pitchfork has officially lost all credibility...
 

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...ut-jacks-creek

going on and on about sun gity girls' tremedous influence on modern music, but then giving them three mediocre to awful reviews??? please, go fucking bust your nut over of montreal or something.

they never had any in the first place.

7.0/10 doesn't mean mediocre for me...

This is a good thing -- it's not like I want to agree with pitchfork on anything whatsoever. Though to be fair, juggernaut isn't that great, but those other two albums are amazing. I didn't bother reading the reviews, I just highlighted the link and saw what albums they were talking about.

In more important news, I've now heard every single sun city girls release, including the carnival folklore ressurection series, and all solo/side projects.. the only thing I'm missing is a few of the cloven casettes...

Oh, and they gave an album a 7.0? I'd say a 7 means good then.

why does the reviewsd of one or two individuals mean that all of pitchfork has lost their credibility? you know what credibility means right? It means the ability to be believed, to have one's words be trustworthy.
pitchfork's record release info is always dead on.
Their tour dates info is always dead on. Their reviews are, like all reviews of any media, to be taken with a grain of salt and an open mind. what's the big deal?

I just do not understand the hate for a website that reviews almost many new releases in "underground" music, from reggae to rap to r&B to punk to dub to techno to hardcore to whatever. As Husker Du sang "It makes no sense at all."

It is like the old backlash in the late 80's and early 90's against Maximum Rock n Roll. who else was gonna review self-released cassettes and 7" singles by the hundreds? fuck.

Meh, Pitchfork has correct news, but it's usually not news about bands I care about. And their reviews are almost always WRONG. I remember when I actually bothered to read their site... and I noticed.. any new, innovative, awesome record by an amazing band always gets about a 7.5 or so. Any record that sucks by an established band that pitchfork doesn't want to piss off also gets about a 7.0/7.5. Any overhyped bullshit record (bloc party or something) easily gets a 9.0. You could say that about any site/magazine, but it's REALLY noticeable with Pitchfork. I can tell you what their reviews will say/what the ratings will say before I read them usually. The only time I was shocked was stuff like Zaireeka and NYC Ghosts and Flowers getting 0's and the mediocre Source Tags and Codes getting a 10. Those kinda came out of nowhere.

As it is, I think Mars Volta have spot-on assessment of things like the Mars Volta, but Pitchfork is purely motivated by money, as I've said before. Someone on here showed a link to a post on a message board where some dudes hacked into the pitchfork webmaster's email account a few years ago and found all these emails from record companies paying pitchfork to give good reviews to their records and emails where the webmaster would advise his editors to give certain things good/decent reviews. It was a really entertaining through, lasting a good 100 pages or so, it had tons of print-screen images and such. Two of the pitchfork editors were apparently fucking and there was gossip about it on there too with print screenshots. It was fucking hilarious!

Anyway, it's not really shocking or anything.. just.. you know. Pitchfork sucks.

Haha, out of curiosity, I just went there, and sure enough, the awful Mountain Battles by Breeders got a 7.5... just as I pedicted in the post above.

Something to pay attention to if you read their site.

Also, something I'd like to mention, why exactly are they on a 100 point scale? (0.0 to 10.0). What do they base their criteria on? I can see a 10 point scale, but the numbers after the decimal are what confuses me. They just listen to a record and go, "Oh, this is definitely a 6.8!" Makes no sense to me.

Anyway, my advice: If you want good sun city girls reviews, go to www.markprindle.com .. I agree with a lot of his reviews on that site, though obviously not all................. (the sonic youth page has a lot of weird inconsistencies for example)

These things ahppen, which is why I stated that the reviews need to be taken with a grain of sal. they have very god interviews, news, and information, as well as free downloads and shit.
I give pitchfork an 8.2

you do have a point. the info they give out is really good. if i do look at the site it's for that only. i used to read the reviews for laughs but i don't really care for a review that is about as big as a term paper and looks like it was one.

i like maximum rock n roll's reviews. short and to the point.

If you like them/don't mind them, then cool man.

I kinda just use message boards for any info about bands I care about, and I guess a lot of that info comes from pitchfork, but again pitchfork doesn't usually cover bands I necessarily care for.

I just choose to not read them unless someone brings them up, and then I get curious. They're just too snobby to bother with most of the time in my opinion.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news...ives_music_6_8

Pitchfork gives music a 6.8

is not the virulent anti-pitchfork hate, nearly irrational I may add, not just another form of snobby elitism?
as in "I am too cool for the website that emphasizes the music I love?"

I don't personally love most of the music they cover, though. I give them points for covering everything from william basinski to gaji to dengue fever, but those artists hardly get the coverage of something like KANYE FUCKING WEST or bloc party.

Years ago, I used to read pitchfork every day out of curiousity but again it just seems like a chore to go their site and deal with their snobbery and misinformation.

And to agree with batreleaser's original point, you do have to wonder why they even bother covering something like the sun city girls. Or why they're reviewing those reissues of old albums instead of that NEW excellent singles collection that came out last month. They try to cover a little bit of everything to present themselves as an all-knowing source so you can "Trust" them for new musical finds... but I can PROMISE you I have never once discovered a band that I've liked from reading pitchfork -- I think most of us are more advanced and "in-the-know" than pitchfork is , honestly.

I don;t know atsonic. you listen to some very obscure shit. shit that maybe only a thousand other people in the entire world listen to, you know? for real.

tons of the bands you like and list I have never ever heard of.

EXACTLY. Rob, I love you. This is the message I wanted to post for a while.

jeez, they are only jounalists who give opinions......only the operson listening can give an opinion. i love reading reviews but i will make my own mind up if i like something and then ill say i discovered it first and pitchfork is crap!

I'm totally with you on this. I fucking hate it when a website which is read by literally millions of people covers a good band that are known by roughly four people. Don't they understand anything?

they dont understand that hipster doofuses love to poo-poo a band the moment anyone other than themselves knows about them.

I stopped giving reading pitchfork reviews when I read that review of some Animal Collective album and it was all expressionist dreamscape shit. And a rating number. Pitchfork just feels like it is run by a collection of art history majors to me which is what really puts me off.

my thoughts exactly

After much thought I read it every once in a while, just to know what music is out there at the moment.

Yes, but they're news section is pretty good.

pitchfork does not emphasize music i love, over the past couple years theres only been a handful of bands whom theyve championed that ive enjoyed. no age, liars, deerhunter, animal collective, panda bear, etc... but shit, there ablums of the year? besides panda bear getting it this year; interpol, the knife, the rapture, etc... this is also the website that gave 'source tags and codes' a 10 and gave 'nyc ghosts and flowers' a 0. yes, i read pitchfork for news, tour updates, etc. but their reviews are verrrry dodgy. i mean, the bands their close with, like les safy fav for example, will always get an 8, even when they out out shit like that record last year. im not elitist, just skeptical.

Sometimes I like Pitchfork, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I agree with them, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I find their reviews and articles very informative and helpful, sometimes I don't.

I guess I'm of two minds about Pitchfork.

Yeah, Pitchfork can be either down to earth and helpful or la-la land art culture wank.

i really don't care for pitchfork, just as i don't care about rolling stone. i really just stopped reading it altogether, even thru news section, i eventually find out about what they say from other places.

and it's not because i think i'm cooler than thou or because i disagree with them; my actually problem with pitchfork is a) their function is to be fashion setters and b) their reviews hardly mention the music within the discs they review; really read them, perhaps two lines talk about the music. i just thought "why bother?" really, i don't give too mcuh thought about pitchfork.

original post idea for this thread: pitchfork had credibility?

thank you! i was seriously fucking shocked people jumped on me for dissing pitchfork.

Rob, I don't listen to almost anything "obscure". Go to last.fm and look up some of the bands I like -- tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands of listens from only last.fm users. That's hardly obscure. I just listen to shit that doesn't always have the Thurston Moore seal of approval, which is required for 80% of this board to bother with a band.

Last.fm has really actually opened my eyes regarding the popularity of bands... Magik Markers have about 100,000 plays... that's actually really noteworthy and amazing when you consider the kind of stuff they're doing... Wolf Eyes has about 275,000 plays... granted, a lot of the plays may be by the same people but still. Pretty nuts.

Also... Glice, my point wasn't that they shouldn't cover sun City Girls at all -- my point is, why do they bother? The only albums they've reviewed are those three reissues and a Carnival Folklore Ressurection release (which was limited to like 400 copies)... when they've had a brand new singles collection released last month that pitchfork hasn't even bothered reviewing. I don't understand why they review Kanye West and shit like that, you know, literally reviewing "everything" to appear to be the be-all/end-all source of music, and then they just kinda roughly cover stuff like SCG... why even bother reviewing a reissued soundtrack when there have a recent more noteworthy album that they could be reviewing?

I'm sure you're wrong on this. Just because people listen to Be Your Own Pet or Awesome Color or whatever doesn't mean they're stupid bitches that only listens to what Thurston listens.

Surely if you like a label, you will tend to listen to the bands on this label (for instance, I really am into loads of bands on The Social Registry - Gang Gang Dance, Psychic Ills, Telepathe, Blood On The Wall, Artanker Convoy, Ghost Exits... - or Paw Tracks - Animal Collective and solo related stuff, Black Dice and solo related stuff like that Eric Copeland album, Excepter, Tickley Feather..., so I sure want to discover more bands on that label), and as Thurston owns Ecstatic, it's logical to find people that listen predominently to the music that gets released on Ecstatic Peace, just as you find people that listen to music on Social Registry or SKINGRAFT or Touch & Go or 4AD or whatever. There is probably a largest proportion of Ecstatic Peace worshippers there as you're on a Sonic Youth board, that's logical.

But just because people like music that gets out on Ecstatic Peace doesn't mean they're just listening to music that has Thurston approval... What you're doing is basically provocation.
Me listening to a lot of music on Paw Tracks doesn't mean at all that I only listen to music that has Avey Tare or Panda Bear approval, see.

Okay, sure, but that wasn't really my point. If Thurston loves a band and talks about them, a lot of people here will check it out.. and NOT check out a band that he doesn't ever mention. I mean, I'm stating the obvious, but still... and I know what you're saying, but this doesn't just include stuff on his label. It's no big deal, I just think a lot of good music gets overlooked in favor of some awful bullshit. I mean, we don't have the time to listen to everything, right?

But yeah, my tastes AREN'T that obscure, maybe just obscure to some of the people on here. No biggy.

Oh, and Ex-Models rule! Glad to see you're listening to them. On "Other Mathematics", there are quite a few lyrical nods to Gang of Four which I find interesting. Great band.

Agreed about Ex Models, they rule. Still haven't checked Other Mathematics but I will. I'm listening to Pterodactyl right now and they're great as well

you know that those 100,000 plays are just from maybe 20 thousand people? and that many of them heard just the beginning and turned it off and it is counted as a PLAY?

that is EXTREMELY obscure

no matter how much you say otherwise, wolf eyes, magik marker sand all those bands are EXTREMELY obscure, if you lok at music in general man. I can guarantee you that wolf eyes have yet to sell more than 100 thousand of ANYTHING. and that is giving them some leeway too man.

Let alone credibility, but when did pitchfork have any reliable writing on it? When? Eh? You tell me.

Yeah, but that's ONLY last.fm users that have heard it. If you think about who isn't using last.fm and who's heard that stuff (probably double or triple the amonut of people who have last.fm accounts), it is quite a lot... when you consider the kind of music it is.

I agree, but to say it is not obscure is a very big exageration my man.
nearly every singl ting that people on this forum love to listen to is obscure, by the general musical taste of the regular people around us.

and most of us here at sonic forum listen to quite a lot of stuff that is obscure to the rest of us here!

I guess what defines obscure to me is different than to you. I like a few things, Darth Vegas and stuff, from Australia, and some Japanese stuff that no one here knows, but if it's American and... well, when almost any band is a soulseek download away, it just doesn't seem obscure to me. But I see your point.

the key words there are "TO YOU" you know?
obviously anyone who shares your musical taste will know about those bands and musical acts, but that is the maybe half a percent of the population that shares your musical tastes. That is by definition obscure.

and again, a soulseek download means nothing. I coudl put a recording of myself farting on soulseek and someone is gonna download it.

yeah people downloaded my shitty electronic music off of me on soulseek.