuff that would shit all over Kanye's new narcissistic nightmare didn't even come close to getting a TEN. As for DiS they're a little easier going but a 9 is still a pretty rare one to see on the score board.  Now I know most music blogs try to pass themselves of as 'non-genre specific' because that 'wouldn't be true' to 'the music', however I noticed Pitchfork didn't review either Bon Jovi's greatest hits, Take Thats new album or even (and this is truly disgusting) The Chelsea Pensioners - Men In Scarlet (as far as I know it is not a concept album devoted to Scarlett Johansson). If they want to claim that they only review 'alternative' music, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to call an artist whose debut album sold over 3 million copies in the US alone, alternative. Another point; if I want to listen to hip-hop then I'll go to a 'genre specific' hip-hop blog, not one run buy some pasty white indie dudes who are trying to 'diversify' their site's audience. No matter how good the album is it isn't going to be a life changer for me, like an album by Pavement or Yo La Tengo might be, and I know that for a true fact before I even listen to it. Pitchfork has become so snobbish towards any music created by an actual band now that the only positive reviews I've read in the last few months have been either electronic or an obseqious hip-hop review. Fortunately DiS shows no signs of going the same way, even if it did deign to waste it's time reviewing My Dark Lust Fantasy or whatever the fuck it's called. But yeah, who gives a shit about Kanye West?