Pitchfork’s Biggest Gaffe of the 2000s?
We should state up front that we are unflinching fans of The Beatles, so this is at its heart an opinion piece that we will present with all the trappings of fact. Take it with a grain of salt if you’re of the thin-skinned distinction.
Pitchfork is one of our favorite places to get news in the last two years. The consistency of their journalistic edifice is more than praiseworthy. They’ve managed to drum up loads of new content — including a video section (Pitchfork.tv) and an integrated third-party streaming service (LaLa) — along with fresher news, relevant interviews, great editing, and as always, copious review coverage of the best independent music around. It’s all packaged with a bow on one of the cleanest and most beautiful websites an enthusiast could ask for; it’s truly a go-to spot in every sense.
So really, as those who used to despise the website with all of the hatred we could muster, we mean not to decry the place as a den of iniquity, but we must respectfully disagree with their ratings of The Beatles’ first five releases, linked below:
Please Please Me – 9.5
With The Beatles – 8.8
A Hard Day’s Night – 9.7
Beatles For Sale – 9.3
Help! – 9.2
How one can definitively and precisely say that Arcade Fire’s Funeral is on par with A Hard Day’s Night — not to mention better than the other four aforementioned classics — is beyond me. Let’s be clear about their motivation and intent, as well: these ratings are not meant to act as reviews of the additional content provided with the re-releases, or of the quality of the remasters on record. They are cold, hard, numerical ratings of the music itself; inside the rating system that Pitchfork has constructed, these are judgements on the foundational pillars of rock and roll. Funeral is, without a doubt, a great album. What it is not, however, is better than any Beatles album.
Now, to be fair, Pitchfork’s forthcoming ratings of everything from Rubber Soul onward are likely to be above 9.5. But it isn’t just about the numbers. It’s also that this whole process lacks tact; it implies that one reviewer has the musical panopticon, even in a corporate setting, to peg a forty-five year-old album somewhere in the context of today’s musical releases and trends, cultural achievements, political developments, and so on. It simply cannot be done in an unaffected fashion. It’s the primary reason why this site never reviews any music not from the current year (or very recent), and we stand by it as the only way to do business.
We feel they made the mistake of thinking that they had something meaningful to contribute to a conversation that ended decades ago. They made the mistake of obscuring the golden ring for which modern artists reach. All anyone would have ever needed to ask in the boardroom was, “Is each of these records absolutely essential listening for every user who frequents our site?” The answer, in every case, is yes – tens across the board should have been their reply, or, even better, simply no ratings at all. The choice to relinquish the privilege of rating the albums in the first place would perhaps have been most appropriate, but apparently that was too much to ask.
It isn’t enough to say that the mere consistency of The Beatles’ body of work was their claim to fame – apparently Radiohead released three perfect albums in a row, which we would wholeheartedly agree with. But The Beatles, who inspired a hysteria so profound it could only be eponymously named, are worthy only of less-than-perfect ratings that in no way reflect the incredible contribution and effect they had on society, art, and songwriting. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Gaze upon the decades of fruit that their privileged labor has brought about and tell us again, to our faces, that The Bends is a better album than A Hard Day’s Night.
Update: The reviews for Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Magical Mystery Tour (also The Beatles: Rock Band) are up. Tens across the board, but by a different reviewer. Begs the question: Why immortalize only some of their catalogue? Comment here and leave your opinion. (Also of interest: Paste Magazine provided ratings for the remasters as well.)
Still, nothing can take away the fact that the site gave ‘…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead’ a perfect 10 for ‘Sources, Tags and Codes’ proving everyone can make a mistake now and then.
Paste’s rating should really rile you up – obvious bias toward late period over the stunning pop of the first 5 records, calling Sgt. Pepper one of the most overrated records of all time, and rating Magical Mystery Tour over Pepper? Pandering to a hipster orthodoxy? Over-valuing the reviewer’s opinion over criticism? just foolish.
“Funeral is, without a doubt, a great album. What it is not, however, is better than any Beatles album.”
You are old. Shut up.
The writer who penned the statement at hand is 25. Not young, per se, but in the context of The Beatles, certainly not old.
“In fact, for a group whose every move was a generational wedge, and for such a modern record, the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s is oddly conservative in places: “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” takes inspiration from a Victorian-era carnival; “When I’m 64″ is a music-hall parody that fantasizes about what it would be like to be the Beatles’ grandparents’ age; “Fixing a Hole” has a rather mundane domestic setting; the fantasy girl in “Lovely Rita” is a cop.”
He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land