| Wow. Yeah, that’s not what happened. I previously worked in music first at CMJ, UrbMag then Fader before working with a few indie and major labels on the digital side. Don’t try to rewrite history to make this a political or “wokeness” thing because of the view of ONE of the many contributors to Pitchfork. What happened to Pitchfork was pure economics. Pitchfork got old just like the article said. After indie, they attempted to pivot and become more accepting of “young hip-hop” and world music (latin, Afro beat) that younger audiences listened to in the way that Fader did. This worked for awhile. Until… 1. Old Millenials and GenXers aged out 2. Music discovery moved to TikTok and the streaming platforms themselves. The bottom line is that young people could careless what a bunch of gatekeeping olds think is the “right music” anyhow. |
The issue with that is it’s the same shift a lot of outlets made to try and keep pace too, which has resulted in a bunch of legacy outlets with little distinct editorial voice left. That’s not a barrier to keeping clicks, but it does feel like a failing strategy to retain cultural cache.
Though I digress, by all accounts Pitchfork had actually gone from losing money pre Puja to actually making money, so this was probably not about the outlet failing in some way. I personally agree with those noting how soon this has come after the staff unionisation vote