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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

Two months ago, Condé Nast bought and folded the music site Pitchfork [newstatesman.com]. For many music fans that marked the end of an era of music criticism and pop culture. Slate magazine [wsj.com] has an oral history of the late, great Pitchfork [slate.com] and how it started, what made it unique, and about its demise.

In January, Condé Nast announced [nytimes.com] that it was folding Pitchfork into GQ, laying off much of the staff of the influential, independent-minded music publication. The [rollingstone.com] outcry [slate.com] was [apnews.com] immediate [theguardian.com]. Why was one album-review website, founded nearly three decades ago in a suburban Minnesota bedroom, loved by so many music fans—and hated by so many others? Pitchfork transformed indie rock, but did pop transform Pitchfork? And does the Condé news really mean that Pitchfork is dead?

Over the past two months, Slate spoke to more than 30 Pitchfork writers, editors, and executives, past and present—as well as critics, industry luminaries, and some of the musicians whose careers Pitchfork made and destroyed—to tell the story behind the raves, the pans, the festivals, the fights, the indie spirit, the corporate takeover, and, of course, the scores. This is the complete oral history of Pitchfork [pitchfork.com].

Condé Nast [cnn.com] is the media company which owns one of the highly censorious, anti-FOSS "orange sites".

Original Submission