There are many sins you can commit, but there is a special circle in pop culture hell reserved for those who write for Pitchfork.
Pitchfork attempts to be so broadly indie that they capture every artist in their (limited) purview and force it into their nauseatingly small definition for what “indie” is. Even when that artist is Taylor Swift releasing what was the year’s best-selling album. When I see albums like Swift’s 1989 and Ariana Grande’s My Everything in their collection of the Top 50 Albums of 2014, it comes off to me as lazy and snarky, which I imagine to be the opposite of what was intended. There are so many potential layers here. Are they trying to declare a hip denial of what’s indie, and as a result, be even more indie then before? Are they kowtowing to a meddlesome corporate influence? Are they, in reality, a bunch of sycophants who are desperately trying to warm up to Swift and Grande for scoops in 2015?
If you read the blurbs written about Swift’s 1989 and Pitchfork’s #1 album of the year, Run the Jewels’ Run the Jewels 2, then you can see a marked contradiction of editorial philosophy. Pitchfork celebrates 1989 for being "un-transgressive", in that it really isn’t that much of the stylistic departure from Swift’s previous effort, Red, as was insisted. So they not only point out that the album is not actually that inventive, nor is it anything other than a portrait of commercialism, but they embrace these facts. What was their #1 album of the year again? Oh yeah, RTJ2, an album that was widely praised for its authentic portrayals of black culture and its creative lyrics and production. Pitchfork, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can have the list with the occasional mainstream hit spiced in if you’re Rolling Stone, or Blender, or some other publication that hasn’t publicized itself as the vanguard of indie music discovery.
I may sound like a madman with a baseless vendetta, but to an extent, I know that writing an album review is really, really hard. Compared to film criticism (where there is an established rhetoric for characters, acting, writing, dialogue, etc.), music criticism must deal with a more primal art form. Accurately describing what the reviewer has heard for their reader who has never heard the music is difficult. Often, the music critic must rely on figurative language, or cutting up lyrics (if the track has vocals) and analyzing them in order to sound smart.
For an example, here’s a short paragraph from a recent Pitchfork review, of Viet Cong’s debut album, Viet Cong:
“[Viet Cong vocalist] Matt Flegel could be mocking the speculative nature of music criticism and predictable, tiresome process of "proving" one’s self in dazed, layered harmony […] That’s when the double-time beat kicks in, and Viet Cong make a sprightly, major-key sprint towards a dead halt. There’s mastery of form, instrumental prowess, and on a record that thrives on unpredictability, "March of Progress" elicits the most unexpected response—that was fun.”
There are several things wrong with this review: Speculation based on the lyrics, vague language in an attempt to describe the sound (“dazed, layered harmony”), ill-placed music terminology in an attempt to sound smart (“major-key sprint”) and hyperbole of the highest order (“mastery of form”). This is the style of writing that Pitchfork reviewers have mastered and regurgitated time and time again. It is self-congratulatory and aimless, and really does not serve to elucidate the content of the album, nor does it seek to clarify why I should listen to it.
Take a look at this review written by an author working for The Quietus, an online British music website:
“The sound is measured and controlled for the most part, only speeding off into an Oneida-esque extended instrumental workout on the final epic 'Death', but that doesn't mean that there isn't a wild desire on display here, a primal efficiency and condensation of intent. Opener 'Newspaper Spoons', for example, has those clattering timpani-like drums, about 12 individual words and some nice organ at the end, barely a thing more than that, but it sounds so tautly executed and full of vitality.”
Brilliant. In one short paragraph I actually have a portrait (even if that portrait can only ever be as accurate as an Impressionist painting) of what this album may sound like. The only thing that isn’t immediately clear here is the term "Oneida," which a quick Google search reveals is a krautrock or noise rock outfit. For those familiar with the band, they get an immediate shorthand for the style of the music on display in Viet Cong. For those who aren’t, we get an immediate shorthand for the genres we can expect on this album, and the reviewer calls attention to the feeling of energy and vibrancy in the music itself.
It’s already hard enough trying to decipher a sound through written testimony, so please, Pitchfork, don’t make it harder for us. I suggest that you check out another publication, like The Quietus.