Various Artists
The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 7: 1967
[Hip-O Select; 2007]
Rating: 9.9
9.9???
Couldn't you just give this thing a 10 if you love it so much fer Chrissakes?? What is the one-tenth of a quality that keeps it from being a 10?? Did anything ever get a ten? Would the heavens open up and rain turds on us if something was given a 10?
I don't have a blog so you guys have to be subjected to this.
This one of the dozen or so things that drives me crazy about Pitchfork. How exactly does one quantify the difference between a 9.9 and a 10? Is there some sort of crazy mathematical formula they use to compute grades? I actually hope there is because it would go a long way into clarifying a rating system that is otherwise both inane and arbitrary. Ok, all rating systems are arbitrary but at least the difference between a 4 star album and a 5 star album is comprehensible. I cannot wrap my head around how one tenth of point means anything at all. It's just cutesy bulls-hit. (Incidentally, I called Tom during the "I Don't Get It" show. He told me it's like the rating system in the Olympics and then GOMPed me for doubting he could name all the members of the Wu Tang Clan.)
I've often thought about how they got the name Pitchfork anyway and I've concluded that it's some sort of "needle in the haystack" metaphor. They are assuming the role of the tool that will dig through the hay so that their reader might find the needle of musical worthiness. In actuality, they're just throwing hay all over the f--king place.
Joke inspired by Henry Owings and Chunklet (set up by Henry, punchline by me):
What's the difference between Pitchfork and a bucket of s-hit?
The bucket of s-hit may have been produced by someone who knows something about music.
