Gathering Wool: The pitchfork problem

Everyday I check the usual online subjects of Facebook and email. I doodle around on ESPN.com and now nytimes.com after UNCG teased us with free newspapers for a month. The one other website I check frequently is much more controversial than it should be. That would be Pitchforkmedia.com, the so-called "hub for indie kids." To those prescribing to the indie way of life, Pitchfork is a god and a profound and complicated problem.

I first discovered Pitchfork sometime around three years ago. It emphasized the underground music scene and offered more detailed album reviews than Rolling Stone's one-paragraph reviews. Pitchfork was my gateway to new artists, videos and tour information.

Slowly, the effects of Pitchfork began to take place. My pants shrunk, my sweater collection grew and knowledge of new, undiscovered bands became a sport. Perhaps greater than any other website of this decade, Pitchfork's well-documented "effect" not only involves its fans but also the artists it reviews.

The Pitchfork effect can either be positive or negative for fresh acts. Pitchfork has helped bands like The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene and recently Vampire Weekend get their break with raving reviews and constant attention. Broken Social Scene's debut album received a review rating from Pitchfork of 9.2 out of 10 and the attention that followed, according to their front man, Kevin Drew "gave us an audience."

On the flip side, albums have hit rock bottom following poor Pitchfork reviews. Take for example former Dismemberment Plan front man Travis Morrison's debut Travistan. The album received a Pitchfork rating of 0.0, effectively leading to a huge drop in sales and an immediate removal from college radio play.

Pitchfork's reviews are often overly verbose, pretentious and self-conscious to a point that the website has created a strong persona attached to the simple act of indie music news. This persona attracts haters for sure, and this seems to be Pitchfork's agenda. As a light traffic web site, Pitchfork survives on word of mouth. If their reviews were like that of Spin magazine, they would be helpful to an extent but not controversial. As we all know, controversy creates conversation.

For many critics, perhaps the most frustrating part of Pitchfork is its formula. The website notoriously writes its reviews after the bloggers have discussed the albums. If the bloggers rave an album, such as The Cold War Kid's debut, Pitchfork will invariably knock it down. Artists Pitchfork "discovers," on the other hand, immediately become classics.

Pitchfork certainly works like an oily politician whose followers are unremittingly loyal. The website does not help its visitors "discover" new acts; it discovers these new acts for us, dissects them in their own narrow critique and then regurgitates which artists are worthy of little indie ears. The website also demonstrates the look that should accompany its music in its incessant indie-porn American Apparel ads.

Pitchfork is appealing to hipsters because it generates a definition of cool, an ironic situation for its fan base because it works basically the same way as the media outlets it tries to separate itself from. Like MTV defines cool for teeny-boppers and pop-princesses, Pitchfork defines the image of cool for its intended audience.

Pitchfork survives on the growth and demand of the indie crowd. Indie is short for independent and the indie lifestyle is based on being unique. For some reason this often means wearing tight pants, grandma sweaters and constantly slouching. Indie means cutting your hair in an uneven style or dyeing a section purple or green. If you only refer to bands as "overrated" and "underrated," you are probably indie. If you cringe at the term "emo," you are probably indie. But "indie" is also just such a silly title for someone. If you call yourself "indie," I will take you about as serious as someone who claims to be "hardcore conservative" or "hardcore liberal." What is really indie is the music, the CDs and vinyl released by bands that aren't signed to big labels. Indie music is normally rock, but technically any type of artist that hasn't caved to corporate pressure is indie.

So the big question becomes, if the goal of being indie is being unique, especially when it comes to musical taste, why does every indie kid flock to a website that narrows down specifically what is cool to listen to?

Well it might just be because indie kids aren't really all that indie. The word "indie" presents a lot of problems, mainly because no one is truly "independent." Growing up we relied on older siblings, the radio and magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin. Now that all of those options are too commercial we turn to Pitchfork, a website that, despite being very aware of its influential powers, is quite informative. Pitchfork's ultimate goal is to spread the word of underground music. This is not so much the case for its indie fans, who hide in the shadows with their new music, like Gollum and his "preciousssssses." A lot of critics hate Pitchfork because it is pretentious and elitist, which is undeniably true, but the website's greatest achievement is in its controversial journalism and the power that comes from it. Pitchfork mainly covers underground and independent artists, but this is a misnomer. From those unheralded artists, Pitchfork and its audience can shape the music scene of tomorrow as they see fit. Pitchfork is the future and I want to be a part of it, even if that means, sniff, not being an independent.