If you're a music writer in the present day, you've inevitably got the Shadow of Pitchfork looming over your work. Originally just another indie music review website, Pitchfork Media rose to the cutting edge of the scene with their sharp and often brutal reviews. They had a good grip on the freshest of underground tunes and they weren't afraid to tear most of them to shreds. Now, placing on Pitchfork's best new music list is a sure sign that your band has been pulled out of the slush and onto the pedestal. 

Pitchfork didn't just alter the credentials necessary for a band to consider themselves successful. They changed what it meant to be a music journalist. They had an unprecedented impact on the craft of music writing because they understood what people wanted to read from their critics. A thoughtful, well-intentioned barrage of praise might be enjoyable to read, but if that's all that's filling your blog, it's not very valuable in a strictly economic sense. Pitchfork did the math. They figured out the perfect critical currency--the ratio of good to bad reviews they should feature in order to keep bands and fans hungry for the positive ones. If people read a website primarily for the bad reviews, they'll get especially excited when encomia arises. 

The Pitchfork critical team became culture-sculptors by pushing their craft to the edge of its genre. Upon reading some of the reviews on the site, you might think you're witnessing some kind of Barthian exercise in hyperbole. Pitchfork critics don't just write; they overwrite, occasionally to the point of absurdity. Take, for example, this gem of a blurb: 

My beleaguered "generation" and I may attempt to protect ourselves from emotional harm (and our grim inheritance) by stockpiling absurdities, but we will probably still go prostrate during a moment of disarming simplicity, pathetic mortality, or genuine romance. I See a Darkness is rife with such moments (though the exultant finale of "Nomadic Revelry" defies categorization). Will Oldham's latest moniker is his canniest since back when he went by variations on Pushkin, and under this banner, his work has retained the bawdiness, hybridity, and compassion that characterized the Russian poet. In this guise Oldham exploits a salty freedom and an epicurean brio; on this album, his least "country," he was a bulimic Falstaff milking medieval dread/mirth. 

-William Bowers, The Top 100 Albums of the 1990s

It's pretty to look at, sure. It's so pretty it's almost prose poetry. I mean, I get what he's saying, but goodness, does he say it in several shades of purple. Just because Dictionary.com emails you a vocabulary word of the day does not mean you have to use it in your write-up. And a bulimic Falstaff? What on God's earth is he getting at?

Most of Pitchfork's features aren't badly written. They're just written too well, with a propensity for overindulgence. Bowers is a reviewer of music. He is not Faulkner. Readers of music reviews do not find phrases like "epicurean brio" particularly helpful when they are considering which records to purchase. Save it for the breakthrough post-modern novella. What's funny, though, is how much writers enjoy this sort of effluence. I've read many a blog with similarly padded reviews. They're often cheap imitations of the original Pitchfork mode of writing. Not only do they pile on the superfluities, they do so crassly, often tossing in curse-laden neologisms. Truly excellent writers don't need to pile on 3-4 swear words per review. Save those for the moments of rage. Don't just stack an f-bomb on top of any word that designates a large quantity (lot, ton, pile, what have you). I may swear like a sailor in the real world, but when I'm getting words on paper, I understand that profanity is often a cheap trick used to disguise lazy wordcraft. 

One reads a music review not just to glean opinion about a given release or song, but to enjoy the construction of the piece of writing itself. Reviewing is very much a craft. It's done absolutely brilliantly by Sean Moeller over at Daytrotter, who manages to conjure gorgeous prose describing every single band that records a session. How he produces so much work while avoiding cliches and messiness is beyond me. The man's a writerly powerhouse. And to boot, he's steered away from the aggressive, overbearing Pitchfork school of music writing. 

Pitchfork and its descendants suffer from an emphasis on showmanship and ego. Your review shouldn't be about you, your writing flair and how damned good you are at listening to music. Show your knowledge, but show it with elegance and restraint. Your job is to lead your reader to an understanding of music they've never heard. It's a task that's possible to complete without a single AP English vocab word. Your writing is a machine. It should run as efficiently as possible. Love your music. Write your words. Keep it clean and neat and check your ego at the door.