Pitchfork changed my life. As a young teenager and budding music lover, I’d stumbled my own way into the classics and begun to form my own sense of the sprawling world of sound that continued to blossom around me. But attending a music school in my junior year of high school, I was introduced to a publication that would alter my understanding of music forever. I consider my discovery of Pitchfork to be a personal landmark, the moment at which unending doors began to snap open, the “Like a Rolling Stone” snare drum for my fertile young mind.
This Wednesday, Anna Wintour released a statement on behalf on Condé Nast, the company that purchased Pitchfork back in 2015 and has overseen its operation since. The media mogul announced that, as of this year, the corporation will be folding Pitchfork into men’s interest magazine GQ, where it will ostensibly exist as a slimmed-down column in a sea of them. The decision was confusing as it was heartbreaking - Jill Mapes summed it up beautifully in a tweet that sarcastically mourned, “glad we could spend [the last eight years] trying to make [Pitchfork] a less dude-ish place just for GQ to end up at the helm.” Also included in Pitchfork’s incorporation into GQ was a series of lay-offs, including Mapes and editor-in-chief Puja Patel. Wintour has expressed a desire for “the best path forward for the brand,” but it rings spectacularly hollow - even the website’s designation as a “brand” feels like a disservice to its decades of work in the field of independent journalism.
I was obviously late to the party - Pitchfork was founded by Ryan Schreiber in 1996, only a year after I was born, and its ascent to mainstream popularity is a modern marvel, a testimony to the strength of the staff’s commitment to the platforms of indie music and music journalism. The publication had matured into a different creature by the time I came upon it, pushing willingly away from their early reputation as a male-dominated band of contrarian hipsters who upped their noses at popular music and seemed to dole out scathing criticism at anything that didn’t match their staunch pallet. Some of these accusations hold weight, and a few of their earlier reviews have aged particularly poorly. But the Pitchfork I came to know and love had a better rounded, more inclusive look at music and culture, and I fell immediately in love. I was intrigued by their one-of-a-kind decimal rating scale, a fixture that has reached its way into memedom, and the muddled virtues of what one could achieve with a hundred point rating scale. But what really drew me in was the seemingly boundless scope of their coverage, an all-encompassing ethic that held Fennesz and Sonic Youth in the same regard as modern indie darlings like Animal Collective, or superstars like Beyoncé or Rihanna.
I could never count the number of artists that the publication has introduced me to, both new and old; how many albums I’ve sat through simply because the reviews were persuasive enough to convince me to do so. And goodness, the writing! The absolute draw for me was the passion and creativity the the contributors brought to each review, colorfully written and rich with knowledge and research. I was immediately drawn to Tom Breihan’s brilliant coverage of the hip hop music I’d grown up with (and more recently, Alphonse Pierre’s writings on the boundless modern hip hop scene), and the deep insight of writers such as Julianne Escobedo Sherpard, Phillip Sherbourne and Jayson Greene. I fawned over the artist profiles and in-depth interviews of writers like Mapes, and the progressive, deeply feminist writings of Laura Snapes. I still follow writers that have moved on from Pitchfork and are now writing for other publications, such as Stereogum and the Guardian. The fruits of the publication’s work are plentiful.
I’ve also attended Pitchfork Music Festival many times, a tradition that me and my dad have relished. I fear for the future of the festival and mourn the prospect of not being able to attend this year. I’ve had the privilege of watching so many artists that I admire, and being introduced to several acts that I now know and love, all on a stage unlike any other in the pantheon of music festivals. For an introvert with very active social anxiety, the idea of attending a Coachella or SXSW is incomprehensible, and the hypermasculine and drug-centric festival culture has never appealed to me in the slightest. Pitchfork’s incarnation was different - this was a music festival for people who actually wanted to listen to music, as well as a playground for folks looking to be their truest, most authentic selves in a public place without fear of sticking out. It’s been the lynchpin of my year for a long time now, and I doubt I’ll ever find another gathering quite like it.
The last, and perhaps most significant, impact that Pitchfork has had on me is the indelible mark it’s left on my work as a music critic. As a writer who is still actively finding his voice and developing a platform, I’ve had dreams of working for Pitchfork for some time. This aspiration seems out of reach now, and it’s heartbreaking. There are plenty of other music publications out there, but none like Pitchfork. None with the breadth of coverage, emphasis on culture, or brilliance of writing. Checking the website has become a compulsion, a daily routine, and the idea of losing that is painful, like quitting smoking or losing a friend. Pitchfork still introduces me to many of the albums that I review, and I will certainly have to work harder to scrounge up the same diversity in my own work.
The final, looming question mark in Pitchfork’s demise is its implications for the future of music criticism. Perhaps the downfall of this legendary institution will act as a catalyst, a wake-up call and a harbinger of the vacancy it will leave behind for honest, well-informed coverage and writing. But perhaps it will leave an unfillable hole, a void that will echo for generations down the line, a sad reminder of the peak of music journalism in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The publication’s legacy is undeniable, and the path it’s forged is unwalkable. Condé Nast’s destruction of the publication is unwarranted, unacceptable, and a major victory for the capitalist system - it’s a decision made purely with profit in mind, Wintour’s supposed intentions be damned. I’m sad, I’m confused, and above all, I’m furious. We’ve lost an invaluable piece of music culture and it really sucks.