"…the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement"

The Onion skewers the too-cool-for-school snots at Pitchfork, with "Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8."

Despite music's defenders, the Pitchfork review has made a deep impression on the thousands of music fans who slavishly follow the website's advice when it comes to enjoying things.

"Music used to be great, but let's be honest, it's a 6.8 now at best," said Los Angeles resident Lowell Radler, 23, who admitted that he just looked at the rating rather than reading the whole review. "I seriously might never listen to music again."

Still, most analysts agreed that the impact of Pitchfork's scathing review of music will be dampened by the 2.4 rating it received from Pitchfork staff writer Dave Maher just moments after the initial critique was published online. Maher termed Schreiber's assessment of music "overwrought, masturbatory posturing intended to make insecure hipsters feel as if they're part of some imagined elite beau monde."

Comments

[BakedPenguin]

The irony is certainly ironic these days, what with the Onion "[skewering] the too-cool-for-school snots at Pitchfork". I mean, the Onion, while very funny, is not without it's own hipper-than-thou vibe.

[Matt]

The Onion is turning into CNN for hipsters.

[SugarFree]

I had an employee addicted to Pitchfork and governed by his reviews. Toward the end, when he brought up Pitchfork, I'd loudly play a Xiu Xiu song in the office off of Fabulous Muscles which garnered a solid 9.0 by Pitchfork. Every track sounds like a effete 19th century French courtier being tortured to death in the bottom of a metal trash can... and not in a good way.

[Episiarch]

Where's dhex? We need some musical snobbery expertise.

[Eric S.]

My $.02: The Onion hasn't changed much in the last 7-8 years . . . any complaints about it are a result of changes in its readership, not its content.

[dbcooper]

Hmm,I think the Onion is about 3 to 4 years late on this one. Pitchfork used to be an insufferable, holier than thou, indie-rockist, ultra-pretentious site back then, but has since mellowed out and matured, offering much broader, and less biased, coverage with more insight. Columns like "this month in techno" and features like "greatest singles of the 70's" can be rather good.

[Eric S.]

dbcooper,

Awesome comment: Hating on Pitchfork is so 2003!

[dhex]

the columns are generally ok, i think because they get people who are way into whatever it is they're covering. the more general stuff, well...it tends to the bad. their interview with david tibet from current 93 (basically because he had will oldham and a few other guests on "black ships ate the sky") and it was obvious the interviewer hadn't even bothered to read the dude's wikipedia page.

their hip hop reviews are also generally pretty hard to read.

[Rimfax]

Eric S. wins the thread.

[Randolph Carter]

This reminded me of

[Randolph Carter]

here article

[mk]

this Onion piece had a similar vibe and was hysterical.

As for Pitchfork, I'll point everyone to their review of the Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat as exhibit number one of why they should be taken with only a few grains of salt.

[vanya]

But Pitchfork was right about Blueberry Boat - it is a great record. And I say that as someone who generally doesn't have a lot of patience for trendy indy bands.

[Lamar]

I think Amazon got it right re: Blueberry boat:

Even more pretentious than Radiohead; even less musical than Gwar,

[stephen the goldberger]

cremate me after you come on my lips
fabulous muscles

[Anonymo the Anonymous]

Posers. Anyone who's really cool knows it's not just music -- the whole concept of sensory perception has been derivative of Pavement for like eight years.

And not even the weird tracks off Wowie Zowie. Totally just the commercialized stuff like "Cut Your Hair".

[Episiarch]

I think you all need to go read "Your Band Sucks" at somethingawful.com.

[Randolph Carter]

I'll go one further, Anonymo, you cad. Your whole meta-perception of others' perception is totally derivative of Pavement, and those doodz were totally derivative of Slint. So why don't you go listen to some Britney Spears and enjoy your reality tunnel.

But I'm so over reality tunnels, they're so 2004.

[GM]

Hey! Lay off Xiu Xiu. I could listen to Clowne Towne over and over again and in fact have done so.

But Pitchfork does irk me, too. They gave an terrible review of Neon Bible, which is at least as good as Funeral.

I wonder what they will have to say about the new Rogue Wave . . . ?

In any event they remind me of a friend of mine, huge indie rock fan, who would simply stop listening to bands once they became too popular. She did this not because the bands' music was not as good as it was when they were obscure. Rather she stopped listening merely because the bands became popular.

And that to me is as bad as listening to something simply because everyone else is.

[highnumber]

My pal who works at a hipster record store in a hipster neighborhood is driven crazy by the yuppies (his word) who come into his store looking for whatever Pitchfork is hyping this month. I have the impression from him that Pitchfork is for lazy wannabe hipsters.

(He ain't no hipster. He's the King of Metal.)

And Pitchfork does throw a festival with a pretty cool lineup, for a festival.

[vanya]

I work with yuppies all day. Yuppies for the most part have never heard of Pitchfork. Your friend is an ubersnob.

[highnumber]

I'm sorry. I'll have him flogged immediately.

He's still no dhex.

[Lamar]

"Anyone who's really cool knows it's not just music"

You're right. It's an indie band that sounds like they stole the second singer from Dag Nasty. God bless their ethic, but their output? Blech.

[Jim Walsh]

..."overwrought, masturbatory posturing intended to make insecure hipsters feel as if they're part of some imagined elite beau monde."

Which also nicely describes Spin magazine, TheTruth.org, and 99.9999999% of all college radio...