Pitchfork Media

Ordered an issue of «The Pitchfork Review» this spring, via company’s online store.
Definitely hesitant, but was looking forward to the Jason Molina piece.
It never arrived in the mail. They never responded to multiple e-​mail requests.
I don’t have time to chase them down for the $ 25 product.
But, here’s a Unilocal review, in all its futility.
Do not buy from Pitchfork. Apparently, you get the treatment you expect.

i just read the pitchfork review of florence + the machine’s HBHBHB, which i’ve had on repeat for the past two days. the first paragraph has just got me seething, and i guess this is where people go to vent about pitchfork!
quote: «Florence Welch has built her career on the premise that she feels things more painfully and powerfully than anybody else. Accordingly, her band’s third studio album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is one long Ophelia mad scene, a breakup record from the point of view of someone who is absolutely convinced that her breakup is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to anyone.»
there’s this obnoxious callousness that is typical of pitchfork reviews. real music *is* intense emotion. a publication that supposedly writes about «real» (vs. mainstream, money grubbing) music should not be looking down its nose at an artist’s display of that emotion. (who the hell mocks *florence* for singing sad songs???) what’s the point? why not just go review mainstream pop music with its actual manufactured emotions? they have no love for music or artists (sorry to sound cheesy) but only for the limp and hollow resounding of their own voices. this is just really low grade music journalism, complete garbage.
*shakes head* maybe i just read pitchfork to piss myself off.

OMG where do I begin with my issue with Pitchfork magazine. The tip of the iceberg came when they just released their best albums of 2014. I know my music and I would like to think that I have my head right in the deep when it comes to new music. As a music writer myself whom writes her own publication, I sometimes source out other contributors opinion to get a varied opinion before forming my own, however, Pitchfork has always been off the mark in one way or the other. I call it, «Coming to a Coachella near you» website. It’s probably the most snobby and pretentious publications out there for new music. They give hipsters a bad name. I remember being gifted the «Pitchfork Guide To Music You Must Hear» book from Chapters and even their recommendations were laughable. I bumped into two of the guys at Coachella one year and barely was able to hold a constructive conversation with them. They’re supposed to be the cheerleaders for independent music yet their just as bad as the corporate labels and industry. It’s just a clever disguise that is all. The reason why it actually gets a whole star is ’cause Pitchfork is the first to get previews of certain alternative albums before the hit the street date whic for me I find valuable when doing my own album reviews for my zine.

Zero stars. You are making the independent music industry as shitty as the corporate music industry. Congrats on the major fail. You could have really done some good for so many talented artists.

Honestly, one of the world’s most pretentious, snobby, obnoxious review sites. They pick and choose music not based on its quality, but their idea of what’s trendy to like or dislike. They try to pick and choose artists they think have the potential to succeed, and then ride the coattails of any artist that manages to make it by hyping them up and eventually ripping apart their later albums as «selling out» and moving on to find new artists. It’s a vicious, idiotic approach to music. Honestly I’ve seen them give abhorrant scores to albums simply because they didn’t like an artist’s «perspective», while they continually give bands and rappers with absolutely no talent high scores in order to try and bolster their success. They never have, or will, have any relevance. Only use their website for music news, as they are a good way to stay in touch with recent developments in the music world such as new tours. But no matter what, stay away from their reviews or anywhere their opinion is present, because you’ll get nothing but condescension and rambling attempts at trying to sound intelligent or ahead of the times.

When I was first introduced to Pitchfork Media, a few friends and I were sitting around a vegan café in the Gregson Park district of GoFuckYourself. Nostalgia is a funny thing, you know, and the mélange of their music with my mandarin tofu was really quite rousing. I stopped chewing (I don’t eat tofu anymore, cause the soy is bad for you they say now. Who would have known?) and it really tasted just like chicken for a second. I mean really. The broccoli was chewy and the tofu had been fried just enough to where it tasted like real meat. I had successfully tricked my own body. Needless to say, I was pretty damn amazed. I started to feel, well, alive! Something kind of like tears started swirling around my chest underneath my threadbare and fading Beastie Boys «Check Your Head» t-​shirt that I bought on ebay but tell everyone I was at the show and that it was «pretty good». And that swirling ran smack into my ego and defensive layers of pretense. Which was, you know, a good thing, because I only cry in the shower for some reason. So I looked at my friends and said, «You know. This shit. This shit is pretty good.»
They thought I was talking about the Pitchfork album digitally streaming through the tiny, run down, wooden tabled, damp and dingy dive of vegan bliss. And they all nodded at the same time. Lindsay put down a tempeh chicken nugget and said that the album was sparse and expansive at the same time. I was just talking about my mandarin tofu, but I didn’t want to confuse her or piss her off, or acknowledge that I didn’t actually know the band that was playing in the café. Myself, Mike, and Brent were all three eagerly trying to bed her with elaborate plots of music and intellectual literary bait. Mike and she were both architecture students, so he had the inside track of common erudite interests, though I don’t really know how Deleuze and architecture coincide. Perhaps it was this naïveté that eventually won me the pleasure of her bed and hand for those magic six months of dive bars, brunches, and hangovers. Mike ended up pissing her off with his conflicting intellect on architectural matters. I guess birds of a feather don’t always flock together. Mike was twirling some soba noodles on his plate and looked up with sallow eyes and sprang to the chase lethargically.
«I think it’s got some post-​punk to it, but I feel some looping kraut-​folk, too.» He looked back down. His fork pushed a julienned carrot away from its mated celery. «It’s definitely ripping my face off right now,» he whispered to the cheap, generic flatware.
Brent didn’t say a word. I found out years later that he had already bagged Lindsay off and on for years. Brent was like that, you know.
Well the next track started up and it wasn’t even the same band, but it sounded pretty similar.
«7.3,» was all I said and took another bite of my mandarin tofu with a deep hope that it would magically taste like chicken again for twelve fucking seconds.

What day did the Lord create Pitchfork, and couldn’t he have rested on that day, too?

I’d give half a star if I could. This site does not inspire trust that the reviewers give artists a fair shake. Go somewhere else for reasoned thoughtful reviews.

Has it really been 2.5 years since someone last wrote a Unilocal review of Pitchfork? I guess that means they’re officially retro, and retro is cool, unless of course Pitchfork tells you that it isn’t, in which case it is.
So the way Pitchfork works is that they give albums a review from 0.0 to 10.0, which is essentially they same as a 0 – 100 score. I actually find this rather funny. I mean, why would something get a score of 79 rather than a 78? No one’s arguing their tastes are really that refined. It’s a very snobby way to rank things, but one could argue that the very act of ranking things is pretentious. See what I did there?
Anyway, I’d give them a 6.8 if Unilocal would let me. If you don’t immediately get the reference, then check out the link below:

1.0

It’s called «conflict of interest» you pandering, soulless hype machine. You can’t «discover» the band, overexpose them, book them at your festival and then write articles about it. Especially when they suck.
The sheer pretension of assigning a numerical value to music would be merely laughable if you were still just indie rock snobs with a blog, but the fact that you review Young Jeezy and Lightning Bolt side by side like you have some sort of quality-​of-​art meter shoved up your gaping, money-​hungry, hipster-​baiting asshole is just plain amazing.
You are not an authority on anything except using hype to fleece a nation of sad, skinny-​jeans, fixed gear dipshits out of money, dignity and, best of all, taste.
As a big boy, I have the ability to listen to a record and make up my own mind whether or not it is good.
If any of you pussies wanted to wax philosophical on the merits of Rick Ross and/​or Dan Deacon and/​or [insert bad band] in public, at a bar, instead of hiding behind your monitors acting like you matter I would still beat your ass, fuck your girlfriend and go home to my very decent record collection I made without your help.
Oh, and please keep shit talking bands you overhyped in the first place because that’s always good for a laugh.
Christ I hate Pitchfork.

There are artists, people who decide to pour their sweat into making something out of nothing in the face of 99% of people not giving a shit. Some of those get recognized, some don’t, and this occurs regardless of those efforts being good or bad. This means that some folks come along who really like whatever the art is, and want to spread the word to their like-​minded friends.
Next come the folks that are more concerned with the trappings of art than the art itself, the ones who take stock of what bands will make the best impression on partygoers in their CD collection, the ones who actually sit and think about which T shirt to wear on a night out.
Pitchfork is the latter. Fuck you Pitchfork.

Shit Sandwich.

I just moved to Chicago earlier this year, after many years of desperately trying to escape Michigan, and I am fiercely proud of my new home and things that are native to it.
But Pitchfork… not so much. I would think they are all on hallucinogenic drugs based on their largely incoherent reviews and taste for complete noise — if they didn’t sound so damn miserable all the time.
We thought about going to the Fest this year, but then tickets sold out, and then we decided we’d rather lay around at home and watch Six Feet Under on DVD. We had a good time — probably better than we would have had there, Craig Finn or not.

pitchfork media
whatd you do to my hardcore
friends, they got bad taste
seminal drummer
of chicago hardcore band
now sucks pitchfork dick
your festivals suck
your carpet bagging new york
’tude makes me vomit
I peed on your door
once and I’ll do it again
haiku says fuck you

You suck, Pitchfork. Seriously. I mean, like, seriously. I would ask how you got so overrated, but I already know that the answer lies in the small minds of hipsters and their ever-​going quest to be exactly the same as the next hipster. If Pitchfork says it’s cool, it is! Hark! All hail Pitchfork and tight jeans!
The reviews on this site are idiotic. I know they try to sound so elite, but they are idiotic. The people that write for this wouldn’t know good music if it slept with their girlfriends. It’s all about hype here, folks. If the email box has been saying an album is going to be good, or Hipster Hank has been talking it up, Pitchfork says it’s good. No thought involved. Gee, the new Band of Horses got a rating of 8 trillion. That’s about as surprising as the kid over there in the sweater vest and black-​rimmed glasses saying his favorite album of all time is Pinkerton.
I seriously am getting angry just writing this review. I hate Pitchfork that much. And what’s up with the crappy festivals you jokers keep throwing? Oooo, how avant-​garde. Not only did they get crappy «rock» bands to play, but they got insanely bad faux hip-​hop artists as well! Is that some sort of a DJ I see up there? That’s just cool in itself because I actually know nothing about electronic music, and in fact was ripping on people that listened to it a few years ago, but it’s cool now! Thanks Junior Senior!
As someone that listens to many, many different styles of music (hip-​hop and electronic as well as rock, metal, blah blah blah), I can say this site is a huge joke and I can’t believe there are still chodes out there that take it seriously. Although, I am sure most are already «Pitchfork Conditioned,» so they don’t even realize what they are doing when the load up their iTunes to buy the new Spank Rock and wear neon clothes.
Blah.

There are way better alternatives to reading about new music than Pitchfork. Read their site once in a great while, but I wonder why I even bother with it.
Metacritic beats their site by miles, plus I love how its nowhere near as elitist as Pitchfork is. This site lists other decent alternatives to Pitchfork:
One extra star, above the 1-​star I would’ve given it otherwise, if it wasn’t for Pitchfork’s annual summer music festival in Union Park, since I’ll give them credit for booking decent bands since they recently started their annual festival (and often better + more interesting than the ones Lollapalooza books).

Hands down, the funniest reviews for Joan of Arc EVER:
Joan of Arc make unlistenable faux-​art records
Joan of Arc Makes Believe they are another band
My favorites shots have to be ‘Men in Peacoats Eating Baguettes’ and ‘Lesbian Guerillas Confront Drummer of Bread Cover Band’
–1 star for glowing reviews of Junior Boys and The Walkmen

Thoughtful and insightful reviews. Good writing. Very good at exposing new music!
Only downside is that if you see an album get a bad rating, you should take it with a grain of salt. There’s some stuff I’ve seen on here that I think deserves a much higher rating, but some dork got their American Apparrel underoos in a bunch that day and took it out on the artist.
I also really enjoy the irony of finally getting to rate Pitchfork! If I could, I’d give them an 7.3, because their first album was way better…

As Mr. Food would say…
«Ooh its so good.»
One stop shop for those indie elitists.
Based in Chicago. Not Austin or NYC thank you very much.