what are the strengths & weaknesses of freaky trigger, pitchfork media & stylus?

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no bitching, just opinion.

― romantic clark, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 22:26 (twenty-two years ago)

ilm is the no spin zone!

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

we had a large thread about pfm the other day on pfms...

to its credit:

pfm is the biggest out of those 3 id say
only long-form review site
theyre now expandng to cover lots of music besides indie rock

― Michael Ng (Mike Ng), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

pfm: updates frequently (u + k with webbased media), newswire ('waah - it's not accurate! waah!' - who cares: this is the internet)

freaky trigger: tom ewing

― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Stylus has the first letter of each review in really big type face.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:15 (twenty-two years ago)

pitchfork seems to try to be wilfully unpredictable, obtuse even. and often the music gets clouded in reviewer's autobio stuff that reads like they're trying too hard.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Stylus has Dave Q. And Swygart's singles column.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

And an open mind. But so does FT. But FT doesn't publish reviews, per se. Plus we have Dom. And occasionally Matt DC as well. Plus Todd is secretly Jesus.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I must say that PFork has gotten much better since adding the singles column. I can't scan the thousands of related posts to find an answer if one exists, but said column seems influenced by Freaky Trigger. I may be wrong.

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually kind of regret freaky trigger's influence on pfork - it seems to have taken away some of their focus, and it doesn't really play to their strengths

― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Stylus would never publish somethign like the Obie Trice review, and I seriously doubt FT woudl either. i.e. neither Stylus nor FT openly mocks it's own readers and writers.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 23:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Stylus would never publish somethign like the Obie Trice review

I'm biting my tongue. Hard. Plus, if that review took the piss out of anyone, it was clearly the 'Fork itself.

I think Stylus and Pitchfork used to be far more similar, but Todd has taken it far more in the direction of features and columns - the film section is great, the blog is terrific - while Pitchfork has continued to focus on, and expand the breadth of, the reviews and newswire. The 'Fork covers more music, but Stylus is more willing to go in depth or try out random stuff. The addition of the blog was brilliant.

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 04:55 (twenty-two years ago)

That's a very fair post.

― David A. (Davant), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 08:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Stylus has a lot of great ILM people that I like.

Freaky Trigger I have only just started reading, but it is very good.

I'm afraid of reading Pitchfork in case it makes me like too much indie rock again. But I believe that it is very good in places.

and that's my two cents.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 08:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Sometimes, it feels like PFork is trying too hard in expanding their scope. Some of the pop reviews feel forced, though that could just be a reaction to having skimmed the 'old' PFork every day (one thing about Pitchfork is that it's a great way to keep up with new releases if you're not paying attention - I rarely cared/care what their reviewer thinks, but it's a nice daily update).

For reviews I read and give some credence to, I like PopMatters more than any of the mentioned.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 08:24 (twenty-two years ago)

For me Pitchfork's weakness has *always* been getting the wrong writers to cover stuff outside their staple diet (which they could have, and perhaps should have stuck to, but they've always seemed a bit uncomfortable about adopting such a ghettoised position). Thus their recent attempts to engage with pop have been both productive and frustrating, as they've gotten some really good writers in but are not surrendering pop entirely to those writers.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 6 November 2003 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Pitchfork's strength is in music that I simply would not have heard of had I not come across the page. I mean, the Russian Futurists don't even have a page on allmusic.com fer fuck's sake. Their opinions on the music I already know about and will hear readily don't matter to me as much. But hearing about Cyann and Ben, Angels of Light, Supersilent, etc...this is all good. Quite valuable in that regard.

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 7 November 2003 00:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I find that PFork overrates countless mediocre music simply for creating a relatively original sound (i.e. concept over execution), but pursuing their recommendations will occasionally lead to a revelation, as Gear! has experienced. So it's worth the work.

The reviews are generally incredibly annoying. I don't like 'em. I just look at the numerical rating pretty much.

― southern lights (southern lights), Friday, 7 November 2003 00:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Dusted Magazine suits my tastes best.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 7 November 2003 00:46 (twenty-two years ago)

although their layout stinks.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 7 November 2003 00:46 (twenty-two years ago)

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