pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

As some might remember, Pitchfork basically co-opted Intonation Fest in Chicago. It has always been run independently of Pitchfork, but Pitchfork does have a lot of influence the line-up and obviously the promotion. But you could usually find Chicago Jazz or Jazz adjacent band snuck in there by Mike Reed

when i reviewed film the place i was at the longest had a number rating system, but it ran at the bottom of the reviews… when anyone ever had a problem with a number, i was thankful that at least it meant they scrolled all the way to the bottom

The best rating system I’ve ever seen is the SF Chronicle’s “little man” system for film and theater - in paying various levels of attention in his seat.

Was thinking of the little man today too. And there’s a whole book out there on Robert Parker’s 100-point rating system (later the standard for Wine Spectator et al) and how it changed how a wine got it’s reputation, what it’s value was, and its status, all that stuff.

I rate albums using the BeerAdvocate system:

4.50 - 5.00 = World-Class
4.00 - 4.49 = Outstanding
3.75 - 3.99 = Very Good
3.50 - 3.74 = Good
3.00 - 3.49 = Okay
2.00 - 2.99 = Poor
1.00 - 1.99 = Awful

When I was reading SPIN in the early 90s they used the traffic light system

https://i.imgur.com/cJuYw55.jpg

This has been a horrible week, LA Times laying off 1/4 of its staff, a Baltimore newspaper being bought by a Sinclair Media person, Sports Illustrated and ILM specific Pitchfork going under. And T^rump thinks he's a King.

a great tribute/retrospective/whatever you want to call this from Mike Haliechuk of Fucked Up, a band that definitely got the Pitchfork bump: http://lookingforgold.blogspot.com/2024/01/p-fork.html

― Murgatroid, Friday, January 19, 2024 8:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Thank you for posting this, it's a really fascinating read. It's also (I think, unless I have missed a bunch of stuff over the years) very rare insight into the other side of all this, ie. how Pfork could affect musicians in a positive way. Like if Pfork wasn't going through whatever is happening to it now, I don't even know we would hear this viewpoint at all. It might even have been considered foolish for a musician to post something like this when Pfork was at the top of its game, or even when it wasn't at the top of its game.

I want to say this part is moving, and it is. But there's also sadness and anger that this stuff is presumably just going to go away and things like this can't happen again.

Thank you Pitchfork writers for taking our music seriously before we did. Your words changed my life.

mississpi, picking up on a thread lost to the "click to view all" button, are you familiar with youtubers like hazel and ThorHighHeels? very much interested in video games for their vibes and atmosphere, and willing to reclaim a lot of what we'd see as objectively broken mechanics (janky controls, bugs) as part of that. I do think it borders on shtick sometimes, especially with ThorHighHeels more than hazel, but maybe that's because I've watched too many of their videos in one go. at any rate while I'm not entirely convinced I think the impulse to judge games outside of the traditional "objective" parameters is a positive one, if only because it might make their viewers consider that this is how other artforms can be approached, too.

i read that based on your words, Position2, and it was really quite moving at times, and weirdly had some resonances with things in my life.

same, that was a great read

I remember Alfred's Listen Without Prejudice review made my week.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Friday, January 19, 2024 11:04 AM (yesterday)

Just saw this and am thanking u

Yeah - just adding to the chorus for that Fucked Up article.

ilxrs wr bst ptchfrkrs. fr rl. ilxrs and simon.

tylerw's Invisible Hits column was great

I bought many albums based on Dominique Leone's reviews around the mid-00's. Also distinctly remember getting Blueberry Boat (a favourite album) because of that 9.6.

The first iterations of the decades lists were also very crucial resources for me.

Yeah, Dom and Mark R were my favorite pfork writers back in those early days and their participation on ilx is what originally had me hooked. I don't think I've ever anticipated an EOY list like I did the personal top tens they'd post here.

srsly as soon as i found ilm i bailed on pitchfork as the type of information was more fun and reliable here. late 2001. except seeking any nabisco stuff there iirc. i wasn't hostile just increasingly lol.

https://apnews.com/article/music-pitchfork-gq-conde-nast-wintour-media-ecaef9445b5d9f86d9990c181306cb71

In screenshots of a public Slack channel accessible by Condé Nast staff, obtained by AP, Melissa Consorte, a Condé Nast vice president, wrote on Wednesday, “Pitchfork is not going away as a brand.”

“This is not a terrible thing for us — GQ and P4K were getting in each other’s lanes and this makes it easier for us to use them in a complementary fashion,” she said, using the popular shorthand for Pitchfork. “I think this will only help P4K feel bigger and more recognizable in the long term.”

On Thursday, Consorte followed up: “Pitchfork is not being shut down or rebranded as GQ — from a client and user perspective, everything will look the same.” And in another public Slack channel, Joanna Melissakis, Head of Sales, Beauty at Condé Nast, wrote that “Pitchfork will remain a standalone brand but the internal reporting structure is changing.”

Does that mean their editorial approaches were overlapping too much, and now P4K will focus on different stuff than whatever it is GQ covers(?)

xp I only see this from the outside, but that sounds like such bullshit. If Pitchfork is "not being shut down or rebranded" why were so many of the people who work there fired?

Does that mean their editorial approaches were overlapping too much, and now P4K will focus on different stuff than whatever it is GQ covers(?)

No, it means "We didn't anticipate the backlash — time to start backpedaling! Leak to the press! Leak to the press!" No one laid off will be getting re-hired, of course.

Makes it sound like GQ and P4K were both covering music, so why not fire all the P4K editors because the GQ ones are much better at it.

Nah, this seemed like the plan all along. Not sure why they would end Pitchfork as a brand. They just want to keep it running on the cheap.

Anna Wintour was probably meeting with an accountant who line-itemed all sorts of dubious expenditures, like her sunglasses budget or hair person or wardrobe or dinners with dictators or whatever, and she kept saying "no, no, not that, no, I need that, no" until she came across "Pitchfork" and asked "what's that?" And the accountant shrugged, so she said "cut that, then." And everyone in the office kind of looked around nervously and shrugged. And then they went home and their 30-year old kids told them how dumb a decision it was.

It's analagous to when New Times Media bought The Village Voice and fired everyone - the editorial staff, the film and music critics (Taubin, Hoberman, Christgau, etc. etc. etc. there were so many great ones) and opinion writers like Nat Hentoff, all of them giants - and then just destroyed it as a brand. I'm wondering, did they make any money doing that?

Does that mean their editorial approaches were overlapping too much, and now P4K will focus on different stuff than whatever it is GQ covers(?)

i think the opposite - aligning p4k's editorial approach with gq's (which will surely be for the worse) and if there's anything in terms of reducing overlap i'd expect p4k to do less profiles because that's about the only music coverage gq does

Larry Fitzmaurice:

"If you were a left-of-center indie act looking for a P4k look before, good luck trying to get into whatever GQ has in store features-wise (my prediction: BNM as something that applies to things beyond reviews, e.g. a social sell like "Playboi Carti's new album is named Best New Music—read our exclusive interview and check out this fashion spread with the rapper now")."

We are talking about a site that had a beer section not that long ago

ufo is right, GQ Music seems to be entirely features: https://www.gq.com/about/music

so... yeah, maybe just fewer of those(?)

I remember Alfred's Listen Without Prejudice review made my week.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Friday, January 19, 2024 11:04 AM (yesterday)

otm

"Playboi Carti's new album is named Best New Music—read our exclusive interview and check out this fashion spread with the rapper now"

lol as if that's not what it's basically been the whole time. the only real "innovation" here is rolling it all into one platform.

(golly, my cynical cynicap still fits like a charm!)

erstwhile ilxor max posted some excerpts from articles that mention the GQ editorial director, Will Welch, on bluesky. dude sounds ridiculous. around the time he was being profiled a bunch he kept mentioning his love of the Grateful Dead.. and Outkast!

wearing your purported musical taste like you might a flashy belt

Admittedly I don't read GQ very much but the idea of Pitchfork getting in its lane is pretty funny. I get that they both interview musicians, but that's hardly what I'd call GQ's lane. All bullshit, obviously. They needed to cut costs and in reality Pitchfork just wasn't worth very much to them.

I’d pick up GQ when I was taking a flight or if I was wandering around Walgreens waiting for a prescription to be filled or whatever. I’ve only flown once since… 2019ish and it wasn’t worth picking up after a quick flip-through, I guess.

gentleman's quarterly

gentleman's quarry

gentleman's chlorine

gentleman's quarrelling

gentleman's quackery

gentleman's daiquiri

daiquiri quackery

quack quack: animal collective is back!

read about their best new music in this, yes definitely, written by humans article. in the latest.

issue of pitch fork media dot com.

Gentlemen’s Shit Cat Quarterly

gay quotient (not quite gay enough)

It’s pronounced gee-cue, not jih-kwuh

gee-cue gee-cue baby baby baby

Was moved to archive my old pieces from the Pitchfork site today. I was a terrible contributor in many if not most ways, and doubt I ever filed a review on time, but thanks are due to erstwhile ilxor Scott P whose name I haven't seen mentioned in many of the obits, for his infinite patience and great charm, dedication and skill as a writer and editor. Feel like he was a real hero of the Pitchfork story.

lol as if that's not what it's basically been the whole time. the only real "innovation" here is rolling it all into one platform.

(golly, my cynical cynicap still fits like a charm!)

― she fell asleep with her hand around my throat (Austin)

sure bro

The Thom Yorke underwear shoot did nothing to help with that infamous Kid A review iirc.

be careful with comments like that. might summon some forces you don’t want to appear

i.e. Thom Yorke in underwear.

Yeah, Scott P. was a big part of that second era of Pitchfork, between the early anarchic days and the CN sale.

Parker Molloy mentioned him when she wrote about being a P4K intern in 2008, but that parenthetical is kind of brutal!

It was a neat experience that really did teach me a lot about media. I got to work in the same office as some legitimate p4k legends: Scott Plagenhoef was editor-in-chief at the time, Mark Richardson (a truly delightful human being, a contrast to Plagenhoef) sat just a few feet away from me, Amy Phillips was there, Chris Kaskie… I’m just realizing now that none of these names mean anything to 99.9% of my readers. Anyway, these were all big names at Pitchfork, and Phillips was there up until this week.

I’m just realizing now that none of these names mean anything to 99.9% of my readers.

This is why CN figures they can gut the staff and keep the brand going. Pitchfork doesn't have a bunch of recognizable names like Christgau, Hentoff, etc.

Well, Hentoff got laid off in '09.

I'm not sure that any music critics are household names, tbh

household-thony name-tano