The Zimmermann Note

If I had a dime for every hipster that I saw at Pitchfork this year, I would have about $2.30 which is less than a gallon of gas these days. While I might be “exaggerating” this somewhat, it has to be said that Pitchfork as a music festival has become much larger than just some high school/college fashion/ego event. Over the years I have seen families, (admittedly less this year than prior which could be due to the heat), old folks, and young flock this event. And while it could be due to the aforementioned weather, I never get the impression that it was all that blatant.

 

Yes, the heat was pretty oppressive for three days even for this 37 year old. There were points on Sunday when I knew to have muttered under my furr, “I Love that Cloud”.  If that makes me a homo-cumulus then so be it.

 

While styles change, and well, shit, I am about as stylistic as Carson Kressley’s turtle Mimi, it just sorta looked as if Chicago invaded a park and partied for a couple of days. I bring all of this up because the very idea of the “Pitchfork Crowd” has become synonymous with attempting to be part of the progressive counter-culture but in the era of music and it’s site it’s also become known as being a sheep.

 

See the thing is that anything that Pitchfork rates as a great album it has to be a great album cause Pitchfork says so, or that would be what others want you to believe.

 

While I truly dabble to at least experiment and try to keep up with their “Best New Music” this is pretty far from the truth.  I have an entire list of albums, that still need to be looked into as I have fallen way behind in the ole purchasing music category.  I would also say that there is plenty of work that has been given positive reviews by their staff that I have found no such love for.  The two albums that come to mind that were on their best new music lists that I just did not care for was Gorrilaz – Plastic Beach, (which would be the album that Johnny Rotten was asked by an exec to perform on. Good thing he turned it down). The other is Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me, which for whatever reason I just cannot stand her style. I also cannot forget Vampire Weekend’s new album which is just trash in my eyes.

 

Secondly, lets look at some of the “Pitchfork Bands” that played the festival and compare some of their “Ratings” to that of other major critics. Metacritic’s site looks as a way to compile major reviews and give an overall rating for the album in the same way that Rottentomatoes reviews movies.

 

First score in parentheses is Pitchfork’s score and second one being the Metacritic score:

 

LCD Soundsystem (9.2/84)

Sleigh Bells – (8.7/84)

Delorean (8.4/79)

Big Boi (9.2/90)

Beach House (9.0/82)

Robyn (8.5/75)

Broken Social Scene (8.3/77)

Tallest Man on Earth (8.5/79)

Surfer Blood (8.2/78)

Titus Andronicus (8.7/81)

Girls (9.0/80)

 

While this is not scientific and only the first bands that I looked up, we can obviously see that there is a pattern and most of these bands were given slightly higher ratings than the average score posted on Metacritic. At the same time this is like saying that Barack Obama polls better in the Lakeview Neighborhood in Chicago than compared to the rest of the Nation.

 

There were a couple albums above where we see a wide disparity in scores. The Girls album from last year and Robyn’s both showed an almost 10 point gap. We also have to take into account that Pitchfork reviews their albums on a 10 point scale and most album reviews are given stars (Out of 4 or 5). Pitchfork is able to fine tune their scores a bit more than most album reviews. I wish I could say that I have consulted Nate Silver about some of this and I am waiting for him to call me back and write a 1000 word essay on this, I am not a pollster or statistician that looks at data this intuitively and make some blanket statement that “Rasmussen” polls higher or lower than other polls. Everything is biased.  Objectivity does not exist in reviews and don’t pretend for one moment that any critic is somehow free from bias to make an “Objective” view on anything.  Pitchfork is “biased” towards “Indie Rock” as are their fans.  Because even with the bias there is still some correlation between what is good and not. All the albums above were admittedly very positive. Everything over 8.0 Pitchfork or 80 in Metacritic is considered “Best New Music”.  Pitchfork’s selling point has always been on “Independent Music” i.e. “Indie Rock” so sure their bias is going to be stronger for that genre than say for Top 40 radio. That is their thing.

 

There might be some backlash that Pitchfork’s reviews are too powerful. As a zine, some might feel that their readership and popularity among the indie buying crowd monopolizes a bands chances of success or failures. As such, it’s a slippery slope. The same could be said for a site that is selling criticism, news, internet television and concerts.  It all of a sudden becomes a conflict of interest if the act that you just billed for P4K has a crappy album and you end up giving it a positive review for the sake of it. I guess if that was the case you should see a wider disparity in the scores or scores greater more in the range of 15 to 20 points higher.

 

However, what I have seen from going to the shows is that the fans are not all “Indie-Fantastic”. What Pitchfork has provided to the city of Chicago is a cheaper, non-corporate festival (unlike Lollapalooza) that runs about half the price, ticketwise, and is fan-friendly.

 

Consider the heat factor this past weekend. Pitchfork organizers quickly realized the dilemma and immediately cut bottled water prices in half from 2 dollars to 1 dollar to keep people hydrated. This is on top of the idea that they were passing water in front of both larger stages throughout the day to prevent any emergencies.

 

They instituted a policy whereby fans collecting plastic beer cups on the grounds could turn in 10 cups for a beverage ticket ($1). It never felt as a “Money-grubbing” opportunity but rather a “Best Concert Experience” opportunity. It is true that they went with Heineken as a beer sponser this year vs. using 312 but my understanding was that this went into having better sound equipment as well as allowed them to drop the cost in water.

 

They are not associated with Ticketmaster/LiveNation so you do not see enormous fees in their tickets. The fact that a daily ticket for their shows only costed $40 dollars can also point to the affordability.

 

While I think that some of the talent lacked from prior years, I still did have a wonderful time and as I let some of my thoughts on the music portion of the weekend digest, this I am hoping is a precurser to that.

 

Ultimately, when things get too big, criticism arises.  As indie music has grown and corporate rock shrunk, audiences have shifted away from being much more selective about their tastes and preferences. Quite honestly, I look at my own buying patterns for everything that is “Non-music”. What I find myself doing is buying much more local products vs. global. The food I buy, the stores that I visit, I can follow on the internet and thus shifting patterns away from large corporations and to smaller more independent stores.  Music as well as focused it’s attention away from large acts that fill arenas and to smaller more intimate acts that you see in clubs. Pitchfork has been a mechanism to allow this to happen, to separate the bad from the good and to prevent the consumer to not be so inundated with new music that they become overwhelmed.

 

As any media I might disagree with them but appreciate the efforts they sustain to keep it as ethically viable as possible.