Lucas Jensen

Stylus gets trashed regularly for exactly the opposite: giving positive reviews to teen-pop fluff. Read the comments sometime.

DJorn

(But thanks.)

Bob Loblaw

What it is

Bob Loblaw

But I still think that we need Pitchfork--they fill many gaps in the world of music criticism, I mean hell, we all read it don't we? Pitchfork is just the site we all love to hate. This is not news.

What it is

Sorry, but people like you conflate a bunch of similarly-minded writers and editors into the huge indie cred-scarfing beast that is PITCHFORK and that is just patently NOT the case. Dude, just because some college radio people ended up at Pitchfork doesn't mean that they were all involved or whatever. You use college radio involvement as an ad hominem when it suits you, but the fact of the matter there is that even within college radio there is more diversity than one can imagine. And to assume that Pitchfork has some overarching "strategy" is just wrong, too. What? That strategy to give music like Feist an 8.8? Ballsy (and wrong) in my opinion. But where's the strategy in that?

IN FACT, I want to hear it. I want to hear the Pitchfork Strategy. Give it to me.

I am so sick of hearing about how "they" do this and "they" choose that. Sure, editorial decisions in terms of coverage absolutely give the site a "feel" or thematic consistency or whatever. But, man, you can diss the writing and you can not like their coverage of things, but to presume that a group of 50 people getting paid not very much somehow comes together and develops some "strategic" gossip-raggish reviews section is ludicrous. God, those gossips like Mark Richardson and Jess Harvell and Stephen Deusner! Oh, man, those guys are out of control. Stylus trashes twice as much stuff and no one ever gives them shit.

I honestly believe that Pitchfork, whether you like it or not, delivers more content in a day than just about any site out there. And the whole "they used to be good but now they suck" argument is so hard to call that I'm gonna need some empirical evidence to even entertain it. Like, are they less sucky now than when they gave Boy With An Arab Strap a 2.0 or Save Ferris above a 9?

Lucas Jensen

I've read Pitchfork for years near the time when it was clear AP and Spin weren't worth the time/cost but it's clear, from reading closely, that as the other aspects of the site have grown, the reviews have gotten consistently weaker and weaker.

The issue is not the blustery prose, which: whatever. The issue is that the reviews have gone from honest to strategic: they're like gossip columns written by overeducated Lester Bangs fans. I used to head to the 'fork for reviews, and now I completely avoid them.

nonce

What it is

Hertz32

What it is

Pemberton was scary, but it seems like they've rebounded a little since, although still searching for an identity again.

I've never seen someone ruin a perfectly decent product so quickly like Pemberton. He had to have been high.

He literally destroyed all the qualities I liked about Sia's Spin within two issues and I cancelled my subscription shortly after. It was ungodly.

I couldn't take looking at Pemberton's smug mug in the letter from the editor with a note like, "Hey, it's Pembo. We've changed some things. I've been skiing in Aspen and partying with Ben Folds. 'Til next month!"

Guy has to be one of the biggest d-bags in the media right now.

AquaLung

Also, the Beyonce cover had nothing to do with race, man. It had to do with the fact that the graphic design was awful. The Chili Peppers cover was even more offensive.

I, too, thought the Sia Michel years were good. SPIN still reviews more kinda-obscure indie bands than Rolling Stone or Blender.

Lucas Jensen

I'll confess, the first thing I read is the travelogues in the back, it's given me some good places to visit in other cities.

Juancho

Campbell

Chris N.

Chris N.

What it is

Dan Gibson

I'd say that - weirdly - what started to kill SPIN in the '90s was exactly what should've made them huge: the pop success of alt-culture. From the late '80s through about 1992 or so, SPIN was almost untouchable - really smart and kind of naturally cool. Plus, they'd even put big pop people on the cover from time to time (Madonna, Lisa Stansfield, John Mellencamp) if they were worth Gen-Xers' time to pay attention to. So it's not like the 2006 Beyoncé image was the first time they'd had an interesting pop tart adorn their frontage.

Then all of a sudden, after 1992, punk "broke," and SPIN couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be. They decided Perry Farrell was their ambassador of cool and put him on the cover twice a year (or so it seemed); and they started competing directly with Rolling Stone for subjects (the two mags raced to get an Alanis Morrisette cover out when she exploded in '95). Their identity got so watered-down, it was hard to give a rat's ass about them anymore.

With rare exception - I actually thought most of the Sia Michel years were quite good - they never really recovered. Who knew? Bob Guccione Jr. was more important for their mojo than anyone realized.

Chris Molanphy

Backlash is small joy for tiny minds.

Bob Loblaw

Maura Johnston

janine

janine

Note to all up and coming acts: start unpopular and stay there, or every critic in the known universe is going to question your reason for existence.

Dan Gibson

jess h.

Errr...not entirely true:

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2006/10/wm%20spin...

Whigged