In the last decade, no organ of music criticism has wielded as much influence as Pitchfork. It is the only publication, online or print, that can have a decisive effect on a musician or band’s career.... [W]hatever attracts people to Pitchfork, it isn’t the writing. Even writers who admire the site’s reviews almost always feel obliged to describe the prose as “uneven,” and that’s charitable. Pitchfork has a very specific scoring system that grades albums on a scale from 0.0 to 10.0, and that accounts for some of the site’s appeal, but it can’t just be the scores.... How has Pitchfork succeeded where so many other websites and magazines have not? And why is that success depressing? A lengthy history and review of Pitchfork [Media], from an inexpensive online alternative to a music zine, to "indie" music kingmaker, and thoughts on pop music (criticism). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jan 24, 2012 - 109 comments

[...] now they’re really interested in this one song– and they still won’t make eye contact, looking through their little lenses, taping this one song for their blogs or for their fucking YouTube [accounts] or whatever, [...] and it just pissed me off.

Band of Horses singer gives San Diego YouTuber the finger, prompting reactions ranging from sympathy with the artist to basically "stop whining, it's part of the job".
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jul 21, 2007 - 74 comments

Pitchfork? Predictable? Let's take an empirical approach.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Aug 8, 2006 - 69 comments

"So I think we maybe have this sort of snobbish reputation. But we're just really honest, opinionated music fans." (via)
posted by bardic on Apr 30, 2006 - 178 comments

Warp Records becomes the first label to make entire discography available for download as pay-per-track at Bleep.com.

via Pitchforkmedia.com
posted by iamck on Nov 23, 2003 - 32 comments