We can debate the pros (a few) and cons (many) of Pitchfork’s position within the culture and how it got there, and I doubt I’ll defend their work a whole lot — but nevertheless, I’m still willing to perk up when their editors decide to really go to bat for an album.
As far as I can tell, the last time Pitchfork Media last gave a “10.0” to a new release with zero previous exposure was in February 2002: …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead’s third LP, Source Tags & Codes. If you’re the type of person who pays attention to these things, this probably seems both 1) weird, and 2) incorrect, but I can show you where you’ve got it wrong.
For one, the key is zero previous exposure. That means no reissues, of which Pitchfork bestows many perfect scores. This is, of course, much easier practice than declaring a brand new album “an instant classic,” because the passing of time allows us — as listeners and walking cultural barometers — to give the work some context, which often burnishes a great-but-imperfect work’s reputation, thanks to everyone’s great weakness, nostalgia.
This also means, however, that more recently crowned efforts, like Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, gets disqualified, because the band famously streamed it for free on the internet eight months before it received an official release from Nonesuch Records, in April 2002. Wilco’s public falling-out with Warner Music Group over YHF gave the album more cultural weight than it otherwise earned, and provided Pitchfork with even more incentive step up to the plate for Jeff Tweedy’s true masterpiece. They don’t get credit for that any more than they get credit for correctly identifying Abbey Road as sonic perfection.
The other problematic album in the recent Pitchfork canon is Robert Pollard’s 2005 (uh) comedy album, Relaxation of the Asshole, which was originally graded “(1)0.0,” describing its status as both the greatest and worst thing in the history of recorded sound. Pitchfork has since amended the score to emphasize the 10.0, but if writer Eric Carr really wanted to call it fantastic without the scare-quotes then he would have done it. As far as I’m concerned, that split score means that album is really just a “5.0” — a deeply flawed stunt that Pitchfork editors wanted to seem hip to.
I haven’t taken the time to download My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy yet, even though torrents starting appearing online last week. I admit that I like Kanye West’s work, even quite a bit, but his outsize personality is often so distracting that I think of him first as, say, a crazy person on Twitter, and second as an innovative writer/performer/producer. I don’t know if I’m going to like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, let alone love it; it almost seems inevitable that it will disappoint, after months of heavy buzz. But I like that West seems to be always reaching for something grand in his albums — even if that grandiosity sometimes involves Auto-Tune — and I like that the face of music criticism in 2010, for better or worse, won’t shy away from bold statements, even when it doesn’t necessarily jibe with the “indier-than-thou” stereotype that the Jay Leno-loving public likes to throw its way.
Because after all: they clearly don’t go to the mat for just anything.
