pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Hard not to just get an overwhelming "all the kids at school say this is [cool or uncool] now and I want to fit in" vibe. Bad for their brand! It emphasizes a perception that they are no longer thought leaders, even if they'd counter that by showing examples of times they were "right" about a bunch of acts before they blew up or were reassessed. Let's go ahead compile a list of examples that convey the opposite impression of the most important thing our brand depends on its readers believing... that we are the tastemakers. What else can they say differentiates them from a marketing POV?

― Evan

The lack of specialty in every major music publication is a sad race to see who clickbaits the audience the most.
Pitchfork placing attention to artists like idk Bad Bunny and completely ignoring artists like Fleet Foxes which definitely seem like a much uncooler choice than Bad Bunny in 2021 but you’re right it looks like a lame and dishonest attempt to fit with the cool kids. Moving into reviewing genres out of indie rock is a great move but bandwagoning into the same 5 reggaeton or the same 10 hip hop artists every other major publication raves about is not being a tastemaker. They need to start championing their own take on music or I don’t see the point of p4k when something like Rolling Stone exists and does it better.

I don’t even know what’s the age audience for p4k anymore… If I go to my mid-20s nephews talking about the latest Drake or Bad Bunny album I doubt it’ll give me a cool aunt vibe.

critics haven't liked a new drake album since like 2015 though

they still do tastemaker stuff but only really in the same indie rock/more accessible side of experimental music area as always

the review revisionism piece is weird, some of them are very obviously correct & some are just 'why bother including this' or seem like over-corrections? like no, turn on the bright lights was never an instant classic but it's weird that they don't rate it much at all now? and i love chairlift but moth really was a 7.

Hard not to just get an overwhelming "all the kids at school say this is [cool or uncool] now and I want to fit in" vibe. Bad for their brand! It emphasizes a perception that they are no longer thought leaders, even if they'd counter that by showing examples of times they were "right" about a bunch of acts before they blew up or were reassessed. Let's go ahead compile a list of examples that convey the opposite impression of the most important thing our brand depends on its readers believing... that we are the tastemakers. What else can they say differentiates them from a marketing POV?

They were never thought leaders imo. I listened to r'n'b while they were pushing mediocre indie like Animal Collective. They caught up, good for them.

That's great but I'm talking about how their overall readership perceived them, especially when they were breaking acts left and right. Their brand is based on this.

I mean there was a time when an endorsement really did mean something. My old band was on a bill for the local college radio station show with Tapes n' Tapes, I think there was maybe 100 there mostly for Andrew Broder who headlined...I was talking with the drummer cuz the review had come out that day, they were really blown away. About a month later, we ended up getting a fill-in slot for them because they had cancelled their local gigs and were playing Pitchfork fest, they came back and they were headlining big shows and doing festivals

but it was like a switch flipped, they went from middle of the bill, weeknight shit in minneapolis to being known all over

Mediocre indie as it may seem it was a band everybody related to pitchfork. If they had learned to push also r&b artists like idk Fatima or Kali Uchis who have connections to artists like Floating Points and Thundercat you start talking about a musical environment that feels more on-brand to what they were doing back then. But nah, let’s just push artists who fucking everyone and their mother already know. Easier clicks with no effort.

There is def something funny about circling back to futz with Interpol and Strokes ratings… like, WGAF-dot-seven

^Xpost on AnCo

I don’t see the point of p4k when something like Rolling Stone exists and does it better.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, October 5, 2021 1:37 PM

besides being a wicked sick burn, i've been thinking the same thing to myself recently the more they've gotten into "legacy building." i mean they obviously have the readership to be the next big legacy music publication that "speaks for its generation" but fully respects hiphop this time or whatever. but it's like. . . who actually wants that?

also i hate stupid fucking pitchfork and i think if this is the thing that turns a lot of people away from paying attention to them that would be rad, but you guys knew that already.

The Strokes one reads more like an argument for lowering the Is This It score.

mean they obviously have the readership to be the next big legacy music publication

In my head pitchfork nowadays is all about promoting the most basic shit while acting smug about it.

[citation needed]
― licorice in the front, pizza in the rear (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, October 5, 2021 2:37 PM

sorry, maybe i should have been more clear: what i meant was "notoriety" — "readership" maybe not the best choice initially. i mean hell, even people like me are aware of what they are and what they do and, like i said, i hate the stupid fucking thing. but if they start doing more of this light revisionism, it might get people like me to lighten their stance and, oh hey, they're doing aztec camera reviews now. hmm. that's cool.

see what i mean? anecdotal, but there you have it. and i think that's what moves like this big one are aiming for.

not that i think i'm the only target audience. it's just that any big shakeup moves like this are meant to bring in new audiences and bring back old ones.

i haven't actually looked at the site today, but it's been fun reading this topic.

critical tastemaking doesn't exist anymore, the music ecosystem is fully democratized bcuz of streaming & social media, the gate has been busted open and it isn't going to close. music journalism can still matter from the POV of reporting and music criticism can still matter insofar as it interacts w/ discussions ppl are having about music -- certain provocative pieces can break thru from time to time -- but there is no publication w/ the power to anoint an act anymore, nor do those acts need publications to do so. well, maybe anthony fantano has the power lol -- in the 100 gecs feature on pitchfork laura les says she quit her job the day she saw fantano positively review gecs on his channel, but still i don't get the sense that that was some singular mushroom cloud in the arc of their career the way m@tt is describing w/ tapes n tapes. there are artists like phoebe bridgers who feel like contemporary core pitchfork acts that the site has covered and co-signed heavily in real time, but there were far too many channels available for phoebe bridgers to blow up for her to be associated w/ pitchfork in the manner of i.e. arcade fire -- direct to fans via social media most notably, i knew her @fake_nudes IG handle before i knew her music. that world doesn't exist anymore.

this makes for a difficult dynamic for a publication that ppl of a certain age associate w/ breaking indie rock artists -- i agree that there is something inherently odd to pitchfork readers of 15 or 20+ years to see the canonization of i.e. bad bunny, but a music publication that didn't interact w/ latin music, rap music, afrobeat would feel pretty irrelevant nowadays, or at least it would feel political in a way that is largely antithetical to the POVs of a diverse group of young aspiring music writers. not to mention, it would be insolvent.

not being able to gatekeep or tastemake or "thought lead" isn't a pitchfork problem, it's a mainstream music writing problem. gatekeeping, tastemaking and thought leading is happening on tik tok, welcome to 2021. teenagers in their bedrooms aren't reading gorilla vs bear like they were when i was a teenager in my bedroom... they're scrolling thru tik tok and shazaming songs they keep hearing in algorithmically privileged videos. pitchfork can't wrest that power away. which also isn't to say that there is no room for tastemaking journalism on a smaller, more micro level, servicing a niche set of readers who aren't interested in tik tok virality or bad bunny or fireboy dml or playboi carti or whatever. but doing so isn't going to employ dozens of ppl at morally justifiable (and union negotiated!) salaries.

(also fwiw there's been a number of recent albums i really like that i may not have checked out if it weren't for a pitchfork best new music... mdou moctar, faye webster, amaarae, turnstile)

honestly the Pitchfork score I’d most like to retroactively change was my starting salary lmao

— Lindsay Zoladz (@lindsayzoladz) October 5, 2021

I’m not saying they shouldn’t interact with afrobeat/rap/latin/r&b/electronica/etc… I think that’s 100% the right move but they should do it pushing artists that feel more unique to pitchfork… or something that feels less superficial. There’s hundreds of cool latin trap and reggaeton tracks being churned out each year and they’re not all coming from J Balvin, Rosalia or Bad Bunny. Afrobeat is even more impressive in its quality nowadays, but you’d never know that by skimming pitchfork. So either appoint people in your staff who are really passionate about these subcultures and genres or leave them alone. You’re wasting time talking about how cool Bad Bunny is. Yeah the world already knew that years ago, you’re just following breadcrumbs at this point.

The best job they are doing wrt to something like that is Alphonse Pierre's "The Ones" rap column, he seems really obsessed with digging through YouTube, shit with like 4,000 views

There it is:

Pitchfork:

In retrospect, King Pu$$y Eater’s ethereally idiosyncratic “Goop On Ya Grinch” was not as radical an examination of the gender binary as previously thought, and the toxic gaslighting of the album’s subject now comes off as strenuous and potentially harmful

7.6 ➡️ 6.3

— desp (@bigracks) October 5, 2021

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-10-best-songs-by-latinx-artists-in-2021-so-far/

ctrl + f "bad bunny", "j balvin" or "rosalia"

The best job they are doing wrt to something like that is Alphonse Pierre's "The Ones" rap column, he seems really obsessed with digging through YouTube, shit with like 4,000 views

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, October 5, 2021 6:14 PM (three minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

correct

there are artists like phoebe bridgers who feel like contemporary core pitchfork acts that the site has covered and co-signed heavily in real time

if anything bridgers is a case of them playing catch-up, they didn't give her (better than its follow-up) debut BNM & didn't really get behind her until after it was already a success

Idk as someone from latin-america seeing the same two or three reggaeton tracks in every major publication feels to me like forced representation. It just feels like ticking boxes and doing the bare minimum for a music genre they don’t really care. I’m not being acknowledged, I’m being bought. This is the representation you get when Conde Nast rules the world. The same two latin artists/tracks in every publication.

i think stuff like that 'best 2021 songs by latinx artists' list is good in how it digs deeper than a lot of stuff, but it's not really reflective of their broader coverage or anything

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-10-best-songs-by-latinx-artists-in-2021-so-far/

ctrl + f "bad bunny", "j balvin" or "rosalia"

― J0rdan S

Yeah these pitch articles are usually very good! But they forget completely about these artists come EOY.

Or yeah as ufo says they don’t really reflect the broader coverage. Do any of those tracks got a BNM?

probably not but individual track reviews are very rare these days (a few a month)

uk rap is another weird blindspot for them where even just getting behind the obvious existing critical favourites like j hus would be an improvement, let alone digging any deeper - the only recent act they've gotten behind is slowthai lol

Noone really expects any publication to cover everything interesting that’s being done in every country/genre. That’s an unreal expectation. I’m just sayings do it in a way thar actually makes sense for your brand and readers. There has to be a better way to acknowledge how broad the music environment is nowadays while retaining a unique voice.

It would be really funny if they re-reviewed, say, De-Loused in the Comatorium or Lateralus in that article but gave it an even lower score than before

i want to see Radiohead Kid A get adjusted to 9.7, with an incredibly essay (later published as a slightly expanded standalone book by 33 1/3) explaining why

doing it this way is such a weird self-serious exercise instead of just publishing a new sunday review or whatever

xp they should review it by someone who’s actually seen a shooting star before

This thread reminds me that I’ve been reading Pitchfork for 20+ years now. Maybe because it was the first, Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea is still the review of theirs I remember being most disappointed by

I think I stopped reading in 2007 or so; I now only surf over there when someone I know has published something, or it's the end of the year.

doing it this way is such a weird self-serious exercise instead of just publishing a new sunday review or whatever

i think the exact opposite of this!!

they published a small thing at the top of their page that will disappear tomorrow, and no one cares except for nerds (i'm here for it, that's for fucken sure). and at the top of the thing, it's like "here's some reviews that may or may not have been wrong, according to these 19 people. what if we could assign a different score now? ponder this as you scroll through your phone during your incredibly busy tuesday, because you're right in the conde naste audience core demographic and we want you to be slightly engaged (read: slightly irritated) during your lunch break!!

whereas with a sunday review it would be like "there's only one review today, and it is designed to be a rebuke to the past. read it with great seriousness, and do not comment below, because we don't do comments any more due to the immense volume of crazy-ass music fans"

We’ve got some big news: we’ve signed up Ryan Schreiber’s Weird Era! Ryan is the founder of Pitchfork, and served alternately as the site’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief from 1996 to 2019. Weird Era, which is scheduled for summer 2023, chronicles the rise of Pitchfork from basement blog to the world’s most trusted and influential music authority. Along the way, Ryan charts the artists–Arcade Fire! Radiohead! Grimes! Frank Ocean!–that Pitchfork championed, as well as the generation of listeners the site helped shape. We can’t wait to publish this book, which we know will be a defining account of music, media, and growing up in the 2000s

It's OK everyone, there's a book coming out that will definitely address everyone getting paid like shit and checks bouncing all over the place.

i understand that the primary thing pitchfork seems to sell these days is the concept of itself and its rating system and its history but golly they are really overdoing the "we're the main characters here" thing. shit, cat

i know it's hard out there for a music crit publication but

Just wait until you see the Pitchfork 25th Anniversary television spectacular! A parade of dancing strawberries gets mashed up in a tribute to Animal Collective.

i don't know, irl people seem to celebrate their own anniversaries every year. it gets really tiresome but everyone does it

Yeah, this seems like a weird criticism. Lots of magazines/publications do self-congratulatory anniversary issues.

I thought the 25th passed a year ago. I don't begrudge them anything, they have mostly been really solid, can't think of another music publication ever that I have been interested in over so long a period

it's corny when anyone does it i think

it makes more money

"follow the money"