They used to be the gold standard for music criticism, whether you agreed with them or not, their reviews carried weight. But nowadays, it feels more line a "random score generator" site. Some examples

 

Ice Spice's Y2K getting a 7.6, Playboi Carti's MUSIC scoring a 7.7, both of which are TERRIBLE albums.
 

While HMHAS and GNX were rated 6.8 and 6.6, despite being great albums.  

 

What do you think?  Do you still take their scores seriously, or are they basically meaningless now?

Pitchfork had credibility?

Credibility had pitchfork?

1 minute ago, Achilles. said:

Pitchfork had credibility?

They used to be the most prestigious music magazine for music criticism, so yes. 

Stans will still use them to drag artists they don't like, but if they pan their fave it'll suddenly be "why does everyone care what Pitchfork thinks??". Same with the Grammys, Fantano, etc.

GNX is overrated as HELL, so the score is correct.

They'd be less credible if they forced their own opinions to match up with popular opinion like so many other publications do.

Also if they forced their own opinions to be contrary to popular opinion.

 

I don't get the picture that they do either of those.

A little, yeah. Ever since Condé Nast bought them back in 2025 things started to get a little weird and after their merge with GQ things got even worse.

They're only spot on with 143.

I'd have agreed until Mayhem was given a 8.0. Credibility restored! 
 

Music critic opinions are literally just opinions. Yeah they know more about music than a lot of regular people but then so does everyone on here lol. Pitchfork was the ultimate hipster site back in the day they weren't seperate from biases and trends that other music critics followed. Everyone is biased, nobodies opinions are objective. All you can do is try to be constructive and fair but pitchfork doesn't even have a good track record when it comes to that. 

Its all about which score will give then more clicks

 

same thing for movire reviews

because you disagree with two scores?

theyre credible until they give your fave a score you don't like

16 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

Ice Spice's Y2K getting a 7.6, Playboi Carti's MUSIC scoring a 7.7, both of which are TERRIBLE albums.
 

While HMHAS and GNX were rated 6.8 and 6.6, despite being great albums.

...according to you. those are not facts, so they are allowed to give them any score they want. its just opinions...

They've been garbage for about 15 years

so what album did they pan that you liked for you to make this thread?

Edited March 18, 20251 yr by Starchild

A very long time ago. Especially when they wrote that cringe af article on Mayhem talking more about nachos than the actual music. The score was good but the reviews are always about the narrative rather than the actual music.

yes, their reviews are so boring nowadays. it feels like every album is getting a score in the 6-7.5 range, with the exception of some girlies who get BNM and 8+

 

like if they're gonna pan something i wish they'd just go for it and gave it a 4, nobody is interested in these lame ass 'it was good, but also a little bad' reviews

23 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

Ice Spice's Y2K getting a 7.6, Playboi Carti's MUSIC scoring a 7.7, both of which are TERRIBLE albums.

these are both spectacular albums.

 

Y2K! was ice spice's best work & it's still on repeat for me. the points are correlated too, Y2K! had major rage rap influences, a sound Carti helped popularize with giving birth to countless artists & shaping the future of both the underground and mainstream so both of them having similar scores totally make sense. are you saying pitchfork lost credibility just because you're behind on what's happening in the hip-hop scene?

It was fun not because it was necessarily credible but because it was snarky and overly pretentious with scathing reviews. The numbered average was always stupid and inconsistent. 

 

They kind of woke that up again with 143 an WW skulldragging but it is far from the site it used to be. 

you guys know that you don't have to agree with every review right? In the end they are just some opinion pieces by some random person. Read them, discuss them and then just move on. People on here act like if a album they like gets a bad review it instantly becomes bad 

They have never had any credibility 

31 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

They used to be the gold standard for music criticism, whether you agreed with them or not, their reviews carried weight. But nowadays, it feels more line a "random score generator" site. Some examples

 

Ice Spice's Y2K getting a 7.6, Playboi Carti's MUSIC scoring a 7.7, both of which are TERRIBLE albums.
 

While HMHAS and GNX were rated 6.8 and 6.6, despite being great albums.  

 

What do you think?  Do you still take their scores seriously, or are they basically meaningless now?

Playboy's album is getting good reviews everywhere. We didn't know you were the standard to know what is terrible or not lmao. 

Ye, their scores are all over the place in the past few years. It's like they rubberstamp a 7-8 score to every random mediocre album, but then take some kind of contrarian stance against actually great albums with sub 7 scores. Also their BNM music picks are pretty much always in the 8.2-8.4 range: it's like they can't even push something they genuinely like with a higher score that might suggest an album is worth checking out. Basically they turned from a sharp opinionated critic that was the #1 tastemaker, to this boring middle of the road one that completely lost its footing. 

All 4 are terrible actually