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Classic Pitchfork reviews made an artist seem like they had the most important mind on the planet.
It wasnt without glaring blind spots of its own, particularly but not exclusively in the first decade.
The early indie vanguard inherited the rock mags disinterest in R&B.
For all the chaotic choices Pitchfork was capable of making, it was trying to shift the balance.
You couldnt always read a gay writer on some street rap.
You couldnt count on women getting the jobs to write about women.
Prince literally had to request Black profilers.
Poptimism discourse always smelled funky.
You come off looking pro-you, not pro-art (the pro-art stance is solidarity).
Eventually we all get caught humming Taps for some semblance of life as we once knew it.
You dont memorialize the whole local nightlife scene because a club got shut down.
You follow your favorite staff to the next venture.
As long as culture can live [election-year shudder] so, too, will florid fights around it.
This isnt a story of a website floundering because readers quit on it.
Im not excited for the immediate future.
Shit stagnates when shit stagnates.
Im tired and spooked, but I spectated too many left-field cultural revolutions to call this a wash.
It can be done again, right?
