| I like Pitchfork a lot. I don't think they're hype driven at all, and they definitely don't trash records just because they're popular. They're about the most honest national level music review outlet around, in my opinion.
The accusation that they trash anything popular and praise anything signifigantly obscure and hyped breaks down when you actually go through their reviews. Look at some of the artists to release albums pitchfork ranked a 9.0 or better:
Bjork
Pavement
Keith Fullerton Whitman
The Fall
Isis
Ween
Mouse on Mars
Add N to (X)
Low
Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Ryan Adams
Miles Davis
XTC
Tom Waits
Elvis Costello
Sonic Youth
Dick Dale
Radiohead
The Chemical Brothers
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Beck (for Mutations and Odelay)
The Strokes
The White Stripes
Eminem
Múm
Mark Eitzel
Blur
Wilco
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead
Sleater-Kinney
Yo La Tengo
Amon Tobin
Pretty Girls Make Graves
The Microphones
Built To Spill
Bauhaus
Interpol
Aphex Twin
Pennywise
Sunny Day Real Estate
Clinic
Sigur Ros
The Roots
Spoon
Modest Mouse
The Flaming Lips
Eric B & Rakim
The Avalanches
Manic Street Preachers
I don't know how you can look at that list and say pitchfork hate popular music, and only push albums hyped by record labels they represent.
Yes, they're arrogant, and they trash a lot of music, but that's their mandate, and they do a damn good job of it. They cater to knowledgable music fans who have been around a while, and they don't praise an album unless it deserves it. And they only savage an album if it deserves it (like Audioslave). They're balanced, otherwise. |