pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I don't really want to call them out by name, but I had to unfollow a certain one person niche review site that had a heroically bad take about this that was disappointing to see.

i('ve) visited pitchfork daily for over a decade (had it been born earlier it would be longer no doubt). definitely had a huge impact on my life ever since - discovering artists and, early on, probably really streghtening my enthusiasm for music writing at the right age. this is a miserable one.

Even as the site expanded its coverage beyond indie music (a transition that began 20+ years ago, fwiw), it retained a distinct editorial perspective. Sure, it was more likely to review mainstream artists, but it didn't just uncritically embrace anyone on the pop charts. For me, the site was a great way to discover which mainstream artists were worth paying attention to. And anyway, in Pitchfork's world, someone like Caroline Polachek was considered as big of a star as Olivia Rodrigo. That kind of curation, across genres and levels of fame, was incredibly valuable.

I started reading pitchfork in ‘02 or ‘03 — likely ‘02 based on what I’ve since seen on the wayback machine, haha. It took me a couple years to realize that I deeply despise the type of indie rock it promoted — anything along the lines of Sufjan Stevens, Broken Social Scene, the Microphones I really can’t stand — but it was exciting to be a teenager and realize that there was an entirely alternate musical world out there that offered something different than what classic rock could. They did always review more interesting stuff as well even if it didn’t always take the top headline under the reviews.

That said, Pitchfork has felt as corporate, consumerist, and vapid as anything else out there for at least a decade, so other than the layoffs, I’m surprised that this is causing such an upheaval in the music world. It doesn’t really even feel like it presents itself as a place to learn about music anymore — you get the same major artist news updates that Rolling Stone etc probably cover and the reviews seem a mix of radio garbage, payola publicity, and hopeless attempts to appear relevant in a changing digital landscape.

Maybe this news will prompt the Pitchfork Reviews Reviews guy to come out of retirement?

That said, Pitchfork has felt as corporate, consumerist, and vapid as anything else out there for at least a decade,

This attitude is strange to me considering the number of experimental artists reviewed daily.

"the reviews seem a mix of radio garbage, payola publicity, and hopeless attempts to appear relevant in a changing digital landscape."

This is false. The percentage of their reviews of mainstream artists is still pretty small.

yeah i usually go to it most days and i'm finding a weird dichotomy between what people think of pitchfork in recent years and what it actually was

Slim IS an alien.

i mean just look

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/

even just the hip hop - Bruiser Wolf, Conway the Machine, AZ, Czarface, these ain't exactly Drake

how many more garbage takes like "Olivia Rodrigo broke Pitchfork!" will we keep reading, I ask you

corporate, consumerist, and vapid as anything else out there for at least a decade

Tell me you don't actually read Pitchfork without saying you don't actually read Pitchfork.

i'm finding a weird dichotomy between what people think of pitchfork in recent years and what it actually was

I have a friend who genuinely and confidently beleived 00s pitchfork shunned anything on a major label, like an indie rock maximumrocknroll or something. and he was doing this in a video about pitchfork. obviously that must mean he never actually went the site but i feel like the dichotomy between what it is-what people think it is has been with pitchfork in numerous guises.

(forgive typos this new laptop keyboard is punishing)

Pitchfork had also been doing metal reviews of bands that didn't have Mastodon-level notoriety. i read quite a few of Grayson's metal reviews

Alphonse Pierre's The Ones column is amazing, no one is documenting new (mostly non backpacker) hip hop better

A lot of how I feel has already been said: devastated for the hardworking, talented writers and journalists who were affected.

On a personal note (and I know this will sound silly to some of you), Pitchfork has been for me what MTV was for the generation before mine. I started getting into music around the time Pitchfork became relevant, and as a Chicago kid, it was exciting to see this local shop become a nationally recognized brand that could move the needle in music. It would be hard to overstate how many artists I discovered from their reviews and lists; I have checked the site nearly every day for 20+ years. In the mp3 era, I would collect their Top 100 tracks of the year list into zip files that were widely shared in the comments of many other sites. I attended the first Intonation fest, the first official Pitchfork fest (and many since), and the winter fest they put on at the Art Institute. Ugh.

Of P4k's top 50 albums of 2023, only 11 were released by labels that are subsidiaries of the three majors (Sony, Warner, Universal).

1. Top Dawg Entertainment/RCA
2. Perpetual Novice
3. Backwoodz Studioz
4. Dead Oceans
5. Scenic Route
6. Asthmatic Kitty
7. Interscope
8. Mute
9. Secretly Canadian
10. Ninja Tune
11. Interscope
12. Mexican Summer
13. Self-released
14. Geffen
15. XL
16. Interscope
17. Warp
18. Dog Show/Atlantic
19. September
20. Fire Talk
21. Ghostly International
22. Interscope
23. Dead Oceans
24. Ninja Tune
25. Verve
26. Awe
27. Matador
28. International Anthem
29. FXHE
30. Another Dove
31. Warp
32. 10K Projects/Capitol
33. True Panther
34. Fat Possum
35. Navy Wavy LLC
36. Hessle Audio
37. Jagjaguwar
38. Matador
39. In Real Life
40. Milan
41. Open Shift Distribution/Gamma
42. Fat Possum
43. Geffen
44. Mexican Summer
45. 20 Buck Spin
46. Tonal Union
47. Poclanos/Topshelf
48. Peak Oil
49. Feel It
50. Epic

Was expecting this take:

Pitchfork Media might be the best example of a once-decent publication being ruthlessly hollowed out by woke shit. They went from breaking legitimately great bands like Animal Collective and MGMT 15 years ago to producing nothing but an endless stream of vapid thinkpieces about…

— Lo-fi Republican (@LoFiRepublican) January 17, 2024

"the bands they used to cover were important because I was the age where I was into bands" is a pretty common refrain among people who want time to stand still

As someone pointed out, Pitchfork gave Oracular Spectular a 6.8. And it looks like Congratulations got the exact same score. So kind of a weird band to choose as one that Pitchfork supposedly broke.

oh no not lo-fi republican

jaymc, add one more, since the navy wavy album was released in partnership with warner records

isn't it a perceived truth (even with all the perils implied with that) that pitchfork actually liked mgmt less than all other major music publications

haha xps got there

I distinctly remember MGMT as being a band that I didn't realize were very popular because at the time I had stopped listening to the radio and Music television and was only really checking out music via Pitchfork and music blogs.

in the UK MGMT's mainstream moment in late 08/early 2009 which was how I first knew of them. Radio 1 faves, all over the music channels, even had them on a Brit Awards compilation.

mgmt signified the big post-o.c. indie radio explosion here, see also: "young folks." pfork was very suspicious of the whole thing iirc

As someone pointed out, Pitchfork gave Oracular Spectular a 6.8. And it looks like Congratulations got the exact same score. So kind of a weird band to choose as one that Pitchfork supposedly broke.

Don't think I've seen anyone mention itt, perhaps it's too obvious, but aside from everything else making pfork a section in a men's style magazine is kind of a fuck you to female readers, no?

everyone in here talking about pitchfork's traffic is clinging onto an outmoded idea of advertising money being directly related to clicks. advertisers are paying for ads based on the perceived "value" of brands -- i.e. a site w/ smaller traffic but a higher percentage of a desired demographic may be more valuable than a site w/ more traffic. this is what the entire thing about "millennial males" goes back to... conde always intended for pitchfork to be a play for niche advertising

all of which is to say that the entire discussion about traffic numbers is looking to find objective reasoning for a decision that is entirely subjective. what is the value of the brand of pitchfork? there is no calculation that is actually going to give you that answer

otm

RIP

It's so wild to see ostensibly smart music writers who, apparently, fundamentally do not get the role Pitchfork played and the range of its coverage. I might lose my mind if I see one more critic post something along the lines of, "music criticism isn't dead, who needs Pitchfork when there's (goes on to list tiny micro-niche sites with extremely narrow focuses*)".

* - nothing wrong with micro-niche sites that cover their lane well, but it's idiotic to suggest any of those are a patch on what Pitchfork provided

j0rd otm. some union-busting seems to be involved as well

everyone in here talking about pitchfork's traffic is clinging onto an outmoded idea of advertising money being directly related to clicks. advertisers are paying for ads based on the perceived "value" of brands -- i.e. a site w/ smaller traffic but a higher percentage of a desired demographic may be more valuable than a site w/ more traffic. this is what the entire thing about "millennial males" goes back to... conde always intended for pitchfork to be a play for niche advertising

all of which is to say that the entire discussion about traffic numbers is looking to find objective reasoning for a decision that is entirely subjective. what is the value of the brand of pitchfork? there is no calculation that is actually going to give you that answer

it's spanfellers all the way down (by which i mean up)

I guess I don’t understand the overarching take here — we’re in a thread whose premise is all of the reasons Pitchfork is dumb, I’ve literally been reading all of the individual reasons why music fans “don't read” or “don’t take seriously” Pitchfork across wide reaches of internet message boards for 20+ years now, but make any changes to it and you think that the collective arm of critical music universe had just been amputated.

fuck off, asshat

having something people care enough about to complain about is a huge thing though

pitchfork has changed numerous times over 20 years..?

If you weren't able to complain about something that played a meaningful part in your life, professional sports would cease to exist in a heartbeat. Complaining does not mean you think a thing should not exist, you just want it to be better.

anyway...

conde is saying two things at once

1. this brand is not valuable enough to us for it to have a staff
2. this brand is too valuable to us for us to sell it

the conversations about whether pitchfork went too poptimist are missing the forest for the trees. if conde had an issue w/ pitchfork's editorial direction they could have fired the editor and changed the direction, this happens all the time. if pitchfork had been run completely into the ground they would have just sold it and recouped whatever money they could. instead what they're essentially saying is that the value of the work of the site -- the writing -- is reaching its endpoint and they no longer have any reason to pay people to produce it. this is a much larger commentary on the state of music writing & its value to corporations, that transcends any decisions made within pitchfork about its editorial direction

i think the thread title manifests itself in posts at this point as nitpicking, or occasionally a bad review, vs the old pitchfork which really was contemptuous of quite a lot of music which didn't fit a certain narrow worldview, and had a lot of reviews which revealed a bit of misogyny and racism and homophobia. PF has been a LOT better for years now. the writer turnover helped a lot, the ones who stuck around either were excellent in the first place or simply evolved into better reviewers.

I have some friends who freelance for other Conde Naste magazines and this is unsurprising given what I've been hearing from them (lots of layoffs, don't write anything 'philosophical' or 'academic' sounding, they want poppy topics that pop).

I got out of the habit of checking Pfork years ago, but whenever I did check back in I was happy to see that they were still reviewing fairly underground albums on the regular (even the reviews were down the page, and even if they're the kind of underground albums that hired a PR firm, etc).

JOrdan S. otm, great posts

Those bad takes (about "woke" or pop coverage or anything content-based) are just variations on what people who have no idea how media economics work have been saying for years about the declining fortunes of legacy print media in general — big announcement of newspaper layoffs followed by online dummkopfs saying "It's cuz they went so liberal!"

No, it's FIRST about advertising revenue and the way the internet broke it, and SECOND about the atomized media environment overall. The problems are structural, not content-based. But that's not exciting for non-media people to opine about.

it's wild bc Pitchfork felt like one of the few sites which was in a process of continuous improvement in most respects, vs something like idk AV Club, which is absolutely meritless now.

maybe not "wild" as much as "sad"

The second decimation of music journalism as gainful employment after alt-weeklies had to stop publishing escort ads that paid the bills.