There are a lot of word choices that a writer might use to convey what you’re describing (greatest active, greatest of the recent crop, greatest of the millenium, etc…). But pitchfork went with “greatest living” a phrase that specifically makes “not dead” the only criterion. (For example, the first hit on a g.search…

“One of America’s greatest living songwriters” is a pretty cruel twist of the knife so soon after David Berman’s suicide.

She has one sound and two voices. What am I missing?

Whenever I hear Lana Del Rey I imagine someone who grew up on her parents late 80s through mid 90s AAA CD collection. The whole smokey, art damaged ingenue gone world-weary schtick (maybe daddy can bribe David Lynch into whoring himself out for a music video!) just reeks of stale artifice. Top it off with sophomoric,…

Disputing the notion that LDR is “one of America’s greatest living songwriters” is hardly snobbery, and it doesn’t imply she isn’t a talented songwriter in her own right.

I’m disappointed at the lack of jokes about the Laurel Canyon sound. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore, A.V. Club commentariat.

The difference is that when LDR put out her first album there were still a few people wary of music that was ‘manufactured garbage’, and Pitchfork (who gave the first record a 5.5) still saw itself as primarily covering non-mainstream music. But now pop music is an assembly line of manufactured garbage, and…

It’s ridiculous hyperbole, although it’s nice to catch a glimpse of the old aggressively-opinionated Pitchfork.

Lana Del Rey is one of America’s greatest live songwriters for the people who never bothered to listen to America’s actually greatest living songwriters. 

Somebody please explain Lana Del Rey to me.

“one of America’s greatest living songwriters”

Lana del Rey doesn’t do anything for me, which does not mean that she isn’t talented, but P4k’s “one of America’s greatest living songwriters” still seems like a stretch.

Pitchfork’s “one of America’s greatest living songwriters” line really threw me off their review. I mean, it sounds like it’s a great record, and all (I haven’t listened, yet, so my super-scorching take on it is still TBD), but that’s a pretty bold flex in a world in which Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, Stevie…