In an apparent effort to provoke a large swath of my age group, Pitchfork announced earlier this week that it was revising its numeric ratings for 19 albums that the site had reviewed over the past 20 years.
I think what bothers me the most about Pitchfork's article is that it does open the door to revising/erasing history. Yeah music's subjective, and tastes change. That's universally understood--it should be by Pitchfork's audience, anyway.
This is like the kid that hates a record, the record goes huge, and suddenly they liked it all along (or vice versa). Putting a record review in print is a commitment. And it's okay for tastes to change, or for a reviewer to miss the mark. What is not okay is the ability to permanently alter that record to reflect the zeitgeist.
Yeah exactly. It's such a slippery slope - you'll never be able to keep up if you start revising in this way. As I alluded in the post, it feels like a misunderstanding of a critic's role - you can't expect all your opinions to stand the test of time and remain current and it's ridiculous to think that's even possible. A sign of hubris in my opinion - believing one site like Pitchfork can remain authoritative not just in the present but in the past.
I think what bothers me the most about Pitchfork's article is that it does open the door to revising/erasing history. Yeah music's subjective, and tastes change. That's universally understood--it should be by Pitchfork's audience, anyway.
This is like the kid that hates a record, the record goes huge, and suddenly they liked it all along (or vice versa). Putting a record review in print is a commitment. And it's okay for tastes to change, or for a reviewer to miss the mark. What is not okay is the ability to permanently alter that record to reflect the zeitgeist.
Yeah exactly. It's such a slippery slope - you'll never be able to keep up if you start revising in this way. As I alluded in the post, it feels like a misunderstanding of a critic's role - you can't expect all your opinions to stand the test of time and remain current and it's ridiculous to think that's even possible. A sign of hubris in my opinion - believing one site like Pitchfork can remain authoritative not just in the present but in the past.