Perfect pitch

January 3, 2005

BY MIKE THOMAS, STAFF REPORTER
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In mid-September, Wicker Park-based indie music Web site pitchforkmedia.com posted a glowing review of "Funeral," the debut album by the Arcade Fire, a band with Chicago ties. Upon its release a day later, sales shot through the proverbial roof. Four months out, they're still climbing.

"We didn't think anybody knew about the band," says Nathan Cowing, a sales rep for Chicago's Touch and Go/Quarterstick Records, which distributes Arcade Fire nationwide. "We love the record and thought it would do really well, but we thought it would be more of a gradual build.

"When that Pitchfork article hit, it was overnight, and it was huge. We couldn't keep stock in the building, stores were [sold] out. We were re-pressing them as fast as we could, but the demand was so great that we couldn't keep up."

To date, he says, more than 28,000 copies of "Funeral" have sold around the country, an impressive splash in the indie realm -- particularly for a first effort. "I check [the site] every morning and see if any records we distribute are being reviewed," Cowing says. "I definitely pay close attention."

This summer's "Blueberry Boat" by former Chicago band the Fiery Furnaces fared similarly following similar Pitchfork gushing. "It had a very definite effect," says Keith Wood, president of the band's label, Rough Trade Records America. "I saw album sales surge. The day after the Pitchfork review came out, I was in Boston seeing another band and the buyer for Newberry Comics, one of the big local chains there, had reordered the Furnaces three times that week based on Pitchfork. ... We both commented on how effective [the site] had been and what a tastemaker it was."

"Over the past year, they've become incredibly influential as to what records sell and what bands become popular," says Stephen Sowley, a buyer for Reckless Records. "And it's like it doesn't even matter what other magazines or fanzines or writers have to say. This Web site is a big deal."

That said, the writing bugs him big-time, as does Pitchfork's unique rating system, which awards tenths of a point on a 0-10 scale (such as 5.7, 9.5). Nonetheless, his hands are tied.

"I spend money to get product in, and as a result I have to pay attention to Pitchfork a lot," Sowley says with obvious lament. "Even to the point of, as much as I hate it, it's my homepage on my computer. I have to look at it every day and be like, OK, what's important?"

Calls about Pitchfork to some of Reckless' Chicago-area competitors were less fruitful. "I don't think there's anyone here who can help you," one said. Another replied, "Never heard of them."

***

Positive reviews more than negative ones, it seems, have the potential to affect sales not only of records, but of concert tickets.

"I think show attendance is definitely improved by a good mention from them," says Bruce Finkelman, owner of the Empty Bottle. "But I don't know if it'll necessarily push a show over the top."

Scott Cramer, co-handler of press and promotions for the Abbey Pub, says Pitchfork is "a helping hand" and a "good resource." "If they're giving a good review, it's nice to mention them in press releases and stuff like that."

The effect of critical pannings is less measurable, but they certainly don't help. Some of the nastiest ones devolve into vicious rants. Tim Kinsella knows this well. The founder and lead singer of Joan of Arc, a local outfit, he has been the subject of some less-than-flattering phrases. His CD "Live in Chicago, 1999" garnered a lowly 1.9 and a goodly dose of vitriol. (Oddly enough, goose eggs for Travis Morrison's "Travistan" and Sonic Youth's "NYC Ghosts & Flowers" are somewhat gentler.)

"The stripped-down moments are the most intolerable ..." wrote Brent DiCrescenzo, a former Pitchfork freelance reviewer. "Of course, the fact that Tim Kinsella couldn't carry a tune in a bucket doesn't help much. You, however, will need a bucket to carry the bubbling spew of vomit from your mouth after hearing the title track."

It gets better (or worse, as it were). The album-capping "poetry" on "So Much Staying Alive and Lovelessness," groused William Bowers, "is some of the wimpiest, wimpiest, wimpiest, unstomachably windy, emo-phillips, carbon-dated, gossip-nostril, tantrum-panties, messiah-nipple, seventh-grade, goober-whittling, scruple-dink, sweater-vest, hobo-trigger, nut-kneading, mouth-breathing, pope-diving, womb-sniffing crap I've ever heard."

Unaware of Pitchfork until a couple of years ago, Kinsella says he stumbled on some of the searing critiques (though he can't recall exactly which ones) and was prompted, for the first time in his career, to fire off a peeved response.

"I remember writing them and being like, Did I somehow get an apartment this guy wanted to get? Or did I get a job he applied for or something?"

Ultimately, Kinsella claims, the slamming didn't alter his creative process. "It's not like we started hanging Pitchfork reviews in the practice space and then started arranging songs accordingly."

***

Pitchfork was founded in the mid-'90s by music fanatic Ryan Schreiber, a teenager at the time. Now 28 and running his burgeoning cyber empire from a cramped, bare-bones, CD-stacked basement in Wicker Park (somewhere in the piles is a copy of "Billy Ocean's Greatest Hits" -- really), he's taking success in stride. Although Pitchfork's popularity and ad revenues are at an all-time high, Schreiber remains much more maven than mini-mogul.

With help from a country-wide pool of 50 or so contributors (including news writers), and his first-ever full-time employees -- advertising director Chris Kaskie, 24, and managing editor Scott Plagenhoef, 31, who came aboard in late summer and early fall respectively -- the genial and pensive Schreiber oversees every aspect of a business that started as a mere pastime with a couple of CDs, a computer and a slow-as-sludge dial-up modem.

Nowadays, connections are far speedier, and Pitchfork uploads 100 reviews a month, plus regularly updated news and a smattering of features, the latter of which are expected to expand when the site relaunches today with a new design.

Traffic is up, too. The most recent stats -- 115,000 visitors a day and 12 million pages viewed per month -- attest to that. As of this writing, the Web site-ranking alexa.com puts Pitchfork at 9,317, well above ronjeremy.com (258,464) and well below Walmart.com (88).

Musically speaking, Schreiber and mates agree to disagree. But when it comes to business, they're largely in sync. A major key to the site's endurance and enduring independence, they concur, is its Midwest location ("far-flung" according to a November article in the New York Observer). In Chicago, they're removed from coastal glitz and political red tape, and more connected to the music itself. Which is to say, no scenester posing, no star-struck fawning (not that they would if they could), no pressure from overbearing PR types eager to secure bons mots and prime real estate in exchange for access.

Best of all, no meddling from the Man. Because there is no Man. Just men -- three of them, young and hungry and practically idealistic. Regardless of how lauded or expansive Schreiber's brainchild becomes (he's currently eyeballing handsomer headquarters), it will always be a site run by music lovers for music lovers.

"I think the reason we have the readership that we do is because we're uncorrupted," Schreiber says. "We're not saying things that we think publicists and advertisers want to hear. And we're not dumbing it down to try and reach as many people as possible. To us, it's really, what artists do we love, and let's talk about them."

And if occasionally that love turns to hate and the talk involves tantrum-panties or a bubbling spew of vomit, then so be it. Sometimes, Schreiber says, brutal honesty is the best policy.

"You can come to us and expect that you're going to hear the truth, whether you agree with it or not."

PITCHFORK'S BEST OF 2004

(As selected by Ryan Schreiber, Chris Kaskie and Scott Plagenhoef)

*Animal Collective, "Sung Tongs": Bizarro Brooklyn folk freaks blend Brian Wilson harmonies with pagan campfire rituals. One of the year's most challenging -- and rewarding -- releases.

*The Arcade Fire, "Funeral": Alternately sad and celebratory, this Montreal collective sets its passionate lyrical content against an atmospheric rock backdrop.

*Dungen, "Ta Det Lugnt": Swedish rockers offer one of the most accessible and authentic-sounding re-creations of 1960s psychedelia we've heard -- all performed in their native tongue.

*The Fiery Furnaces, "Blueberry Boat": The Oak Park-bred Friedberger siblings produce an intoxicatingly ambitious album Pete Townshend would love, full of multi-movement concept-rock symphonies and carnival keyboards.

*Ghostface, "The Pretty Toney Album": The Wu-Tang Clan's most consistently spectacular solo artist delivers a third commercially slept-on artistic triumph.

*The Go! Team, "Thunder, Lightning, Strike": Early '80s action-hero theme songs, vintage hip-hop and '70s sunshine funk collide on this hyperactive, euphoric party album.

*Madvillain, "Madvillainy": Underground hip-hop icon MF Doom collaborates with esteemed beatmaker Madlib on this laidback homage to girls, drugs and science fiction.

*Joanna Newsom, "The Milk-Eyed Mender": San Francisco folk songwriter picks out delicate pop melodies on her harp while scratchy, distinctive vocals lend an odd charisma to her beautiful lyrics.

*Erlend Oye, "DJ Kicks": Kings of Convenience's Oye becomes an unlikely bridge between dance and rock, serving as a "singing DJ" on a mix that includes everything from filter disco to microhouse to leftfield techno.

*The Streets, "A Grand Don't Come for Free": Mike Skinner posits himself as one of pop's most gifted lyricists, peppering this LP with quotidian anxiety and philosophical examinations of the nature of personal relationships.

PITCHFORK'S ARTISTS TO WATCH IN 2005

*Bloc Party: Jagged guitar lines and dense harmonies pepper the hook-filled songs from England's latest '80s indie revivalists.

*Jesu: Former frontman of industrial pioneers Godflesh merges spaced-out shoegaze and sludgy heavy metal.

*Justus Kohncke: Recent singles from this Cologne-based producer range from glam-rock-biting floorfillers to sultry tech-house.

*LCD Soundsystem: James Murphy, one half of the prestigious New York production team DFA, will offer his band's electro-punk debut.

*M.I.A.: London's Sri Lankan-born M.I.A. mixes politics and effortless cool with rubbery, dancehall-inspired beats.

Copyright 2005, Digital Chicago Inc.

Yesterday’s news but no one posted it and is fairly interesting but like to dig a bit deeper. I wonder how much bigger they will get? They are re-doing the web site and will roll it out on Monday. Rumor it will look like this, also a someoddpilot design:

http://www.emptybottle.com/

I admit that Pitchfork has a huge influence on what I buy and what I'm interested in hearing. I check the site daily. I try other avenues as well but since it updates its reviews everyday, I look at Pitchfork more often.

I'm curious to know what they like, but the negative reviews get a bit tiresome for me.

Yes, particularly the ridiculous rationales for some of the negativity. I still read them, but it's often an eye-rolling experience and I'd like to see some of those writers come out of their artdick urban basement subclaves every once in awhile and get a clue to the rest of the universe.

I never read pitchfork. I hate having to sift through the garbage to find the few things of interest. Plus, most of their reviewers annoy the crap out of me.

There was also a little snippet about Pitchfork in the last issue of the Portland Mercury as well (the resolution issue)....

http://www.portlandmercury.com/current/whoyouknow.html

STOP READING PITCHFORK
by Zac Pennington


While my personal resolutions could fill a half dozen of these columns, for the benefit of your patience allow me to narrow down my year-ends to something that may actually affect you, dear reader. Without further ado, allow me to present my New Year's Resolution for 2005: Stop reading Pitchfork Media.

For the three people who might be reading this not already acquainted, Pitchfork Media (pitchforkmedia.com) is a website devoted to the "gratuitously in-depth record review"--a site that is arguably the most read music criticism source on the planet. At nearly a decade old, Pitchfork--whether you read it or not--directs in some way or another nearly everything you read about popular independent music.

Now before we begin, let me state for the record that, in spite of the site's endless detractors, I am a fan and open proponent of Pitchfork Media. While I may adamantly disagree with its individual or collective views (Scissor Sisters?) and its choice of coverage (Interpol buys a toothbrush?), I do find the vast majority of their coverage to be insightful, interesting, and compelling enough to make it the only site I read before breakfast. I can't even remember a time when I didn't read Pitchfork semi-religiously. Which is to say, I don't remember a time when my thought patterns weren't in some way nebulously affected by Pitchfork.

As the most read music website in the world, it can be assumed that Pitchfork is regularly consumed by the music obsessed masses--not the least of which are music editors just like myself all around the country. There once was I time--a time that I'm too young to remember--wherein information about independent music was scarce and scantly strewn throughout a multitude of publishing voices; in zines and mail order publications buried by mainstream media. Then, from out of the whozewhat'sits of the interwebulous comes a singular, monolithically united music force, updated daily to beat everybody else to the punch with thoughtful, long-form critique. One voice that everyone reads. That can sell, like, 1,000 records for an unknown band in the same week that they publish a glowing review. And while the opinions of any publication shouldn't have much sway over a discerning music press, it's simply fantasy to think that Pitchfork doesn't weigh on the psyche of your average listener/buyer/editor. Whether that relationship is supportive or reactive, once you've read their review, you're already partial.

As the sheer scope of Pitchfork 's effect on independent media is sort of difficult to fathom, I like to picture it as a sort of particular kind of journalistic collective consciousness--a variable, the same variable, thrown into the chemistry of nearly every music journalist writing today. Imagine the sort of middle of the road single-minded scope independent music criticism is liable to take on in its inadvertent wake.

Which leads me back to my feeble resolution: if I'm going to single handedly save music journalism, I've got to start by cutting off Pitchfork.

I was once infulenced by Pitchfork, and that was when they got lazy and didn't write any reviews for the day. They just listed 5 good albums and gave a one or two sentence description of the music. I ended up listening to and enjoying Patrick Wolf's music.

The rest of the time I just skim the headlines and look at what albums are being reviewed.

What's with the constant layout redesign? Are they trying to figure out how to shove more blinking ads in there?

This was probably written by a staff reporter so they could raise their advertisement rates.

I dont have the attention span to wade through their wordy reviews.....

I generally won't read the negative reviews, unless its something I really like and am wondering why they are so down on it. I would be lying if I said I didn't at least glance at it every day.