The inaugural 2005 Pitchfork Media thread

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what does Scott P think of my suggestion for Pitchfork? - mentioned upthread

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:28 (nineteen years ago) link

It would be great if there was a Dursted magazine.

― Leon the Fratboy (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:31 (nineteen years ago) link

As more informed music enthusiasts join

rateyourmusic
http://rateyourmusic.com/

it will become more important/ useful.

Also rateyourmusic website design/ usability destroys AMG.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:39 (nineteen years ago) link

when cmj was undergoing that hooha about their charts a couple of years back i never understood why pitchfork didn't swoop in and take them on/out and do charts of their own (too labor intensive?). dahlen otm re: pfork's vulnerability, it's established itself as the internet standard for cif's aspiring and real and i don't think that's gonna be really so easy to topple, we're talking about successions of college students now.

― blount, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:16 (nineteen years ago) link

Do people actually read Stylus? I barely read it even when I used to post on its now-defunct message board. Does it get traffic? I know a few of the writers post here, so I'll shy away from any value judgements.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:39 (nineteen years ago) link

Speaking as a member of the Dusted staff, I wouldn't say we're competing with Pitchfork at all. Not only is the coverage different (our coverage area is much more similar to those of the Wire or, yeah, Signal to Noise than to Pitchfork), the editorial outlook at Dusted is pretty different from Pitchfork's. Most of us aren't interested in being tastemakers in the way Pitchfork clearly is, either - anyone coming to Dusted with the hope of seeing opinions like Pitchfork's will probably be disappointed.

I also think there are a LOT of music writers on the web who are better than the most of the ones at Pitchfork, too, and they're not that hard to find - but most of them aren't interested in doing what Pitchfork does. Dahlen is right, I think, in that most of the other websites aren't trying to compete with Pitchfork.

― charlie va (charlie va), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:49 (nineteen years ago) link

I never read (or knew about) Stylus before I read ILM, but now I do. At first, it was just to read articles by ILXors, but there's some others who I've grown to like, too. Mostly, I like a lot of its lists and regular features (Pop Playground, Rubber Room, etc.) (not to mention the Stypod) -- none of which Pitchfork is doing on any level.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:54 (nineteen years ago) link

I think the apparently-mandatory length of Pitchfork's reviews cripples the site. Every once in a while, someone will really use the 800 words effectively, but many (if not the majority) of the reviews just feel like space-filling and creative writing experiments to me (although less than in the brent d through bowers era). It seems like the current writers have a more traditional approach to writing reviews, but the length of the reviews is still the same.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:56 (nineteen years ago) link

Quick aside here in re: "unmined history"...

Q, January 2005: "THE STONE ROSES: They could have ruled the world."

MOJO, May 2002: "THE STONE ROSES: 'We could have ruled the world.'"

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:56 (nineteen years ago) link

writes from everywhere post on ILX! No point in avoiding value judgements.

― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:56 (nineteen years ago) link

Also re Stylus, I like that it skews sorta-indie, but (and maybe just because it hasn't cultivated the indie niche for the last ten years like PFM has) it doesn't feel forced when it spotlights pop or even showtunes (yay, Clem). I also like that its editorial voice feels less monolithic than PFM -- Swygart has his column, there's the movie reviewers over there, etc.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 22:59 (nineteen years ago) link

hey what i want to know is what's the story with that daniel robert epstein guy? ott you know him?

― blount, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 23:01 (nineteen years ago) link

Based on the very limited reading I've done of each, I think P-fork has improved a lot over the past few years. I'm especially impressed w/Mark and Dominique and Scott P and Nabisco (as always) and more recently Nick Sylvester. I like Stylus too, which I find more consistent but not as peaky as P-fork at its best. I'm happy both exist. I'll have to trust Ott on the money stuff, something I know nothing about. And the fact that I found lots of good new stuff on Pitchfork and Stylus' 2004 lists that I hadn't heard of yet says plenty, too; plus I dug lots of the write-ups on P-fork's year-ends. But again, I'm not reading them all the time so take this w/as much salt as you want.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 23:37 (nineteen years ago) link

jaymc OTM on stylus' broad opinion base. I read it for the features and lists, which are, more often than not, really wonderful. I like the apparent spontenaity of a lot of the commentary and the 'on second though' section, I think it's called, for things like Swygart's Sing Sing re-review and Dom's Brothers in Arms piece.

Actually, reviews of older albums like those are the only pieces of music writing I find really compelling these days. It's due partly to my own focus, which has been more on re-evaluation and re-appreciation than discovering brand-new music, and the joy of reading people writing about records that they know really, really well, instead of music they've just run into. A sober second thought is always more interesting than a first impression, for my money.

― derrick (derrick), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 00:08 (nineteen years ago) link

even Russians read Pitchfork:

http://evermusica.com/ever/music/ehm_2004_end.html

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 00:21 (nineteen years ago) link

Ned, I did a quick bit of dirty mulitplication just now and I think you've already got close to 75,000 words written for that 90s book. And "morass" is one of them so it's definitely up to snuff.

Er? Oh, you mean the 136 list? That would take a lot of revising to actually bring anywhere to print, and I honestly can't imagine who'd be interested!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 00:51 (nineteen years ago) link

Don't hate the playerz, hate the game.

― Nancy Boy (Nancy Boy), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 02:56 (nineteen years ago) link

Why not hate everything?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 03:01 (nineteen years ago) link

I'd be interested, Ned!

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 18:02 (nineteen years ago) link

But how much do I charge?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 18:03 (nineteen years ago) link

I mostly just read Stylus reviews of (a) records/artists I'm interested in or (b) any review by rollie, micco, and a handful of other ILMors.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 18:08 (nineteen years ago) link

If their redesign breaks any of their URIs and my carefully catalogued bookmarks to Pitchfork reviews stop resolving, I'll be upset.

― Snnap Dragon (snnap dragon), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link

matos is on the money. i've been visiting both stylus and PF almost daily for over a year, and stylus just seems like a british PF to me, almost like the UK version of an american fashion magazine. they have similar tastes and demographics, but stylus still swoons for acts like The Junior Boys. i'm glad they both exist, too, but i trust pf over stylus always, and both of them over the AMG. those bastards and their check marks. i only go to them when i need information. if i listened to every album they championed, i'd be spinning goddamn ABERFELDY! blech. i am glad that they pointed out the 90 Day Men, though-- i can'tt get enough of 'em.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 23:20 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh, so now we're hating on The Junior Boys?!?!

― Nancy Boy (Nancy Boy), Thursday, 6 January 2005 10:53 (nineteen years ago) link

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