Pitchfork puts their reviews behind a paywall

[Teletubby 155,115]

 

[NUTELLA 16,442]

The ceiling of the basement begins to creak...

[Sarah H 3,924]

It's easy enough to get around paywalls.. 

 

[RAMROD 112,170]

lmao me and archive websites reading this:

[TSUNAMI 21,246]

Convince yourself

[BoomBig 301]

I feel like Pitchfork has fully evolved into the kind of establishment it once mocked.  What started as an outsider voice challenging old music media now feels like a gatekeeping platform, where critics act culturally superior and decide what music is “worthy” of attention.

Pop music is especially dismissed unless it can be framed as ironic, intellectual, or whatever.  Putting reviews behind a paywall is the final nail in the coffin. Reviews were Pitchfork’s core contribution and the reason people showed up in the first place. Locking them away doesn’t elevate criticism. It just confirms the elitism. 

[Ladle Ghoulash 33,315]

23 minutes ago, BoomBig said:

I feel like Pitchfork has fully evolved into the kind of establishment it once mocked.  What started as an outsider voice challenging old music media now feels like a gatekeeping platform, where critics act culturally superior and decide what music is “worthy” of attention.

Pop music is especially dismissed unless it can be framed as ironic, intellectual, or whatever.  Putting reviews behind a paywall is the final nail in the coffin. Reviews were Pitchfork’s core contribution and the reason people showed up in the first place. Locking them away doesn’t elevate criticism. It just confirms the elitism. 

Ngl this kind of feels like a misread of Pitchfork’s trajectory. If anything, they started out substantially *more* elitist and have warmed up to pop music increasingly over time. This doesn’t reek of gatekeeping to me so much as it signals “they need money” lmao.

[southpaw773 3,858]

1 hour ago, Sarah H said:

It's easy enough to get around paywalls.. 

 

I love using AI to tell me what an article is talking about that I couldn’t read lol. Or other devices. 

[BoomBig 301]

6 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Ngl this kind of feels like a misread of Pitchfork’s trajectory. If anything, they started out substantially *more* elitist and have warmed up to pop music increasingly over time. This doesn’t reek of gatekeeping to me so much as it signals “they need money” lmao.

What I was mainly getting at is that Pitchfork was pioneering… not in taste, but in legitimizing online criticism when print media was still the standard. They may be warmer to pop now, but the tone still often feels culturally superior, like they decide what deserves attention.

And yeah, on the money side.. agreed lol

[The Breast 2,370]

imagine paying and then seeing a 67 for ARTPOP 

[weed 75,813]

girl all the oscar winning celebs are doing trashy commercials, pitchfork is asking for money, wiki sold their morals, the economy is crashing!

[River 120,951]

brave 

[Chesescake 4,059]

If I want to make a review or rate myself, I would probably just use rateyourmusic or AOTY. But I guess pitchfork has wide variety of taste in multi genres.

Edited 15 hours ago by Chesescake

[Glomer 712]

they should be paying us to read them...

[Anderson123 40,184]

Lmao who do they think they are to be having a subscription.