Slate: "Die Pitchfork, Die"

[DudeAsInCool]

Slate takes a hardlook at PitchForkMedia, the indie music website:

In July of this year, Bill Baird, a musician for an Austin outfit called Sound Team, drove out to a park near his home, slapped a sign with his band's name onto the chest of a life-size dummy, and stabbed the thing with a giant pitchfork. Then, as a friend filmed the action, Baird threw the dummy off a giant cliff. Later, he set it on fire. The next day, he posted the 51-second clip on YouTube. The impetus for the whole stunt was a 3.7 out of 10 review from online music magazine Pitchfork Media, which had described Sound Team's major-label debut as having "a shortage of, like, actual songs."

Pitchfork is often compared to Rolling Stone in its prime: a music journal that is single-handedly revolutionizing music journalism. That's a stretch, but Pitchfork does resemble its glossy ancestor in one particular way: attracting haters in astonishing numbers. Some people despise Pitchfork because it's too verbose, or too brutal, or they just don't like how the site dismisses established artists because it can. The Web contains large-scale Pitchfork parodies, statistical studies of Pitchfork's review history, and an eloquent, oft-quoted post from writer Daniel Taylor titled "Pitchfork Media Can Suck My Cock." Even venerable indie record label Sub Pop took their shot.

Read more at Slate

[Satan]

"Die Pitchfork, Die"

Yes, that's the spirit!

[Potato]

Pitchfork is a service?

[DudeAsInCool]

I think Pitchfork is a great resource, but I have problems with some of their reviews. I actually like some of Sound Team's stuff and have posted it here; why Pitchfork goes out of its way sometimes to kill aspiring bands is beyond me. The role of a music critic should be to inform and to turn people on to music, not turn them off; othewise, why bother writing the review in the first place.

[method77]

if the music is bad then why try to make it look good? A review can be bad sometimes

[DudeAsInCool]

if the music is bad then why try to make it look good? A review can be bad sometimes

That, too