Really hard to take a history of Pitchfork that does not contain the term "poptimism" seriously, and as I've said many times, the coyness over this change mostly speaks to the fear white dudes such as yourself have when it comes to acknowledging the ideological takeover of music criticism by pop supremacism. I'm glad the publication got less "dude-y," but it came to totally reject the very genres that had once made it, and it did so for straightforwardly self-defensive political reasons, not artistic or critical ones.
I have been reading Pitchfork probably since it started, and for a music review site I read once a week I have all kinds of feelings about it going away. Definitely nostalgia for the MP3 blog days in college, dowloading lots of Klaxons remixes and whatnot. The site had changed a lot over time. I may not like to some of the music they've focused on recently, but that's ok, I think. It's not all about me. I have grown out of only listening to white dude guitar bands over the years. The Sunday review, I have been looking forward to every week.
The word you hit upon- "imprimatur"- denotes a non-talked-about, but super-important aspect of life as a musician in 2024.
More than ever, in order to find and engage an audience of any significant size, you need an imprimatur from someone they trust; and it's harder to get/earn one than ever.
Signing to a label used to be one, but not so much anymore; landing in Pitchfork or Decibel used to be one too. So it's a loss for all of us to have one less place to seek the necessary approval for our work, whether we'd have fit in with PF's aesthetic or not.
The Sunday retrospectives have been great - some of my favorite Pitchfork content. It was always a nice mix of the expected and obscure (at least to me). With the move to GQ, the breadth and depth seems at risk.
What's wrong with Jamiroquai? This is exactly what I hated about Pitchfork -- that certain music was off-limits, not because it was objectively "bad" but because it somehow wasn't "indie".
Great obituary, and I enjoyed your linked review of the Bizarre Ride box set! I feel like Pitchfork has been on a steady decline for decades, I’ve routinely visited it to confirm that an album that I thought was good (or bad) would be inappropriately graded. For me, the last straw was the revisionist re-grading of albums they would slam decades prior... what a cop out, own your incorrect elitism! Despite their flaws, they were influential and promoted a lot of great artists and had a lot of talented writers. It’s a shame they are gone but not necessarily all that shocking. The way people consume music is so different now that a curation/reviewing tool of its ilk has far less value to this generation of music listeners/creators.
Just wanted to reach out and say that the Sunday reviews have been my favourite feature in discovering new old music and getting som really good cultural context for great albums. I hope you continue to write those types of features here on substack!
Cold War Kids, ha! This captured all the nostalgia of the blog-hunting days perfectly - opening 400 bookmarked pages every day to feverishly download mp3s because someone interesting was saying something interesting about them was such an arduous delight. Man, I hope Pitchfork festival doesn’t become GQ-palooza.
As always, a thoughtful piece. I was happy when I started to see your byline at Pitchfork after reading your stuff elsewhere, and always checked on Sunday to see if you were that week's writer (I've referred back to the Sugar recap more than a few times). Pitchfork turned me onto to some great music over the past 25 years, and the festival was/is still the best. Looking forward to your new venture.
Appreciate this post so much. Though as someone who doesn't like reading much from a screen, I always wished Pitchfork was a print magazine. As a music lover, album reviews are the most important thing to me--I want to know what's new and what's worth paying attention to and WHY. I grew up reading the UK music weeklies of the 80s-00s and frankly nothing has been so good as them before or since. Sigh.
Thank you for writing this, Eric.
Damn, I just discovered Pitchfork like fuckin 6 months ago lol. Anyway, thanks for Girl in red, Beabadoibee (‘Care’!) and probably many others!
Really hard to take a history of Pitchfork that does not contain the term "poptimism" seriously, and as I've said many times, the coyness over this change mostly speaks to the fear white dudes such as yourself have when it comes to acknowledging the ideological takeover of music criticism by pop supremacism. I'm glad the publication got less "dude-y," but it came to totally reject the very genres that had once made it, and it did so for straightforwardly self-defensive political reasons, not artistic or critical ones.
I have been reading Pitchfork probably since it started, and for a music review site I read once a week I have all kinds of feelings about it going away. Definitely nostalgia for the MP3 blog days in college, dowloading lots of Klaxons remixes and whatnot. The site had changed a lot over time. I may not like to some of the music they've focused on recently, but that's ok, I think. It's not all about me. I have grown out of only listening to white dude guitar bands over the years. The Sunday review, I have been looking forward to every week.
The word you hit upon- "imprimatur"- denotes a non-talked-about, but super-important aspect of life as a musician in 2024.
More than ever, in order to find and engage an audience of any significant size, you need an imprimatur from someone they trust; and it's harder to get/earn one than ever.
Signing to a label used to be one, but not so much anymore; landing in Pitchfork or Decibel used to be one too. So it's a loss for all of us to have one less place to seek the necessary approval for our work, whether we'd have fit in with PF's aesthetic or not.
Brilliant story telling here, of the early days of music blogging and such.
The Sunday retrospectives have been great - some of my favorite Pitchfork content. It was always a nice mix of the expected and obscure (at least to me). With the move to GQ, the breadth and depth seems at risk.
What's wrong with Jamiroquai? This is exactly what I hated about Pitchfork -- that certain music was off-limits, not because it was objectively "bad" but because it somehow wasn't "indie".
Great obituary, and I enjoyed your linked review of the Bizarre Ride box set! I feel like Pitchfork has been on a steady decline for decades, I’ve routinely visited it to confirm that an album that I thought was good (or bad) would be inappropriately graded. For me, the last straw was the revisionist re-grading of albums they would slam decades prior... what a cop out, own your incorrect elitism! Despite their flaws, they were influential and promoted a lot of great artists and had a lot of talented writers. It’s a shame they are gone but not necessarily all that shocking. The way people consume music is so different now that a curation/reviewing tool of its ilk has far less value to this generation of music listeners/creators.
Just wanted to reach out and say that the Sunday reviews have been my favourite feature in discovering new old music and getting som really good cultural context for great albums. I hope you continue to write those types of features here on substack!
I take a different perspective in my mini-rant about the death of Pitchfork: https://open.substack.com/pub/indoorcondor/p/taking-shots-at-platformer-or-why?r=ezmke&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Cold War Kids, ha! This captured all the nostalgia of the blog-hunting days perfectly - opening 400 bookmarked pages every day to feverishly download mp3s because someone interesting was saying something interesting about them was such an arduous delight. Man, I hope Pitchfork festival doesn’t become GQ-palooza.
As always, a thoughtful piece. I was happy when I started to see your byline at Pitchfork after reading your stuff elsewhere, and always checked on Sunday to see if you were that week's writer (I've referred back to the Sugar recap more than a few times). Pitchfork turned me onto to some great music over the past 25 years, and the festival was/is still the best. Looking forward to your new venture.
Love this Eric. Reminds me of the Clell Tickle/Tapes n Tapes days of yore. ❤️
Appreciate this post so much. Though as someone who doesn't like reading much from a screen, I always wished Pitchfork was a print magazine. As a music lover, album reviews are the most important thing to me--I want to know what's new and what's worth paying attention to and WHY. I grew up reading the UK music weeklies of the 80s-00s and frankly nothing has been so good as them before or since. Sigh.