Slate goes after Pitchfork in an article by Matthew Shaer. He makes some good points, but it’s a rather superficial take on the relationship among Pitchfork, blogs, and the artists.
Most problematically, he buys into the idea that there is some war being fought between Pitchfork and the blogs. One of main battlegrounds of this supposed war is the Cold War Kids. On that subject, Shaer writes:
Does this mean that everything Schreiber does with the site is couched in terms of reader reaction? Some suspect a larger agenda. Consider the case of the Cold War Kids. For a year, the California-based indie-rock quartet has been a blog favorite. This summer, even Rolling Stone had given the band a ringing endorsement. But Pitchfork, conspicuously, remained silent. When the site finally waded into the furor over the band in October, it was to deliver a withering 5.0 takedown of the Kids’ debut full-length, which reviewer Marc Hogan* called derivative and superficial.
Conspicuously silent? Maybe they were just waiting for the record to be, y’know, released. As they do with most records they review. Which is, of course, a difference between them and blogs, but hardly a malevolent plan on their part.
Beyond that, he implies that Pitchfork had some nefarious desire to destroy “blog bands,” which drove Hogan’s comments. However, this fails to account for the much more likely scenario, which is that he called them them “derivative and superficial” because, well, they are.
Not that being derivative is some horrible crime. If you like them, that’s fine, but let’s not pretend Pitchfork dissed The Beatles or Mozart or something.
Anyways, Sound Team, another “blog band” supposedly destroyed by a Pitchfork takedown is mentioned a number of times in the article. Once again, it’s fair to call them derivative and to say they don’t bring anything particularly unique to the indie music scene. The difference is that I happen to like them a lot in spite of that. In particular, I’ve been all over this track for the last couple months:
Yes, Pitchfork is a tastemaker and often takes down bands popular on blogs. So what? Even when they do it to bands I like (such as ), it’s not like they don’t make some good points. In any case, going ballistic at them for trying to undermine blogs doesn’t accomplish a whole lot and just makes bloggers look silly and paranoid.
Finally, the article continues to beat the dead horse about the numbers that accompany the reviews:
Altruism, though, doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility of a political agenda—a provocation aimed not at readers, but at the music scene at large. What else is a 3.3 review of an otherwise-lauded Dandy Warhols album than an attempt to poke holes in an established critical consensus? In this case, it’s the numbers that speak volumes and not the writing.
Yes, a 3.3 means very little. Or a 3.7 or a 5.0 or a 9.4. Quantifying the value of record so precisely you can give it decimal points is, of course, absurd. But this is not meant to be science – the numbers are hooks which (almost certainly) are often pushed in one direction or another to increase their likelihood of generating buzz about Pitchfork. They’re also the least important part of the review. And even with all the complaints about writing style, obsession with tastemaking, and so on, Pitchfork still consistently writes enough good reviews that it deserves its place.
Debate about what makes good music (and who is making it) is healthy and fun. As much as some of the complaints about Pitchfork are fair, I think it would be hard to argue that they’re a net-negative on the world of music reviews and discussion.
For an interesting discussion about Pitchfork, blogs, and the recent hullabaloo over their +/- gaffe, check out the elbo.ws forum.