There’s an argument that album reviews have little impact in the modern musical age of instant streaming and album leaks. But try telling that to the folks over at Pitchfork, the taste-making website who famously review albums to the decimal point to sort out the cutting edge pioneers from the supposed has-beens pedalling an “utterly anonymous sound.”
Whether or not you agree with Pitchfork’s highbrow record review scores, its hard to refute their impact given they’re consistently called out for their critical evaluations, from the bitterly snarky (eg. Jet’s 0.0 ‘write-up’) to the positively glowing (Mobb Deep’s perfect ’10’ controversy).
But do those same scores matter to the attendees of Pitchfork Music Festival?
That’s the intriguing question put forward by VICE music journo Andrew Winistorfer at Noisey, in article that seeks to determine if their flagship event was stacked with hipsters who could recite Pitchfork scores verbatim, or instead with punters that simply wanted to get a chance to see a collection of live music from artists that just so happened to be Pitchfork-approved.
Grilling 12 attendees of Pitchfork Music Festival Chicago – hosted last weekend with a lineup headlined by Beck and featuring the critically acclaimed likes of St Vincent, Sun Kil Moon, Cloud Nothings, Jon Hopkins, Grimes, and more – Noisey’s study may not claim to be comprehensive (there’s only two ladies in the rogues gallery, for instance) but its findings are certainly interesting.
[include_post id=”402674″]
Presumably picking patrons at random (though we suspect their hip t-shirts had something to do with the selection), each fan is asked about which band they’re most hyped to see and how they fared with the Chicago-based website’s critics.
Fans of Earl Sweatshirt seem to avoid reading Pitchfork despite them championing the Odd Future MC with a coveted ‘Best New Music’ tag. “I want to pointedly say I don’t fucking read Pitchfork,” spits one Mellowhype fanboy. Another similarly declares “I don’t read Pitchfork, and I don’t pay attention to the scores because I am always disappointed by them.”
The one Earl Sweatshirt fan who did read the review however, was pretty close to guessing the 8.3 score. The same goes for two Deafheaven fans, one pretty accurately picking the review assessment while another sporting a Sunbather tee remarks “I don’t pay attention to Pitchfork at all.”
[include_post id=”395134″]
Other highlights from the responses include a hip hop fan asking “what the fuck” a Pitchfork is, a dude catching Speedy Ortiz who “didn’t know they gave out scores” and an on-point VIP attendee who knows full well how much the reunited Neutral Milk Hotel means to Pitchfork devotees.
You can view Noisey‘s full breakdown here, which in full critique fashion gets an 8.3 from us – we reckon there was a missed opportunity here to troll some hipsters with fake band names, Jimmy Kimmel style.
