I recently discovered Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, and I’m into it. (Think of the next couple of paragraphs as my ‘Solange discovering Hipster Runoff’ moment.) PRR is sort of a media-watchdog site for Pitchfork’s reviews and essays, an absurd conceit that’s played pretty well by whoever writes it. It’s earnest and perceptive and well-reasoned, but also kind of crazy. A recent “Morning Roundup” asserts that the Sleigh Bells review, by stalwart reviewer Mark Richardson, “isn’t ‘classic Richardson’ but it does the trick.”
PRR’s position on Pitchfork’s influence is that it’s as major as can be. The writer has mentioned he’s(?) in his mid-20s, so that would put him right in the demographic that recognizes Pitchfork as vastly more influential—and maybe more authoritative—than, say, Rolling Stone. I especially like the connoisseur’s distinction between different types of reviews and ratings:
holy fuck will continue toiling in relative obscurity (as THAT band perpetually opening for a band you used to like (at bigger venues than where you used to see that band you used to like)) after another “better luck next time review”, this one a 7.8
Reminds me of the time Serious Eats argued that Motorino deserved two stars from the New York Times. Sam Sifton had waxed poetic about the place and then handed out only a star. That single star looked a lot like a ceiling, proof that no matter how good the food at a pizzeria was, it’d have to be somehow more complete—more like a “real” restaurant—in order to qualify for more than one star.
Anyway.
