Pitchfork lets a great deal of people know what is hot and what is not. Usually those who read it possess some sort of love/hate relationship with said website. If you’ve never read it before and you hate it, you’re either an idiot or a liar. Despite the plethora of sites out there, no other review site gets the same polarizing reaction from readers. Think of Pitchfork as a Hipster in Reviewer form: no two people can define exactly why they like it or dislike it, yet loathe being called a ‘reader’.
Well, I’m about to make things considerably easier for you. No, I’m not going to talk about old Pitchfork reviews. How Pitchfork used to be the sort of place where you’d see reviews that looked like failed creative writing projects. The kind which got you a C+ with the comment “At least it is in English” placed on the bottom. See East River Pipe – The Gasoline Pipe for evidence of that.
Since the writing can be completely insufferable, they provide a helpful guide for you, dear reader. Condensing all the pretension into a numeral score allows you to avoid any interaction with the writer’s casual name-dropping of a band only they and 12 other people have ever heard. Besides, half the time they spend on describing the anticipation people had on the release rather than the music itself.
Numbers can be confusing though, especially with the ‘grade inflation’ they use in off years. In the below, I’ve tried to accurately summarize exactly what kinds of bands get these scores and why. Hopefully I’ll help you through the sometimes contradictory meaning of the scores. Let’s begin.
0.0
Oh man, the reviewer hates this so much. Maybe the reviewer will develop a hard-on for hating this band. See Weezer’s “Make Believe” for the 0.0 score, which apparently was so bad they went back to their old Weezer albums and tried to figure out if those secretly sucked too.
This occurred to the Flaming Lips as well, but another reviewer came in as sort of a ‘White Knight’. Many people refer to this instance as the “good cop/bad cop” where one reviewer claims it is terrible and another comes along and calls them an idiot. Except for instead of possessing space in some disregarded comments section they are given full articles to explain their position. Music nerds call this ‘drama’.
In case it truly is awful, they’ll put up a video of a monkey pissing into its own mouth like they did on Jet’s ‘Shine On’.
0.1 – 2.9
Whatever happens, this band will suck, perhaps for the rest of their career. The reviewer takes a few approaches to explaining why it sucks so badly:
It is hipster garbage they don’t understand. Apparently someone forgot to let the early thirty-something in on the joke.
Radio rock can be felt. Pitchfork reviewers generally react against anything that is already established as ‘mainstream’ (see Courtney Love) though they have no problem if they help said band become more popular and move them towards mainstream (see The Strokes, Interpol).
A genre or micro-genre has fallen out of favor for a long while and they need to react against it. Whereas the same crappy album might have garnered a ‘5 point something’ it gets this score. See Mr. Oizo’s “Lamb’s Anger” for more information on this event.
3.0 - 4.4
A score such as this doesn’t necessary forsake a band as the last two did. Instead, Pitchfork deploys this whenever they are really worried about an artist’s viability. Then that band’s fan base goes into some sort of civil war, where message boards are endlessly flamed.
For examples, see the response to M.I.A’s latest album. That score tore apart communities.
4.4’s serves as a way of officially opening up hunting season on a band which disappointed them too many times. Usually this band has been constantly bringing down the reviewer for a while and this serves as the final straw. Interpol’s self-titled album did exactly that, as the reviewer got his sights set and took them out.
4.5 – 5.9
We’re getting to less abysmal scores now. These tend to be left for underwhelming debuts for bands that did all their homework, but left the reviewer wanting something more. After receiving a score like, the band usually does some extra-long tour in order to feel better.
Of Montreal famously did this with their album “Skeletal Lamping”, touring across the US to places they’d never been to before. Sioux Falls was psyched.
The further up in the range (upper 5s) indicate there remains some form of redemption for the band. Giving a little bit of faint praise for one or two tracks shows the reviewer has some hope left. The band gets it and moves up to a 6 point something or higher on the next album. “It’s All Around You” fell under the no longer popular genre phenomenon, along with being a generally crummy album.
If the next album is worse, the reviewer has already looked up colorful words to describe garbage.
6.0 – 6.7
Now we’re getting to the ‘open to interpretation’ scores. Bands could view a score like this in two ways:
Yay, Pitchfork reviewed us. They said we offer potential and they look forward to a follow-up of some nature. – Bands starting out read into it in a positive ‘glass half-full’ way.
Established bands getting this score usually did something to draw the reviewer’s ire. Oftentimes the band has been around for a few years, and the criticism tends to be ‘stuck in a rut’ or something of that nature.
Deerhoof received this criticism for their latest album “Deerhoof Vs. Evil”. By this point, they realized they were polarizing and decided not to care.
Other bands take different approaches. Of Montreal, upon reading its ‘False Priest’ review, decided to have a nervous breakdown. Kevin Barnes stated how they claimed it wasn’t as ambitious as his last album, yet he pointed out they panned that same album. Criticism felt scattershot to him, since he no longer knew how to satisfy the criticism master.
6.8 – 7.3
Generally speaking, these kinds of scores are used for more experimental/difficult artists, since Pitchfork reviewers generally don’t understand experimental music, so they tend to give it a fairly decent score, for fear of looking like idiots. They want to show they get it without having to do any kind of heavy lifting.
Prolific artists get these kinds of scores, if they are usually well-accepted or established figures. Folk artists get these scores a lot, since folk never suffers from a backlash. And Pitchfork reviewers don’t want to appear too snobbish, so they give this review along with some stupid bullshit about how they grew up in rural bumblefuck.
7.4 – 7.9
Better experimental artists get this score. Experimental artists, who have been around for a while, doing their thing, tend to get an upgrade on their second or third album. Usually there’s talk of how they’ve been able to form a better vision of the future.
Earth and Tortoise both received this score. Tortoise got it as a rebound for “Beacons of Ancestorship” after their panned “It’s all around you” album. Showing development they received a better score. Same went for Earth, though for Earth it is more ‘progression’ than ‘moving away from the point of no return’.
On the flipside of this are artist who would be expected to do better. Radiohead recently learned it could only abuse the ‘give me a 9.0 or better’ model for so long, getting a 7.9 on an album (King of the Limbs) which didn’t deserve it.
Avey Tare got this for his underwhelming “Down There” album. Had anyone produced this it would have gotten a lower score, but due to Avey Tare’s power in Animal Collective he made out pretty ok.
8.0 – 8.2
Bands get this for one of two reasons:
The Pitchfork reviewer can’t bring themselves to dislike the band. Laetita Sadier got this for her first solo album “The Trip”. Belle and Sebastian received this for “Write about Love”. Apparently the reviewer remembered listening to Belle and Sebastian in college, when they were young. Rocking gently back and forth, they’d listen to it after a major breakup and cry. In their mind, they feel while it isn’t ‘Best New Music’ material, they can’t just leave them in a lurch like that.
On the other side, such a score indicates a ‘hedging of the bets’ for Pitchfork. In case someone gets popular off of their next album, they don’t want to say they didn’t notice it. Sun Araw got an 8.1 for “On Patrol” in case hypnagogic pop (or weedcore) ever takes off. Woman and Harlem got similar scores, as they might make it big or on the verge of becoming big, so Pitchfork wants to seem they ‘called it’.
8.3 -8.8
We’re in best new music territory. Bands here have many reasons to be happy for the largesse that’s about to come their way. Many bands which make it here might never be heard from again, but the internet buzz is too strong to resist.
Wavves, Best Coast, Arcade Fire, Neon Indian and others had a buzz too strong to be ignored. Pitchfork had to acknowledge the bloggers were right. Often this is stated somewhere in the article like “all the hype on the internet was worth it” showing how Pitchfork reviewers are savvy enough to use Google and Blogspots every so often. Bands within this segment are often part of a movement which is just gaining steam and popularity, like Post-Rock at the turn of the century or chillwave in 2009.
Sometimes it actually is an album so good even they need to admit it. Dan Deacon got here after going mad with 168 different arrangements. Tim Hecker got here after doing music for roughly a decade and sort of ‘earned it’.
Bands in this category don’t necessarily need to be remembered in a few years. It is ok to make mistakes at this level, as it offers enough backpedal into 7 territories.
8.9 – 9.4
You’re now in the ‘you break it, you bought it’ category. Whenever a reviewer submits something this highly rated, it needs approval from the higher ups in the Pitchfork category. They want to make sure they aren’t eating their words later on in the year. Bands around this point have a good to excellent chance of being one of the best albums of the year.
A band up here has done a few things well. Perhaps they had a series of successful EPs and finally came out with an album. Usually the words ‘crossover’ is used in this context. James Blake falls under this category, as he can introduce Americans too stupid to understand regular dubstep to his accessible version.
Groups who embody a sound are just as likely to make it. Ariel Pink certainly did that with “Before Today” and Deerhunter did as well with “Halycon Digest”. Both sounds were in demand, so they got the score for finally being in the right place at the right time.
9.5 – 9.9
Classic territory comes here. Bands in here have a good chance of becoming the album of the year.
Animal Collective did this with their “Merriweather Post Pavilion”. Bands this good usually have an enormous amount of hype and are graded accordingly. Usually a certain degree of intense musical knowledge brought alongside dance or dance-like beats have a good chance of bringing you here.
LCD Soundsystem entered this realm as well. Looking at that young late 30-something face, how could one say no to a guy who has done this his whole life. Simple answer is you can’t. You need to confirm his importance that he didn’t spend the past two decades listening to 8,000 records for nothing.
Bands that have already been famous and reviewed by better reviewers get this score as well. Surely no one at Pitchfork wants to go down as the one who said “Faust” or “Can” sucked. So they read other people’s reviews, add their own two cents, and try to add a funny saying about how ‘ahead of their time’ or ‘inaccessible’ they were.
10.0
You’ve made it. Pitchfork loves you so much. They want to you to make it so bad, so hard. If you’ve gotten to this point, they won’t review your music anymore. No, mere words can’t describe your sheer genius. Instead, they usually focus on the story of how it came about, etc. See Kanye West and Wilco for how one can say something’s great without giving any real details.
While we’re up here, Pitchfork also does huge apologies for this section. Bands can reissue their music and get a 10.0. The reviewer says something like “Our first review that gave them an 8.9 was written by some stupid asshole. We’re sorry. We fired him so we could write this great new review.” Boards of Canada got this treatment for “Music has the right to Children” and Neutral Milk Hotel “In the Aeroplane over the Sea” after an intense letter-writing campaign.
Hopefully this helps you avoid reading lengthy music reviews. That way, when you read them, you know exactly what kind of score it was. Was it a 7.9 or was it really a 7.9? You need to read between the lines for these releases as their actual words signify nothing.