2004 CMJ Panels: Press Play, Spinning Wheels, etc

He then asked people to please stop bugging him for soup recipes and sapphic erotica, adding that he's 'moved beyond that stage now.'

The 0.0 ratings also came up, which I've been opposed to personally. I think our 0.0's and who we give them to and why says more about our publication than the records themselves, and it's not flattering to PFM. That was the most difficult thing for me to address I guess because I feel so differently about it than Ryan does.

And Matthew and I did get to discuss both Annie and Rachel Stevens on the panel, which was unexpected.

You guys even mentioned ILM -- in the context of Pitchfork people vs. ILM people!

anything called The 100 Greatest... is claiming to be an authorative canon. If you want people to consider albums in a more personal, less faux-objective sense, you should probably stop ranking album quality to the decimal.

right, which was Ryan's point, too.

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Actually, this really hot college-radio-type girl named Hannah said this to me and Matthew after the panel, and I emphatically agreed.

I also favor getting rid of the ratings altogether, but failing that, I wish the scale was set up so that a "6" record could be written about in a way that didn't imply it was a failure or whatever. I've heard (and own) a lot of 6.0 records, and could hardly generalize them as "bad".

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Dom 100% OTM, I literally cringe everytime I think about my recent Drive-By Truckers review for Stylus, really wishing I had given it a {7}, because I really did like most of the album and I still listen to it all the time, I just thought it lacked some of the focus and fire of their previous releases. Now I go to Metacritic and my score is the lowest by far, and I even had some yahoo call me out on it.

I totally agree with Matt's post about sporadically brilliant albums getting the shaft from a mediocre rating.(xpost)

I'm sort of a huge fan of ratings. On the extremes I can see where people get upset with them, but there are a ton of albums in the middle I can find nothing wrong with except that I don't connect with them personally, and in that respect the rating is extremely useful shorthand. it's a stance that so many text-only reviews hardly ever manage (and so many "reviews" just become better written one-sheets cf xlr8r; almost all alt-weeklies).

miccio: a 0.0 does not mean worthless, and a 10.0 does not mean perfect. forget the obvious "this is an impossible thing to say" sorts of comments-- at least for me, again, it's more of a personal connection sort of thing (0.0 is utter disgust, 10.0 is personally essential). which is why i liked the liz phair 0.0 a lot: matt was just so disgusted with what happened, felt so betrayed, and the 0.0 was such a profound way of saying that. scott is right, it's a bit juvenile, and it's more about the reviewer than the album itself, but i think i fall on the writerly side of music crit anyway so that's apples/IBMs for you.

also miccio: i think it's a shame you won't let go of your pfm stereotypes.

and miccio: about the ratings again. i agree that readers probably approach ratings for objective worth (as opposed to personal worth), but why get rid of ratings when readers should just learn to see them as the latter? why can't readers just learn to understand ratings in conjunction with the written review? i say give them as much of an opinion as possible.

One of my favorite records to review at PFM was by the Japanese onkyo duo Filament, which I scored a 7.0. I still think of it as one of the most important things I've written about there, and one of the benchmarks of my taste in music for the last 5 years or so. And I have no problem with the score.

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I'd personally like to get rid of the ratings, but it's not going to happen. They're an unfortunate fact of life for us, and most music publications. (BTW: Are there any publications that formerly used some sort of rating system but eventually dropped it? I can't imagine The Wire or VV or anyone like that ever had them in the first place.)

Are you still in NY, Scott?

and they can actually be useful.

when i was an impressionable teenager trying to teach myself about music history, i used the old (1983-ish edition) rolling stone record guide as my bible because the guide, unlike the magazine, actually used its ratings to differentiate stuff. as a teenager trapped in the wilderness of a record store, those ratings were indispensable to me. it helps, ya know, to have an expert to tell you which aretha franklin or which t.rex albums to get and which to avoid when you're starting out. (i don't remember if the guide specifically helped me with either of those artists, 'cause it was a long time ago, but they helped me with lots of stuff like that.)

That's cool, I was with a friend for the weekend, so I doubt it would've worked anyway.

Getting rid of ratings, to me, seems like a pointless exercise to make sure the only people reading your publications are "the real fans". I don't like it at all.

I agree with Nick that a rating can add to an opinion. Often, I like to use ratings as "color" or "tone". If I rate an album 6.3, and write nothing but complimentary things about it, it might be like telling someone about an album I found surprisingly enjoyable, but still obviously wasn't going batty over.

well, it's possible, just possible, that the critics who wrote those reviews, or their editor, or whoever, thought jackson browne and black oak arkansas made better albums than eno. they might even still think that way today. when you say history has judged rather differently -- that sort of depends on whose history you're talking about, doesn't it?

but whether you agree or disagree, the ratings just reflected the reviews, right? take away the ratings, and rolling stone would still have said jackson browne and black oak arkansas made better records than eno did, right?

do you mean rilly cute in the 8.9 sense? or was she more like a 9.6? or does rilly cute only mean 8.1?

Music For Airports, two stars. "Beats Mantovani hands down, but in the end, that's not saying much."

It also gave the first two Snakefinger albums five stars, the two Tuxedomoon albums four stars, and had full cross-referenced Krautrock links that led me straight from buying Kraftwerk in 1983 to buying Faust in 1985.

You don't have to agree with the ratings to make use of a review archive.

I'm not faulting him for it--I think there's just as much a place for Pitchfork's rabble-rousing authoritative stance as there is for Stylus's "everyone has their own opinion, nothing here is absolute" stance. I just think that Ryan should embrace the role that he fits so well instead of pretending that it a) doesn't exist or b) isn't something he wants to be associated with.

Like Dom I tend to pick a number that "shades" or "tints" the review in some way, perhaps giving a long review meaning for a casual consumer hesitant to engage with the details.

Also, it's not fair, but there probably is a bit of a subconscious curve happening, where an artist is rated w/ respect to expectations and their body of work as a whole.

I caught a fair amount of shit b/c I rated Keith Whitman's Playthroughs very highly. A bunch of readers apparently saw the number and thought, "That high rating means anyone would like it." Not true.

Yeah, but you must admit that Ryan definitely takes joy in making Proclomations to the Indie Community--how else could you defend that Echoes review? (Or to a lesser extent, the BSS and Wrens reviews, both of which positively shout "WE DISCOVERED THIS!!")

As for the lists, that's another part of Pitchfork's appeal to me. It drives me mad how on Stylus we can't do a list like a regular publication without adding some sort of disclaimer (like how we put "non-definitive" in the title of everything) or some sort of twist (like the time Todd said we were doing a top 100 albums list but at the last second switched it to a top 101-200 "lists and canonization are boring!" article). But that's just the role that Stylus plays. I admire that Pitchfork can say "this is the best album of the 90s" (and you can't possibly argue that that isn't what they were doing with that OKC blurb) and sit back and let the readers take that for what it is. It certainly prompts more discussion than "this is what we voted to be the #1 album on this day of the week, but we might change our mind by tomorrow and by the way think for yourself!," no?

(note: I'm not suggesting in the last sentence that that's what Stylus actually does. I kid.)

Yeah, that's what I was kind of reaching at when saying that debuts tend to be rated higher. There is a "first kiss" factor which is harder and harder to replicate, precisely as an artist gets more and more known, and thus there is a crisis of rising expectation that produces disappointment or the urge to disavow or reject the new album from familiar band X. Its like the critic is saying "Kiss me with as much passion and strangeness as our first kiss, or just fuck off". An almost impossible demand. Just a metaphor, don't get nervous . . .

But we don't say "this is the best album" of any decade -- and the site did "change its mind" and publish a revised list!

This PFM-isn't-monolithic approach is sort of new from Ryan, I think. It's probably a result of him recognizing that the staff has turned over a couple of times and now has a much broader range of sensibilites and tastes than it once did. Whatever caused this shift, I welcome it.

That said, I think Pitchfork's rating system is completely appropriate, regardless of what its own writers think. Anyone who can't look past the numerical score to the actual written commentary, or better yet, to the music itself, for a more determinative assessment of what he or she is hearing- well, that person doesn't want to bother thinking about what they're hearing (or might hear).
These people aren't in Pitchfork's target audience anyway.

I have never heard anyone say, "Album X only got a 5.0 from Pitchfork-it sucks and I'm not going to buy (or dowload) it." Maybe Rolling Stone's readership operates this way, but I question whether Pitchfork's readers do.

As much as some might not want to believe it, Pitchfork's reviews are NOT so influential that they shape the audiences of the music it reviews. Look at Har Mar Superstar. The fact that this guy has a career is mind-boggling, but he does. Do you think his fans (and there are a lot of them, sad to say) care about Pitchfork's review of his new album? No. They've decided that all they need in life is a fat guy in his underwear. No inclusion of 0-10 ratings or lack of journalistic 'integrity' or 'objectivity' is going to change that.

The fact that more people on this site are debating the quality and approach of Pitchfork's reviews, rather than simply dismissing them out of hand, is proof enough that people want and like what Pitchfork provides.

Because Ryan decided it was time to let the indie kids know that there was other music it was OK to like besides indie rock. It's all coming from the same strategy.

This PFM-isn't-monolithic approach is sort of new from Ryan, I think. It's probably a result of him recognizing that the staff has turned over a couple of times and now has a much broader range of sensibilites and tastes than it once did. Whatever caused this shift, I welcome it.

If this is the case, then so be it, but acting like "how did this happen?" when faced with Pitchfork's monolithic status comes off kind of like Damon Albarn acting all superior to the britpop wars in Live Forever when in fact he was a chief instigator.

I don't think anyone here is saying that. We were all baffled by the CMJ audience who suggested it.

I don't think the fact that Har Mar Superstar has fans is proof positive that Pitchfork isn't influential. There have always been a good number of bands who succeed despite not receiving love from critics. However, a good review from PFM can do wonders for a band (cf. Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire), and a mediocre review can therefore impede success to some degree, although it probably won't ruin the band's career or anything.

I do feel confident in saying there are LOTS of people who read Pitchfork and little else when it comes to music criticism. I know a few of those people. I'm also pretty sure that their 0.0 review of nyc ghosts & flowers was responsible for the only time I haven't bought a Sonic Youth album in the last 10 years.

oh come on, Bill, there is no strategy! The PFM conspiracy theories are just plain weird. The site changed and expanded and grew (and for the better), and the new 90s thing reflected that - it's a better and more honest snapshot what PFM circa 2003 cared about, not a proclamation that it was now "ok" to listen to something. You've "paid attention" to PFM continually over the past four or so years, I don't see why you're falling into the knee-jerk ideas that this stuff was all abrupt and/or calculated.

But that's no more or less true than simple word of mouth, though, which is what I'm saying. Pitchfork isn't so authoritative that it's influencing the market. Its numerical rating system has little effect on people listening to the records it reviews.

I can't believe that other than an extreme minority, the readers of Pitchfork are clicking on a review, looking at its score, and making a listening/purchasing decision on that alone. I'd bet that any influence those ratings have is negligible.

I agree they're not making a decision on that alone, but those ratings have a pretty strong effect on all the college students that trickle into the local CD store asking for whatever was "best new music" this week. I often try to make sure my friends who run the place know what albums are getting a buzz pitchforkwise. Again, I never hear people talking about the substance of a Pitchfork review in real life, just that Pitchfork really liked something. That's basically the case with any place that uses ratings. Stylus, Rolling Stone, Roger frikkin' Ebert and his magic thumb. All of 'em.

As for Drew's point, I'd like to see an instance of a distributor that has quoted/appropriated an overtly negative Pitchfork review in its marketing of a particular album. That is, other than the marketing for Travistan, which, like someone else said earlier, is an "any publicity is good publicity"-type situation. I have yet to see this.

manthony m1cc1lo- while I agree that positive reviews do create a buzz on their face, I don't think that negative reviews, with low scores, have the inverse effect, and that's what matters, since that's really the criticism of the numeric score.

I mean, call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but I don't think it's all that sinister--like you yourself said upthread, Pitchfork is a business (one of the few web review sites out there to be in such a position, if I'm not mistaken) and I think it makes sense for them to try to maximize their audience as much as possible by acting as an indie authority and having people drawn to them by reputation. Do I think Ryan fabricated the 90s results? No, but I do think that he listened to the thousands of complaints the first one got over the years for essentially including nothing but indie rock, and realized that if he did a list now, it would reflect (and perhaps endorse) a new paradigm shift in indie music criticsm, which was the direction pitchfork was concurrently trying to establish heading towards in the first place with certain pop review "revelations" and the creation of the WATW column. Pitchfork makes a list that lets everyone know their staff does in fact listen to more than indie, the people who whined about the first list are shut up and maybe a couple kids in Nebraska order Mr. Hood and 94 Diskont off Amazon.com. Everybody wins.

I don't see how this is so unlikely or far-fetched. Pitchfork's popularity isn't unintentional--as well as having a fair number of excellent writers, they also know their audience rather well and are fairly shrewd business strategists. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a compliment.

Is everybody who writes for Pitchfork this stupid????

I blushingly confess that the phrase "hard to love" appeared in both Pitchfork's evaluation of my band (Matmos') last album "The Civil War" and this phrase, or a very very close approximation of it, also appeared in Pelicanneck's subsequent email list review of that record (if I recall correctly). Now that I am caught in thinly disguised whining I had better leave ILM (though before I go let me confess that I feel that so far we've been *insanely* lucky as far as press treatment goes, I've got no right to complain whatsoever, those are my parting words and I'm sticking with em . . . )

bye!

Wait, was this about the girl or Pitchfork? Also, nice cheap L.A. jab there.

I promise you that I'm not blindly dissing LA. I really don't have a problem with LA. I'm just saying that Tobi was a terrible LA stereotype - it was almost as though she was a fictional character or something.

I think about things that I've written in the past, and I certainly wouldn't blame people for thinking that I'm a total douche, especially with message board stuff. The best people are always changing, and I think it's a good thing that Ryan has changed in the way he has. Obstinant people just aren't thinking.

Yes, consistency the hobgoblin of little minds and all that, but I find that a bit of a wide-tarring brush. You CAN be both consistent and changing.

yeah, emerson aside, this is the heisenberg principle of criticism.

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this is just a tad sanctimonious, don't you think?