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Wow. Yeah, that’s not what happened. I previously worked in music first at CMJ, UrbMag then Fader before working with a few indie and major labels on the digi

Wow. Yeah, that’s not what happened. I previously worked in music first at CMJ, UrbMag then Fader before working with a few indie and major labels on the digital side. Don’t try to rewrite history to make this a political or “wokeness” thing because of the view of ONE of the many contributors to Pitchfork. What happened to Pitchfork was pure economics. Pitchfork got old just like the article said. After indie, they attempted to pivot and become more accepting of “young hip-hop” and world music (latin, Afro beat) that younger audiences listened to in the way that Fader did. This worked for awhile. Until… 1. Old Millenials and GenXers aged out 2. Music discovery moved to TikTok and the streaming platforms themselves. The bottom line is that young people could careless what a bunch of gatekeeping olds think is the “right music” anyhow.

chriscjcj 3y ago
At what point does l33tbro use the term "wokeness?"
drawfloat 3y ago
It’s a little from column a and a little column b in practice. Puja Patel (editor in chief) is fairly open about being in a mission to increase diversity and specifically covering fewer white male bands. You may spin that as “wokeness” (note: the parent never used that phrase) but it’s one and the same to covering what younger listeners were interested in over most of the last decade too. In lots of ways raging against wokeness is just the latest era of “old man shouts at cloud”. The issue with that is it’s the same shift a lot of outlets made to try and keep pace too, which has resulted in a bunch of legacy outlets with little distinct editorial voice left. That’s not a barrier to keeping clicks, but it does feel like a failing strategy to retain cultural cache. Though I digress, by all accounts Pitchfork had actually gone from losing money pre Puja to actually making money, so this was probably not about the outlet failing in some way. I personally agree with those noting how soon this has come after the staff unionisation vote
- paganel 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ykonstant 3y ago
    What the fuck am I reading.
    - paganel 3y ago
      It's right there in the comment. Or do you think that the programmers in here have the exact pulse on how a former hipster icon like Pitchfork went down?
      - saagarjha 3y ago
        > It's right there in the comment. The comment you replied to is not nearly as straightforward as you. It actually reads: "why are you being a bigot?"
        paganel 3y ago
        [flagged]
        saagarjha 3y ago
        This is not the case, has historically never been the case, and unless human nature changes drastically, will never be the case. Whether you care about something has far more influence on your knowledge and relevance than the color of your skin. Also, by the way, she grew up in the United States.
        paganel 3y ago
        It was not about the colour of the skin (you missed the part where I explicitly mentioned black people in my first comment, you probably missed that), but about the huge cultural difference between the US and India.
alex_young 3y ago
Another until - the rise of buying digital singles / streaming. A big reason for Pitchfork was a simple heuristic for "should I buy this album". Now that no one buys albums, that problem isn't such a pressing concern. Steve Jobs had more to do with this than Condé Nast IMO.
AniseAbyss 3y ago
[dead]
werdnapk 3y ago
My tweet from 2015: #pitchforkmedia... "now with more rap." https://twitter.com/akaspick/status/606803688888377344 https://twitter.com/akaspick/status/606803688888377344 As a reader since the early 2000's, I noticed the shift pretty quick.
samirillian 3y ago
Old people aged out of reading music blogs? Is that a known phenomenon?

chriscjcj 3y ago

At what point does l33tbro use the term "wokeness?"

drawfloat 3y ago

It’s a little from column a and a little column b in practice. Puja Patel (editor in chief) is fairly open about being in a mission to increase diversity and specifically covering fewer white male bands. You may spin that as “wokeness” (note: the parent never used that phrase) but it’s one and the same to covering what younger listeners were interested in over most of the last decade too. In lots of ways raging against wokeness is just the latest era of “old man shouts at cloud”. The issue with that is it’s the same shift a lot of outlets made to try and keep pace too, which has resulted in a bunch of legacy outlets with little distinct editorial voice left. That’s not a barrier to keeping clicks, but it does feel like a failing strategy to retain cultural cache. Though I digress, by all accounts Pitchfork had actually gone from losing money pre Puja to actually making money, so this was probably not about the outlet failing in some way. I personally agree with those noting how soon this has come after the staff unionisation vote

paganel 3y ago
[flagged]
- ykonstant 3y ago
  What the fuck am I reading.
  - paganel 3y ago
    It's right there in the comment. Or do you think that the programmers in here have the exact pulse on how a former hipster icon like Pitchfork went down?
    - saagarjha 3y ago
      > It's right there in the comment. The comment you replied to is not nearly as straightforward as you. It actually reads: "why are you being a bigot?"
      - paganel 3y ago
        [flagged]
        saagarjha 3y ago
        This is not the case, has historically never been the case, and unless human nature changes drastically, will never be the case. Whether you care about something has far more influence on your knowledge and relevance than the color of your skin. Also, by the way, she grew up in the United States.
        paganel 3y ago
        It was not about the colour of the skin (you missed the part where I explicitly mentioned black people in my first comment, you probably missed that), but about the huge cultural difference between the US and India.

alex_young 3y ago

Another until - the rise of buying digital singles / streaming. A big reason for Pitchfork was a simple heuristic for "should I buy this album". Now that no one buys albums, that problem isn't such a pressing concern. Steve Jobs had more to do with this than Condé Nast IMO.

AniseAbyss 3y ago

[dead]

werdnapk 3y ago

My tweet from 2015: #pitchforkmedia... "now with more rap." https://twitter.com/akaspick/status/606803688888377344 https://twitter.com/akaspick/status/606803688888377344 As a reader since the early 2000's, I noticed the shift pretty quick.

samirillian 3y ago

Old people aged out of reading music blogs? Is that a known phenomenon?