A Long Time Ago, We Used To Be Cool

Last night I went to another Rainer Maria show at the Black Cat only to discover another pathetically small audience for the once-popular band. The tragedy of it is that their latest album, Catastrophe Keeps Us Together is every bit as good as their earlier work. The problem is it just got a terrible review from Pitchfork Media, written by Rob Mitchum. Mitchum also gave their previous album, Long Knives Drawn a very poor review prefaced thusly:

Rob Mitchum is an admitted former fan of emo-punk act Rainer Maria, a fact that has brought him great ridicule from the rest of the staunchly anti-emo Pitchfork staff. Confronted with the dilemma posed by reviewing their latest album, and torn over whether to reveal his weakness for the band, or to verbalize the unqualified hate of the staff's collective opinion, Rob underwent what is medically known as a "psychic rift." The tragic results are presented below.

The panner, in other words, didn't even not like the album. Rather, he was mocked by his colleagues for liking earlier albums, and decided in advance to make amends by henceforth trashing the band and making it clear that the issue here wasn't just that people might disagree about the quality of an album, but that liking this band just made you terribly lame and uncool. A sad result. What's interesting beyond the career of one band, though, is how in the realm of indie rock the internet, which usually prompts media fragmentation, has had the reverse effect of causing a quasi-monopoly to emerge.

Most categories of media used to rely on a handful of big players that dominated the scene. The internet, by lowering the barriers to entry, lets more voices get at least some audience and you see a lot of fragmentation. But indie music was very fragmented back in the day thanks to alternative weekly papers. That particular brand of media has, however, been very hurt by the Internet. On the one hand, there's less need for each town to have its own record critic and movie critic when the Web can distribute reviews nationwide at very low cost. At the same time, Craigslist has really undercut the classified advertising market. So we've seen the emergence of a single website with enormous market power -- Pitchfork.

The barriers to entry, of course, are still low. But to prevent a rival from emerging, Pitchfork doesn't need to be perfect -- it just needs to be good enough. Which it is. Their taste is generally reliable. What's more, however, there's an assymetry to what kind of reliability matters. A website that regularly recommended bands that turned out to suck would be a real problem. You'd waste money on albums and shows that you didn't enjoy. But if the website merely fails to recommend albums that are, in fact, good you won't notice. You just won't buy them. Instead, you'll buy other things that they do recommend. And as long as those things are non-terrible, your life will proceed just fine -- you'll still have plenty of good music to listen to and there won't be an incentive to seek out alternative opinions.

9/16/06 12:37PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Do you really think Pitchfork is the reason for the small turnout? I know more people who mock Pitchfork than listen to their recommendations. At times, I'm convince the site is an eloborate parody of musical snobbery.

I think people's tastes have just moved on. Theire will always be a core fan base, people like you, and you should celebrate your ability to like something on its merits, not for its trendiness. And Rainer Maria was definitely trendy, which I realized when my 16-year-old neice name dropped them alongside Simple Plan or some other musical embarrassment.

I recently went and saw The Muffs, one of the best power pop bands ever, and there were maybe 50 people there. It was a sad commentary on Sacramento's taste as a city, but in it's own way it was nice that the trendy 90's pop-punk riff-raff had moved on.

Posted by: jerry on September 16, 2006 01:14 PM

But to prevent a rival from emerging, Pitchfork doesn't need to be perfect -- it just needs to be good enough.

I don't know from teh Pitchfork--or music, generally--but it seem that you're almost making an argument that the dominance of Pitchfork is bad, yet conceding that there isn't any harm. If, ultimately, there is harm, low barriers to entry will make it very easy for people to create a competitor that mitigates the harm.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on September 16, 2006 01:15 PM

I think pitchfork doesn't wield power over all indie bands, but for smaller, up-and-comers like RM a bad review in pitchfork can be a career-killer. On the other hand, a single good review can make a band. Look what Pitchfork did for Broken Social Scene.

Posted by: Bramble on September 16, 2006 01:35 PM

There other sources of reviews:AMG, Amazon, Epinions. I never depend on one, and in fact do not trust Pitchfork at all. AMG give RM last two albums 3 and 4 stars out of five.

AMG has its problems, but it doesn't make the mistake of having an emo fan revue heavy metal albums. Heavy metal fans revue heavy metal abums. This is good thing, but I suppose sacrifices general hipness.

Posted by: bob mcmanus on September 16, 2006 04:37 PM

I cannot forgive Pitchfork for the things they say about poor Tim Kinsella.

Posted by: Mark on September 16, 2006 04:38 PM

Occasionally Pitchfork will provide some actual useful information in the form of giving brief rundowns of emerging music scenes (grime, baile funk, et. al.), but in general they're the most nerdy, pretentious, assholish bunch of record fags you'll ever hope to meet. Their record reviews almost always have a retro-1980s "serious" bespetacled faux-gravitas about them and are filled with the most flowerly bullshit synesthetic similies imaginable. The fact that anyone takes their reviews as gospel is a bad sign for music in general. Fuck Pitchfork.

Posted by: GiantDuck on September 16, 2006 04:59 PM

Why is what you like good objectively anyway, MY?

Posted by: MNPundit on September 16, 2006 06:14 PM

Perhaps you should follow in the footsteps of Generalissimo Markos. After all, he has a side business running baseball blogs/community sites; why not start a side business where you [and others] try to rival Pitchfork for indie rock music criticism?

The more I say it, the less I think I'm joking.

[I, too, am on the pitchfork hating bandwagon. Sometimes, the Winner-Take All Society ain't so good.]

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot on September 16, 2006 06:48 PM

This month's Wired has an article about Pitchfork and the Pitchfork Effect.

The funsters at Something Awful tried being Pitchfork for a day, with mixed results.

Posted by: FMguru on September 16, 2006 07:46 PM

With bittorrent, myspace, mp3 blogs, amazon music snippets, etc, there's really no need to read a review at all when you can pretty easily just listen to some songs yourself. It ain't 1988, so I don't need to go get Hit Parader, Circus, or Metal Edge to find new bands.

If you are dependent on a positive Pitchfork review, well, you should probably tour more or something. Maybe it's just me, but it seems pretty insignificant.

Oh, here are some of David Cross' fake Pitchfork reviews.

May I suggest listening to Until it Happens/You Let it Happen, by Maximum Minimum. The fourth album (not counting the re-release of the first three 7-inches on HugTown Records) reaffirms the band's status as the godfathers of the Taos, N.M. "crying scene." Like a gilded phoenix rising from the toxic ashes of the death of mercurial lead guitarist, Peter Chernin, Maximum Minimum snarls back like a taunted tiger on steroids (also on acid). RATING: 8.2"

" May I suggest listening to Elegant Nuisance by ButterFat 100. With this, their second album since signing with Holive Records, ButterFat 100 return to their psychobilly/emo core roots. Let its volcanic rapture overwhelm you like a 19th century hand-woven blanket made of human hair might have done back in the days when they enjoyed such things. RATING: 5.5"

Posted by: jerry on September 16, 2006 08:09 PM

It does seem a little odd that in this day and age, a single institution should have such leverage. I, for one, read and enjoy Pitchfork because they have what I'd dare to call "real writers" with something to say about the music they're reviewing--If someone's writing is engaging, I'm more likely to trust his opinion on matters of taste. Also, Pitchfork seems to have "real editors" who make some attempt to screen out dull, half-assed writing. This is simply not the case for any other music (or film, or book) review sites I can think of, (including Amazon), where "reviews" tend to skew heavily to either vitriolic spew or publicist-like vapid gush.

Plus, I wouldn't blame a bad Pitchfork review for low turnout. The Internet works both ways: if the fans of the band don't care enough to keep up with the band's doings via the web, maybe the energy just isn't there anymore.

Posted by: Jimbo X on September 16, 2006 08:56 PM

This touches on an issue I've been debating with a friend for some time. He has a fully loaded Ipod and relies upon it for 95% of his music listening. Built mostly from CDs out of his collection, plus some downloads, plus some stuff I've given him, his cuts run from rock to adult contemporary to Americana. About all of his listening, a couple of hours in the car while commuting most days, derives from this.

The issue I raise with him is how do you keep up with music if all you hear is what you already have? Our debate is whether it's important to "keep up" or is it enough to simply enjoy what you hear?

I own a small 5K watt FM station and we play mostly Americana a/k/a No Depression. As much as I am informed by what I see ariving at the station daily I'll readily admit I would have missed about 90% of what now are my favorite artists if not for our program director.

So I value growth of musical knowledge. He says he's satisfied when his machine plays cut after cut of stuff he enjoys.

Posted by: tlavender on September 17, 2006 03:05 PM

Of all the reasons why I've always disliked Pitchfork & never trusted them, that review has always stood out to me, as it's sheer transparancy demonstrates that the Forkers' approach to music is about something a little bit less than the music. It's also one example in a long case study of why Rob Mitchum (Who's STILL writing for them) is a bad music critic generally.

That said, in an Internet 2.0 age where elite outlets have increasingly less make or break policy, Pitchfork's power is something to Marvel at. It's not as powerful as Matt makes it out to be(it can't make bands or records nearly as well as it can break them) a damning review from a PF critic can sink your hopes of indie rock stardom. That's a lot of power, and do think it was all amassed with nothing more cooler than thou posturing & indie dreams.

It should be said that even Pitchfork today would acknowledge the flaws in their writing & approach to music in those earlier years, and they are much more likely to take a pop ist outlook on things. Most PF writers don't write for PF exclusively, but write for the Village Voice & other pubs. If anything, the most annoying characteristic of modern Pitchfork is there newfound "OMG yougottahearthis!!!" hyperventilating over the most mediocre hipster pop. They could afford to be a bit more discriminating.

Posted by: Dustin on September 17, 2006 08:44 PM

The Something Awful parody really doesn't exaggerate their creaming themselves over Radiohead. A 10 for OK Computer, a 10 for Kid A. Check out this review.

"Even the heralded OK Computer has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. Kid A makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper."

Jesus!

Posted by: Eric on September 18, 2006 01:38 AM

Pitchfork is perfect for the lazy and hipster isolated. Like me. 8.0 or better and you can't go wrong.

Posted by: joeo on September 18, 2006 05:53 PM

of course, the pitchfork monopoly creates an anti-pitchfork backlash, and in some circles a terrible review there can do wonders for a band's hipster cachet.

Posted by: d. sloane on September 18, 2006 07:56 PM

metacritic.com

I gave up on pitchfork a long time ago, back when eMusic had unlimited downloads. I downloaded a couple gigs of mp3's based solely on pitchfork's reviews. When I finally had time to listen to them all, I realized just how sad and pathetic they really were.

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