Quote:
Originally Posted by Minstrel
If that's your criticism of Pitchfork, it's really the entire music magazine culture that you don't care for (Pitchfork is simply the most successful entity at exporting that culture to the web). Music magazine culture has been, for decades, about pissing on music from certain eras and genres and glorifying others. They are attempting to be taste-makers, and you can't do that by saying, "Everything is valid, you can find something to appreciate in all music." You have to be exclusionary of a lot, to create an approved body of work to unify your audience around.
Pitchfork is simply carrying on the tradition of NME, Melody Maker, Spin, MOJO, etc.
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I don't care if they're successful at the exportation of Indie "culture" to the scene kids or if there's a need to be exclusionary (which is bullsh1t logic to begin with). The influence that publications like Pitchfork hold forces artists who want a crack at sales and positive reception to appeal to whatever criteria the "critics" are looking for in ideal Indie/"hip" music, and that's something I just can't appreciate. Just look what happened after Pitchfork gave Travis Morrison's
Travistan a fu-cking zero if you need a case-in-point. You won't find AllMusic pulling stunts like that.
So yes, I don't care for music magazine culture. Living in the Information Age as we do, you'd think people would transcend this whole shepherd-sheep relationship when it comes to the arts and entertainment, but even now you'll find masses under said culture's thumb, crushed without a fight. Unfortunate, but there's nothing I can do for those people besides tell them about what I happen to listen to and see if they reciprocate my efforts. Even if they don't like what I like, at-least they'll consider something they normally wouldn't thought to listen to before. That's all there is to it.
Ultimately, I can only control my own tastes in music. Whether or not others let themselves be influenced by shoddy would-be journalists who focus on aesthetics of a scene rather than the music itself is entirelly up to them. I am merely a colossal blue anteater after all!
*goes back to scrounging for Black Widow tracks on YouTube*