Soupbone Collective

I Won’t Tell Anyone You Like Pitchfork

Anushka Sen

Up until a couple of decades ago, it was difficult to get immediate information on new albums without purchasing them yourself. Platforms like Spin and Rolling Stone played a concrete role in helping potential listeners decide where to spend their money, and in the process, also contributed to the buzzy atmosphere around an album release. Now, if you’re quick, you might listen to a new Spotify release before the professional reviews of them are edited and up on a website. And so the critic’s power seems to have run a little dry.

And what’s wrong with that, one might ask. Music has never been defined by professional critics (who are frequently not musicians themselves). All art has a history of deriding critics as talentless killjoys, brimming either with ressentiment or overeager admiration. Of all the arts though, music and film probably evoke the fiercest protectiveness in their consumers: neither medium requires literacy (in the narrowest sense) as a precondition for pleasure, and we experience both in the fragile bliss of real time while still allowing for repeated encounters. And while I’ve found that the film bro often successfully intimidates people, the music nerd’s power rarely trumps the persistence of a melody, the seductiveness of a groove, or the gut-thump of a beat. No surprise then that fanzines steeped in subculture like Creem (“America’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll magazine”) or Punk! never seemed less sophisticated than the music critic, whose main job was to mediate between the market and music lovers.

Yet, when sales could be affected by music criticism, there was still a sense that the critic mattered. If a Robert Christgau came across as smug and pretentious, he was still In the Know, On the pulse, Of the Moment—that is to say, he was still cool. Now that sales are less dependent on music critics than they are on an artists’ social media image and the well-oiled machinery of a fan base, music critics no longer seem cool. What could pass for strong convictions and energetic candour now come across as deadweight judgement. No one asked. This shift is perhaps most discernible with Pitchfork.

Created in 1995, Pitchfork quickly grew in popularity to the point of drawing comparisons to Rolling Stone. Even now, Pitchfork’s reach allows them to access and review albums faster than most other publications, which means they can scratch the itch that a lot of music listeners have---“what are people saying about this?”---before the conversation takes off in forums and friend groups. At its peak in the early 2000s, Pitchfork already represented a turn in the attitude towards music reviews. Individual writers weren’t lionized and all eyes were on the mysterious score out of 10 that a team collectively assigned to the album under review. There was a certain coldness associated with that rating—people suspected that a strategy of shockingly high or low numbers was deployed so as to maintain Pitchfork’s reputation as tastemakers in an age that didn’t trust the notion of taste. The same 2006 article that acknowledged Pitchfork’s position as the arguable inheritors of Rolling Stone also framed it as “The Indie Music Site that Everyone Loved to Hate” because of their sensationalist ratings.

The “indie” aspect was not insignificant. While music critics were earlier associated with the libidinal energies of rock (drawing criticism of an ideological ”rockism” that idolized white male glam while panning female pop stars), music criticism was now associated with the more elusive category of indie. Much like any genre tagged “alternative” or “underground,” indie positions itself against the mainstream while frequently lapsing into whiteness. Aesthetically, it has increasingly become associated with soft, whispery poeticism, moody vibes, and confessionals that tempt critics to mimic indie’s lyrical posture rather than subject it to cultural criticism. Even when Pitchfork had a reputation for ending careers or being too withering, its proximity to indie made it more likely to describe the failing music than talk about political stakes. The charge of verbosity was always a risk with this style of criticism. A cascade of descriptors—shimmering, throbbing, ghostly, incantatory, muscular, defiant, spare, roomy—only aggravate readers who find the metaphors inadequate when compared to the immediacy of music. As a result, it’s become all too easy to mock or satirize music reviews in this vein: “Garcia-Abrams managed to shoehorn the word “angular” into a review for the popular indie music website SoundFury, chronicling new releases from bands largely enjoyed by graduates of liberal arts colleges.”

But the current opinion of Pitchfork goes beyond the frustration with crude gatekeeping under the mask of aesthetic distance. Some are worried that Pitchfork has, if anything, lost its edge. In 2020, someone wondered based on a Reddit discussion if Pitchfork has ”finally lost credibility.” The writer’s assessment of the forum chat was as follows: Pitchfork was once known for speaking truth to pop but has now capitulated to the mundane logic of the pop music market (especially after being bought by the corporate giant Condè Nast in 2015). One might guess that the annoyance at selling out is fuelled by the spats between fandom and critics attempting any kind of complex critique: such as the stan-backlashes to Ann Powers’ thoughtful review of Lana del Rey in 2019. (Interestingly, the same year, a mixed review of Lizzo by Rawiya Kameir on Pitchfork generated a defensive response from Lizzo and her fans, adding to the conversation about personality cults on social media getting in the way of critique). Too snooty, not snooty enough—what do readers want from Pitchfork? This contradiction makes sense when one considers an overall dissipation in the aura around music reviews—bad reviews seem mean-spirited while good reviews feel gushing.

A different literary relationship with music seems to be gaining traction these days. I can best describe this format as personal essays from writers with a signature style and a politics that their readers are inclined to trust. Take the beloved poet and personality Hanif Abdurraqib writing on “Night Shift,” the Lucy Dacus song. His piece begins by meditating on silence and anxiety before it launches into recollections of an overnight hospital visit, punctuated with thoughts on Dacus’ song. Stuck in the hushed atmosphere of the hospital, Hanif finds resonance between his straying thoughts and Dacus’s storytelling (ostensibly about a breakup, but full of existential doubt as the best breakups are). He traces the song’s deft narrative arc that pulls as much from Dacus’ lyrics as the musical arrangement. Throughout his piece, Hanif comes across as simultaneously vulnerable and in full critical control. One is a symptom of his intellectual and creative ability, the other, of his circumstances. I’ve seen this article do the rounds several times online, and the dominant response is a mix of recognition and a more distanced respect for something situated beyond the reader, something that could only belong to Hanif.

Hanif casts his musical web widely. Not only does he write regularly on indie darlings like Dacus and fiery pop sensations such as Paramore, his book on A Tribe Called Quest draws from his deep well of knowledge about musical genres as well as his own intimate relationship to hip hop and Blackness. The blurbs on his book (Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest) show just how successful his writing is across different circles:

The love Hanif received from indie and mainstream readership was recently echoed in high academic rafters. In October 2021, Hanif Abdurraqib was awarded the MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant. His profile mentions his reputation as a poet but the bio indicates that the award is primarily for “a distinctive style of cultural and artistic criticism through the lens of popular music and autobiography.” The affective pull of memoir is hard to deny, particularly in the current American literary scene where the first person seems to rule, but the lure of writing by Hanif is the promise of emotional fulfilment without sacrificing a critical apparatus. We get to exercise standards about what culture gets right and wrong, and still have a good cry while we’re at it.

The personal longform mode works as a solid foundation for what might otherwise be a chaotic eclecticism. The album reviews by Lindsay Zoladz for The Ringer come to mind: especially the retrospectives where an artwork’s cultural legacy intertwines with one’s own long history of listening to it. Her 2018 piece on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is a reflection on the album’s ability to glide “through the past 50 years of pop culture like a subterranean mineral trail,” more brilliant in its radiance than any nostalgic glow. Zoladz recounts with palpable shame how for years she had thought the album was called “Astralwerks,” the name of an actual record label. She brings up this fact to make a simple point: that for a long time, Astral Weeks was crowded out for her by the ever-accumulating flotsam of the music industry, and when she finally perceived its shape, her life was irrevocably changed. Her own story of distance, resistance, and magical encounter become a crucial piece of the album’s cultural mythos—one the writer participates in with hushed awe even as she astutely deconstructs it.

A lighter example of successful music writing would be British comedian James Acaster’s bestseller Perfect Sound Whatever (which borrows its title from the closing song of Jeff Rosenstock’s album WORRY.). The premise for this book is outrageous yet drawn from the stuff of life: in 2017, as James so often recounts in his wry comedic persona, he had a breakdown. He recovered from that collapse by obsessively buying and listening to albums from 2016. He owns over 600 albums from that year, and unbelievably, has heard dozens if not hundreds of them enough times to remember them and come to the conclusion that 2016 was the greatest year for music. In his book, James goes over the special merits of these wildly varying albums (from pop punk to thrash metal to math rap) as he connects them to his stories of despair and relief.

The popularity of the book (and of his comedy) granted James a podcast spinoff sponsored by BBC. Every episode consists of a chat between him and a featured guest about an album that James sent to them for prior listening. James’ delivery shines as he opens each episode with the synopsis of his breakdown and subsequent reliance on music of the previous year as a coping strategy. Of course, he rarely calls it a coping strategy. He plays it dead earnest yet combative, just as he does at the end of the podcast when he asks his guests: “based on this album and this album alone, will you admit that 2016 was the greatest year for music of all time!” You can hear the inner struggle emanating from most guests as they fear to disappoint him, or wonder if they can betray their other favourite year for music, or worst of all, realize that the question is bonkers: even if they loved the album to pieces, it can’t be the only evidence of 2016 supremacy and wait a minute, can there even be a greatest year for music of all time? But it works because James Acaster’s relationship with the music of 2016 is so intensely personal that he can commit to the bit of it being universal.

Having written several paragraphs on how difficult it is to write a good music review without a combination of strong personal backstory and capacious knowledge, I feel a reckless urge to put myself to the test. I want to believe that there are indeed words for the feeling you get when you listen to music---for precisely that elusive in-your-body-out-of-body feeling, nothing more elaborate or confessional than that. So knowing that I will certainly fail at this endeavour, here are three small reviews of music that’s meant a lot to me this last year:

Things Take Time, Take Time, studio album by Courtney Barnett (Nov 2021): We know Courtney Barnett is laconic and wry but she’s also warm and fuzzy. More than ever in this album. If I say warm and fuzzy, it’s not to place her in some hot chocolate and kittens hall of comfort, but because her voice is warm and her guitar is fuzzy. Her feelings are often warm, but willing to sit in the zone of gray fuzz where things take time, don’t entirely make sense. Her consonants are clear and crisp, her vowels roomy with a playful wobble. All of this comes through the thick slowing air of… some season, maybe Fall? This album looks in all directions at once—past, present, and future. It’s wise, it’s wistful, a little wounded and quite contented. It’s always moving and percussive even if you rarely feel a jolt. It’s really good and I’m not trying to be generous.

Haru to Shura (also written harutosyura), studio album by Haru Nemuri (2018): Haru, you were my voice for the angstiest pandemic days of 2020. I found your album on Bandcamp where a few critics gushed about it, calling it an exuberant “fever-dream.” I’m part of that dreamscape now. When I listen to the album, I am flooded with memories of blasting it while moving around to mundane chores in my room at the end of the day. Looking out of the seventh-floor windows of my campus housing into wintry night skies, I felt buoyed by the most perfect union of anger and euphoria in sound that I’d ever heard. Everything was electric, from my freshly laundered clothes to the yellow moon. The internet tells me you’re some kind of underground child of J-Pop. If this is what J-Pop can be---frantic spoken word swerving into anthemic chants, English tossed around and pulled into the arms of Japanese, a swirl of synthetic sound that somehow seethes with emotion---then please give me more J-Pop. I’ve been following your recent work eagerly. I notice it’s getting slicker in sound, more explicitly political in its messaging. You’re covering Pussy Riot, quoting Derrida (!!!), appearing on KEXP to the bemusement and horror of several listeners (and the ecstasy of others). I’d be slightly worried if it wasn’t all driven by an energy I can recognize from Haru to Shura. When you run around on stage tottering in pigtails like a drunken teen, people might be tempted to scoff, but those unearthly screams that punctuate your performances should set them straight. Here’s to more DISTORTION DISTORTION DISTORTION DISTORTION!!!!

Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave, studio album by the Twilight Sad (2014): I actually discovered this album from a guest recommendation on James Acaster’s album and fell deeply in love. Its sound is squarely in the territory of post-punk and alternative rock; basically, indie rock before it became a thing. The atmosphere isn’t industrial as much as urban decline, ghostly, but with such a strongly grounded sense of melody that it draws you in through the pervasive fog of sad sounds. It also sounds unmistakably Scottish, which gives it a regional and not just temporal rootedness (the urge to identify music mostly by time is partially tied to music’s own reliance on time but also based on the assumption that we all know where it’s coming from). Some sad music makes you stew in its subterranean depths before you come up gasping for air; some sad music is cathartic in its anguish. This is neither; it’s a tribute to the sheer melancholic beauty of the twilight zone. You don’t have to be self-indulgent to revel in it.



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