I'm officially done caring about the Shovel's reviews and lists.

[Gilly]

Did you listen to Alone II? I wasn't even going to bother since Alone I was so awful but it turned out to be really good. Most of the songs would have made a great post-Pinkerton album.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

i let go of weezer after pinkerton and never looked back.  its unfortunate because i really enjoyed them as a pop band, but as Tom says, "it's time to grow up."

[Stupornaut]

I only read the Shovel reviews written by my friend. Strangely enough, the ratings a reviewer gives an album is not necessarily reflected by the rating that actually appears on the site. Apparently there's some sort of board that also rates the album, and I guess the final rating is an average or something. My friend reviewed one of the Crystal bands' records (Crystal Stilts, I think), and the rating that appeared on the site was a few tenths lower than his rating. Or maybe Ryan Whatshisface has executive power and fucks with the ratings.

I have never written anything that had the rating messed with without my go-ahead, so I have no idea what the deal is there. Then again I don't give half a fart about Fleet Foxes and I think just about any electro act you can name at random is a billion times better than Crystal Castles so I'm not exactly the archetypal Shovel writer. (Problem is, I like a whole lot of that bleep-bleep club music Gilly is protesting against, so maybe I am not much help.)

Also I thought more people here would be "woo, Titus Andronicus, you heard it here first".

[<<<<<]

Gilly isn't entirely opposed to electro, insofar as Ladytron could still be considered such.  We both liked that album.

Crystal Castles strike me as a couple of kids still learning how to make music.  I think that one was picked a couple years before it was ripe.  Who knows, a couple years down the road they might have more to offer.

[Gilly]

Yeah, I don't mind the sound but when so much of it is acclaimed it all runs together and you have to wonder what separates one song/band from the next. It also seems like most of the list is a soundtrack to a good night out. Culture shaping the art instead of the other way around.