An Elegy for Pitchfork, and What Its Demise Means for Music Criticism

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.

What SOPHIE Meant to Music

In 2013, Scottish musician Sophie Xeon broke through with “BIPP,” a jolt of sugary synth-pop that sounded like nothing else in the ever-expanding realm of music. It felt like a transmission from a post-societal future, a surrealistic vision of popular music from the perspective of pleasure-centric cyborgs. Even padded in candied silicone, the disembodied, pitched-up refrain, “I can make you feel better,” registered as a demand, an order of surrender to a near-lethal dose of endorphins.

Gone far too soon, SOPHIE fell to her death early early yesterday morning in Athens, Greece, reportedly having climbed up to the roof to watch the full moon. It’s a shocking loss that immediately sent a ripple of mourning through the electronic music community. Xeon had been fairly quiet since her full-length debut, OIL OF EVERY PEARLS UN-INSIDES, landed in 2017, but her influence raged on, even in her relative absence. The post-genre tag “hyperpop” came into full prevalence last year, its sound a further mutation of an aesthetic pioneered by the A.G. Cook-headed, SOPHIE-affiliated collective PC Music. In the scope of hyperpop’s explosion into mainstream consciousness, it would be remiss not to pay the cutting-edge essence of PC Music its hard-earned dues.

The collective’s early work was modeled on the crisp, neon packaging of an inflated, apocalyptic consumerism - SOPHIE’s early successes included “Hey QT,” a Cook collaboration that doubled as a sponsorship for an energy drink, and “Lemonade,” which squeezed its way into a 2015 McDonald’s commercial with unsettling prescience. This lean towards the purposefully artificial made her sole full-length an unexpected turn - OIL was an expansive, all-encompassing statement that captured each of her microcosmic worlds in peak form. Highlight “Ponyboy” was a tongue-in-cheek inversion of the gender dynamics inherent to sexual objectification, and “Immaterial” juxtaposed a cold, synthetic universe with one of full of boundless possibility. More radically, “Is It Cold In The Water?” and “Pretending” totally collapsed the structure of her sound, stretching chilly arpeggios and wispy pads into gaping soundscapes.

SOPHIE’s art has immeasurably shifted the course of electronic music, and the outpouring of sorrow and remembrance from musicians and collaborators has been overwhelming. But her loss will arguably be felt the hardest in queer circles - as a trans woman, Xeon’s rise represented a sea change in the visibility of LGBTQ+ individuals in music. A hard turn from the hyper-masculine bro-step phenomenon of the early ‘10s, her work was deeply sensitive, porous with emotion even at its most bracingly industrial. In what will likely become the anthemic embodiment of her legacy, 2017’s “It’s Okay To Cry” came tethered to the first presentation of the artist’s face, and its defiant expression of self-acceptance ushered in a softer, more inclusive era for contemporary electronic. The song is a hard listen on this day in particular, but its push towards tenderness and its embrace of grief will live on as a testament to the gentle humanity at the core of SOPHIE’s legacy.

Overlooked and Underrated: Fergie's 'The Dutchess'

    This September marks both the release of Fergie’s sophomore album, Double Dutchess, and the eleven-year anniversary of its titular forebearer, 2006’s The Dutchess. In the decade-plus gap that bridges the two, the performer has gotten married, released two more albums with the Black Eyed Peas, had a child, and, as of this year, gotten divorced. For the typical pop star, this is a large amount of life to experience between albums; celebrity and musicianship have been haphazardly propagated as dual heads of the same monster, and accordingly, the pop discography is often viewed as some kind of makeshift autobiography.

    But the truth is that Stacy Ferguson has never been the typical pop star. Double Dutchess wears this knowledge proudly, forging aggressively in the direction of previous singles “Fergalicious” and “London Bridge” rather than indulging in the crossover opportunities hinted at by “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” This is because a large portion of Fergie’s appeal is her absurdity, and she knows it; she’s a 42-year-old white woman who seems to draw most of her artistic inspiration from the ladies of hip hop’s golden age. With the possible exception of Nicki Minaj, it’s hard to conjure up a single other artist that could have pulled off the left-field ridiculousness of single “M.I.L.F. $,” and highlights like “Like It Ain’t Nuttin’” and “You Already Know,” the latter of which features Minaj, are carried in large by Fergie’s razor-sharp MC persona.

    Though her skills have been honed dramatically in the years since, Ferguson’s rap aspirations made their first high profile appearance in one of this century’s biggest hate-it-or-love-it feats: “My Humps,” the third single from The Black Eyed Peas’ commercial smash, Monkey Business. She had been a member since 2003’s Elephunk, but Fergie was left belting on the bench until “Humps” raced its way up the charts worldwide. Panned incessantly by critics upon release, the single was written off as a dive into the shallowest end of pop culture’s obsession with sex. In retrospect, this criticism seems prudish and slightly sexist; in fact, what may have made critics most uncomfortable about “My Humps” was Fergie’s perceived use of her own sexuality in the pursuit of glitz and glamour. Honestly, what has always been much more disturbing to me is will.i.am’s use of the phrase “all that breast."

    Amidst all of the condemnation, there is a musical excellence to “My Humps” that is often overlooked. In fact, will.i.am’s immense talents as a producer have been largely overshadowed by his failings as a lyricist. One of his most impressive skill sets is his copy-paste arsenal of Eighties hip hop tricks. “Humps,” in particular, picks from Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing,” Sexual Harrassment’s “I Need A Freak,” and Egyptian Lover’s “And My Beat Goes Boom,” and is guided spiritually by the works of Salt-N-Pepa. Fergie proved the perfect vessel for this very specific aesthetic, and will.i.am would duplicate it to a general degree of success multiple times on her debut. “Fergalicious," the second single and opening track from The Dutchess, is the most obvious relative of “My Humps,” culling its backbone from J.J. Fad’s 1988 smash “Supersonic.” It also, however, references 2 Live Crew, Miami bass group Afro-Rican, and James Brown over the course of its five minutes. will.i.am’s collage-like set-up is appropriately reverent, and it gives Fergie free reign to indulge in her retro-rap leanings.

    Although fifth single “Clumsy” and album cut “Here I Come” bear definite stylistic similarities to “Fergalicious,” it would be a shortsighted to call The Dutchess formulaic. Its biggest success, in fact, is its sonic diversity. The album dips rather successfully into reggae territory with the strung-out “Voodoo Doll” and the charmingly whimsical “Mary Jane Shoes,” the latter of which features Rita Marley and the I-Threes. It also touches on glossy, R&B-indebted pop (“All That I Got (The Make-Up Song)," “Glamorous”), quiet storm (“Velvet”), and heart-wrenching balladry (“Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal)” and closer “Finally”). Throughout it all, Fergie remains in complete control. Vocally excellent and lyrically sharp, The Dutchess is a remarkably well-rounded debut that balances the admittedly vacuous but undeniably alluring wallop of songs like “London Bridge” with the introspective bent of those like penultimate track “Losing My Ground.”

    Eleven years later, it’s easy to forget just how big Fergie was; five of the album’s singles were top ten hits in the United States, and “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” which remains her most commercially successful solo single to date, was inescapable for about a year (spending forty-eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100). Today, she’s settled into the pillowy recesses of B-list pop stardom with contemporaries like Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera. This is by no means a criticism; one of Double Dutchess’s biggest strengths is its steadfast vision, a true-to-form determination to sound like nobody else but Fergie. Her ballads are just as distinguishable as her hip hop records, delivered with an intensity that can register as hokey if you’re not paying attention. But that’s what has always made her so engaging. Only time will tell where she will be in eleven more years, but one thing is for sure: she'll always be the Dutchess.