via//chicago

np: "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You" - Black Kids

A quick update on my post from yesterday, now that I've actually heard the album in question. It certainly does suck, Pitchfork at least got the score (3.3 out of 10) right. They may have possibly even overrated it ever so slightly. Any of the charm of the self-released debut EP has been obliterated by the squeaky clean production that renders every instrument sterile, clinical, and cold. Which is a good thing for someone like, say, Kraftwerk... but not for a band that is supposedly full of youthful exuberance. Thanks to his time spent in the producer's chair, Bernard Butler can certainly take a lot of the blame for this album's failures. But the band themselves cannot remain blameless. You can practically hear them straining to be hip and clever. It's just an awful, awful album. And a huge disappointment coming off the promising Wizard of Ahhs EP. Even the best of those early demos, "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You", is neutered and boring as presented here in re-recorded form.

BUT... my point from yesterday still stands. The staff at Pitchfork would have served their readers and themselves far better by offering an insightful critique of this album's failures instead of that sub-lolcat/Perez Hilton crap they tried to pass off as a "review".