Worst Pitchfork Reviews

The Top Ten
1 Lateralus - Tool (1.9)

I remember hearing it claimed that pitchfork often goes for unpopular opinions pretty much for the sake of it what would you say of that?

Easily one of the best albums of all times, and they give it a 1, just for the sake of going against the grain.

Considered by almost every single critic as one of the greatest albums of the 00s, however pitchfork was more negative about it, I tried to find why they give it a score so low but the review is so sarcastic and ambiguous that makes no sense

2 Invasion of Privacy - Cardi B (8.7)

I think they most know something I don't, because this album doesn't live up to the hype they gave it in my opinion.

This one was right after pitchfork started to get more friendly with modern hip hop and rap, and is amazingly bad how they overrate this album, what is even worse is that probably it will end as their pick for AOTY, which is not only unfair but not true in any single sense

This gets 8.7 and the award winning PJ Harvey album Stories from the City gets a 5.5? Screw yourself pitchfork

Didn't deserve this rate

3 Anthem of the Peaceful Army - Greta Van Fleet (1.6)

I seriously don't get it, this is from the same people that reviewed The Chainsmokers, Maroon 5, Imagine Dragons, and another crappy pop bands dressed as "rock" acts (talking about Maroon 5 and ID) and THIS is the album that they consider as embarassing? I admit I wasn't pretty hyped with this one but the fact that they give more mediocre albums a higher score makes me question about the credibility that this site has

4 Frances The Mute - The Mars Volta (2.0)

Same with Lateralus, apparently pitchfork has something against the Mars Volta, most of their albums had always a pretty low score, and Frances the Mute is by far their most ridiculous and underserved one

5 I Get Wet - Andrew W. K. (0.6)

It's an 8.6 now, how funny is that? They upped it by over 1400 %!
Gold pitchfork mment.

6 Music From The Elder - Kiss (0.0)
7 Peter Criss - Peter Criss (0.0)

Okay I get the album isn't considered to be a good album or anything but 0/10? It in no way is 0/10 worthy,that would mean it fails on every level which it doesn't.

8 A Fever You Can't Sweat Out - Panic! at the Disco (1.5)

Geez. I mean I used to love this album and while over the years I have seen the flaws hidden within it, I do think it deserves more than that. It's almost become a cult classic with the 'emo crowd' and while messy, it is full of really interesting and dynamic songs.

The whole review is easily what every other person has sayed againt Panic at the Disco, most of the times they cry about the album being not emo or saying that the emo genre has lose the way with this music, and keep saying things like lack of originality and stuff like that (which is unfair because they give higher scores to other albums that even less original than this one)

9 A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay (5.1)

Funny fact, Coldplay highest rated album on pitchfork is Mylo Xyloto

10 Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers (7.1)

Not a pretty negative or controversial review, but kind of unfair to the importance this album has

The Contenders
11 Lemonade - Beyonce (8.5)

What doesn't bother me isn't the score itself, what bothers me is how friendly they were at the end of the year, while other albums like Atrocity Exhibition by Danny Brown, Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave or Blackstar by David Bowie get higher scores than this one, they didn't appear in the year-end list of best albums as this one did, maybe is Beyonce's best but is not that special

Is it bad that I actually kind of prefer this to Blackstar?

12 Revival - Eminem (5.0)

One of the most mediocre scores to one of the most mediocre albums ever, where they scared of Eminem's reaction if they were harsher to this?

It should be higher. And Eminem needs to stop dissing everything.

Anyone with a good attention span and a thing for wordplay would agree it's amazing

13 Shine On - Jet (0.0)

They just showed a picture of a monkey peeing in his own mouth.

14 Kid A - Radiohead (10)

Now I know what you are thinking "a 10/10 to one of the greatest albums of all time is bad? " no, in fact is the score that it deserves, but the reviewer instead of talking about why the album is good, goes full pretentious and attempting to make it sound like a weird fanfiction, so imagine how bad you must be as a critic to make one of the best albums of all time sound unappealing

As a guy who loves Radiohead and really appreciates Kid A for what it is, this particular review is completely ridiculous. The text looks as if he looked up every single word in a thesaurus and replaced them with their more "sophisticated" counterpart.

15 The Fragile - Nine Inch Nails (2.0)

Absolutely unbearable writing. No attempt to understand what the album is all about. Why should we care about what car you're driving? Also, attacking the audience of an artist is not great review material. It's very poorly written and immature.

I might be a bit biased as it's one of my favourites of all time but this review was god awful, there was no attempt to understand the album at all or analyse the production, singing, or songwriting, instead it just calls it emo and that it's not heavy or loud enough and makes weird references to Korn and nu metal

It's not even nu metal. The guy even complains about the font in the album's sleeve!

16 Total Xanarchy - Lil Xan (4.7)

This review proves my point with the Greta Van Fleet review, now matter how awful a hip hop album can be, they are gonna be more sweet with it than a rock album, apparently to show that they aren't that "harsh" with whatever the hell is on the charts

Anything above a 1 for this album is just straight up wrong.

This should be much lower.

17 The New Abnormal - The Strokes (5.7)

The New Abnormal was the first album from the Strokes in a long time that almost everyone loved. Just seems like they're trying to have an unpopular opinion.

18 Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys (7.4)

Arguably one of the greatest albums of the 2000s which was so different to anything else at the time and so influential on the British music scene, you think you'd give it a bit more appreciation

19 Yeezus - Kanye West (9.5)

As much as I personally love Kanye's music, this review really overrate the album just because it was experimental, keep in mind is experimental for Kanye, besides a few songs, this album is not that great

20 Rodeo - Travi$ Scott
21 Memories... Do Not Open - The Chainsmokers (4.2)

The really impressive thing is this is the highest score Pitchfork has given a Chainsmokers album they gave Collage 3.5 and Sick Boy 3.1.

The exact same reason as Lil Xan, giving awful albums a score that should be lower

22 Recovery - Eminem (2.8)

This album is a 10/10 in my opinion. Maybe Eminem's best. Almost every track is filled with great lyrics, flow, passion, production, and excellent choruses.

Although this album isn't awful, it was pretty mediocre for me, deserves at least a 5.0 (which is the score Revival has)

23 Oasis - Heathen Chemistry (1.2)
24 Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun (6.7)
25 Eternal Atake - Lil Uzi Vert (8.4)
8Load More
PSearch List