I think that last post is a bit skimpy, so I wanted to talk a bit about the culture-related websites that I do follow, as well as something about one of those websites that appeared semi-formed in my mind a while ago, and which I think I would do well to write down.

I read Pitchfork Media and The A.V. Club (the not-fake culture branch of The Onion) pretty regularly, and another site called PopMatters with semi-regularity.  They are not blogs.  I guess one would call them “Internet publications”: they combine some blog-ish, feature type writing with lots of reviews and news updates (as well as podcasts for A.V. Club and a variety of video content on Pitchfork).  I enjoy the A.V. Club’s snarky approach to things (their coverage, for instance, of the just-when-you-thought-it-could-get-no-worsening of Heroes has been consistently hilarious).  And PopMatters just generates a ridiculous amount of writing, due to its more open submission policy; this leads to a greater range in the quality of the writing, but it also has sort of a nice democratic feel and it often offers a different perspective on things.

This brings me to Pitchfork.  I am tired of feeling ashamed when I say that I read Pitchfork, or make a reference to one of their pieces in conversation.  So I want to talk about that a little bit, and lay down my theory.  Pitchfork is often criticized on several counts.  One of these is that their reviews often focus too much on the personal experiences of the reviewer (which I view as creative license and not necessarily a bad thing), or are just generally…unobjective, or bitchy or obnoxious or something.  I think this was often true in their earlier days (as with this shameful review of Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides or their choice to embed a video of a monkey peeing in its mouth rather than review Jet’s Shine On).  But I think the publication has matured a great deal, especially with their reformatting of the website and the launching of pitchfork.tv, which I think is just the bee’s knees.  Some very strong features and reviews often come out of the site now, and despite the inherent problems with our criticism industry’s obsession with lists, I find their list of, say, the 500 Best Songs of the Decade about as good as one of those lists can be.  Furthermore, I find their news postings extremely useful for keeping up with tour/release announcements for the majority of the bands I like, and that sort of thing.

Another qualm people have about Pitchfork is that they purport to be the end-all-be-all tastemakers of what music currently being recorded is “good” and “important”.  I don’t think this is true; or, at least, I don’t think it’s any more true for Pitchfork than for ANY OTHER criticism-producing entity, ever.  They post a review and that is the opinion of that one critic, or occasionally a group of critics (as with the lists), take it or leave it.  And here’s what I think happens next.

In my opinion, Pitchfork’s review for a given album more often resonates with me as insightful and on-point than any other publication that I read, and while this has in part to do with my personal tastes, I think it’s also because Pitchfork is just a good publication (as opposed to, say, The Rolling Stone, which often feels like many of the reviews are written with some agenda other than pure criticism in mind–probably trying to sell magazines in a dying print market, a problem that does not hinder Pitchfork).  Then, because Pitchfork very often makes a number of good points about an album, people who are susceptible to being molded by criticism (a group that sometimes includes me, though less and less as time goes on) say “Look!  Pitchfork must be right all the time!  They are the definitive account of independent music today.”  This creates a backlash in which a whole other group of people say “Pitchfork is purporting the be the definitive account of independent music today”; but I think their core ideology is hardly different from any other major publication in the history of pop music.  Then you have a lot of people who are just upset because Pitchfork wasn’t very nice to poor widdle Coldplay or Kings of Leon, who apparently need mounds of glowing praise in addition to selling assloads upon assloads of records.  In the end, this whole complicated stigma arises in which Pitchfork is viewed as snobbish or elitist (which I think is one of the worst words EVER and a major problem in politics and news media, as well–that’s certainly fodder for a future post), and I, a loyal reader, become a snob by association.

*(More possible future blog fodder: my status as an alleged “culture snob”.  I thought maybe this would stop being a bad thing in college, but apparently it is still Not Okay.  I like to think I’m just honest about my opinion, and I don’t know why it has to taint someone else’s experience of, say, Lady Gaga, when I point out some of the things about her that I think are really silly.  For the record, I think Gaga has many redeeming or at least interesting qualities, and I just want to continue that discussion of her pros and cons somewhere outside of the internet/my small circle of friends who understand where I’m coming from.)

Anyway, I just wanted to take this chance to lay out my Big Theory of Pitchfork, and it seemed sort of appropriate and class related, so I hope it makes sense.  Please comment!