July 7, 2011

Music Criticism as Intellectualizing an Art Form

Toss out the word ‘pitchfork’ at a party and its unlikely one of your friends will jump to its defense when someone inevitably begins a rant extolling it for excessive douchebaggery, among other things. However, your v-necked friends’ silence on the matter belies the fact that some of them probably read the website…just for the year-end lists, of course.
What is it about pitchfork that galvanizes so much hatred that even its supporters hide behind the Internet's anonymity? Other music sites such as Blender, Spin  and Rolling Stone gain similar readership, yet these magazines are neither referenced nor hated on as much as the indie music magazine. While they are Pitchfork’s contemporary music reviewers, they each also print physical magazines, while P4k (as it is lovingly dubbed by its admirers) remains an “e-zine,” existing only in the hyperrealm. However, even Robert Christgau’s website is more often visited, and the self-proclaimed “Dean of American Rock Critics’” reviews are on average more pretentious and more harsh than even the worst of Pitchfork’s, which is saying something considering the latter once reviewed Jet’s Get Born by posting only a video of a chimpanzee urinating in its own mouth.
Perhaps, in an instance of hating the player in place of the game, Pitchfork has come to epitomize music reviewing in general, and it is at that nebulous idea that disdain is directed. While Rolling Stone reviews music (albeit in a much more accessible fashion,) their magazine also covers movies, politics, electronics, celebrity culture and more, while Pitchfork’s website is primarily music reviews, music news and dense, esoteric musical essays. Thus, people who bookmark pitchfork.com aren’t in it “for the articles,” they are there to read music reviews. Their condescending and inaccessible reviews have attracted contempt towards music criticism in general. Hence the question becomes: “Should Music be Reviewed?” I submit that it should.
Let’s get one thing out of the way; music reviews are inherently pretentious. It takes a pretty inflated sense of self to deem yourself a judge of quality (ignore the fact that that is essentially what I will be doing on this blog.) In addition, when reviewers get mean (pitchfork has given 12 “0.0s” to date), things change. Its one thing to say that because one likes an album, its good. But it is entirely presumptuous to assess the quality of a piece of art as negative, although it does generally result in the most entertaining reviews (see anything given a negative review by Robert Christgau.) I applaud pitchfork for recently deciding not to review music they don’t like, and even removing a number-rating-system from their track reviews entirely.
Music Reviews’ most important function is to signify to the consumer what music is worth listening to. Lets face the facts here; there is a crap load of music out there, and some people get paid to listen to it all day and tell other people what music is good. Why not at least listen to what they have to say? While obsessively reading music reviews may directly lead to an overestimation of the popularity/quality/godliness of a band like, say, Radiohead, to never read critical examinations of music could mean a much more limited access to varied genres. One reason I listen to basically every kind of music (except country, because let’s be honest that’s just unreasonable) is that a bunch of people I’ve never met who seem to know what they are talking about told me a bunch of it was great. We listen to economists about the economy, doctors about our health and political analysts’ about politics before making our own educated decisions, so why not listen to what critics have to say about art when making decisions about art?
Music Criticism provides another important function, and that is to intellectualize the listening of music. I’m sure I just lost a couple friends for that statement alone, but hear me out. If you can ignore the ratings, a review is essentially the literary analysis of the music by someone particularly qualified because of a musical/literary education. In a world where the general population often does not see contemporary music as Art, and the consumption of music-as-an-album has been killed by iTunes, Pitchfork is there to remind us that sometimes, there is more to music than a danceable beat and glittery production. Some people like to go deeper into their music than others, and if they can do it without being insufferable about it, they should be able to live in harmony with people only interested in the next Ke$ha single. As long as you’re not pubescent or already a prick, you should be able to read music reviews without them inflating your ego to the point that you think your music taste is better than others, or that certain artists are more important than others.
In the end, there are many different kinds of music, and it should all only be evaluated on its own terms. I’m in favor of continuing to pay Liberal Arts grads to do said evaluation. When its said and done, the final arbiter of quality is not Ryan Schreiber, or Robert Christgau, or Stephen Thomas Erlewine, and its certainly not the Grammys; that power lies in the hands of the consumer. If you can remember that, and never to drop the word ‘Pitchfork’ in conversation, feel free to indulge in music criticism.


Correction:
An earlier form of this article incorrectly stated that Pitchfork was rated the 94,213th most read site in the US by Alexa.  This rating was actually for pitchforkmedia.com.  The real pitchfork.com is rated 913th as of this moment.

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