Why do artists even respond to P'fork's snarkiness? Don't they know that's exactly the response the site wants? Leave the pettiness alone and it will just fade into obscurity.

I have recently been joking around with pals that Pitchfork is more likely to favorably review an album comprised of a band of midgets banging tin cans that no one has heard of just to be cutting edge, rather than releases anyone cares about ;-)

To be fair, Wendy, I reviewed OM-PA LOOM-PAZ's debut release, "Tin Can Cacophony", and it's not half bad! Those little fellas know how to bang some cans together!

I get the feeling JJT also likes to pick fights over bad reviews. He sent a similar letter to Dusted for a review we ran of his previous album. Dusted, for the record, doesn't use a rating system, and I think the review wasn't as snarky as Pfork's. Personally, I don't really feel this guy's solo jams so much, but I love Wooden Wand & VV.

babussolini -- are you joking about Dusted's review not being as snarky? If we're thinking of the same one that review was way, way over the top.

I'm not a huge fan of this last JJT record but a lot of the heat he's getting is because pitchfork, dusted, et al get peoples attention by out-assholing each other.

Daba you don't get it: Pitchfork reviewers are SO insightful, that they actually CAN make the fine distinction between an album that merits a 4.1 and a 4.2. In fact, they are such masters of the reviewing arts, that they can make these distinctions without even listening to the albums all the way through or doing basic fact checking. This is the difference between THEM and US. When I write reviews for Prefix, I am fairly obsessive about checking facts... because I figure nobody will take my opinion seriously if I appear not to know what I'm talking about. This is not a concern for pitchfork writers, simply because they ARE pitchfork writers --and their expertise is assumed, even in the face of staggering evidence that would seem to discredit it. Without the confining limitations of fact checking, or the expectation of good-faith efforts at engaging the music they're assigned to review, Pitchfork reviewers can take their game to *the next level*. The albums they review need only serve as points of departure for a diversity rainbow of narcissistic posturing, grad-school lit-crit wankery and up-to-the-minute reports filed live from the cozy depths of their own anal cavities.

I'm just glad these people aren't pilots, physicians or cops. I mean, really.