In a move that surprised few and shocked even less, Pitchfork Media today announced the majority of their hip-hop album reviews were phony. Representatives for the popular site, known for their ultra-pretentious reviews of the latest in hipster music, say many of the bogus reviews were written based on reviewers’ past experiences with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns and “just kinda flipping through the CD inserts.”
“You have to understand, people send us a lot of music,” said Editor-In-Chief Ryan Schreiber. “We were listening to albums for like 12 hours a day at times. I mean, that’s tough enough to handle with music I like, never mind hip-hop,” he added. “And I thought it all sounded alike before I started doing reviews…I just felt like it was time to come clean.”
Though easy at first, continually concealing the staff’s lack of hip-hop knowledge proved to be a daunting task. “The first year wasn’t hard at all. Our readers didn’t know shit either so it was like the blind leading the blind,” said Schreiber. “Throw an Eric B & Rakim album in one of our ‘Best Of’ lists and those motherfuckers thought we were down.” As the site grew, however, traffic increased and with more traffic came more informed readers.
Many were suspicous of the validity of the hip-hop reviews when they noticed the adjective count was 95% per paragraph as opposed to the site standard of 70%. “In no way did I encourage these fake reviews. Shit, I was against the idea of reviewing hip-hop altogether — it’s not even music,” said Senior Staff Writer Mark Richardson. He wasn’t alone in his opposition to reviewing hip-hop records, but says those in charge didn’t want the site to be classified as racist. “I mean, what the fuck, we only review hip-hop albums by white people anyways — what’s the difference?”
In addition to white rappers, the site has been criticized for also favoring rappers with British accents and rappers who aren’t even rappers. Such artists are invariably praised for “rising above the [black] hip-hop status quo, and bringing new perspectives and fresh ideas to the stalled genre, currently plagued by blinging decadents and joyless would-be underground saviors…” Commonly, the glitchy, computerized production found on these albums is referred to by reviewers as beatscapes, moodscapes, landscapes, superman’scapes, and the ever popular futuristic soundscapes. “Oh, those reviews? Those are all us,” Schreiber proudly noted. “I had just assumed you weren’t talking about them, because they’re not really hip-hop, when you really look at it, you know?”
Many feel the revelation’s impact on the site will be minimal given the largely emo readership, but only time will tell. “I learned it from watching Rolling Stone, alright!?!” said Schrieber. “I learned it from watching Rolling Stone…”