Last week, Pearl Jam released their first new album in four years, and the response largely fell into two categories:

1. Hey, Pearl Jam are a classic rock band now!
2. Hey, they might be the last classic rock band!

This back and forth makes for solid think-piece fodder (what is classic rock anyway, maaaaaan?), but when it came to the reviews, the responses were fairly predictable. Basically, popular music criticism outlets reacted to a 2013 Pearl Jam album the exact way you'd expect them to react.

Take Pitchfork, who gave it a 5.0, and mostly complained how it didn't break any ground, and just seemed like a "comfortable" record. To which I would respond, what the fuck do you expect? They've been around for 20 years, and they aren't The Flaming Lips, so a bit of a rut is to be expected. Unless you want every album to be experimental like No Code, why not just enjoy a meat-and-potatoes Pearl Jam album?

Because they're Pitchfork, that's fucking why. They didn't get to where they are now by handing out "Best New Music" stamps to Pearl Jam albums. Even though Pitchfork hasn't been "indie" in quite some time (my mom even knows about them), they still like to cling to that little bit of credability. So whenever a dinosaur-ish act like Pearl Jam puts out a new album, they make an art out of saying "meh." But this is ultimately unnecessary; we all know what Pitchfork thinks of the new work of bands like Pearl Jam, and they'd be saying more by not reviewing the album at all.

But hey, I still got a little more out of that than I did from Rolling Stone's review. Huge surprise: they gave it 3 and a half stars. You know what else Rolling Stone gave 3 and a half stars to? Here's a brief list:

The sun
The moon
The heavens
The earth
The stars
The meaning of life
Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life
Thad Lewis
EJ Manuel
Doug Flutie
The 2013-14 Buffalo Sabres'
The recorded crying of Blue Ivy Carter from 3:14 A.M. to 4:49 A.M.on August 23, 2012 (note: Jay-Z eventually got her to go to sleep by singing a lullaby version of "Song Cry." Rolling Stone gave it 3 and a half stars)

Honestly, music criticism from the major outlets has gotten so predictable - with regard to already-established artists at least - that there's little point in even reading them. One great moment of honesty from a Rock Critic came when Steven Hyden wrote his "Winner's History Of Rock 'N Roll" piece on Linkin Park for Grantland. He's not a huge fan, but he kind of admits that their last few records weren't bad (they actually weren't, seriously). But then, he basically says that there was pretty much no way he'd ever say anything all that positive about Linkin Park. I mean, he's got a reputation to protect. It was the rare moment that a critic ever-so-subtly admitted that a band's reputation might effect what that critic thinks and says about them. I respected his candor quite a bit.

I'd like to see music reviewers - especially ones who write for Pitchfork and Rolling Stone - branch out a bit. Give a 10.0 to someone who isn't Kanye, or a 5/5 to someone who isn't Springsteen. We'll all be better off for it. If not, I may have to do to the next Rolling Stone what Eddie Vedder did back in '06:

Coachella’s this weekend (and next weekend!). I haven’t been, but I would go. I think. The most commercial (and at 400 bucks a ticket—I can only hope—the most expensive) of them all, it doesn’t even have the usual “music festival” suffix. It’s just Coachella. Like Madonna. Like Mao. Like Monsanto. Like Mom.

After last week's Festival Bands, Man! feature, I got a friendly email from Mike Siemens of Psychic Rites, thank you. Good luck with your music video! 

Band: Psychic Rites

Tom Morello's public war with "big fan" Paul Ryan got a lot of headlines, but for me (surprisingly) it was the social media donnybrook between Yeasayer and Pitchfork over the latter's review of Fragrant World that really got my blood racing. I mean, let's face it- Paul Ryan isn't a fan of Rage Against The Machine. Of course Morello had to defend his turf and set the record straight, but in the end there's no way a career Washingtonian like Paul Ryan could possibly be a fan... unless he's one of those swine that vigorously overlooks inconvenient lyrical content (ahem Chris Christie), but it's neither here nor there compared to almost hilarious brandishing of cojones that's been at the heart of the Yeasayer-Pitchfork beef, that and a mutual desire to get over on somebody perceived to have gotten too big for their britches.

When the futurekind define "music blog buzz band," the example they will cite will be Yeasayer's 2010 sophomore album Odd Blood. Yes the buzz entirely justified, but that hype was intense, and it got more intense as they toured behind that breakthrough album before retreating to work on their insanely highly anticipated third album. Needless to say, the hype during the run up of the release of Fragrant World has been crazy, in part due to some clever social media maneuvers from the band themselves. Was Yeasayer setting themselves up for a backlash, an inevitable backlash as these things go? Perhaps. What one person would consider a warm and fuzzy connection to a band via Twitter can be perceived by somebody else as shameless hype. In any case, Pitchfork, a previous champion of Yeasayer, obliged with a review of Fragrant World that was a certified smackdown.

Now, I don't want to get into the particulars of the Pitchfork Fragrant World review or the album itself because Steve Dobek will be reviewing it and I don't want to prejudice anybody against a fellow buffaBLOGGER. That would indeed not be cricket. I will say that the Pitchfork reviewer seemed to definitely have an agenda as evidenced by among other things the "better luck next time because we know you can do better" tone and a desire to bag on every song on the album while still giving it a 5.4. "Eleven unremarkable songs?!?" Having chased all of the songs down during the run-up to the Yeasayer show a few weeks back and after, that criticism just didn't seem kosher to me. And it must not have seemed kosher to Yeasayer either because they issued a Tweet (again with the social media) lambasting an anonymous reviewer who only could have been the dude from Pitchfork. 

And apparently Yeasayer wasn't the only one, the Twitterverse lighting up as scads of angry Tweets flew from Yeasayer fans at Pitchfork decrying the review, prompting Pitchfork to later ironically give props to Yeasayer for having an army of fans so keep to do battle on their behalf. Of course as an occasional critic, I'm not entirely crazy about this turn of events, but then again, I try to avoid agendas and using my reviews to take the piss out on somebody, something Pitchfork cannot always say themselves. Pitchfork has become the daily hipster music missalette, and boy do they know it. Pitchfork This and Pitchfork That. Pitchfork TV. Pitchfork Fest in Chicago. Pitchfork Fest in Paris. Pitchfork Here There and Everywhere. Don' get me wrong, I regularly check out Pitchfork; I don't live by it but I know it's there, and let's face it, Pitchfork has been very good to us as music lovers. But their influence on music and music culture is becoming more and more outsized, and sometimes power goes to one's head, even at a music blog/website, and that might very well have been the case here. In many ways it was Pitchfork that was setting itself up for a backlash, and Yeasayer did their best to oblige.

Yes, I do believe it's possible for a music blog to be trippin.' Of course that won't happen at buffaBLOG. Never. Trust us. And don't @#$% with Yeasayer. They might mess you up (on Twitter).

So it's been a whole week since Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago and we've had a lot of fun looking back on the whole experience. The final day of the festival was the best day by far weather-wise and many would also say music-wise with performances from Iceage, Ty Segall, The Men, Real Estate, King Krule, Beach House, and Vampire Weekend to name a few. Check out all the pictures from day 3 below.

Iceage










































Ty Segall






























Real Estate