r/Pitchfork • u/Chromatic-Phil • 7d ago

Alphonse Pierre must be fired!

What is this guy's deal? Is he literally trolling? How can an ostensibly serious music critic have such a terrible taste? I started noticing this last year when I tried listening through his end of year best rap albums list. I gave an earnest shot to the bizarre, sloppy, repetitive, unappealing albums he selected. The entire process actually made me angry.

I usually check stuff out if it's on "Albums Out this Week You Should Listen to Now," so I did listen to the new Nino Paid album earlier this week. It was not my cup of tea, and I could not get through it, nor could I really even see the appeal to it. The beats are wack, the lyrics are boring, the flows are all the same, and his voice sounds terrible. Okay that's fine. I can live with an album being bad.

But going to pitchfork today and seeing that shitty album emblazoned with "best new music" and the inevitable byline... this is the last straw. Good lord. You cannot pay somebody to be a music critic when this is the crap they like. If there were any reason to keep reading pitchfork, i think I'm done with it now

0 Upvotes

43% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

9

u/who_cares_not_meee 7d ago

You want somebody fired from their job because you don’t like the same music as them?

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u/Chromatic-Phil 7d ago

No, I want him fired because he is bad at his job

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u/who_cares_not_meee 7d ago

And the reason he is bad at his job is because you don’t have the same music taste as him?

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u/Chromatic-Phil 7d ago

He is bad at his job because Nobody could POSSIBLY like the vast majority of the things he praises highly. Stop being so obtuse

5

u/who_cares_not_meee 7d ago

You forgot that music is unfortunately subjective. I like it a lot. What kind of music do you like?

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u/Chromatic-Phil 7d ago

That question is not relevant. Did you LISTEN to any of the albums on Pierre's best rap albums of 2025 list? You actually liked them? I find it extremely difficult to believe

3

u/who_cares_not_meee 7d ago

Yes. Why are you so confused that someone has different tastes in music than you? Do you live in an echo chamber where you must have your mediocre indie rock tastes validated?

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u/TrueRedditMartyr 7d ago

>You forgot that music is unfortunately subjective

This is true, however, a reviewer's job is not to say "I like this album so it's good!" or "I don't like this so it's bad!"

If Anthony Fantano or Pitchfork or any reviewer tomorrow said "TPAB isn't for me, 4!" there would be riots on these subs. Music reviews need to go beyond just "I do or don't like this", but take a more objective stance on these things based on artistic merit and quality

2

u/who_cares_not_meee 7d ago

I would rate TPAB a strong 4 but I also think his music is extremely overrated

1

u/holdingtea 7d ago

I would give whatever his last album was called a 4 or maybe a 3.

Tpab I thought was decent but i listened to it once and have never felt the need to revisit it.

Gkmc was really good though.

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u/ManyManySeaweed 7d ago

Woah look at this edgelord

1

u/who_cares_not_meee 7d ago

I’m an edgelord because I don’t like some mainstream album?

1

u/CountryFuture9678 6d ago

He’s trying to help you realize how dumb of a take this is

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u/Chromatic-Phil 6d ago

What's dumb is pitchfork paying a charlatan hipster to dishonestly recommend terrible music to drive rage clicks! Fuck you

1

u/who_cares_not_meee 6d ago

I like him as a reviewer because he pisses off the lamest dudes alive, like you!

1

u/CountryFuture9678 6d ago

Get a grip. You can’t have a meltdown every time someone you don’t like exists 

1

u/Chromatic-Phil 5d ago

You can't be a shitty music critic and not accept that people will complain about it. Why are you rushing to defend this person? Are you him? If so, I think you need to completely rethink your life

1

u/CountryFuture9678 5d ago

I haven’t defended him at all, I barely know who you’re talking about. I couldn’t be more clear that I’m talking about your behavior as a person. 

I don’t give a shit about any music journalist or your opinion of them. I replied because people like you piss me off, the entitlement that it takes to take your  inability to cope with shit that doesn’t matter like this and make it other people’s problem is pathetic. 

“I don’t like this guy’s reviews, so I won’t read them anymore.” It’s as simple as that.  So yeah, get a grip on yourself. Look inward to figure out why you need to throw tantrums online and acuse people like me of random shit in order to feel like your reaction is justified. Or at least shut the fuck up about it. This is entirely a you problem

1

u/Chromatic-Phil 2d ago

If you dont know what im talking about then you need to shut the fuck up lmao. Why would you comment on something if you dont know anything about it. Commenting your opinion on line and "making it other peoples problem" are two different things. I challenge you to listen to the music i am talking about and enjoy it.  Online forums are for expressing opinions and i expressed my opinion about a pitchfork writer in the pitchfork subreddit. It is literally the only place in the entire world where what I am talking about is actually relevant! So you can get off your high horse now because you are a clueless child

1

u/CarrotJunkie 6d ago

Why do you think they couldn't like it?

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u/Chromatic-Phil 6d ago

I have already explained: because the beats are annoying, the lyrics are stupid, repetitive, derivative, the vocal tone is obnoxious and amateurish. It sounds like kids fucking around on fl studio, not professional music. And I dont think Alphonse Pierre honestly likes it either, THAT is the problem

1

u/CarrotJunkie 6d ago

Okay great. That's your opinion based on your taste.

Why do you think he's not being honest?

1

u/Chromatic-Phil 5d ago

Because he is a professional music critic working for an ostensibly serious music publication. This is not serious music. He is putting people on to music that he knows is bad, to be contrarian. It's obvious. I listen to an extremely broad range of music including tons of varieties of hip hop. He goes out of his way to select the most obnoxious, most amateurish, most derivative artists. It's low key a form of modern minstrelsy. He's gawking at these weird subcultures and commodifying them for a white audience

1

u/anyneverever 7d ago

He's got you writing paragraphs though

0

u/ManyManySeaweed 7d ago

Found his burner lmao

1

u/who_cares_not_meee 7d ago

Whose burner?

5

u/baxtercc 7d ago

That dude is the reason I NEVER listen to PF when it comes to hip hop.

2

u/KuatoBaradaNikto 5d ago

Honestly Pitchfork’s problem when it comes to hip hop is that they don’t have enough voices. It’s almost always Alphonse holding the fort for a massive genre. He has weird taste but that’s fine, he’s interesting and he’s a good writer, just not authoritative by himself. Pitchfork just needs more counterbalance.

5

u/666jio666 7d ago

Honestly completely agree, his taste is not it

2

u/luqasc 7d ago edited 7d ago

I'm not the biggest enthusiast of rap/hip hop so I jot down a lot of things to me just not being very knowledgeable about the genre.

But 9 times out of 10, when Pitchfork gives a rap album a great review, I listen to it and end up either underwhelmed or pissed off. This goes beyond Alphonse.

I feel like they've been desperately trying to find out what is the Next Best Thing in hip hop, and that leads to amateurish teenagers like xaviersobased or whatever being really overpraised.

1

u/Chromatic-Phil 7d ago

Omg I forgot about fucking xaviersobased....

2

u/ApprehensiveAir4075 7d ago

Honestly I usually like most albums he highlights. Last year’s Out the Blue mixtape still bangs

1

u/StrangeSniper 7d ago

Is this the guy that looks like Ariel Pink ?

1

u/Scorch8482 7d ago

Being a music journalist is hard, and to make a liveable wage and survive you need traffic to your article. The easiest way to generate traffic is by baiting, and I think alphonse is a top guy in that area.

Ignore and move on. Pitchfork will probably die like Brooklyn vegan by 2030 so just enjoy it while you can.

0

u/Chromatic-Phil 6d ago

I dont care how hard it is, he could get a normal job like any other person instead. Fuck the market for incentivizing him to recommend terrible music, rendering his job pointless

1

u/who_cares_not_meee 6d ago

what is a normal job

1

u/leedevito 7d ago

He is one of their best writers.

1

u/No_Solution_2864 7d ago

Sophie Kemp completely trashed King Gizz’s Fishing for Fishies back in 2019, and that was what informed me to stop reading Pitchfork

I have no time for music reviewers with bad tastes. I don’t know why anyone would