pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

or they could publish one official review and one "dissenting" review for each album they cover. allow their readers to weigh multiple perspectives and not try to slant their opinion in any way.

xposts

Well I believe the genius coup by Schreiber was to make writers almost anonymous behind the gigantic 'Pitchfork' facade. For example, I never knew about Nitsuh Abebe before I started lurking hereon ILX, then I remembered I read and enjoyed a lot of his reviews. The team thing would be great.

i dont think anyone bases any decisions on BNM, it's just a flag that the site uses to say "hey look over here!", basically it's like a featured review, imho.

that's a good point. do you think there could be another way, beside the team thing, for pitchfork to emphasize the fact that their reviews are written by individual writers and are not just impersonal expressions of "Pitchfork TM"? maybe doing away with the scores is the way to do it, and also just publishing individual critics' lists at the end of the year rather than a main list for the publication as a whole.

i was thinking about that the other day.

like the Arcade Fire review was basically the most important record review of the 2000's... but can you tell me who wrote it without looking?

Don't see the big deal. Only fellow critics or fans of writing are going to seek bylines. Besides, you can click on bylines now and get a history.

David Moore!

(which I know only because he writes about teen pop now)

that's a good point. do you think there could be another way, beside the team thing, for pitchfork to emphasize the fact that their reviews are written by individual writers and are not just impersonal expressions of "Pitchfork TM"? maybe doing away with the scores is the way to do it, and also just publishing individual critics' lists at the end of the year rather than a main list for the publication as a whole.

you are arguing from the position that Ptichfork wants to highlight its writers individuality when practically every editorial decision they've made suggests the opposite

i dont think we need to fret about or turn our noses down at these imaginary BNM fiends. xxxxp

Soto, ok, well I couldn't, so maybe its about me?

why would pitchfork want to solve the "problem" of their opinions holding too much weight?

how many NYT reporters can you name, Pat?

why would pitchfork want to do things that would lead to a less coherent "brand" and, in some cases, less appeal and $$$? for example, this suggestion: "and also just publishing individual critics' lists at the end of the year rather than a main list for the publication as a whole." don't see that as driving a bunch of traffic to the site

not saying it's right, of course, but pretty sure they're trying to make money

well, i can name the most famous of their arts critics, and if i read a movie review that isn't by AO Scott or Mahnola Darghis or someone i usually take note of that fact, and maybe google that person. i think the way pitchfork presents reviews can be mystifying... they seem like expressions of a consensus more than just that of an individual writer, or even of an editorial staff, and this is a problem because they are the most powerful outlet for music journalism. the opinions they express always seem "puffed up", to the extent that an album that gets a good review from Pitchfork automatically seems like a "big deal." this isn't the case for a book just because Michiko Kakutani likes it.

glad to know we can have the annual "why doesnt pitchfork publish the individual writers lists" conversation in the middle of the year now too

they are evil

sorry that last post was to alfrd. and yeah, that is a good point... from a business perspective, and a branding perspective, they have done a great job. but certain things about their brand distort music discourse in a way that is harmful, i feel, even if much of the actual content on their site is pretty good.

it seems to me that publications have often benefitted from the special attention attracted by their star writers. the sun times certainly benefitted from roger ebert, and xgau probably drew folks to the voice. for a while, anyway. maybe that sort of thing is a relic of a less brand-savvy age, though.

i remember when the fork was all about name brand writers. the columns are certainly v. much curated individual voices too, no?

but i guess things changed -- its not like i look there nearly ever.

also though "like the Arcade Fire review was basically the most important record review of the 2000's" -- what? why? was this what broke the band or something? i must have slept through that story by virtue of not caring?

did it 'break' a bigger band than any other review? were the arcade fire even that important to the 2000s?

is this just a statement that record reviews are never important (i never thought they were)?

i agree with contenderizer re. the appeal of distinctive critics. in general, i prefer to read critics who i am personally familiar with, because i think of criticism as a form of literature rather than just, like, really eloquent consumer reports. i only really started enjoying pitchfork when i became familiar with some of the voices there by reading ilm. that might just be my personal preference though: pitchfork has achieved huge success by presenting their content as the product of some vast, omniscient, music-taste-generating factory.

but actually, s.clover, that might be a good point: maybe record reviews only became "important", or influential to sales, after pitchfork. i feel like people used to read lester bangs because they enjoyed his writing, not because they wanted him to tell them what to buy.

but actually, s.clover, that might be a good point: maybe record reviews only became "important", or influential to sales, after pitchfork. i feel like people used to read lester bangs because they enjoyed his writing, not because they wanted him to tell them what to buy.

no - prior to Pitchfork, if you got the front-of-magazine CMJ review you got a sales bump so huge it'd change your whole year

except those "cult" albums that bangs championed like NYC punk stuff probably still outsold a lot of today's "big hits"

its a very good review, i'll grant. it has a strong thesis, it makes a good, polarizing case: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/452-funeral/

it is a review that tries to be important, and not in a way that makes me laugh at it.

pitchfork of that era was much more about that, of course.

do they even want to write reviews like that anymore?

also though "like the Arcade Fire review was basically the most important record review of the 2000's" -- what? why? was this what broke the band or something?

Many people have tried to rewrite history that this were true, it wasn't, but it screws on nicely to the "Pitchfork ruined Travis Morrison's solo career" rejoinder

the one band they absolutely broke was Tapes n Tapes, who were so obscure that they actually played a gig with my nowhere band the DAY the pitchfork review came out....a month later they were playing the Pitchfork festival

xp well I think in the US it's largely true. I know up north they were already known but I first heard of them during the big Funeral swell of attention, and as everybody knows, I am on the cutting edge at all times, really I'm a cultural bellweather for this age

I don't care, I'm only piping in here because Whiney is perpetuating a spurious rewriting of 00s history

do you think Arcade Fire would have had a similar career arc if, in 2004, Pitchfork had given them a 6.5 or something? i'm not sure either way, i'm honestly curious, but its seems like the timeline of their career would have been different at least.

actually all i wanted is the little black and white photo of the writer with an awkward smile.

i was also like 14 or something then... i wasn't there so i don't know the actual history.

I kinda wonder if the whole LCD Soundsystem explosion was pitchfork's doing in some way

It didn't hurt that Arcade Fire and LCD are/were absolutely great live acts. Word of mouth may have been accelerated by the review, but few left those shows unimpressed. Vs. say Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who sucked live.

I don't care, I'm only piping in here because Whiney is perpetuating a spurious rewriting of 00s history

bear in mind Whiney thinks Colin Meloy is a Masonic plot to destroy freedom. OTOH he is otm on that one

Pitchfork's insistence with LCD Soundsytem is what turned me off for so long, now it is one my favorite bands.

It is fair to say that the Funeral's review cemented Pitchfork has a force in the music industry, it probably helped Pitchfork more than Arcade Fire in the end.

bear in mind Whiney thinks Colin Meloy is a Masonic plot to destroy freedom. OTOH he is otm on that one

Hm. I thought Meloy was a Nixonian bit of ratfucking.

for counterfactual example to arcade fire, see this 2005 BNM review, bylined by Schreiber himself, where he explicitly attempts to place the album in "the big picture"; nevertheless it failed to take off

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8791-wilderness/

What Wilderness really seem to signify-- and what makes them important-- is a shift back towards the more cerebral end of the rock spectrum. Every extreme has its antidote, and just as it's been rewarding to see artists loosen up, enjoy themselves, and have some fun for once, it's also refreshing to hear them aspiring, just as passionately, to music of a more serious persuasion. In an environment that's reveled so long in the comfortability of tradition and flavor-of-the-month transitiveness, this kind of substantive art-rock is ripe for exploration. If Wilderness aren't quite kings of the mountain yet, it might just be that few others have yet traversed their fertile domain.

It is fair to say that the Funeral's review cemented Pitchfork has a force in the music industry, it probably helped Pitchfork more than Arcade Fire in the end.

― Van Horn Street, Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:32 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this nails it; they are good at sniffing out something on the verge of taking off and they hitch a ride on it/amplify it, initiating a sort of reciprocal cred cycle positive feedback loop. Doesn't always work, for every Arcade Fire there's a Wilderness/Rapture/Trail of Dead

that wilderness article is an interesting artifact. i wonder if the album would have done better if pitchfork gave it another .5 points, and like, really threw their weight behind it. the rhetoric in the review is effusive but 8.5 seems more mixed.

i guess, going with that, is the sense that pitchfork's number scores sometimes speak louder than the articles themselves, at least to a certain kind of reader.

oh, a discussion about pitchfork

anyway, pitchfork has actually emphasized individual writers recently

they moved bylines up to the top of the page, which now link to individual writer pages with a custom url and everything

they even link to tumblrs and twitters so you can get to know your favorite writers even better http://pitchfork.com/staff/jordan-sargent/

also they published individual lists last year

well I think they owe a large part of their success/influence to their numbered scoring system

it certainly helped them become a popular 'consumer guide' but when people say that i wonder if they realize that virtually everybody else that reviewed albums before PF also gave numerical ratings, often on a scale of 1 to 10 (or practically the same thing, with a 5 star system measured in half stars)

dude, half of ILM wasn't born yet

There's like a ton of mansplainy n+1 and wired articles that already cover this ground, but i'll bite:

The Funeral review was the first to cement people's belief that Pitchfork was "making bands."

There was a New York Magazine article on the band in 2007 that said -- and this is an actual quote -- "It was a symbiotic event: Pitchfork made Arcade Fire, and Arcade Fire made Pitchfork"

Whether that's true or not (there was also a New York Times Music Section front page piece by Kelefah that surely helped, tho P4k was a month out the gate first), it created that narrative for a lot of people.

It was a moment indicative of "HOW WE LEARN ABOUT MUSIC NOW" because it was
A. On the internet, not SPIN or RS or Entertainment Weekly) because it moved faster and spoke directly to a niche audience (especially the white media types who dislike "pop music" and are responsible for the majority of navel-gazing "narratives" like the one you're reading about).
B. Was the first internet-driven indie rock "Hype Cycle" that was rewarded with a much-ballyhooed CMJ or SXSW show (ie, see the way we cover Surfer Blood, Savages, et al)
C. It was democratized because it took a movement that was already happening ("The Shins will change your life") and democratized it, putting it in the hands of a small website and a small but influential audience of website readers instead of a big "tastemaker"

The rise of music blogs was happening at the same time, and this just crystallized the way people were finding out about bands now.

Whether these things are true or not, that's how things are perceived.

Also, again, didn't hurt that Arcade Fire was actually good and really good live.