Don’t Buy: Pitchfork’s Declining Review Quality
Of course I love Pitchfork. Sara’s listing of the review giant is somewhat of an understatement living under the words “Blogs We Buy.” My default homepage, my guide for playback-ability, my source for reblogging and water cooler chat. This one dot com holds a monopoly over the western independent music scene. But peer behind the velvet curtain of Pitchfork.tv, photos from Pitchfork Music Festival, and the news of fresh Be Your Own Pet videos, to read a recent review (any ’08er).
Allow me to regurgitate from Ian Cohen’s review of Ed HarCourt’s The Beautiful Lie. “Harcourt simply slops syrup over his bland compositions until it’s the only thing you’re able to taste,” Cohen writes, of pop music. Calling the album watered down and cliché, the reviewer plopped a 1.9 under the Dovecoat Records line and spouted out some malicious one liners, ending with “Tell Damien Rice, Badly Drawn Boy, and Tom McRae we said hi.” Who is this “we”? The Pitchfork office Decemvirate? Do the interns get to vote? There hasn’t been a “they” since the Roman Empire.
Meanwhile, “The Last Cigarette”, though starting out with an arresting image of a soldier about to face his death, soon bullies the listener into submission with unbearably maudlin clips from Editors’ “Smokers Outside the Hospital Room” (which it admittedly predated) and any number of Eel’s more lugubrious musings from Electro-Shock Blues.
The Editors track is actually called “Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors,” and yes, came out a year after HarCourt’s track. Maybe the “Ed” similarity threw him off, but my headphones didn’t pick up these maudlin clips that HarCourt, um, stole from the Editors… As HarCourt, having recorded his entire album on an eight track(!), gives off a layered echo that presented a pretty imminent barrier between the two songs.
More and more reviews read as if the writer is grasping to make some kind of statement, rather than a comprehensive analysis of the tracks, their place in music history, and whether or not the album belongs in the deep end or the shallow. I in no way agree that music reviews are complete BS–an articulate critic “in tune” with the music scene has painted many an album for me before I listened to a single note. But these current reviews are getting pretty ridiculous.
Enjoying such a sweet monopoly, Pitchfork has a responsibility (they do!) in wielding its breath of life/breath of death power. These quality gaps are scary because while the reviews become more trashy, unfounded, or tiresome, the influence of the site remains the same, if not rises. And while the statements of what should be cool? keep getting clicked, some solid artists might suffer. Not to mention your shopping cart.
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7 Comments, Comment or Ping
According to the graph, Pitchfork’s review quality will be going negative when the trees start going bare. What could that mean?
It’s ironic how as economists and sociologists have started to embrace the “long-tail” market theory of how of small, niche products (or albums) can thrive because of diverse tastes and accessibility — that there’s still a giant controlling consumer preferences and the flow of $$$.
Good post. But at the same time, if Pitchfork put an offer on your desk, would you sell out? haha.
Technically, saying “Don’t buy” to “Pitchfork’s Declining Review Quality” would mean that when people say Pitchfork’s reviews suck, you shouldn’t believe (”buy”) it, i.e. it’s a double negative in this context so the title contradicts the content.
Don’t worry Caroline, you’ll get ‘em next time.
And the graph’s not exactly drawn to scale. Because last year, it still sucked. Vampire Weekend? The Black Lips? Did those eat shit sandwiches or what? And, Ryan Schreiber didn’t even go to college and if you hear him on the radio (he’s a whore for WNYC’s Soundcheck program) it’s obvious that behind the name-dropping he’s prepped for, you can tell he’s not very smart. But, he did hire some smart people so he gets credit for that (to whom he paid like 20 bucks a review while keeping the fat advertising checks for himself) Which, speaking of monies gained, only INCREASES the shittier the reviews become by increasing the breadth of their appeal. Sure, they’ll give some (legitimately) indie labels some good reviews now and then, but even those’ll only be cheapened with each inflated review of the sound-a-like cash cows thrown their way thanks to the industry looking for “cred”. But Pitchfork’s got that inertia now so even if the mavens at the foundation of the P-fork pyramid completely turned on “them”, they’d still continue to GROW due to the lumbering nature of the word-of-mouth and the assholes that buy into it being a source of “cool music”.
Tell “Sara” to go fuck herself.
ScoJo, if I give you my login, will you edit the title for me? I didn’t go to college either.
Haha. I still read it. So whatever!!!!
DRAMARAMA! Hey isn’t that a band name? Topical.
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