How do ya'll feel about Pitchfork?

[arXiv]

I have a love/hate relationship with them. They've exposed me to a ton of great artists (and some not so great, Hercules and the Love Affair - really???) but I always feel like they are trying too hard to define cool. Like they are trying to be the MTV (the old MTV with music) for the internet. Almost like if Pitchfork gives something its stamp of approval it's undeniably great and if you don't like it, then you are too stupid to get it.

The condescension that I feel from their album reviews rubs me the wrong way. And yet, I still flock to the site when a new album drops to see if it got at least the coveted 8.0 rating.

And how do ya'll feel about their hip hop coverage in general? I always feel as though it never reflects the opinion of the streets. I guess that's okay, they are playing to their audience but once you add the element that 'Pitchfork defines what's cool and avant garde' it feels like what's hot in the streets isn't deemed worthy of Pitchfork's attention. The feeling is we (white dignified pitchfork) are above that (black street nonsense).

I'm probably tripping, overanalyzing this and projecting but curious to hear your thoughts.

 

[porque]

I have a love/hate relationship with them. They've exposed me to a ton of great artists but I always feel like they are trying to hard to define cool.

The condescension that I feel from their album reviews rubs me the wrong way.

pretty much how I've always felt about them

its a great way to find out about new artist without going to many music blogs but they seem to have a very different taste in music than me

I dont even read their album reviews anymore

 

[The 2020 New Member]

i've honestly never checked for them but i'm tired of the same ol' stuff i've been listening to so i'm on the prowl once again.

as far as a website being pretentious, i think that comes with the territory. they're all in competition to see which group of talentless losers has the best taste.

 

[Riley Escobar]

In order to cover its ass for looking fukking retarded in historical retrospect, Pitchfork will frequently throw reviews down the memory hole. Sometimes it will even pen a new favorable review, disguising the fact that they may have panned an artist who had later become a major player in a musical trend, or the opposite--panning the album of a band it had originally favored. Here are a few deleted reviews:

• 9.8 rating for UNKLE's Psyence Fiction, which was deleted. When their next album came out 4 years later, they called Psyence Fiction "one of the most anti-climactic and jaw-dropping disappointments of recent years" which "came up short on little things like, oh, vitality, restraint, emotional resonance, and tunes."

• Review for John Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard - Before Pitchfork became famous, one of their worst was Ryan Schreiber's review of a John Coltrane album where he basically talked like a 1960s negro for five paragraphs. When Schreiber realized the review made him look like a racistprick, he decided to delete fukking everything.

• 9.5 review of Save Ferris' It Means Everything

• Two negative reviews for By Divine Right albums were removed after its members became successful with the band Broken Social Scene and their own solo work. Steven Byrd's 1.8 review of By Divine Right's Bless This Mess called the members "retard(s) with a guitar" who "wouldn't know Rock and Roll if she broke into their house and beat up their children."

• 0.8-rated review of Belle and Sebastian's The Boy With the Arab Strap was removed after the band's comeback in the mid-to-late 2000s. The reviewer lambasted the band for writing songs that were "so sticky they should be hanging from Ben Stiller's ear, and I don't mean that in a good way."

• A 0.0 review of the Flaming Lips album Zaireeka; a review that also derided all Flaming Lips fans.

• A 9.4 review of The Roots album Things Fall Apart, apparently for the simple fact that the end of the very first paragraph contains the statement "although we will not un-publish anything". Yes, that's an actual quote.

• An 8.7 review of Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was deleted, yet then given a new, perfect 10 review in 2005. This stands apart from other typical Pitchfork practices- instead of just giving it new praise in a later staff list (in which it was named the 4th best album of the 90's) or simply scrubbing it from memory, NMH's dramatic rise in status as the ultimate object of indie worship and circlejerking was so profound that even a score as high as 8.7 just wasn't enough to cash in on this wave.

 

[arXiv]

So someone else has issue with pitchfork also. Where is ^^^ from?

 

[Riley Escobar]

So someone else has issue with pitchfork also. Where is ^^^ from?

https://encyclopediadramatica.es/Pitchfork

There is no reason a serious music journalist should ever give a composition a 10/10. If any work legitimately deserved that score, the human race would extinguish itself in its glorious honor and none of us would be around to ponder the implications. Yet, Pitchfork routinely hands out the score to various compositions, clearly in exchange for artists and/or their labels transacting with the Corrupt Indie Machine.

One of the most brazen examples of the inner workings of the Corrupt Indie Machine in recent memory is the rare 10.0 rating (as well as "Album of the Year" designation) Kanye West received for his album My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy. Any rudimentary analysis of this incident/transaction would reveal that Kanye had performed at "Pitchfork Offline" about one month prior to his review. Kanye had clearly obtained an agreement where he would perform for free at their retarded concert in exchange for this 10.0 rating and/or future favors to be transacted in the Corrupt Indie Machine.

Another 10.0 transaction is a review for Radiohead's "Kid A" which reads like they somehow transcribed a hipster having an orgasm.

 

[arXiv]

https://encyclopediadramatica.es/Pitchfork

"Kid A" which reads like they somehow transcribed a hipster having an orgasm.

 

[porque]

I think Kid A does give hipsters orgasm

or at least they pretend it does

 

[ThaRealness]

Pitchfork done fell off. They were always pretentious fukks, but they used to at least be good at what they did

 

[Tetris v2.0]

And how do ya'll feel about their hip hop coverage in general? I always feel as though it never reflects the opinion of the streets. I guess that's okay, they are playing to their audience but once you add the element that 'Pitchfork defines what's cool and avant garde' it feels like what's hot in the streets isn't deemed worthy of Pitchfork's attention. The feeling is we (white dignified pitchfork) are above that (black street nonsense).

I actually find that Pitchfork goes out of their way to be "down" with the latest "black street nonsense". Pretty much any mixtape by an artist with a hood buzz will get an automatic 7 at least.

They go from ATL trap to Swedish avant garde electro folk rock with the same smug level of "expertise" to portray whatever critical stance or identity that'll reinforce their brand for that particular album.

Why is this Liberal Arts grad writing a dissertation about Migos? Why would I want to hear what THEY think about it? I wish they did video reviews like Fantano so we could actually SEE them saying this shyt out loud



Their brand is that theyre the one-stop-shop for your latest culture-vulture hipster-ass-hipster needs, what to care about for the month and what to shamelessly dismiss and shyt on without listening to. Whats the latest in the "ratchet, lean-in-my-cup bangbang" world?? ask Ryan Schreiber, who also happens to be an expert on folktronica....

All this comes at the expense of objectivity, integrity and bravery in their journalism. Ever think its funny how they cover EVERY rap mixtape, EVERY random indie/electro 7"/EP release....but basically jump over every other genre of music? And if they do, its a filler target-practice review where theyre giving some lame jock-rock band a 0.75 on 10 or making fun of some old washed 80-90s act....

Pitchfork

 

[arXiv]

at FOLKtronica

 

[C. Dante]

I don't really care about their reviews and scores, but they are a good source for new music

 

[Deafheaven]

they are kinda bad.

That neutral milk album is also probably the worse thing I've ever heard, literally. I can't fathom how anyone can listen to that shyt for any amount of time. Got through like two tracks and felt like blowing my brains out. Hipsters

 

[FrostBite]

I don't really care about their reviews and scores, but they are a good source for new music

I pretty much feel the same way. However, most of the time they give an album a score of 8+, it actually is a very good album.

 

[Deafheaven]

I just never take hipsters and their views too seriously. Pitchfork and their patrons are the type of nikkas to call Videogames song of the year and then shyt on Lana Del Rey when she gets big. I knew that song was gonna make her huge and I also knew a bunch of hipster fakkits were going to kill her when she got huge, its hilarious. A lot of hipsters IRL have such shyt taste in music in general, just regurgitating w/e is hot in the scene.