Pitchfork Media

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**Pitchfork Media** <tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
URL	pitchforkmedia.com<tr><th>Commercial?</th><td>No</td></tr>
Type of site	Music webzine<tr><th>Registration</th><td>No</td></tr>
Owner	Ryan Schreiber
Created by	Ryan Schreiber<tr><th>Launched</th><td>1995</td></tr>

Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork and occasionally shortened to P4K or pfork,<ref>P., Ethan (June 4, 2002). Eminem: The Eminem Show: Pitchfork Record Review. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref> is a United States-based daily Internet publication devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its central focus lies with independent music.<ref>Burns, Anna. Pitchfork Media. ABC.net. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref> However, the range of musical genres reviewed is extremely broad and extends to electronic, folk, jazz, pop, dance, and hip hop music.

Pitchfork journalists also review reissued albums and box sets and occasionally publish "best-of" lists, for example the best albums of 2000-05, and annual features detailing the best singles and albums of each year between 2001 and 2005. In addition, the site has published a list of the top 100 albums of each decade between 1970 and 2000 and a list of the 200 greatest songs of the 1960s. The publication is reputed to have significant influence in the independent music world.

1 History
2 Size, readership and site traffic
3 Criticism
4 Influence of Pitchfork reviews
- 4.1 Examples
5 Involvement in music festivals
- 5.1 Intonation Music Festival
- 5.2 Pitchfork Music Festival
6 Rating system
- 6.1 Albums awarded a 10.0 rating
- 6.2 Albums awarded a 0.0 rating
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
- 9.1 Pitchfork sites
  - 9.1.1 Best-of lists
- 9.2 Other links

[edit] History

Image:Pitchfork media logo old.gif

Pitchfork was created in Minneapolis, Minnesota in late 1995 by Ryan Schreiber, then just out of high school. Influenced by local fanzines and college radio station KUOM, Schreiber, who had no previous writing experience, aimed to provide the Internet with a regularly updated resource for independent music. At first bearing the name Turntable, the site was originally updated once monthly with interviews and reviews. In May 1996, the site began publishing daily, and was renamed Pitchfork, after Tony Montana's tattoo in the 1983 film Scarface.<ref name="Washington Post">du Lac, Josh Freedom. "Giving Indie Acts A Plug, or Pulling It", The Washington Post, April 30, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref>

In early 1999, Schreiber uprooted Pitchfork from its Minneapolis base and relocated to Chicago, Illinois. By then, the site had expanded to four full-length album reviews daily, as well as sporadic interviews, features, and columns. It had also begun garnering a following for both its extensive coverage of underground music and its writing style, which was often unhindered by the conventions of print magazine journalism. In October of that year, the site added a daily music news section.

[edit] Size, readership and site traffic

Pitchfork now receives an audience of more than 170,000 readers per day, and more than 1.3 million unique visitors per month, making it the most popular independent-focused music publication online.<ref>Site Traffic Information for www.pitchforkmedia.com. Alexa Internet. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref><ref>Itzkoff, Dave (September 2006). The Pitchfork Effect. Wired. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref>

On October 24, 2003, the author of Pitchformula.com, reported that Pitchfork had published 5,575 reviews, from 158 different authors, with an average length of just over 520 words. Together, the reviews featured a total of 2,901,650 words.<ref name="Pitchformula">Wilson, Loren Jan. Statistics for the reviews database. pitchformula.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref> However, this data was recorded in 2003; since that point the site has continued to release reviews on an almost daily basis (excluding weekends and public holidays).

[edit] Criticism

Along with its popularity, Pitchfork has attracted some criticism. A common complaint is that the site's journalism suffers from a narrow view of independent music, favoring lo-fi indie rock over other genres, and giving undue value to obscurity.<ref name="City Pages">Thomas, Lindsey. "The Pitchfork Effect", City Pages, June 14, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-30.</ref> The most common criticism, however, targets Pitchfork's record reviews. An elitist or self-conscious tone is perceived by some, as well as a tendency to emphasize the reviewers' imaginations and writing abilities over the music they are actually reviewing.<ref name="City Pages"/> Comedian David Cross made a direct jab at the site's trademark style: when Pitchfork asked him to compile a list of his favorite albums, he instead provided them with a list of "Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews", clearly in retaliation to the less-than-favorable reviews they had given his own comedy records, which he defensively quotes at the beginning of the article.<ref>Cross, David (May 5, 2005). Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2006-10-30.</ref>

In 2004, comedy website Something Awful created a parody of Pitchfork for one of their "Fake SA" front pages. Entitled "Richdork Media", the page made references to nonexistent "indie" bands in its reviews, news headlines, and advertisements, and its rating system also contained references to the band Radiohead, as well as retro t-shirts, college radio, and a fear of going mainstream.<ref>RichDork Media and Music Reviews and General Pretentiousness. Something Awful (2004). Retrieved on 2006-10-30.</ref>

[edit] Influence of Pitchfork reviews

Pitchfork's opinions have gained increased cultural currency in recent years; some in the mainstream media view the site as a barometer of the independent music scene, and positive quotes from its reviews are increasingly used in press releases and affixed to the front of CDs.

Since 2004, when "indie" music as represented by the site was seen to experience a popular resurgence, some publications have cited Pitchfork in having played a part in "breaking" The Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Interpol, The Go! Team, The Dismemberment Plan, Junior Boys, The Books, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, and Tapes 'n Tapes. Some of these artists first received attention from other sources, however, and the site's true impact on their popularity remains a source of frequent debate.

Conversely, Pitchfork has also been seen as a negative influence on some indie artists' popularity. As suggested in a Washington Post article of April 2006, Pitchfork's reviews can have a significant influence on an album's popularity, especially if it had previously only been available to a limited audience or had been released on an independent record label. "An endorsement from Pitchfork – which dispenses its approval one-tenth of a point at a time, up to a maximum of 10 points – is very valuable, indeed."<ref name="Washington Post"/>

[edit] Examples

The Arcade Fire are among the bands most commonly cited to have benefited from a Pitchfork review. In a 2005 Chicago Tribune article, writer Greg Kot quotes a Merge Records representative as saying, "After the Pitchfork review, it went out of print for about a week because we got so many orders for the record."<ref>Kot, Greg. "Pitchfork e-zine tells indie fans what's hot and not", The Honolulu Advertiser, May 8, 2005. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref>
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah member Lee Sargent has discussed the impact of Pitchfork's influence on their album, saying, "The thing about a publication like Pitchfork is that they can decide when that happens. You know what I mean? They can say, 'We're going to speed up the process and this is going to happen...now!' And it was a kick in the pants for us, because we lost control of everything." <ref>CR (June 2005). Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Interview. Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref>
The manager of Tapes 'n Tapes claims that the band benefited directly from a positive review in Pitchfork, as well as the band's live shows and a mention in The New York Times. <ref>Condon, Patrick. "Blogs 'n buzz help propel Tapes 'N Tapes to music stardom", Associated Press, August 18, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.</ref>

[edit] Involvement in music festivals

Image:Pitchfork music festival logo.jpg

[edit] Intonation Music Festival

Main article: Intonation Music Festival

In 2005, Pitchfork curated the Intonation Music Festival, attracting some 15,000 attendees to Chicago's Union Park for a two-day bill featuring notable performances by 25 independent acts, including Broken Social Scene, The Decemberists, The Go! Team, and a rare appearance by Les Savy Fav.

[edit] Pitchfork Music Festival

Main article: Pitchfork Music Festival

On July 29 and 30, 2006, the publication premiered its own Pitchfork Music Festival in the same park, an event which attracted over 18,000 attendees per day. More than 40 bands performed at the inaugural festival, including Spoon and Yo La Tengo, as well as a rare headlining set by reunited Tropicália band Os Mutantes.<ref>Pitchfork Music Festival 2006. Pitchfork Media (August 2, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-10-30.</ref>

[edit] Rating system

Pitchfork's music reviews use two different rating systems:

Individual track reviews are given a rating out of 5 possible stars, using half-star intervals.
Album reviews are given a rating out of 10.0 specific to one decimal point.

On October 24, 2003 the author of Pitchformula.com made a survey of the 5,575 reviews available on the website at that time, showing that:

6.7 was the average rating
2,339 reviews had been awarded a rating of 7.4 or higher
2,362 reviews had been awarded a rating of between 5.0 and 7.3
873 reviews had been awarded a rating of less than 5.0 <ref name="Pitchformula"/>