I've heard people quoting the music review website Pitchfork as a credible website, while never really leaning one way or another towards them as I never gave them much thought. Apparently I posted a link from them on TWW about a Neil Young kickstarter project, but that was linked from another site, so isn't indicative of me perusing the site on a regular basis.

Apparently some band called Whirr (who I've never heard of) had a "Review of Pitchfork" (https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10653552_744721035604606_3813179634418895292_n.jpg?oh=03a5a37378593ceb866bfbd307909a45&oe=54C65F44&__gda__=1417922300_89bd3ca40ba0233bf52745a3590fefea) where they basically said the reviewers were pussies who were out of touch with music and relied on using big words to get hits to their website. Perhaps they were butthurt at a negative review (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19658-whirr-sway/). I checked out Pitchfork.com and didn't know much about the artists on a lot of the most recent reviews, so I visited their archives to try and see how they held up over the years. Based on Whirr's review, they've been in the game for 20-30 years so they are obviously established in what they do.

I don't expect myself (or anyone) to agree with all the reviews of such a vast website who tends to review multiple albums each day, so I can certainly understand the occasional bad review of a good piece of media, or some unwarranted hype and praise of a mediocre album. But based on my own confined knowledge and awareness of particular albums and genres over the years, I have to agree that they are often extremely out of touch with music, instead relying on things like valuing their own cultural expectations of a genre over the musical quality itself, or being overly critical of a particular album based on it not meeting their own expectations.

One example I came across was their review for Amy Winehouse's album Frank which some guy named Douglas Wolk gave a 4.9/10 (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10900-frank/). My personal opinion is that the album is a classic and a 4.9/10 seems out of touch. Again, I concede that no site or collection of reviewers is always going to be perfect, but 4.9 seems completely out of touch with music. For comparison, Metacritic gave it 78/100, the Guardian 8/10, USA Today 3.5/4 stars, Entertainment Weekly A-. Rolling Stone happened to give it 2.5/5 stars, but imo they are just as overrated as Pitchfork. For perspective, 5 out of 6 of 50 Cent's albums received equal or better ratings than this album from Pitchfork. 11 of Lil Wayne's 14 albums got higher ratings than Frank. 11 of 14. Lil Wayne.

In summation, in my opinion, like what you like and listen to what you want to listen to, but relying on any type of reviews as an indication of musical quality is absurd, as is letting a food or TV or movie review dictate your opinion.

Holy shit this OP is longer than I intended, but I guess the point is using some ignoramus' opinion of an album as a reason why an artist is good or bad is imbecilic.

9/22/2014 11:55:31 PM

I haven't really read them much in a long time, but back in the day, seeing who was on the byline meant a lot at pitchfork. The OGs knew what was up. Also, you could typically rely on their highly rated albums as being worthy of attention. Also, only read the first and last paragraph. The rest was often wordy bullshit.

Edit: And their year-end lists have always been very good.

[Edited on September 22, 2014 at 11:59 PM. Reason : .]

9/22/2014 11:59:31 PM

they've taken a laughable turn into catty/gossip news

9/23/2014 12:51:19 AM

The last truly great Pitchfork review was Brent DiCrescenzo's bit on Lateralus.

That was 13 years ago.

Also, it's worth pointing out that the Pitchfork review of Frank was written after Back to Black came out. Compared to that record (which got a 6.4 from a Joshua Klein, but is clearly an all-time classic), Frank doesn't hold up, which would explain the score.

Another thing is that any Pitchfork score between 4.9 and 6.1 is essentially a big "meh." Less than that is trolling, things up to 7 are for "this should've been better," and everything above that is nitpicking until you get to "Best New Music" territory, which starts around 8.1 but is not solely score-dependent.

[Edited on September 23, 2014 at 3:49 AM. Reason : 3]

9/23/2014 3:42:49 AM

I think I read somewhere that the numerical score of a review is more of a group consensus thing, which might explain why the score sometimes doesn't match the review

9/23/2014 6:31:12 AM

where do the good reviews seem to be these days? I don't read pitchfork as often anymore. I tend to read some smaller blog sites and a couple of the larger ones like CoS

9/23/2014 8:47:20 AM

the writing is not always very good but there can be some decent group consensus on sputnikmusic. I find a lot of decent music from digging around on there.

9/23/2014 9:31:45 AM

giving Yeezus 9.5 was the last straw for me. and the review was UNBEARABLE to read. haven't checked them out since.

9/23/2014 10:00:01 AM

Frank > Back to Black

9/23/2014 11:59:58 AM

Quote :

"CoS"

they're the absolute worst. nothing but shitty, stupid posts about whoever jack white is shit-talking at the moment, and they frequently have inaccurate statements or post the wrong video content or something. the amount of inexcusably poor journalism that gets pushed through and posted on that site is ridiculous.

i like pitchfork for their newsfeed since it's good for tour/album announcements, new tracks, etc and is a bit less gossipy than some of the other blogs. i don't bother too much with reviews

9/23/2014 12:13:37 PM

I rarely look at reviews for non-metal albums, but when I do, I look on sputnikmusic.

Also, I think it says something about vinylbandit that he has an opinion about when a particular site put out their last great album review. And that it was 13 years ago, no less. I'm not exactly sure what it says, but it says something.

9/23/2014 1:05:22 PM

It probably says that journalism is an art form, like television, film, or fiction, and it can be good or bad.

Why is it a problem that I have a favorite Pitchfork review but it's okay that I have a favorite Simpsons episode?

9/23/2014 3:35:46 PM

Because it's a review of an original artistic work, not an original artistic work itself; you're reviewing reviews. (Which is done all the time on sputnikmusic, but I think it's silly there, too.) I can understand someone having a favorite critic, or one who you typically identify and agree with. But it's perhaps a bit pretentious to pull out a particular review from 13 years ago, off the top of your head, as your favorite critique. It's like talking about your favorite Simpsons episode, and then volunteering that Nathan Rabin from the Onion AV club had your favorite review of the episode.

We're not talking about scholarly works applying music theory to in-depth critiques of the artistic merits of Katy Perry. (Although if you want that, http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/03/katy_perry_s_teenage_dream_explaining_the_hit_using_music_theory.html might be your thing.) We're talking about a few hundred words of snarky context-setting, adjectives best left in a thesaurus, and poor analogies.

9/23/2014 4:17:51 PM

^ you may want to check out the actual review

9/23/2014 6:49:29 PM

I actually kind of agree with vinyl; i enjoy reading record reviews from a journalism perspective. I have my favorite authors on certain sites and look forward to reading certain people's reviews of certain albums. And actually do have favorite reviews.

That being said, the greatness of that Tool review was lost on me. It's actually the kind of review I hate from pitchfork.

9/23/2014 7:25:14 PM

Quote :

"the greatness of that Tool review was lost on me."

Me too.

I might also add that the greatness of Lateralus was lost on me, too.

9/23/2014 8:12:42 PM

^^^^ What's more pretentious: a guy who has a favorite review, or a guy who writes a whole paragraph on a thing he didn't read?

On top of that, I completely disagree with the idea that a review is not an original artistic work; there is art in all writing, from the driest scholarly work all the way to fucking Ulysses. Just because you're building off someone else's work, it doesn't negate what you're doing.

Elvis never wrote a song in his life. Elvis was most certainly an artist.

--

I totally understand why people don't like that style of Pitchfork review (which, by the way, they've almost completely abandoned), but it's way better than just saying "I hated this" and moving on. At least have fun.

9/23/2014 9:17:48 PM

Quote :

"^ you may want to check out the actual review"

Quote :

"What's more pretentious: a guy who has a favorite review, or a guy who writes a whole paragraph on a thing he didn't read?"

I did read the review before posting. I thought it was pretty dumb, but its actual content was unrelated to the point I was making, so I didn't say anything about the review itself.

9/23/2014 10:01:20 PM

They've shifted 'focus' a bit over the years, presumably to expand their market. It always seemed forced to me. I still check out the reviews more or less daily in the quest for new music, but as someone said, first and last pararaph only. The 'art' in some of their literature was always lost on me.

9/23/2014 10:25:33 PM

Hey don't knock the review websites...

Some people rely on them to determine their own opinions after all!

Refer to the top of this page for evidence: message_topic.aspx?topic=640421&page=3

9/23/2014 11:54:07 PM

^^^ Okay, so your point is that reviews are not art? Is that why people publish books full of reviews (and I don't mean record guides)?

9/24/2014 12:35:14 AM

I would say that reviews can have artistic qualities when well-written. But some art is destined for the museum, and some art is destined for the refrigerator. If you want to call them both art, then fine, but that doesn't change the fact that one of them is a poorly-scrawled crayon portrait of Mommy with macaroni hair.

That's beside the point, anyway. My point was that your post was a bit pretentious. Being pretentious about music is kind of your thing. We all know that, and it's fine; I still respect your taste in and opinions about music (although I question the Kanye thing). Own it.

[Edited on September 24, 2014 at 1:26 AM. Reason : ]

9/24/2014 1:23:31 AM

I'm more than happy to own my opinions, and even my snobbery on the fronts where it exists, but I won't own pretension that's not there.

That Lateralus review is my favorite Pitchfork piece ever. Is it childish and silly? Sure. But so is Tool. If nothing else, it's memorable, so to suggest remembering = pretension is a stretch.

Pitchfork is a much different website than it used to be. A good illustration is the original review of I Get Wet by Andrew WK, which got a 0.6 upon release, then an 8.6 and a place in "100 Best Albums of the Decade" upon its reissue. Legitimate journalism took over from comedy takedowns years ago, but as a snarky bastard, I preferred the latter.

To be fair, I hardly ever read the reviews any more. I'm as guilty as anyone of only looking at the score for records I'm not super interested in, and a good or bad Pitchfork score has way more sway than it should on casual listening and record sales.

Plus, these days I only listen to Prince Rama.

9/24/2014 3:01:23 AM

What are your thoughts dmbny414034?

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

9/24/2014 12:01:14 PM

Quote :

"Hey don't knock the review websites... Some people rely on them to determine their own opinions after all!"

The album in question was Todd Terje's It's Album Time, which got a Best New Music and an 8.7, right? http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19148-todd-terje-its-album-time/

Seems to me that when thegoodlife3 said "I'm just not hearing it," he was saying "I do not agree with the overwhelming positive reception from critics." What am I missing? How is that proof that Pitchfork dictates what he likes?

9/24/2014 12:12:37 PM

Quote :

"Hey don't knock the review websites... Some people rely on them to determine their own opinions after all! Refer to the top of this page for evidence:"

the album got good reviews

I didn't think it was that great of an album

the fact that you were unable to get that/are still referencing is pretty hilarious

[Edited on September 24, 2014 at 12:15 PM. Reason : ^ hahahaha. awesome timing.]

9/24/2014 12:13:12 PM