arpeggios madness

well, there are few things i like more than to bitch about pitchforkmedia. and yes, obviously i wouldn't if i weren't a devote reader. it has become something of a ritual - 9am, coffee, cigarette, pitchforkmedia, and then i can go work. and this, of course, just means that i get annoyed with the smallest things. lately, arpeggios have been bugging me. ever damn review has to mention arpeggios. low arpeggios, floating arpeggios, lithe arpeggios, pretty, jangling arpeggios, dark Rhodes arpeggios, blistering arpeggios, genle folksy arpeggios, jazzy guitar arpeggios, tripping arpeggios, tender ebony-and-ivory arpeggios, and so on and on. the thing is that having read music reviews obsessively for nearly two decades i hardly ever recall coming across the word arpeggios. but apparently arpeggios are the shit now. but i don't know if it is because musicians everywhere all of a sudden realized that they didn't have to strum their chords or the music reviewers just learned a word that sounds polished and cool - and signals that they know more about music then you do. which ultimately is what most music reviewer want to get across. i'm leaning towards the latter. pitchforkmedia is undoubtedly one of the most elitist, snobbish music sites out there. a search on google reveals 122 mentions of arpeggios on pitchforkmedia.com. On rollingstone.com we have 17. need i say more? well, yes. this would seem to support the notion that the music hasn't changed but, well, rolling stone doesn't review exactly the same albums. so i checked out a few other music review sites and here is the ranking.

pitchforkmedia.com 122
adequacy.net 73
stylusmagazine.com 57
popmatters.com 50
rollingstone.com 17
fakejazz.com 8
nme.com 8
junkmedia.org 7
tinymixtapes.com 5
themilkfactory.co.uk 2
spin.com 1

obviously there are differences among the sites in terms of number of reviews, etc. but the picture seems pretty clear and i think the editors of pitchforkmedia should cut down on the arpeggios abuse.