In defense of hype: or How I learned to stop worrying and love the 'Fork.

You don't have time to comb the bottom of your swimming pool every day for dirt and debris, so you use a filter. Pitchfork is a filter. For music.

Across the board, Pitchfork Media, a web site dedicated to music (news, features, free downloads and their infamous CD reviews) is categorically loathed across the Internet. By other music web sites, on message boards, at hipster get-togethers, even here at Newsvine (hint: check out the logo for our new "Listen In" Music Group). Pitchfork's penchant for generating "hype" about forthcoming records or up-and-coming bands has made it uncool, but I'm here to say "Stop the insanity!"

In communities across the web that focus on music, it seems that many people have come to resent Pitchfork and other similar outfits. Why? The most common line of reasoning: They tell you what to think. Why not just listen to the record yourself and make up your own mind?

OK. Point taken. I admit that I often like to listen to an album (or watch a movie, especially) before reading any reviews. But folks who think that by avoiding sites like Pitchfork they are standing tall as beacons of independent thinking are completely delusional.

Here's why.

Very few people are capable of using their own minds to locate good music in the first place. This is not meant to be a dig on the intellect of the general populace, rather it is meant to call attention to the rapidly changing world of music distribution and how it makes finding good music on your own nearly impossible. Who has the time?

Bands today have more ways of releasing/promoting their music than ever before and music consumers have more ways of stuffing their ears with new tunes, all thanks to the Internet. But with that being said, how are we to discern what's worth listening to? How can we possibly make sense of all this music? The answer is we can't because we have jobs or kids or iPod Shuffles. We need to be picky.

This is where Pitchfork, and other music review sites (::cough cough Listen Incough cough::) work their magic. Instead of thinking of Pitchfork as a mechanism for generating endless hype, think of it as a musical filter that sifts through a lot of the bull @!$%# and every so often directs your attention to an album, artist or brand of music you'd never paid attention to.

After all, it's not like you punks who "get your own music" are walking into music stores picking albums off the shelf at random. You've got your own filters in place (the radio, MTV, an older sibling, Zach Braff, whatever) and in many cases, they're probably a lot lamer than Pitchfork.

And if we are really honest with ourselves, we'd admit that the reason why we read music reviews in the first place is so that we can find music that other people like and then take a liking to it ourselves, further advancing ourselves up the arbitrary ladder of social sustainability. Take away the wannabe beards, horned rim glasses and too-small t-shirts, and we indie kids are just as likely to find comfort in the soothing warmth of the herd as your average sheep.

Just face it: You need music reviews. Pitchfork's oft-snarky, too-clever and condescending-ish write-ups can become annoying occasionally, but all in all, they play a pretty crucial role in the dissemination of a good deal of independent music. Be thankful. The 'Fork is your friend.

Not that you couldn't have figured that out on your own.

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