450 replies to this topic

[kinetic android]

I'm more intrigued that Schreiber wrote the review. He hasn't posted a review in quite a long time.

[Nick]

Oh man 17 page thread total downfall major LOLZ.

[cappacappa]

I think he was basing his reviewon the Grizzly Bear tracks, not the covers, tis true though the covers , either you like them or not. Seems just like an "extra" Wouldn't have given this an 8.5 but I really like the first four tracks and teh deep blue sea recording yeah and it's weird ryan wrote the review. seems he does about one a year of something he really likes.

[nagode]

survey available for all you haters on p4k's website so you can tell them how much you hate them...

[Montana]

The Grizzly Bear EP review in short:

"Basically, a third of this album runs the gamut from meh to crap, but fuck it: 8.5"

lol.

I've seen kids on Christmas morning be able to think more clearly with less emotion. The review staff just lacks objectivity.

[cappacappa]

The Grizzly Bear EP review in short:

"Basically, a third of this album runs the gamut from meh to crap, but fuck it: 8.5"

lol.

I've seen kids on Christmas morning be able to think more clearly with less emotion. The review staff just lacks objectivity.

what just cuz he loves it means he lacks objectivity?

[Duff.]

Well, by definition, yes, it does. Of course the fact that he's reviewing at all means, by definition, he lacks objectivity, so....

[i-c]

I agree with most of this review but the following statement is the craziest thing I've ever seen on the site:
Even the <JLC> "Mr. Brightside" remix, which breaks the song down just to build it up again, reconstructs with the wrong elements and loses most of what made the original so enjoyable in the first place.

That remix is still my favorite of the decade.

[SatanicCuckooClock]

I've seen kids on Christmas morning be able to think more clearly with less emotion. The review staff just lacks objectivity.

wow, that's shocking.

[Swanstradamus]

Yea maybe Pitchfork is on its way out, but I don't really see a new "king" in sight, does anyone else?

[Diesel]

Static Multimedia, of course.

[Mantana]

Shocked that SOMB didn't start a thread about Pitchfork being down this morning.

[Montana]

I've seen kids on Christmas morning be able to think more clearly with less emotion. The review staff just lacks objectivity.

wow, that's shocking.

Wether you agree or not, it sure paints a nice picture, doesn't it?

[Seamus]

yeah and it's weird ryan wrote the review. seems he does about one a year of something he really likes.

His best, in my opinion, being the one for Walt Mink's El Producto...which really is a kick ass record. Is it a 10.0??? Probably not, but it's still a very rewarding listen.

[SatanicCuckooClock]

I've seen kids on Christmas morning be able to think more clearly with less emotion. The review staff just lacks objectivity.

wow, that's shocking.

Wether you agree or not, it sure paints a nice picture, doesn't it?

oh I completely agree, I've just been saying it /complaining about it for the past some-odd years.

[Wolfgang]

So Jim and Greg mentioned this article in Business Week on today's show and how revenues for P4K last year were estimated around $5 million. I had no idea they were on that kind of level. Of course, last I heard they were still in that tiny two-room office at the LSA building.

Indie Music's Hipster Heaven


L-R: Scott (that's not how I pictured him to look), Ryan, and Chris

Up a flight of stairs from the cafés and shops that have turned Chicago's Wicker Park into the SoHo of the Midwest is an undecorated loft overlooking North Avenue. Fittingly, it is the headquarters of hipsterdom's musical tastemaker, Pitchfork Media. Its Web site is hit 250,000 times a day by indie music fans in their 20s and 30s checking out the latest music news and reviews. But that is not enough: In early April, the Pitchfork crew launched an Internet music channel, Pitchfork.tv. Think of it as this generation's answer to MTV (VIA).

One might expect an e-publication with an esoteric take like Pitchfork's to be run by a group of snarky, self-satisfied music geeks. But Pitchfork is, in fact, a company that means business. Its leadership is three-pronged (pun intended): Ryan Schreiber, 32, is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief. Christopher Kaskie, 28, is co-publisher. Scott Plagenhoef, 34, is associate editor-in-chief. They describe their roles as "the fan, the businessman, and the journalist." They say Schreiber is the optimistic, ambitious idea man who is tempered by pragmatists Kaskie and Plagenhoef.

A full-time staff of 15 employees type and click away in the loft-turned-office, which is so quiet, you can hear your bootsteps echo off the bare walls. More than 40 paid freelancers from around the globe provide album reviews.

Schreiber started Pitchfork in 1995 as a logical next step after the music-themed "zines" he and friends had been producing in hometown Minneapolis. The name was meant to convey "an angry mob mentality," he says, toward the corporate music industry. In 1999, he moved to Chicago with a few thousand dollars he had earned selling vinyl records on eBay (EBAY). Success didn't come early. When the lease ran out on Pitchfork's first office, Schreiber still owed three months' rent. He returned to his parents' place for six months and focused on what interested him the least: selling ad space on the site's pages. To this day, it's the company's only source of revenue.
Scathing Reviews

In 2004, back in Chicago, he hired Kaskie away from The Onion's sales team to handle business operations, and he recruited Plagenhoef, a local music and sports writer, to head up its editorial staff. The site gained credibility by focusing on independent music ignored by traditional media outlets—bands such as Arcade Fire and Spoon—as well as its take-no-prisoners reviews.

While the company is still rooted in Chicago, Schreiber moved to New York last spring. He also decided to do something, finally, about an idea he'd been kicking around for years—creating a music channel to fill the void left when MTV essentially abandoned its original music-based format in the early 1990s. Kaskie and Plagenhoef were skeptical. Neither had experience working with video, and they worried whether Pitchfork could afford the startup costs and increased overhead. "But you know, I had no experience when I started Pitchfork, either," Schreiber says.

He and the others at Pitchfork also had no experience putting on concerts when they assembled the first Pitchfork Music Festival in 2006. But they pulled it off. Last summer's fest drew 60,000 fans over three days in Union Park on the Near West Side. The event is a labor of love, however. What little profit it generates is plowed into the upcoming year's festival.

Pitchfork.tv, like the Web site, is intended to make money. These days, advertisers aplenty drool over Pitchfork's 18-to-34-year-old demographic. Although many Pitchfork users have a hipster's disdain for the mainstream and for big corporations, the company has no qualms about selling space to the likes of Toyota Motor ™ and American Apparel (APP). Its only rule is that ads cannot distract readers with pop-ups, sound, or interactivity. Net ad consultants estimate the site pulls in at least $5 million a year. Kaskie says only that revenue has grown by an explosive 70% each of the past four years.

On Pitchfork's 1-to-10 scale, that performance would merit a 9.5.

[Mantana]

A full-time staff of 15 employees type and click away in the loft-turned-office, which is so quiet, you can hear your bootsteps echo off the bare walls.

Surreal image.

[Elemeno P.T.]

Well...you really can never rely on any patterns matching yours to someone else's taste. Montana and I are two of a handful of Sombies who count Grandaddy among our one or two favorite bands of the last ten years. I also thought that Mark Olson made one of the best records of last year....but while I agree, to some extent about Lekman, I don't get your disdain for this Okkervill River record. I just began listening to it in the last few weeks and think it's terrific...maybe it's your dislike of Arcade Fire that's the give-away, as the lead singer resembles Winn Butler with that yearning, somehat whiny vocal.

[54cermak]

A full-time staff of 15 employees type and click away in the loft-turned-office, which is so quiet, you can hear your bootsteps echo off the bare walls.

Surreal image.

I was surprised when I visited my old record label office in 2006. Gone were the days of stereo-wars where people were fighting to put on their latest purchases and fighting over how loud it should be. It was silent and everyone was glued to their ipods.

[falling and laughing]

It is weird, but we collectively hear way more music that way -- plus there is a yoga studio beneath our office, so we have to respect them.