Pitchfork (website)
Pitchfork is an American online music magazine founded in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis. It originally covered alternative and independent music, and expanded to cover genres including pop, hip-hop, jazz and metal. Pitchfork is one of the most influential music publications to have emerged in the internet age.
In the 2000s, Pitchfork distinguished itself from print media through its unusual editorial style, frequent updates and coverage of emerging acts. It was praised as passionate, authentic and unique, but criticized as pretentious, mean-spirited and elitist, playing into stereotypes of the cynical hipster. It is credited with popularizing acts such as Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens.
Pitchfork relocated to Chicago in 1999 and Brooklyn, New York, in 2011. It expanded with projects including the annual Pitchfork Music Festival, the video site Pitchfork.tv, the 2008 book The Pitchfork 500, and a print publication, The Pitchfork Review. In later years, Pitchfork became less antagonistic and more professional in style, and began covering more mainstream music and issues of gender, race and identity. As of 2014, it was receiving around 6.2 million unique visitors every month.
The influence of Pitchfork declined in the 2010s with the growth of streaming and social media. In 2015, it was acquired by the mass media company Condé Nast and moved to One World Trade Center. The Pitchfork president, Chris Kaskie, left in 2017, followed by Schreiber in 2019. In 2024, Condé Nast announced plans to merge Pitchfork into the men's magazine GQ, resulting in layoffs and the closure of Pitchfork Music Festival. The merge drew criticism and triggered concern about the implications for music journalism. In 2026, Pitchfork announced it was moving to a subscription model.
History
1996–2003: early years
Pitchfork was created in February 1996 by Ryan Schreiber, a high school graduate living in his parents' home in Minneapolis. Schreiber grew up listening to indie rock acts such as Fugazi, Jawbox and Guided by Voices. He was influenced by fanzine culture and had no previous writing experience. Schreiber initially named the website Turntable, but changed it after another website claimed the rights. The name Pitchfork was inspired by the tattoo on the assassin Tony Montana in the film Scarface. Schreiber chose it as it was concise and had "evilish overtones". The first review was of Pacer by the Amps, and the record store Insound was Pitchforks first advertiser.Early Pitchfork reviews focused on indie rock and were often critical. The Washington Post described them as "brutal" and "merciless", writing: "The site's stable of critics often seemed capricious, uninvested, sometimes spiteful, assigning low scores on a signature 10-point scale with punitive zeal." Schreiber said the site's early period "was about really laying into people who really deserved it", and defended the importance of honesty in arts criticism. He said he wanted "to be daring, to surprise people and catch them off guard". In 1999, Schreiber relocated Pitchfork to Chicago. He estimated that Pitchfork had published 1,000 reviews by this point.
Around the turn of the millennium, the American music press was dominated by monthly print magazines such as Rolling Stone, creating a gap in the market for faster-moving publication that emphasized new acts. Pitchfork could publish several articles a day, greatly outpacing print media. New technologies such as MP3, the iPod and the file-sharing service Napster created greater access to music, and music blogs became an important resource, creating further opportunity for Pitchfork. The contributors Mark Richardson and Eric Harvey said this was an important part of Pitchforks early popularity, as music fans could share and listen to new music while reading daily updates.
In 2000, Pitchforks 10.0/10.0 review of the highly anticipated Radiohead album Kid A, written by Brent DiCrescenzo, generated a surge in readership and was one of the first signs of Pitchfork becoming a major publication. One of the first Kid A reviews published, it attracted attention for its unusual style. Billboard described it as "extremely long-winded and brazenly unhinged from the journalistic form and temperament of the time". While it was widely mocked, it boosted Pitchforks profile. Schreiber said he understood the review would attract ridicule, but "wanted Pitchfork to be daring and to surprise people". In 2001, Pitchfork had 30,000 daily readers.
2004–2005: growing influence and professional growth
As of 2004, Pitchfork had eight full-time employees and about 50 freelance staff members, most of whom worked remotely and co-ordinated through phone and internet. Writers were unpaid for their first six months, after which they could earn $10 or $20 for a review or $40 for a feature. Following staff tensions about Schreiber's advertising income, Pitchfork started paying writers from their first articles at a slightly improved rate. The first full-time employee, Chris Kaskie, formerly of the satirical website The Onion, was hired to run business operations. He later became the president and co-owner. Pitchforks first professional editor, Scott Plagenhoef, was hired shortly afterwards. Kaskie and Plagenhoef are credited for turning Pitchfork into a professional operation.Also in 2004, Pitchfork published a positive review of the debut album by Arcade Fire, Funeral. The album became a bestseller and is cited as the first major example of Pitchforks influence on independent music, attracting coverage of Pitchfork from outlets such as the Los Angeles Times. The contributor Jess Weiss said the review "changed everything". By 2005, Pitchfork was attracting around one million readers a month, with an annual revenue of around $5 million. That year, Schreiber said he was uninterested in selling Pitchfork: "It would change into the antithesis of the reason I started it. This is something I am so in love with—this is my entire adult life's work."
2006–2010: expanding operations
By 2006, traditional music media, such as print magazines, music video channels and radio stations, had declined or changed focus, but listeners still sought a reliable source of recommendations. Without the limitations of print media, Pitchfork was able to champion emerging independent acts that major magazines, which had to sell millions of copies every year, could not. Schreiber felt the magazines were "not even trying to discover new music... Publications used to take more chances on artists, putting bands on the cover that they thought deserved to be there." He said Pitchfork was able to take risks as it was not interested in appeasing bands, record labels or advertisers.In 2006, Pitchfork had 170,000 daily readers and was publishing five album reviews a day, with six full-time employees. Schreiber said Pitchfork was able to sustain paid freelancers and eight employees, but was "always cutting it close". He attracted interest from investors but wanted to retain control and journalistic integrity was his priority. That August, several albums, including the forthcoming Joanna Newsom album Ys, leaked online after an internal Pitchfork server was hacked.
In the mid-2000s, Pitchfork expanded its operations. In 2006, it launched the annual Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. The first Paris Pitchfork Music Festival was held in 2011. Kaskie said it was exciting to see acts Pitchfork had championed playing to large crowds: "We start to see these bands playing in front of audiences 10 times the size of their biggest show ever. That's the goal, man. To put fucking Titus Andronicus in front of 10,000 people." In April 2008, after acquiring the live music show Juan's Basement, Pitchfork launched Pitchfork.tv, a website displaying interviews, music videos and feature-length films. In November, it published a book, The Pitchfork 500, covering the preceding 30 years of music.
By the end of the 2000s, Pitchfork had become influential in the music industry, credited for launching acts such as Arcade Fire and Bon Iver. Employees at record labels and record stores would use it to anticipate interest in acts. It was also attracting large sponsors such as American Express and Apple.
2010–2014: diversification, declining influence and sister publications
The influence of Pitchfork on music careers declined around the turn of the decade, as streaming and social media fractured audiences and reduced the need for gatekeepers. Streaming services began to fulfill Pitchforks function of helping new artists find audiences, and independent music criticism moved to podcasts and YouTube. Declining music industry revenues reduced advertising spending, and Pitchfork faced competition from advertisers such as Facebook. According to the Los Angeles Times, "The internet era that birthed Pitchforks blend of saucy writing, outre tastes and massive popularity by and large over."Over the following decade, Pitchfork shifted its editorial range and style. It began running news and features alongside reviews, coming to resemble a more conventional music publication. It also diversified from indie rock to cover mainstream music including pop, rap and metal, and began covering issues of gender, race and identity in music, influenced by movements such as poptimism, MeToo and Black Lives Matter. Schreiber said that "our tastes broadened with age and experience", and that Pitchfork could make a difference to social causes. Its reviews also became less critical and its writers made fewer pitches for negative reviews, especially for artists with large fanbases. In 2025, Schreiber said Pitchfork had been suffering an "identity crisis".
In July 2010, Pitchfork launched Altered Zones, a blog aggregator devoted to underground and DIY music. In 2011, Pitchfork relocated to Brooklyn, New York. On May 21, Pitchfork announced a partnership with the website Kill Screen, in which Pitchfork would publish some of their articles. Altered Zones closed on November 30. On December 26, 2012, Pitchfork launched Nothing Major, a website that covered visual arts, which closed in October 2013. Pitchfork launched a film website, The Dissolve, in 2013. It closed in 2015, citing "financial challenges". In 2017, Kaskie said he remained proud of The Dissolve and that it was "a huge success from the creative and editorial, design and everything else".
In 2013, Pitchfork won the National Magazine Award for general excellence in digital media. That year, the rapper Chief Keef was arrested for violating a probation sentence by using a rifle in a promotional video by Pitchfork. Staff later described the episode as a low point and an example of how Pitchfork mishandled hip-hop artists. In December, Pitchfork launched The Pitchfork Review, a quarterly print journal focused on long-form music writing and design-focused content. Pitchfork planned a limited-edition quarterly publication of about 10,000 copies of each issue, printed on glossy, high-quality paper. About two thirds of the content would be original, with the remaining reused from the Pitchfork website. The International Business Times likened the literary aspirations to The New Yorker and the Paris Review. The Pitchfork Review ended after 11 issues in November 2016.
As of 2014, Pitchfork was receiving around 6.2 million unique visitors and 40 million pageviews every month, with an expected annual revenue growth of 25 to 40 percent. Its primary revenue came from advertising. According to the media analytics firm Comscore, Pitchfork had 2.47 million unique visitors that August, more than the websites for Spin or Vibe but fewer than Rolling Stones 11 million. By this point, Pitchfork was facing mounting financial problems, and Kaskie spent the year searching for funding.