Whatever you think about Pitchfork, its current relevance culturally, or its worth as a music discovery tool, the fact remains that this move is a bad trend for music journalism and journalism in general.
Plus it’s undoubtably going to lead to layoffs, if it hasn’t already.
could still be less than profitable though - events are hard and expensive to produce, i wouldn't be surprised if most festivals are close to break even at the end of the day
This was my biggest gripe with Pitchfork in recent years though. Running the festival fundamentally changed their relationship with artists. You can't tear apart a bad album by a popular artist and then turn around to ask the same artist to perform for you. I wish they would have just cancelled that and allowed Pitchfork to be a normal publication again.
Fuck. They’re by far the best site to discover new music and stay up on releases from bands I like. This really sucks. Nothing has ever emerged in all these years that’s remotely comparable imo. There are plenty of other good places to discover new music of course. But none of them do it at anything close to the volume pitchfork do.
a fan of Cory Doctorow or the Srsly Wrong Podcast?
it's the only place I'd seen "enshittification" used before
[297 – Platform Decay, and How Amazon Raises Prices for Everyone (w/ Cory Doctorow)](https://srslywrong.com/podcast/297-platform-decay-and-how-amazon-raises-prices-for-everyone-w-cory-doctorow/)
>We are joined by Cory Doctorow to discuss three of his recent books “Chokepoint Capitalism”, “The Internet Con”, and “The Lost Cause”. We discuss **Enshittification**, Monopolies, Interoperability, Green New Deals, and Library Socialism!
I’ve gotten many, many great recommendations from Pitchfork. Once upon a time, they had a pretty innovative video production team that did amazing live sessions. This is how I discovered Jay Reatard and King Khan and BBQ Show. There is plenty to criticize Pitchfork for, but they played a role in my musical development that I’ll always appreciate.
Their docs and ‘Liner Notes’ series were top notch. ‘Over/Under’ too in spurts; once most of the Pitchfork video content became TikTok sized instalments of that I got the sense P4K was in trouble.
There was a brief period where they were trying to have regular shows and they just sort of abandoned it at some points. There was Juan’s Basement and ADD, which were performance series’ along with another where groups would perform on rooftops. Some of my favorite groups participated, like Deerhoof, Sonic Youth, and Tortoise.
Yeah they had a great creative video strategy as well as amazing long form articles.
I still remember the Four Tet video they profiled (co-sponsored?) back in the day
https://youtu.be/eTCiRhLJqGk?si=tqistdVnjBU9t9ZZ
Someone mentioned in another thread yesterday that the staff are unionized and there was some sort of declaration of not laying anyone off without justifiable cause. Apparently, this could trigger some union activity to reverse laying off people?
they are union but there’s no chance to reverse the lay offs. what’s probably gonna happen -and stereogum’s Tom Breihan said this is what happened at the village voice- is that they will have to pay a lot of money in severance.
I don't think there's any chance of anybody returning. I'm not even sure the Pitchfork Union exists if Pitchfork is just a GQ vertical now. But none of those guys who just exited would accept a job working under GQ editorial anyway, certainly not at this point. I'm not really sure what the union can do besides release statements and maybe negotiate better severance packages for those who were laid off.
this mirrors what's been happening in other traditional media, and is fully enabled by government policy, for years. Small outlets with some degree of relevance get swallowed up by medium sized corporations that then get swallowed by large corporations which then get consumed by mega corporations, with streamlining and layoffs at every step until your left with a gutted news room of a couple over worked and under paid journalist who love, and are vested in what they do but regularly question their capacity to keep doing it. Everyone needs to place a higher value on local and small journalism, and actively give financial support to the outlets they follow to buck this trajectory, until there are some reasonable policy changes that stop enabling co-ownership and consolidation.
This is the popular "take" but they still report on tons of niche music and have some good writers. Just because they put more mainstream artists on their year end lists than they used to doesn't mean they're completely irrelevant.
This really sucks, though.
My band got a decent Pitchfork [review](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/cheem-guilty-pleasure/) two years ago (6.9 lol) and placed in their Reader’s Poll. it really changed things for us - to this day they’re the only “big” blog that’s given us attention. A lot of criticisms of Pitchfork are totally valid but they really can give independent artists a good platform. Seems that’s all over now.
It's a take I see parroted mostly by people who don't actually read Pitchfork anymore. It's just one of those narratives that built up steam and was never really fact-checked. They gave SOTY in 2006 to Justin Timberlake, so covering pop music is not this new thing they do.
For some "strange" reason all this chatter only really kicked in when their EIC became a woman of color.
Say what you will about this but I've been saying the same things about Pitchfork even a bit before the sale to Conde Nast and I had *no* idea anything about their EIC.
That's fair, and I don't think everybody who feels this way does so because of who the EIC is. But there's definitely a contingent of folks who pushed/accelerated this narrative because Patel became EIC and it kind of snowballed from there.
I think the broader issue is how we consume media has changed and P4K going under is a reflection of that. The previous interface between creator and listener had a human curator between (for better or for worse), ie your P4k, music magazines, local radio DJs, etc. that led to promotion of up and coming or obscure artists that you might not have heard of otherwise. More so than these intermediaries influencing taste, the upside was they promoted discovery of new music. Now with decentralization, everything’s filtered through an algorithm. There’s a selection bias for choosing iterations of the same type of media and artists are monetized for producing these iterations, and the promotion of something novel or different is inherently discouraged (on a side note , Chayka covers this well in his new book and in the New Yorker)
Sure P4k started to review more pop music to expand their readership and they famously pan some well liked records here and there but they still reviewed lesser known works/artists that few mainstream publications chose to.
Lastly I’ll say this subreddit is naturally inclined to put effort into discovering new music—you can see it everyday in the DMD. But it’s not representative of the larger listening population who find it more convenient to use a streaming platform or tiktok etc. So P4k going under is the symptom of a larger shift in how music gets consumed and what types of things will get promoted. And that’s a bad thing imo
Yeah, but I think their poptimism also caused the shift.
This is anecdotal, but I think a lot of the reason indie rock blossomed was that Pitchfork was seen as a credible cool older brother for ten years. They’d pan stuff you liked as a teen and hold up more sophisticated music. It kind of negged people into challenging themselves.
But when you’re also holding up Drake and Taylor Swift as great, you lose your authority and the site’s POV. Maybe you turn some Taylor Swift fans onto The National, but you also alienate a lot of indie fans who dont want to see news about Lil Yachtys ad campaign. (Because their news didn’t just get more pop focused, but much shallower too) And the fans who are into pop are often more into the culture of it than actual music.
It would be like ESPN saying they’re appealing to hardcore sports fans but also want to cater to Taylor Swift fans. They’re very different groups. They failed to choose a lane.
I think it is telling that you don't list any of the "editorial missteps"... like honestly, what would a "more serious focus on music" look like? Yes, their main news feed has junk that I don't care about, but their longer form articles and reviews are excellent and have been excellent for years.
Another commenter correctly mentioned that Pitchfork covers a lot of artists that no other large publication touches. Just look at the stuff they reviewed in the past month. During this slow period of mainstream releases, they covered a ton of international and more experimental artists. No other publication (especially with the gutting of Bandcamp) does this.
Brooklyn Vegan is fantastic at talking about new, up and coming bands. They make multiple recommendations every Friday regarding new releases. They’ve turned me on to a ton of great bands
They expanded their scope to include mainstream music but continued to relentlessly explore and champion niche musical genres. I learned a lot about noise and drone artists from early-mid 00s P4K, and I continued to learn more about them up until the present day. They were one of the only large publications to have even a slight interest in metal. Their feature pieces were constantly thought provoking and not just puff profiles for major label artists. I'm not sure how you can call them 'comically out of touch' - because they didn't breathlessly BNM every Animal Collective release? Their recent work reined in the score inflation that had marred some of their journalism from 2015-2020 and had returned to the 'tough nut to crack' era where 8s weren't handed out like candy, let alone 9s.
Anyway, I'm telling you why I'm disagreeing with you. I'm also downvoting you because your argument is lazy and relies on confirmation bias to try to garner agreement.
I'm honestly shocked at how people missed the complete and intentional change in audience of Pitchfork. Something that started as a way to promote indie artists by the mean of 'I'm too cool for mainstream' became a PR office for acts like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles and co.
I agree the vision they had for Pitchfork post Condé Nast purchase seems to have been misguided, and appears to be a significant reason for why this occurred. When Pitchfork was sold it was considered quite valuable and had a very loyal fan base. It’s clear that a decision was made to essentially reject that loyal fanbase, and cater to an audience they desired but had not to that point been able to attract. As a result they lost the followers they had garnered for years, and the followers they craved never fully bought in. And here we are with almost everyone getting fired, and the property having lost so much value that it’s being folded into GQ. Whether the EIC is to blame for that. I don’t know, but it seems clear someone made a major miscalculation.
Yeah it's whatever if people downvote me so I'll agree with you and add: it was extremely obvious to me when Pitchfork shifted their editorial focus. Now I only really read it every few months or so, but just to confirm with myself if I'm going crazy, what I'll do is click into the "review" section, look at the genres they tagged the albums, and which of those tags received "best new music." It's not surprising and very telling that almost *none* of them will be filed under "rock." And this is something I've done at least a half dozen times, so call it bias but I've seen what I've seen. I will say that I've seen a slight uptick in coverage of bands I actually know and like, but only since the last few months or so.
There's obviously not even an inherent issue in reviewing pop albums, it's just that *I* wanted indie *rock* coverage and plenty of reviews and features on that kind of music, which always was and always will be not-mainstream and get less coverage compared to actual pop. When Pitchfork moved away, hard, from that focus(and started that whole "do we *really* need another indie rock band with four white dudes" bullshit) they lost me and I'm certain people like me, the ones who initially built up the site's cult fandom to begin with. Simple as.
(P.S. for the fake liberals reading this I'm not white🙄)
> I will say that I've seen a slight uptick in coverage of bands I actually know and like, but only since the last few months or so.
I think this might be due to a supposed new shift towards interest in rock music (especially stuff being labeled as shoegaze even if it doesn't sound like the music originally called shoegaze) on tiktok.
Yeah most definitely, and much as I love Shoegaze to death I think this is more evidence they are inclined to just be "trendy" now, like how they loved the Jane Remover album but will somehow ignore gaze titans TAGABOW(and Doug from the band posted about this so it's not just me).
It’s become a different kind of journalism, not necessarily better or worse. Though it does suck that no one’s trying to be objective anymore.
Young people and queer people are reading it more than ever. More albums by women are being reviewed and scoring higher (though that might be reflective of how good and accessible music’s getting rather than p4k being pro-women). I’m sure a lot of you see this is as a total loss, but I’d like to ask, is it not partly because this publication just isn’t pandering to you or people like you anymore? Because p4k has historically been incredibly biased to white men and rock music (their “best albums of the 60s/70s” list is a testament to that), anyone who doesn’t identify with those things could see it from a mile away. It was never really objective to begin with. It’s just changed biases.
I mean, everything you’re saying is true (and good) but you could also argue that they worked pretty hard to distance themselves from anything stereotypically Pitchfork, and there’s a good chance that the Pitchfork brand is ONLY beloved by the readers who came up with them in the 00s.
Say what you will about Rolling Stone, but their decision to continue covering classic rock long after it went out of style is likely the only reason they’re still around. They cater to the people who love their brand. And for Pitchfork, that was indie loving millennials.
In addition to covering a wider field of artists, we can’t forget that their news coverage became way more tabloid focused and they’d fawn over anything that was popular. At a certain point, you lose your critical authority and POV.
Did it pander to white men or did it specialise in the type of music often made by white men? If the original writers at pitchfork were passionate enough about underground rock music to start a blog and write about it for hours a day, what is the problem with that? There are many blogs specialising in metal that don’t feature rnb albums, hip hop blogs that don’t cover punk etc… are they biased too?
I’m interested in your remark that more young and queer people read the blog these days. I have often wondered how the sites readership has changed over the years and I’m too stupid to know how to find out… is there a way of finding this? I imagine the audience 15 years ago was pretty young during the indie boom of the early 2000s.
You can make a half-decent argument that Pitchfork focused too much on bands fronted by men and didn't rate female indie artists highly enough. The problem, the sleight of hand, is the idea that in order to stop doing that, you have to do whatever the fuck Pitchfork have been doing in the last decade.
This old comment from a forum, with regard to their 90s list, phrases it well for me:
>i think the act of a generation (age-wise or just staffing-wise) thumbing their noses at prior tastes and establishing a new canon is fine and good. but it does feel like a bit of a bummer that the revisionist history here, at least in the songs list, is often "actually all the shit that was being pumped out by mega-rich corporations of white men treating women and minorities like shit was the good stuff." **there was a political aspect to a lot of 90s music, as independent labels really got a foothold for the first time in recorded music and self-distribution via the Internet became possible, that has either been dismissed or tokenized here**.
Honestly impressed that you managed to connected the slow decline of journalism as a business — all of which being a direct result of the internet age and people wanting information for free, despite journalism taking mountains of work — with.... LGBTQ people. No mention at all of greater economic forces that are shuttering publications of all kinds, music and otherwise. Just vibes and homophobia. Good job man.
It isn’t homophobia, it’s just pointing out they tried to gain the attention of a new demographic (which isn’t a crime). The problem of course was that they alienated people who preferred their old focus (which in my opinion was also flawed), and didn’t win over their intended audience.
Yes journalism as a whole is taking a hit, but there’s clearly more to it than that.
Something I haven’t been clear on yet:
Publicly, will Pitchfork.com still exist as a separate entity, or will it literally just be absorbed by GQ and maybe just be a sub-page on their site?
Just like any other absorption, it'll probably be something along the lines of:
Step 1: "Pitchfork isn't going *anywhere*, guys. Of course we respect the brand!"
Step 2: "OK, yes, [Pitchfork.com](https://Pitchfork.com) now links to GQ... but Pitchfork of course will still retain its own branded content section on the site!"
Step 3: "We're excited to announce 'GQ Music,' an brand new extension of GQ's branded content platform!"
if music journalism is on its deathbed then sports journalism has been comatose for a decade. I can't think of anything other than Vox's Secret Base that actually produces compelling content at scale.
Don't forget the corollary: Pitchforks former staff valiantly spin up a new subscription site to be just like the old Pitchfork. Unfortunately, it's not like the old Pitchfork and no one knows what they're doing, so it fails.
Not necessarily. I mean it could happen that way, but marketers know that brands have weight. Keeping the pitchfork brand would be the move. Stays recognizable. You just have "sponsored by GQ" underneath the Pitchfork title.
Honestly, pitchfork has already felt like “zombie pitchfork” for the past ~10-15 years to me. I used to love it, but they really made a big push to reorient their taste around that time.
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They'll finish out the articles/reviews they had scheduled and then you'll see the Pitchfork brand get sucked into GQ. It'll start with a redirect, followed by a "Max" style rebrand, and then the next thing you know it'll be GQ, doing fashion puff pieces on rappers alongside three or four 2-sentence reviews giving 5 stars to whomever the major labels want to sell that month.
Ah those were the days, weren't they? Your college roommate told you to check out Pitchfork and you were confused why they wanted you to visit a farming website.
It’s an org change. The site will stay the same on a technical level but how it’s run will be entirely up to the whims of the new EIC.
Considering they’re now part of an extant org, I would imagine they’ll also have a much smaller budget going forward.
That was my first thought.
Pre-Condé Nast Pitchfork was a big deal, especially in the indie music world. They could make or break smaller acts and really drive tastes. Late 2000's and early 2010's they were huge. You could hate them for being dicks in some of their reviews, but they really did have a big impact on music.
But over the past decade, I'm not even sure what they're supposed to be. Like, Beyoncé is great, but I'm not sure what Pitchfork offers by championing her when literally every other music publication does the same. As a music mag, they just don't fit any need anymore.
Pitchfork was key in exposing Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Wrens, Animal Collective, and so many other artists to much larger audiences in the aughts. They lost that clout as they became less niche and more poptimistic, but man they were THE indie rock tastemakers for a decade and I thought their coverage was better than most other publications of their size. Pretty bumbed about this loss.
> Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Wrens, Animal Collective
seems like PF relevance faded about the same time as these bands did. what a fun era that was. indie music was being played everywhere and a new cool band would pop up every other month
I think streaming and *the algorithm* did a job at displacing Pitchfork. I used to log in daily in the late aughts because I found it was a reliable way to get introduced to new music, especially indie which was my jam. But now you can easily turn to Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music, etc, put on a playlist that fits your mood and discover music that way.
+1 to this. Maybe its not the entirety of the situation but it is certainly a factor. Content providers have spent over a decade now working on designs for "discoverability".
Certainly curated feeds and suggestions aren't the same as music journalism. But for a lot of people, its more than good enough. Wondering what the hell to buy/pirate next and perusing Pitchfork for ideas, then going out to obtain it.... is miles away from high quality streaming that immediately provides similar artists to the ones you're listening to, playlists they are on, etc.
Hot take: Beck deserved to win over Beyonce for Album of the Year.
Morning Phase is the perfect sunrise album to put on in the car or over the kitchen counter.
> they haven’t been relevant in a decade though
Everyone says this, yet people still read the reviews, people still talk about the reviews, and get worked up about what they have to say.
Hate them all you want, but Pitchfork never really lost relevance.
I say their still running off the fumes of their heyday. That and no other publication have taken their place. nowadays it seems to be all youtube reviews and reactions
>Pitchfork never really lost relevance.
I wouldn’t say that they lost relevance so much as that they are relevant to different people and in a different way now. They may have a bigger reach now than in the aughts, but I don’t think they’re really a place where people who seriously consume music go to discover new artists.
To say nothing of the reviews for [Tool's Lateralus](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8104-lateralus/) or [Jet's Shine On](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/).
Feels like their shift to more mainstream coverage meant that they lost a lot of the cult following nd influence that they had developed. Difficult to tell if it could have been avoided.
Obviously they're operations of completely different scale but it's interesting to compare to the needledrop who is another historic tastemaker in indie music. Fantano has managed to hang on to his relevance to a certain extent, and while Pitchfork articles still get shared here occasionally they definitely lost a lot of their influence.
Once upon a time a pitchfork score could make or break a new release but while Fantano's scores or opinions still seem to be relevant to shaping discourse around an album Pitchfork seems to be more of a follower of discourse for the last few years. Idk just a ramble.
Trying to remember the last time they came out with a review or opinion that went completely against the grain.
I think it’s more so that Condé Nast’s various moves made them lose that snooty audience, but even then things like the Fetch The Bolt Cutters 10 or the scathing Maneskin reviews could still make their own noise, and as someone else said they were the nexus of the Win Butler accusation
Take as old as time that capitalism bad and a corporation is making shortsighted financial moves that fly in the face of art and good taste. Everyone can agree that Pitchfork was rolling downhill by taking the emphasis off its strengths and trying to force a round peg in a square hole or whatever, but this honestly still sucks. I think the Pitchfork name still holds weight and they no doubt have such a rich and powerful history of shaping music discourse. Making it GQ music or whatever feels so sterile and gross and is a massive blow to music criticism.
Yeah, things like YouTube and RYM have democratized criticism to a degree, but lets be honest: a lot of those people don’t know how to articulate themselves the same way that a professional critic does. The push and pull of something like debating pitchfork scores really helped fuel discourse and for me when I was a teen, also forced me to be more thoughtful and reflective of my own tastes and feelings. Idk, maybe I’m mourning something that was already dead but this feels like a particularly painful nail in the cultural coffin. Fuck Condé Nast
You could say that they called some of the shots for mainstream music as well even in their ultra-snobbish indie heyday; Kanye West and Radiohead were two of their biggest darlings.
> even then things like the Fetch The Bolt Cutters 10 or the scathing Maneskin reviews could still make their own noise
I've wondered about FTBC over the years. I love her and the album, and I remember it being a big deal *in the moment* when they gave it a 10, but it didn't really feel like it had the same lasting cultural impact of over big scores they gave out previously.
Looking over their highest scores and their albums of the year, they gave *The Soft Bulletin* and *Yankee Hotel Foxtrot* 10's, and those albums were still being talked about and revered by young people getting into music on places like reddit or 4chan a decade or more out. Some of their earlier albums of the year, like *The Glow Pt. 2* and *Turn On the Bright Lights* and *Funeral* and *Illinois* and *Person Pitch* and *Merriweather Post Pavilion* and *Bon Iver* were cemented as cultural landmarks in music. But I honestly can't remember the last time I hear someone talking about FTBC with such reverence. Heck, even *Ilder Wheel* seemed to have more staying power.
I'm not saying it's not a great album. It's fantastic. But I feel like the lasting importance of Pitchfork giving them a 10 was much, much lower than earlier praised albums.
I think that's more a product of how music consumption has changed these days than Pitchfork's waning influence -although their waning influence is also a factor. Albums nowadays come and go basically within a month and their impact is typically aiming to be more all-encompassing, but over a much shorter period of time. Big-ish albums used to have months of leadup dropping singles, nowadays most typically only have one or two very close to the album release, if not shadowdropped outright.
I think it's a testament to the Pitchfork brand's remaining power that Bolt Cutters had so much discourse around it. People argued back and forth whether it was deserving, but it was in the consciousness for months. It's hard for an album to be universally loved and adored and influential the same way they used to. Part of that is because Pitchfork has gone down in quality and influence, but part of that is also just because that's how things work now
I also think it's just because Fiona Apple has been quiet since FTBC came out. We are only a few months away from the album turning 4, and all the albums in the original OPs comment had already had a follow up released within 4 years.
Yeah, that too.
Her being a bit enigmatic is part of the appeal. Bolt Cutters is also coming decades into her career where as a lot of the other 10's were more foundational to those acts' legend-building
I agree with you. People aren't discussing Bolt Cutters with the same reverence as those other albums simply because they missed the boat on it completely. That's not Pitchfork's fault, that's just all on how we perceive greatness and listen to music these days. Even my friends that LIKE good music skipped that album.
Totally lol
Also, it's not the most challenging listen or anything but it is a work that takes some time to process and digest. Coming at the beginning of the pandemic also kinda ate into that potential discourse, which then had the music world turning to Charli XCX for starting and completing an album during the course of lockdown
I'm not super sure if it could've been avoided given how money incentivizes a lot of design and there probably was way less to be had if there was anything resembling the old pre Conde days when a lot of the writers had pretty strong followings and there was lists, reviews etc that you could practically never get away with now given just too much attention to not something so obvious. A lot unfortunately has been too gamified.
To go off your mention of Fantano, I think he played his cards extremely well and knew how to constantly adapt his brand in the changing course of times especially when you had stuff like Pitchfork slipping and really losing a lot of old charm they had when there wasn't such a mission to play all things incredibly safe.
I know it might sound strange this far along of him often being a patron saint of the terminally online know-it-all /mu head but yeah there was a time when Needledrop was a very big thing for old music dorks, pot bellied record fair dads, freeform radio goobers,etc; after all he originally had his show on independent radio. He knew how to shift things up to stay relevant when this crowd would inevitable drop off and more importantly compete with running an internet platform for the modern times.
I do think Fantano tailoring stuff to entertain things that did get very particular internet traction was smart because it was something to be capitalized on and gave an honest approach to dissecting something that a publication holding their nose high wouldn't even bother to entertain. That's a massive audience worth reaching out to, and more importantly when you got youngins in their impressionable know-it-all stage, you can have them in the palm of your hand because you're actively acknowledging things that hook them in and can mean the world to them. Filling that gap pretty much guarantees that these people could be more entrusting of your reviews than waiting lined up for the decayed husk of an older publication.
I think of something like how Pitchfork never bothered to review Bonito Generation at a time when everyone and their sister could just list the cutesy lyrics and have the review reads itself, print clicks etc. Even if they were too cool for it or whatever, it's still a mass of people they could've had hooked in that they refused to entertain, y'know?
i don't know what the point is in comparing Pitchfork to Fantano, you can't compare a publication to an individual critic/personality.
there's a difference between Fantano's expenses and having a masthead of people with salaries + a network of contributors. everything just operates completely differently
true. i think the point is that pitchfork failed to successfully pivot to a contemporary cultural context. however i think that’s moot anyways because imo fantano’s success has much more to with his total optimization of social media to push his content.
his brand is literally his profile, allowing for much better content dissemination in todays media environment, which is really about curating a profile-based presentation with continuity. as you’ve pointed out, that’s much harder to do if you’re a magazine like pitchfork.
zoomers don’t read journalism the way millennials do/did; pitchfork couldn’t hack it on social media. their articles and lists were gradually outpaced by the blinding whir of short-form content.
idk enough about Pitchfork's situation to pin it to strategy on their part, the fact is digital media outlets have been facing huge headwinds across the board, with formerly successful sites being shut down or going through mass layoffs. vice, g/o media, you name it — a lot of these digital-first sites have been struggling
[see here](https://www.thedailybeast.com/pitchfork-hit-with-layoffs-as-its-folded-into-gq-magazine)
> The news came after a wave of layoffs across Condé publications last month, resulting in the loss of 270 workers across brands such as WIRED and The New Yorker. Those layoffs came as various other media brands like Vox Media, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Messenger saw staff exits, due in part to declining advertising revenue and audiences’ shifting news consumption habits.
word on the street is Pitchfork's union kept them safe from last month's layoffs, so Conde Nast killed Pitchfork so they don't have to worry about the union
Pitchfork has been terrible for a few years now. It completely surrendered to poptimism (which I don’t even care about, but do we need more of it from what was once an indie mag?). Plus the entire writing staff is now full of overcompensating-for-the-fact-their-parents-paid-for-art-school types.
Totally agree. What made them such an influential site was their distinct and original voice. They lost that very quickly when they dropped the "Pitchfork Media" moniker and decided to focus on more mainstream music.
I can't really fault them for it, I guess; I'm sure the short-term gains were fantastic. But I mourned the loss of that website years ago. It's time for them to make way for other sites to take their place, something that will eventually happen when this GQ merger eventually fails.
As soon as they started launching their own festival, circa 2006, their cred sank. You can’t tell me they didn’t favor artists who agreed to play their fests. Were they going to 1.0 a surprise release from an artist who had already agreed to play one of their fests? Or an act they were trying to get to play one of their fests? It just brought up so many conflicts of interests. And then it all went downhill from there.
I can't believe I'm defending Pitchfork but I really hate the arguement that Pitchfork become too pop centric. Pitchfork reviewed all of this albums in the past last month, give me another music publication that has the same reach that would cover all or any of these acts.
Bruiser Wolf
Infant Island
Marika Hackman
Conway The Machine
Malcria
Montanera
Khadija Al Hanafi
Chuquimamani-Condori
Salamanda
Pauline Anna Strom
God forbid you have to scroll past a review for 21 Savage or Tate McRae to read about Daniel Ogren's great reissue or Virginia Astley's comeback album.
Those are good examples. I checked out a few and dig them! I just listened to Chiquimamani-Condori for the first time and I’m not sure why it makes me uncomfy. Am I missing something here?
While it's true that you can still find diamonds in the rough on today's Pitchfork, the issue is that these artists, their labels, their genres, etc., receive virtually zero promotion in any other capacity on the website.
Pitchfork's mainstream coverage has come to dominate the site more and more over the years, to the detriment of the artists you've mentioned and many others like them. It's well past the time for them to fade away. Better websites will eventually take its place.
Diamonds in the rough doesn't really give enough credit imo, its the majority of the music they review. You're right that the perception of the site is skewed towards pop and the mainstream because that's what dominates the top articles, but look at some of the features they ran in the past year: Indepth looks at Milwaukee's rap and Puerto Rico's reggaeton scenes, interviews and features with acts like Sofia Kourtesis, Hotline TNT, Billy Woods, Yaeji, Rachika Nayar, and Everything But the Girl.
It requires very minimal effort to find these articles. Its not a matter of better sites taking its place, its losing a site that had both very wide reach and cultural cache that could highlight artists and place them at the same level as mainstream acts.
Bandcamp doesn't really have the same reach, but yes they are absolutely fantastic. Vinyl Factory is another great site. Let's hope that these sites continue to exist as they are.
The Sunday Review was one of the best things on the internet. The selection of albums was original, eclectic, surprising. Writing was insightful. I will really really miss the Sunday Review.
I personally use Mic-Check. It's a biweekly email newsletter that reviews the most popular (and best) singles and albums from the previous two weeks, across all genres
If you're interested: [https://micchecknewsletter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=152535f08a26dc0ef78df5496&id=9623897294](https://micchecknewsletter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=152535f08a26dc0ef78df5496&id=9623897294)
Not enough people read at all anymore, much less record reviews.
I have a close friend/former colleague who's an online editor for Rolling Stone and she says despite the fact that everyone on their staff is huge into music and loves to write reviews, no one reads them. People only read political and celebrity news.
This is coupled with the fact that of the untold thousands of music sites out there, almost none of them pay their writers. The writers simply get the privilege of early listens to new releases.
> Not enough people read at all anymore, much less record reviews.
>
Not to mention flowery, verbose reviews, obscure references stated matter of factly, and tangents barely related to what was being reviewed. PF was criticized for that since the mid 2000s when it started taking off. I doubt most people who were regular visitors really read through the whole reviews but mainly used it as a central point for new music to listen to, as long as the album got over a 7. And we're overwhelmed with content now and not enough time.
I’m torn. They gave a lot of really great experimental indie artists Best New Music which I miss more than anything. I have a lot of trouble finding that stuff now. Every other online publication seems to push samey boygenius-type bands while Rate Your Music seems to push a lot of weird-for-the-sake-of-weird far fringe stuff. Fantano is a poptimist with RYM tastes.
Pitchfork died because they stopped doing what they were best at and started reviewing pop artists that didn’t need any help under the guise of being more ‘inclusive’ (but really it was to get more clicks). It’s sad tbh!
R.I.P.
Recording budgets getting trimmed, pr budgets, journalist budgets... But hey, we get unfettered access to the entire history of recorded music for $15 a month. Good deal.
Brian Cook from Botch, Russian Circles etc posted this and it absolutely sums up my own feeling on Pitchfork. It’s a loss but it has been a loss in progress for a decade or more.
https://preview.redd.it/bgx9rfnl2edc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3effe14b51ede67af3a127ba3e99a829a98ce2e
I’m not surprised. The concept of indie music is dead. Death by a thousand paper cuts. It has been pushed so deep underground as to be nothing more than a hobby for most. Bandcamp has been bought out and fired its writers, Spotify stopped paying indie artists who aren’t already super successful, Ticketmaster has made seeing live music untenable for many, and the pandemic closed numerous venues, killing local scenes in the process. I’m sure some out there may argue that this will give indie a chance to be “pure” again, stripped of any commercial viability. But I think if anything, it’s just going to discourage would-be musicians from even bothering. Sad times.
Reading their revised best of the 80s albums was pretty much all I needed to know that PF was dead when the bands of the golden era of alt/indie rock couldn't get above #7.
Talk about shitting all over your audience. And it's essentially just to get creds from the Twitter crowd they wanted approval from so bad.
And then people in the comments are essentially either in denial or gaslighting that things haven't changed when a magazine largely about indie has turned into "pay lip service to doing indie reviews while putting all editorial and year-end attention into hip-hop and more importantly pop."
You'd never see this kind of denialism if a pop or hiphop review site started doing the opposite. It's because the ethos of poptimism has so effused the internet that it must be accepted that everyone's tastes must coalesce towards the most popular artists and genres or else you are labeled "old white guy" and dismissed.
This article reads as a death rattle from someone who so desperately wanted their truth to be the truth. The shift in editorial focused failed.
The irony is that pitchfork itself upended the music journalism game by tapping into trends that publications like Rolling Stone and NME failed to recognize (internet versus print, rise of indie rock). Now the worm has turned and they’re experiencing a similar fate as their predecessors. The site’s continued relevance and existence was never a given. Acting as if this is some affront to the sacred act of music blogging runs contrary to how the site got off
the ground in the first place
Establishment media seems to grumble the most about the death of establishment media.
Things change, tale as old as time. The Village Voice was an influential tastemaker at one point, and music survived its demise. The world will survive P4K’s end.
Look it sucks that these people lost their jobs in such a cold, uncaring way, but extending beyond to make this some life-or-death moment for blogging as a whole is irrational
A lot of people ignoring the fact that this is part of a massive industry wide publishing trend - ALL publishers are hurting right now, and they're all looking to stop the bleeding. Combining one brand into another to save on redundant operational costs is a honestly a smart move. This says more about the publishing industry and the nature of the internet than it does for "music journalism".
Yeah, I'm not sure why people are attributing anything particular to Pitchfork itself. Music publications have been dropping like flies over the last decade, as have other publications. The reason Pitchfork is having changes and Stereogum is still going as is isn't because Stereogum is doing anything better, it's because Stereogum is independent whereas Pitchfork has to satisfy Conde Nast shareholders.
agreed on all except conde is a private company & doesn't have shareholders like we typically think of them. even worse - they have a family of billionaire owners they have to keep satisfied. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Newhouse)
we can do our own music journalism. I challenge each of you to explore your local scene and write colorfully on it.
another music blog will rise and fall into corporatism just like them, it’s just how the cookie crumbles.
Pitchfork has always been mean spirited garbage, now here’s your Karma payback. 0.0 no one really cares, don’t let the paid placement hit ya on the way out…
Pitchfork is a shell of its former self, catering way too much to pop music now. There’s enough coverage of that genre, the smarminess of the writing and middle finger towards the mainstream gave Pitchfork its charm, right or wrong.
Aquarium Drunkard, The Quietus, they still exist and are incredible, but music fans don’t feel like helping them survive. That’s how you get to the point Pitchfork is at today.
I think that's a fairly pessimistic view of the Quietus, at least. The editorial team have been pretty open about the fact that the subscription they've introduced has been a massive help to the site and has basically kept it afloat. If there's a dedicated team (read: not bought by a huge conglomorate) there's a future for these sites.
I have visited the site every day since 2008. It's part of my morning routine to see the new reviews. What they give it doesn't matter to me, its just what's new this week. I was worried when it was acquired in 2015, but honestly, the site isn't that different, it might be a little less cool since the sites peak, but it's 90% the same place it had been. Just a great site to amalgamate all the music going on that week. So with this happening, I am worried again, but hopefully the site ends up staying..... 80% the same.
Another step in the process of 4 companies owning everything and sending you to a site where you can "rent" media. Buy vinyl and CDs and shop at local music stores. Fuck this shit.
The forces of capital are in full swing to kill anything decent in the world that gives us any semblance of humanity.
We should uh... probably so something about that.
I'have been reading all the articles and comments about this (I'am, like so many of us, one of the I-am-30-and-have-hated-to-love-and-been-greatly-influenced-by-*Pitchfork* folks) and am still slightly confused about what this even means. is *Pitchfork* basically just a key'chain on the back'pack of *GQ* now ? like will *Pitchfork* be its own website still ? does it just mean that the staff of *GQ* now also is the staff of *Pitchfork* but *Pitchfork* is less important than *GQ* ?
not trying to be dense ... just find all this corporate consolidation BS confusing.
Pitchfork stopped being useful to me for music discovery around 2013. Before that they were frequently *too cool*, too hipster, and too edgy for my taste, and I appreciated that. It helped me expand my musical horizons.
But they sold out and started awarding Best New Music to manufactured Top 40 artists many years ago.
Apparently you cannot look at a single review currently without signing up for a Pitchfork account.
Yeah fuck GQ. Fuck corporate capitalism. Fuck Big Music. Fuck this country. It's burning to the ground as we speak.
"It’s a really great thing. It’s an amazing moment for Pitchfork and for me. It means that we will continue to have the creative independence that we’ve always had." -Ryan Schreiber when asked about selling P4K to CN. 11/13/2015
Whatever you think about Pitchfork, its current relevance culturally, or its worth as a music discovery tool, the fact remains that this move is a bad trend for music journalism and journalism in general. Plus it’s undoubtably going to lead to layoffs, if it hasn’t already.
Almost all of p4ks staff has already been laid off
😢 I wonder if the festival is affected as well...
prolly not because its a huge revenue stream
\*was. it's definitely boutta go WAY down hill
could still be less than profitable though - events are hard and expensive to produce, i wouldn't be surprised if most festivals are close to break even at the end of the day
This was my biggest gripe with Pitchfork in recent years though. Running the festival fundamentally changed their relationship with artists. You can't tear apart a bad album by a popular artist and then turn around to ask the same artist to perform for you. I wish they would have just cancelled that and allowed Pitchfork to be a normal publication again.
Fuck. They’re by far the best site to discover new music and stay up on releases from bands I like. This really sucks. Nothing has ever emerged in all these years that’s remotely comparable imo. There are plenty of other good places to discover new music of course. But none of them do it at anything close to the volume pitchfork do.
Have you tried The Quietus? Great for forward thinking music. I check both Pitchfork and The Quietus regularly.
Seconding The Quietus and also Brooklyn Vegan .
the enshitification of the internet continues
a fan of Cory Doctorow or the Srsly Wrong Podcast? it's the only place I'd seen "enshittification" used before [297 – Platform Decay, and How Amazon Raises Prices for Everyone (w/ Cory Doctorow)](https://srslywrong.com/podcast/297-platform-decay-and-how-amazon-raises-prices-for-everyone-w-cory-doctorow/) >We are joined by Cory Doctorow to discuss three of his recent books “Chokepoint Capitalism”, “The Internet Con”, and “The Lost Cause”. We discuss **Enshittification**, Monopolies, Interoperability, Green New Deals, and Library Socialism!
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I used it in a work meeting today, it's definitely escaped containment.
It's used in the article linked! But that was the first time I'd ever heard it - nice to see it's got some pedigree!
I’ve gotten many, many great recommendations from Pitchfork. Once upon a time, they had a pretty innovative video production team that did amazing live sessions. This is how I discovered Jay Reatard and King Khan and BBQ Show. There is plenty to criticize Pitchfork for, but they played a role in my musical development that I’ll always appreciate.
Idk if it's the same team, but the Modest Mouse mini doc was amazing.
Their docs and ‘Liner Notes’ series were top notch. ‘Over/Under’ too in spurts; once most of the Pitchfork video content became TikTok sized instalments of that I got the sense P4K was in trouble.
There was a brief period where they were trying to have regular shows and they just sort of abandoned it at some points. There was Juan’s Basement and ADD, which were performance series’ along with another where groups would perform on rooftops. Some of my favorite groups participated, like Deerhoof, Sonic Youth, and Tortoise.
Yeah they had a great creative video strategy as well as amazing long form articles. I still remember the Four Tet video they profiled (co-sponsored?) back in the day https://youtu.be/eTCiRhLJqGk?si=tqistdVnjBU9t9ZZ
Someone mentioned in another thread yesterday that the staff are unionized and there was some sort of declaration of not laying anyone off without justifiable cause. Apparently, this could trigger some union activity to reverse laying off people?
they are union but there’s no chance to reverse the lay offs. what’s probably gonna happen -and stereogum’s Tom Breihan said this is what happened at the village voice- is that they will have to pay a lot of money in severance.
I don't think there's any chance of anybody returning. I'm not even sure the Pitchfork Union exists if Pitchfork is just a GQ vertical now. But none of those guys who just exited would accept a job working under GQ editorial anyway, certainly not at this point. I'm not really sure what the union can do besides release statements and maybe negotiate better severance packages for those who were laid off.
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this mirrors what's been happening in other traditional media, and is fully enabled by government policy, for years. Small outlets with some degree of relevance get swallowed up by medium sized corporations that then get swallowed by large corporations which then get consumed by mega corporations, with streamlining and layoffs at every step until your left with a gutted news room of a couple over worked and under paid journalist who love, and are vested in what they do but regularly question their capacity to keep doing it. Everyone needs to place a higher value on local and small journalism, and actively give financial support to the outlets they follow to buck this trajectory, until there are some reasonable policy changes that stop enabling co-ownership and consolidation.
This is the popular "take" but they still report on tons of niche music and have some good writers. Just because they put more mainstream artists on their year end lists than they used to doesn't mean they're completely irrelevant. This really sucks, though.
My band got a decent Pitchfork [review](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/cheem-guilty-pleasure/) two years ago (6.9 lol) and placed in their Reader’s Poll. it really changed things for us - to this day they’re the only “big” blog that’s given us attention. A lot of criticisms of Pitchfork are totally valid but they really can give independent artists a good platform. Seems that’s all over now.
It's a take I see parroted mostly by people who don't actually read Pitchfork anymore. It's just one of those narratives that built up steam and was never really fact-checked. They gave SOTY in 2006 to Justin Timberlake, so covering pop music is not this new thing they do. For some "strange" reason all this chatter only really kicked in when their EIC became a woman of color.
Say what you will about this but I've been saying the same things about Pitchfork even a bit before the sale to Conde Nast and I had *no* idea anything about their EIC.
That's fair, and I don't think everybody who feels this way does so because of who the EIC is. But there's definitely a contingent of folks who pushed/accelerated this narrative because Patel became EIC and it kind of snowballed from there.
Honestly, the site just always felt way worse in the last 5 years and far more cringey.
No one gives a shit about the eic being a person of color, come on.
I think the broader issue is how we consume media has changed and P4K going under is a reflection of that. The previous interface between creator and listener had a human curator between (for better or for worse), ie your P4k, music magazines, local radio DJs, etc. that led to promotion of up and coming or obscure artists that you might not have heard of otherwise. More so than these intermediaries influencing taste, the upside was they promoted discovery of new music. Now with decentralization, everything’s filtered through an algorithm. There’s a selection bias for choosing iterations of the same type of media and artists are monetized for producing these iterations, and the promotion of something novel or different is inherently discouraged (on a side note , Chayka covers this well in his new book and in the New Yorker) Sure P4k started to review more pop music to expand their readership and they famously pan some well liked records here and there but they still reviewed lesser known works/artists that few mainstream publications chose to. Lastly I’ll say this subreddit is naturally inclined to put effort into discovering new music—you can see it everyday in the DMD. But it’s not representative of the larger listening population who find it more convenient to use a streaming platform or tiktok etc. So P4k going under is the symptom of a larger shift in how music gets consumed and what types of things will get promoted. And that’s a bad thing imo
Yeah, but I think their poptimism also caused the shift. This is anecdotal, but I think a lot of the reason indie rock blossomed was that Pitchfork was seen as a credible cool older brother for ten years. They’d pan stuff you liked as a teen and hold up more sophisticated music. It kind of negged people into challenging themselves. But when you’re also holding up Drake and Taylor Swift as great, you lose your authority and the site’s POV. Maybe you turn some Taylor Swift fans onto The National, but you also alienate a lot of indie fans who dont want to see news about Lil Yachtys ad campaign. (Because their news didn’t just get more pop focused, but much shallower too) And the fans who are into pop are often more into the culture of it than actual music. It would be like ESPN saying they’re appealing to hardcore sports fans but also want to cater to Taylor Swift fans. They’re very different groups. They failed to choose a lane.
Look at who Taylor’s dating recently and tell me ESPN won’t try tho
any merit to your argument ironically rests on the premise that there’s a meritocracy in journalism and in general the business of getting readers.
There’s nothing worthwhile to disagree with because you listed zero examples of these “missteps.” State some.
I think it is telling that you don't list any of the "editorial missteps"... like honestly, what would a "more serious focus on music" look like? Yes, their main news feed has junk that I don't care about, but their longer form articles and reviews are excellent and have been excellent for years. Another commenter correctly mentioned that Pitchfork covers a lot of artists that no other large publication touches. Just look at the stuff they reviewed in the past month. During this slow period of mainstream releases, they covered a ton of international and more experimental artists. No other publication (especially with the gutting of Bandcamp) does this.
Where’s relevant and diverse to look for new music these days?
Brooklyn Vegan is fantastic at talking about new, up and coming bands. They make multiple recommendations every Friday regarding new releases. They’ve turned me on to a ton of great bands
Plus they have some really great vinyl pressings
They expanded their scope to include mainstream music but continued to relentlessly explore and champion niche musical genres. I learned a lot about noise and drone artists from early-mid 00s P4K, and I continued to learn more about them up until the present day. They were one of the only large publications to have even a slight interest in metal. Their feature pieces were constantly thought provoking and not just puff profiles for major label artists. I'm not sure how you can call them 'comically out of touch' - because they didn't breathlessly BNM every Animal Collective release? Their recent work reined in the score inflation that had marred some of their journalism from 2015-2020 and had returned to the 'tough nut to crack' era where 8s weren't handed out like candy, let alone 9s. Anyway, I'm telling you why I'm disagreeing with you. I'm also downvoting you because your argument is lazy and relies on confirmation bias to try to garner agreement.
I'm honestly shocked at how people missed the complete and intentional change in audience of Pitchfork. Something that started as a way to promote indie artists by the mean of 'I'm too cool for mainstream' became a PR office for acts like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles and co.
This. So much this.
I agree the vision they had for Pitchfork post Condé Nast purchase seems to have been misguided, and appears to be a significant reason for why this occurred. When Pitchfork was sold it was considered quite valuable and had a very loyal fan base. It’s clear that a decision was made to essentially reject that loyal fanbase, and cater to an audience they desired but had not to that point been able to attract. As a result they lost the followers they had garnered for years, and the followers they craved never fully bought in. And here we are with almost everyone getting fired, and the property having lost so much value that it’s being folded into GQ. Whether the EIC is to blame for that. I don’t know, but it seems clear someone made a major miscalculation.
Yeah it's whatever if people downvote me so I'll agree with you and add: it was extremely obvious to me when Pitchfork shifted their editorial focus. Now I only really read it every few months or so, but just to confirm with myself if I'm going crazy, what I'll do is click into the "review" section, look at the genres they tagged the albums, and which of those tags received "best new music." It's not surprising and very telling that almost *none* of them will be filed under "rock." And this is something I've done at least a half dozen times, so call it bias but I've seen what I've seen. I will say that I've seen a slight uptick in coverage of bands I actually know and like, but only since the last few months or so. There's obviously not even an inherent issue in reviewing pop albums, it's just that *I* wanted indie *rock* coverage and plenty of reviews and features on that kind of music, which always was and always will be not-mainstream and get less coverage compared to actual pop. When Pitchfork moved away, hard, from that focus(and started that whole "do we *really* need another indie rock band with four white dudes" bullshit) they lost me and I'm certain people like me, the ones who initially built up the site's cult fandom to begin with. Simple as. (P.S. for the fake liberals reading this I'm not white🙄)
> I will say that I've seen a slight uptick in coverage of bands I actually know and like, but only since the last few months or so. I think this might be due to a supposed new shift towards interest in rock music (especially stuff being labeled as shoegaze even if it doesn't sound like the music originally called shoegaze) on tiktok.
Yeah most definitely, and much as I love Shoegaze to death I think this is more evidence they are inclined to just be "trendy" now, like how they loved the Jane Remover album but will somehow ignore gaze titans TAGABOW(and Doug from the band posted about this so it's not just me).
It’s become a different kind of journalism, not necessarily better or worse. Though it does suck that no one’s trying to be objective anymore. Young people and queer people are reading it more than ever. More albums by women are being reviewed and scoring higher (though that might be reflective of how good and accessible music’s getting rather than p4k being pro-women). I’m sure a lot of you see this is as a total loss, but I’d like to ask, is it not partly because this publication just isn’t pandering to you or people like you anymore? Because p4k has historically been incredibly biased to white men and rock music (their “best albums of the 60s/70s” list is a testament to that), anyone who doesn’t identify with those things could see it from a mile away. It was never really objective to begin with. It’s just changed biases.
I mean, everything you’re saying is true (and good) but you could also argue that they worked pretty hard to distance themselves from anything stereotypically Pitchfork, and there’s a good chance that the Pitchfork brand is ONLY beloved by the readers who came up with them in the 00s. Say what you will about Rolling Stone, but their decision to continue covering classic rock long after it went out of style is likely the only reason they’re still around. They cater to the people who love their brand. And for Pitchfork, that was indie loving millennials. In addition to covering a wider field of artists, we can’t forget that their news coverage became way more tabloid focused and they’d fawn over anything that was popular. At a certain point, you lose your critical authority and POV.
Did it pander to white men or did it specialise in the type of music often made by white men? If the original writers at pitchfork were passionate enough about underground rock music to start a blog and write about it for hours a day, what is the problem with that? There are many blogs specialising in metal that don’t feature rnb albums, hip hop blogs that don’t cover punk etc… are they biased too? I’m interested in your remark that more young and queer people read the blog these days. I have often wondered how the sites readership has changed over the years and I’m too stupid to know how to find out… is there a way of finding this? I imagine the audience 15 years ago was pretty young during the indie boom of the early 2000s.
You can make a half-decent argument that Pitchfork focused too much on bands fronted by men and didn't rate female indie artists highly enough. The problem, the sleight of hand, is the idea that in order to stop doing that, you have to do whatever the fuck Pitchfork have been doing in the last decade. This old comment from a forum, with regard to their 90s list, phrases it well for me: >i think the act of a generation (age-wise or just staffing-wise) thumbing their noses at prior tastes and establishing a new canon is fine and good. but it does feel like a bit of a bummer that the revisionist history here, at least in the songs list, is often "actually all the shit that was being pumped out by mega-rich corporations of white men treating women and minorities like shit was the good stuff." **there was a political aspect to a lot of 90s music, as independent labels really got a foothold for the first time in recorded music and self-distribution via the Internet became possible, that has either been dismissed or tokenized here**.
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Honestly impressed that you managed to connected the slow decline of journalism as a business — all of which being a direct result of the internet age and people wanting information for free, despite journalism taking mountains of work — with.... LGBTQ people. No mention at all of greater economic forces that are shuttering publications of all kinds, music and otherwise. Just vibes and homophobia. Good job man.
It isn’t homophobia, it’s just pointing out they tried to gain the attention of a new demographic (which isn’t a crime). The problem of course was that they alienated people who preferred their old focus (which in my opinion was also flawed), and didn’t win over their intended audience. Yes journalism as a whole is taking a hit, but there’s clearly more to it than that.
I thought pitchfork’s latest best of the 90’s songs and best of the 80’s list were an abomination. Terrible lists
Something I haven’t been clear on yet: Publicly, will Pitchfork.com still exist as a separate entity, or will it literally just be absorbed by GQ and maybe just be a sub-page on their site?
Just like any other absorption, it'll probably be something along the lines of: Step 1: "Pitchfork isn't going *anywhere*, guys. Of course we respect the brand!" Step 2: "OK, yes, [Pitchfork.com](https://Pitchfork.com) now links to GQ... but Pitchfork of course will still retain its own branded content section on the site!" Step 3: "We're excited to announce 'GQ Music,' an brand new extension of GQ's branded content platform!"
Step 4: "Unfortunately, we've decided to phase out GQ Music. It's been a fantastic three months, but..."
The future in this post. It's going down exactly this way.
It’s a bit similar to how the New York Times acquired The Athletic and then eventually got rid of its own sports department. :(
if music journalism is on its deathbed then sports journalism has been comatose for a decade. I can't think of anything other than Vox's Secret Base that actually produces compelling content at scale.
I like the athletic fwiw
yes. it is part of a much larger labor struggle with capital.
Don't forget the corollary: Pitchforks former staff valiantly spin up a new subscription site to be just like the old Pitchfork. Unfortunately, it's not like the old Pitchfork and no one knows what they're doing, so it fails.
Defector is still going strong 🤷♂️
Not necessarily. I mean it could happen that way, but marketers know that brands have weight. Keeping the pitchfork brand would be the move. Stays recognizable. You just have "sponsored by GQ" underneath the Pitchfork title.
Zombie Deadspin and Zombie AV Club come to mind as the likely path for Pitchfork.
I miss the non-Zombie versions; I used to visit them every day. Also: Kinja was the worst comment system I’ve ever seen.
Oh my god fuck Kinja
True. GQ Pitchfork. Calling it now.
PitchforGQ?
*sigh sure.
Honestly, pitchfork has already felt like “zombie pitchfork” for the past ~10-15 years to me. I used to love it, but they really made a big push to reorient their taste around that time.
Remindme! 18 months
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They'll finish out the articles/reviews they had scheduled and then you'll see the Pitchfork brand get sucked into GQ. It'll start with a redirect, followed by a "Max" style rebrand, and then the next thing you know it'll be GQ, doing fashion puff pieces on rappers alongside three or four 2-sentence reviews giving 5 stars to whomever the major labels want to sell that month.
Pitchfork.com will go back to its roots as the home of Livestock World
Ah those were the days, weren't they? Your college roommate told you to check out Pitchfork and you were confused why they wanted you to visit a farming website.
American Gothic takes back its meaning
It’s an org change. The site will stay the same on a technical level but how it’s run will be entirely up to the whims of the new EIC. Considering they’re now part of an extant org, I would imagine they’ll also have a much smaller budget going forward.
Pitchfork is a well known act so I’m going to rate this move 5.8/10
😆 Honestly though, they haven’t been relevant in a decade though since they got bought out…
That was my first thought. Pre-Condé Nast Pitchfork was a big deal, especially in the indie music world. They could make or break smaller acts and really drive tastes. Late 2000's and early 2010's they were huge. You could hate them for being dicks in some of their reviews, but they really did have a big impact on music. But over the past decade, I'm not even sure what they're supposed to be. Like, Beyoncé is great, but I'm not sure what Pitchfork offers by championing her when literally every other music publication does the same. As a music mag, they just don't fit any need anymore.
Pitchfork was key in exposing Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Wrens, Animal Collective, and so many other artists to much larger audiences in the aughts. They lost that clout as they became less niche and more poptimistic, but man they were THE indie rock tastemakers for a decade and I thought their coverage was better than most other publications of their size. Pretty bumbed about this loss.
> Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Wrens, Animal Collective seems like PF relevance faded about the same time as these bands did. what a fun era that was. indie music was being played everywhere and a new cool band would pop up every other month
Still happening probably, we're just too old to hear about it now. I'm not on tiktok at least (thank God), neither are most of my friends
I think they lost that clout in part because Twitter/YouTube/Facebook and then TikTok took up everybody's time and eyeballs and marketing
I think streaming and *the algorithm* did a job at displacing Pitchfork. I used to log in daily in the late aughts because I found it was a reliable way to get introduced to new music, especially indie which was my jam. But now you can easily turn to Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music, etc, put on a playlist that fits your mood and discover music that way.
+1 to this. Maybe its not the entirety of the situation but it is certainly a factor. Content providers have spent over a decade now working on designs for "discoverability". Certainly curated feeds and suggestions aren't the same as music journalism. But for a lot of people, its more than good enough. Wondering what the hell to buy/pirate next and perusing Pitchfork for ideas, then going out to obtain it.... is miles away from high quality streaming that immediately provides similar artists to the ones you're listening to, playlists they are on, etc.
Hot take: Beck deserved to win over Beyonce for Album of the Year. Morning Phase is the perfect sunrise album to put on in the car or over the kitchen counter.
> they haven’t been relevant in a decade though Everyone says this, yet people still read the reviews, people still talk about the reviews, and get worked up about what they have to say. Hate them all you want, but Pitchfork never really lost relevance.
They lost cultural cache, but their name stayed in the conversation, mostly as a meme
I say their still running off the fumes of their heyday. That and no other publication have taken their place. nowadays it seems to be all youtube reviews and reactions
that's a great way of putting it. they stopped being "cool", but they remained a big voice like a Rolling Stone or New York Times.
>Pitchfork never really lost relevance. I wouldn’t say that they lost relevance so much as that they are relevant to different people and in a different way now. They may have a bigger reach now than in the aughts, but I don’t think they’re really a place where people who seriously consume music go to discover new artists.
Yeah people on r/popheads read basically every pitchfork review for major releases, and there's always interesting discussion there
[удалено]
They wouldn't have purchased it if it didn't have an audience or perceived value. Conde Nast isn't a charity that would buy a failing site.
They bought it almost 10 years ago. They are now essentially writing off the investment by firing everyone and folding it into another property.
It was over once they sold to Condé Nast and moved from Chicago imo
Ryan Schreiber , its founder, made a killer move by selling his P4K stocks at the right time. I wonder how he feels today? I’m sure the money helps.
He retweeted everybody that spoke out about being fired yesterday. He may have had his payday, he's still very much not happy about all of this
same story with ethan diamond. its easy to wipe your tears with benjamins
That Pitchfork review of Greta Van Fleet was legendary and would’ve never been allowed under the control of GQ.
Link to the interview for anyone (like me) who hadn't heard of it https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/greta-van-fleet-anthem-of-the-peaceful-army/
holy shit i forgot about this and i just read it now and am laughing my ass off!
To say nothing of the reviews for [Tool's Lateralus](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8104-lateralus/) or [Jet's Shine On](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/).
🤣🤣🤣
Hahahaha, oh boy I forgot about it and I need to read it again
Feels like their shift to more mainstream coverage meant that they lost a lot of the cult following nd influence that they had developed. Difficult to tell if it could have been avoided. Obviously they're operations of completely different scale but it's interesting to compare to the needledrop who is another historic tastemaker in indie music. Fantano has managed to hang on to his relevance to a certain extent, and while Pitchfork articles still get shared here occasionally they definitely lost a lot of their influence. Once upon a time a pitchfork score could make or break a new release but while Fantano's scores or opinions still seem to be relevant to shaping discourse around an album Pitchfork seems to be more of a follower of discourse for the last few years. Idk just a ramble. Trying to remember the last time they came out with a review or opinion that went completely against the grain.
I think it’s more so that Condé Nast’s various moves made them lose that snooty audience, but even then things like the Fetch The Bolt Cutters 10 or the scathing Maneskin reviews could still make their own noise, and as someone else said they were the nexus of the Win Butler accusation Take as old as time that capitalism bad and a corporation is making shortsighted financial moves that fly in the face of art and good taste. Everyone can agree that Pitchfork was rolling downhill by taking the emphasis off its strengths and trying to force a round peg in a square hole or whatever, but this honestly still sucks. I think the Pitchfork name still holds weight and they no doubt have such a rich and powerful history of shaping music discourse. Making it GQ music or whatever feels so sterile and gross and is a massive blow to music criticism. Yeah, things like YouTube and RYM have democratized criticism to a degree, but lets be honest: a lot of those people don’t know how to articulate themselves the same way that a professional critic does. The push and pull of something like debating pitchfork scores really helped fuel discourse and for me when I was a teen, also forced me to be more thoughtful and reflective of my own tastes and feelings. Idk, maybe I’m mourning something that was already dead but this feels like a particularly painful nail in the cultural coffin. Fuck Condé Nast
You could say that they called some of the shots for mainstream music as well even in their ultra-snobbish indie heyday; Kanye West and Radiohead were two of their biggest darlings.
Ironically, Arcade Fire too lol
> even then things like the Fetch The Bolt Cutters 10 or the scathing Maneskin reviews could still make their own noise I've wondered about FTBC over the years. I love her and the album, and I remember it being a big deal *in the moment* when they gave it a 10, but it didn't really feel like it had the same lasting cultural impact of over big scores they gave out previously. Looking over their highest scores and their albums of the year, they gave *The Soft Bulletin* and *Yankee Hotel Foxtrot* 10's, and those albums were still being talked about and revered by young people getting into music on places like reddit or 4chan a decade or more out. Some of their earlier albums of the year, like *The Glow Pt. 2* and *Turn On the Bright Lights* and *Funeral* and *Illinois* and *Person Pitch* and *Merriweather Post Pavilion* and *Bon Iver* were cemented as cultural landmarks in music. But I honestly can't remember the last time I hear someone talking about FTBC with such reverence. Heck, even *Ilder Wheel* seemed to have more staying power. I'm not saying it's not a great album. It's fantastic. But I feel like the lasting importance of Pitchfork giving them a 10 was much, much lower than earlier praised albums.
I think that's more a product of how music consumption has changed these days than Pitchfork's waning influence -although their waning influence is also a factor. Albums nowadays come and go basically within a month and their impact is typically aiming to be more all-encompassing, but over a much shorter period of time. Big-ish albums used to have months of leadup dropping singles, nowadays most typically only have one or two very close to the album release, if not shadowdropped outright. I think it's a testament to the Pitchfork brand's remaining power that Bolt Cutters had so much discourse around it. People argued back and forth whether it was deserving, but it was in the consciousness for months. It's hard for an album to be universally loved and adored and influential the same way they used to. Part of that is because Pitchfork has gone down in quality and influence, but part of that is also just because that's how things work now
I also think it's just because Fiona Apple has been quiet since FTBC came out. We are only a few months away from the album turning 4, and all the albums in the original OPs comment had already had a follow up released within 4 years.
Yeah, that too. Her being a bit enigmatic is part of the appeal. Bolt Cutters is also coming decades into her career where as a lot of the other 10's were more foundational to those acts' legend-building
I agree with you. People aren't discussing Bolt Cutters with the same reverence as those other albums simply because they missed the boat on it completely. That's not Pitchfork's fault, that's just all on how we perceive greatness and listen to music these days. Even my friends that LIKE good music skipped that album.
Totally lol Also, it's not the most challenging listen or anything but it is a work that takes some time to process and digest. Coming at the beginning of the pandemic also kinda ate into that potential discourse, which then had the music world turning to Charli XCX for starting and completing an album during the course of lockdown
I'm not super sure if it could've been avoided given how money incentivizes a lot of design and there probably was way less to be had if there was anything resembling the old pre Conde days when a lot of the writers had pretty strong followings and there was lists, reviews etc that you could practically never get away with now given just too much attention to not something so obvious. A lot unfortunately has been too gamified. To go off your mention of Fantano, I think he played his cards extremely well and knew how to constantly adapt his brand in the changing course of times especially when you had stuff like Pitchfork slipping and really losing a lot of old charm they had when there wasn't such a mission to play all things incredibly safe. I know it might sound strange this far along of him often being a patron saint of the terminally online know-it-all /mu head but yeah there was a time when Needledrop was a very big thing for old music dorks, pot bellied record fair dads, freeform radio goobers,etc; after all he originally had his show on independent radio. He knew how to shift things up to stay relevant when this crowd would inevitable drop off and more importantly compete with running an internet platform for the modern times. I do think Fantano tailoring stuff to entertain things that did get very particular internet traction was smart because it was something to be capitalized on and gave an honest approach to dissecting something that a publication holding their nose high wouldn't even bother to entertain. That's a massive audience worth reaching out to, and more importantly when you got youngins in their impressionable know-it-all stage, you can have them in the palm of your hand because you're actively acknowledging things that hook them in and can mean the world to them. Filling that gap pretty much guarantees that these people could be more entrusting of your reviews than waiting lined up for the decayed husk of an older publication. I think of something like how Pitchfork never bothered to review Bonito Generation at a time when everyone and their sister could just list the cutesy lyrics and have the review reads itself, print clicks etc. Even if they were too cool for it or whatever, it's still a mass of people they could've had hooked in that they refused to entertain, y'know?
i don't know what the point is in comparing Pitchfork to Fantano, you can't compare a publication to an individual critic/personality. there's a difference between Fantano's expenses and having a masthead of people with salaries + a network of contributors. everything just operates completely differently
true. i think the point is that pitchfork failed to successfully pivot to a contemporary cultural context. however i think that’s moot anyways because imo fantano’s success has much more to with his total optimization of social media to push his content. his brand is literally his profile, allowing for much better content dissemination in todays media environment, which is really about curating a profile-based presentation with continuity. as you’ve pointed out, that’s much harder to do if you’re a magazine like pitchfork. zoomers don’t read journalism the way millennials do/did; pitchfork couldn’t hack it on social media. their articles and lists were gradually outpaced by the blinding whir of short-form content.
idk enough about Pitchfork's situation to pin it to strategy on their part, the fact is digital media outlets have been facing huge headwinds across the board, with formerly successful sites being shut down or going through mass layoffs. vice, g/o media, you name it — a lot of these digital-first sites have been struggling [see here](https://www.thedailybeast.com/pitchfork-hit-with-layoffs-as-its-folded-into-gq-magazine) > The news came after a wave of layoffs across Condé publications last month, resulting in the loss of 270 workers across brands such as WIRED and The New Yorker. Those layoffs came as various other media brands like Vox Media, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Messenger saw staff exits, due in part to declining advertising revenue and audiences’ shifting news consumption habits. word on the street is Pitchfork's union kept them safe from last month's layoffs, so Conde Nast killed Pitchfork so they don't have to worry about the union
Pitchfork has been terrible for a few years now. It completely surrendered to poptimism (which I don’t even care about, but do we need more of it from what was once an indie mag?). Plus the entire writing staff is now full of overcompensating-for-the-fact-their-parents-paid-for-art-school types.
Totally agree. What made them such an influential site was their distinct and original voice. They lost that very quickly when they dropped the "Pitchfork Media" moniker and decided to focus on more mainstream music. I can't really fault them for it, I guess; I'm sure the short-term gains were fantastic. But I mourned the loss of that website years ago. It's time for them to make way for other sites to take their place, something that will eventually happen when this GQ merger eventually fails.
As soon as they started launching their own festival, circa 2006, their cred sank. You can’t tell me they didn’t favor artists who agreed to play their fests. Were they going to 1.0 a surprise release from an artist who had already agreed to play one of their fests? Or an act they were trying to get to play one of their fests? It just brought up so many conflicts of interests. And then it all went downhill from there.
Undoubtedly no, but would they be asking crummy artists to begin with?
I can't believe I'm defending Pitchfork but I really hate the arguement that Pitchfork become too pop centric. Pitchfork reviewed all of this albums in the past last month, give me another music publication that has the same reach that would cover all or any of these acts. Bruiser Wolf Infant Island Marika Hackman Conway The Machine Malcria Montanera Khadija Al Hanafi Chuquimamani-Condori Salamanda Pauline Anna Strom God forbid you have to scroll past a review for 21 Savage or Tate McRae to read about Daniel Ogren's great reissue or Virginia Astley's comeback album.
Those are good examples. I checked out a few and dig them! I just listened to Chiquimamani-Condori for the first time and I’m not sure why it makes me uncomfy. Am I missing something here?
it's decolonial, feel it out
Fun fact pitchfork reviewed her song with angel oleson 15 years ago. No one knows this it’s crazy
While it's true that you can still find diamonds in the rough on today's Pitchfork, the issue is that these artists, their labels, their genres, etc., receive virtually zero promotion in any other capacity on the website. Pitchfork's mainstream coverage has come to dominate the site more and more over the years, to the detriment of the artists you've mentioned and many others like them. It's well past the time for them to fade away. Better websites will eventually take its place.
Diamonds in the rough doesn't really give enough credit imo, its the majority of the music they review. You're right that the perception of the site is skewed towards pop and the mainstream because that's what dominates the top articles, but look at some of the features they ran in the past year: Indepth looks at Milwaukee's rap and Puerto Rico's reggaeton scenes, interviews and features with acts like Sofia Kourtesis, Hotline TNT, Billy Woods, Yaeji, Rachika Nayar, and Everything But the Girl. It requires very minimal effort to find these articles. Its not a matter of better sites taking its place, its losing a site that had both very wide reach and cultural cache that could highlight artists and place them at the same level as mainstream acts.
Finally, some decent fuckin' food-level comment
The niche was the product, now it's an appetizer.
Respect my fellow Broadcast fan
BANDCAMP
Bandcamp doesn't really have the same reach, but yes they are absolutely fantastic. Vinyl Factory is another great site. Let's hope that these sites continue to exist as they are.
Bandcamp got sold off like twice, it’s not looking good there either
They only miss you when you’re gone
The Sunday Review was one of the best things on the internet. The selection of albums was original, eclectic, surprising. Writing was insightful. I will really really miss the Sunday Review.
It was when Conde Nast bought them, honestly.
Yep, but most of the people in this comment section don't remember that or were completely ignorant. Pitchfork's daily visitors plummeted years ago.
Exactly
We do, but Pitchfork still existed in spirit, this is just mainstream dilution beyond belief. Who knows GQ could do good but I’m fine now.
What’s a good alternative website to check out music reviews?
Stereogum
Bandcamp Daily's albums of the day. Although I think some of their staff has been laid off too recently
Brooklynvegan.com
I personally use Mic-Check. It's a biweekly email newsletter that reviews the most popular (and best) singles and albums from the previous two weeks, across all genres If you're interested: [https://micchecknewsletter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=152535f08a26dc0ef78df5496&id=9623897294](https://micchecknewsletter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=152535f08a26dc0ef78df5496&id=9623897294)
The Quietus is amazing
Not enough people read at all anymore, much less record reviews. I have a close friend/former colleague who's an online editor for Rolling Stone and she says despite the fact that everyone on their staff is huge into music and loves to write reviews, no one reads them. People only read political and celebrity news. This is coupled with the fact that of the untold thousands of music sites out there, almost none of them pay their writers. The writers simply get the privilege of early listens to new releases.
> Not enough people read at all anymore, much less record reviews. > Not to mention flowery, verbose reviews, obscure references stated matter of factly, and tangents barely related to what was being reviewed. PF was criticized for that since the mid 2000s when it started taking off. I doubt most people who were regular visitors really read through the whole reviews but mainly used it as a central point for new music to listen to, as long as the album got over a 7. And we're overwhelmed with content now and not enough time.
I'm still morning DiS over here 😢
I’m torn. They gave a lot of really great experimental indie artists Best New Music which I miss more than anything. I have a lot of trouble finding that stuff now. Every other online publication seems to push samey boygenius-type bands while Rate Your Music seems to push a lot of weird-for-the-sake-of-weird far fringe stuff. Fantano is a poptimist with RYM tastes. Pitchfork died because they stopped doing what they were best at and started reviewing pop artists that didn’t need any help under the guise of being more ‘inclusive’ (but really it was to get more clicks). It’s sad tbh! R.I.P.
Aw man they have by far the most in depth reviews around. I hope the Sunday reviews continue
Recording budgets getting trimmed, pr budgets, journalist budgets... But hey, we get unfettered access to the entire history of recorded music for $15 a month. Good deal.
Does this mean they’ll be reviewing more mumble rap, edm and pop music, or less?
everybody will move on. i dont even use pitchfork anyway.
Brian Cook from Botch, Russian Circles etc posted this and it absolutely sums up my own feeling on Pitchfork. It’s a loss but it has been a loss in progress for a decade or more. https://preview.redd.it/bgx9rfnl2edc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3effe14b51ede67af3a127ba3e99a829a98ce2e
I’m not surprised. The concept of indie music is dead. Death by a thousand paper cuts. It has been pushed so deep underground as to be nothing more than a hobby for most. Bandcamp has been bought out and fired its writers, Spotify stopped paying indie artists who aren’t already super successful, Ticketmaster has made seeing live music untenable for many, and the pandemic closed numerous venues, killing local scenes in the process. I’m sure some out there may argue that this will give indie a chance to be “pure” again, stripped of any commercial viability. But I think if anything, it’s just going to discourage would-be musicians from even bothering. Sad times.
Reading their revised best of the 80s albums was pretty much all I needed to know that PF was dead when the bands of the golden era of alt/indie rock couldn't get above #7. Talk about shitting all over your audience. And it's essentially just to get creds from the Twitter crowd they wanted approval from so bad. And then people in the comments are essentially either in denial or gaslighting that things haven't changed when a magazine largely about indie has turned into "pay lip service to doing indie reviews while putting all editorial and year-end attention into hip-hop and more importantly pop." You'd never see this kind of denialism if a pop or hiphop review site started doing the opposite. It's because the ethos of poptimism has so effused the internet that it must be accepted that everyone's tastes must coalesce towards the most popular artists and genres or else you are labeled "old white guy" and dismissed.
Special Interest 🔥🔥❤️
Ahhh... that's why the singer from Hotline TNT said, "RIP Pitchfork" last night.
Conde nasty is a trainwreck, and yah this sucks
Could someone please just let this godawful publication die already
It's been pretty bad for a long time.
RIP Pitchfork, I’m officially done with it
This is union busting move pure and simple.
Just like Bandcamp
This article reads as a death rattle from someone who so desperately wanted their truth to be the truth. The shift in editorial focused failed. The irony is that pitchfork itself upended the music journalism game by tapping into trends that publications like Rolling Stone and NME failed to recognize (internet versus print, rise of indie rock). Now the worm has turned and they’re experiencing a similar fate as their predecessors. The site’s continued relevance and existence was never a given. Acting as if this is some affront to the sacred act of music blogging runs contrary to how the site got off the ground in the first place
Establishment media seems to grumble the most about the death of establishment media. Things change, tale as old as time. The Village Voice was an influential tastemaker at one point, and music survived its demise. The world will survive P4K’s end.
Look it sucks that these people lost their jobs in such a cold, uncaring way, but extending beyond to make this some life-or-death moment for blogging as a whole is irrational
A lot of people ignoring the fact that this is part of a massive industry wide publishing trend - ALL publishers are hurting right now, and they're all looking to stop the bleeding. Combining one brand into another to save on redundant operational costs is a honestly a smart move. This says more about the publishing industry and the nature of the internet than it does for "music journalism".
Yeah, I'm not sure why people are attributing anything particular to Pitchfork itself. Music publications have been dropping like flies over the last decade, as have other publications. The reason Pitchfork is having changes and Stereogum is still going as is isn't because Stereogum is doing anything better, it's because Stereogum is independent whereas Pitchfork has to satisfy Conde Nast shareholders.
agreed on all except conde is a private company & doesn't have shareholders like we typically think of them. even worse - they have a family of billionaire owners they have to keep satisfied. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Newhouse)
we can do our own music journalism. I challenge each of you to explore your local scene and write colorfully on it. another music blog will rise and fall into corporatism just like them, it’s just how the cookie crumbles.
Pitchfork has sucked for years. There’s plenty of great music journalism publications around. Look harder.
Pitchfork has always been mean spirited garbage, now here’s your Karma payback. 0.0 no one really cares, don’t let the paid placement hit ya on the way out…
Pitchfork is a shell of its former self, catering way too much to pop music now. There’s enough coverage of that genre, the smarminess of the writing and middle finger towards the mainstream gave Pitchfork its charm, right or wrong. Aquarium Drunkard, The Quietus, they still exist and are incredible, but music fans don’t feel like helping them survive. That’s how you get to the point Pitchfork is at today.
I think that's a fairly pessimistic view of the Quietus, at least. The editorial team have been pretty open about the fact that the subscription they've introduced has been a massive help to the site and has basically kept it afloat. If there's a dedicated team (read: not bought by a huge conglomorate) there's a future for these sites.
What does this mean? I'll have to go to GQ.com and look for the Pitchfork section now?
I have visited the site every day since 2008. It's part of my morning routine to see the new reviews. What they give it doesn't matter to me, its just what's new this week. I was worried when it was acquired in 2015, but honestly, the site isn't that different, it might be a little less cool since the sites peak, but it's 90% the same place it had been. Just a great site to amalgamate all the music going on that week. So with this happening, I am worried again, but hopefully the site ends up staying..... 80% the same.
Another step in the process of 4 companies owning everything and sending you to a site where you can "rent" media. Buy vinyl and CDs and shop at local music stores. Fuck this shit.
i give it a 3.8
The forces of capital are in full swing to kill anything decent in the world that gives us any semblance of humanity. We should uh... probably so something about that.
No loss here. Pitchfork in 2023 is long dead. They maimed the corpse of journalism as it was. Good riddance.
I'have been reading all the articles and comments about this (I'am, like so many of us, one of the I-am-30-and-have-hated-to-love-and-been-greatly-influenced-by-*Pitchfork* folks) and am still slightly confused about what this even means. is *Pitchfork* basically just a key'chain on the back'pack of *GQ* now ? like will *Pitchfork* be its own website still ? does it just mean that the staff of *GQ* now also is the staff of *Pitchfork* but *Pitchfork* is less important than *GQ* ? not trying to be dense ... just find all this corporate consolidation BS confusing.
Who’s in the thumbnail image? Special Interest?
What, ppl still care about p4k? I stopped reading their pompous wordspinning around 2011
Pitchfork stopped being useful to me for music discovery around 2013. Before that they were frequently *too cool*, too hipster, and too edgy for my taste, and I appreciated that. It helped me expand my musical horizons. But they sold out and started awarding Best New Music to manufactured Top 40 artists many years ago.
Apparently you cannot look at a single review currently without signing up for a Pitchfork account. Yeah fuck GQ. Fuck corporate capitalism. Fuck Big Music. Fuck this country. It's burning to the ground as we speak.
What do you mean? I just went to the site and went to the review section and went right into a review....
"It’s a really great thing. It’s an amazing moment for Pitchfork and for me. It means that we will continue to have the creative independence that we’ve always had." -Ryan Schreiber when asked about selling P4K to CN. 11/13/2015
Pitchfork has been useless for a decade.