Pitchfork’s just published a review of 50 Cent’s abysmal War Angel LP, giving the internet-only “mixtape” a 1.8, which, frankly, might even be generous. The writer is Ian Cohen, who’s become one of the Fork’s go-to guys for hatchet jobs over the past year or so. He’s published take-downs, most notably, of Dr. Dog and the L.A. band Airborne Toxic Event, who famously, and foolishly, responded to their 1.6 review with a painfully earnest “open letter” to Cohen. He’s far from the best writer on staff, and his shortcomings, from his struggles with clarity to his obsession with what other critics are saying, have been well documented.
So for the purposes of this post, let’s shelve all that (though I wouldn’t blame you for wondering if he ever plans to finish the sentence that ends with “…not only ended up with the best album of his life”) and talk about the last part.
Despite diligent scorekeeping from Internet watchdogs, there were no losers in the beef between Rick Ross and 50 Cent from earlier this year. Certainly not Ross— befitting his completely dysfunctional relationship with reality, he took 50 as a serious threat to his non-existent credibility and somehow not only ended up with the best album of his life. Not 50 either— hilarious transmissions from ThisIs50.Com served as better promotion for When I Get Around to It (or whatever he’s calling his TBA follow-up to Curtis) than any of his recent singles. And if you were a fan who didn’t feel the need to choose sides, or young enough to consider Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Ricky Steamboat the equal of KRS and Rakim in 1988, it was rap-as-Wrestlemania at its finest.
Let’s say kids are most into wrestling when they’re between the ages of 8 and 10. So, for someone to be “young enough” to remember Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Ricky Steamboat and compare them in some super confusing way to Rakim and KRS-One, they would have been born between 1978 and 1980, which would put them somewhere right around 30 years old.
Perhaps I’m totally off-base here, but I’m pretty sure that would put them on the older side of Pitchfork’s readership, no?
The last line of that Airborne Toxic Event review:
“Congrats, Pitchfork reader– the Airborne Toxic Event thinks you’re a demographic.”
If you’ve listened to the band, that’s pretty spot-on; I think he has a pretty good idea who reads the site.
(Also, the tween-targeted culture on which current college students grew up is so benighted that an 80s wrestling reference is arguably the only honorable thing to do.)
Uh, wouldn’t it be even more honorable to not use any reference at all?