On Pitchfork Putting Up Paywall
If you've been following the music world, you certainly have already heard that Pitchfork is putting up a paywall. If you haven't heard, well, you heard it from here. This decision (which most certainly was made by the upper manager over at CondΓ© Nast) is as unpopular as it gets. The announcement post on Facebook was met with laugh reacts above all else β you fucked up bad if people laugh react over a simple like. Instagram comments have been overwhelmingly negative. And on Twitter... you already know how people are on Twitter.
I'm a journalism school graduate (well, almost a graduate). The unspoken truth is that journalism in the internet age runs on advertorials and a dream. It's nigh impossible to make an actual living as a journalist anymore. To some people, that's a fate well deserved. Fuck those bootlicking journos, right? Obviously I disagree with that view, but it's not without merits. For ages, traditional papers have not been doing their job of gatekeeping information: making sure that news are truthful, useful, and unbiased. It's understandable, really, that the people are distrustful of the old media format.
I first heard of Pitchfork in 2017 when I joined a music discussion group on Facebook. 2017 was already way past Pitchfork's β or any magazine's β heyday. My internet friends were pestering Anthony Fantano to review their DIY tapes, not cold e-mailing blogs. Pitchfork was that website with the funny decimal score you can get angry about as if it means anything, and it still is just that to a lot of people now. I think that's what a lot of people are really making fun of Pitchfork for. That they're paywalling the only thing 99% of their visitors visit the website for.
The advent of the internet opened the floodgate for "new journalism" that works faster and covers wider range of subjects. As wonderful it is to see indie documentaries and essayists covering subjects not deemed important enough by traditional journalism, this democratization of journalism can be dangerous. Without the floodgate, who's making sure the news are of good quality?
But some people would argue that such gate should not exist to begin with. They might argue that Pitchfork is "pushing an agenda". See this tweet:
I don't wanna join a chorus of people celebrating Pitchfork's demise. But I will Monday morning quarterback a bit: Maybe the past 20 years of treating novelty rap like high art and guitar music like a cliquey bloodsport alienated the readership. Hard to say.
— SPIDER-MAN'S LANDLORD (@selfdfens) January 22, 2026
While this person is (perhaps deservedly) getting torn to shred by hip-hop Twitter for implying that guitar music is more deserving of high art treatment, Pitchfork has a real history of bizarre takes. I don't think anyone would agree that Y2K! is a testament to Ice Spice's "refusal to be pigeonholed" (especially when all the most memorable bars were about excrement). I suppose the guitar music fans felt a similar sort of bafflement when they saw The Boy With the Arab Strap originally slapped with a scathing 0.8 β a score so blasphemous that they ended up updating the review twice. The point is: some people perceived Pitchfork as a contrarian rage baiter, too up its own ass to actually report on what the culture feeling.
But I see a publication such as Pitchfork as more of a traditional tastemaker. A musical prescriptivist as opposed to a mere rumor mill. Anyone can do what Kurrco or Pop Base does. Not everyone have the chops to write about regional hip-hop like Alphonse Pierre (my personal dislike of him aside β seriously man what's with giving Let God Sort Em Out a 6). In an era where our music taste is more and more shaped by algorithms, Pitchfork provides a better way to discover and engage with music than Spotify Daylist.
It seems, though, that a lot of people just don't see it that way. Seemingly high quality write-up on music can be found in indie blogs, music logging websites, and YouTube videos. Pitchfork, then, is only unique as a discussion starter. The provider of decimal scores. A corporate and impersonal entity in an era where authentic personality matters above all else. A Buzzfeed in the world of hyper-niche influencers.
I believe there's salvation for Pitchfork writers, less so for Pitchfork as a whole. People have and will always be willing to pay for quality reviews, but just as the era of buying an entire album just for a couple songs is long gone, so is subscribing to a whole online magazine just for a couple columns you actually read. And while I don't necessarily think this is the better way forward β one shouldn't read only to validate their own opinion, it's a way forward regardless.
Keep on rockin' in the free world, Pitchfork, I feel for you.