RipFork, a music writer's greatest annoyance.

When I first started writing music reviews, it was to give followers of EDM broader, honest coverage of the genre. There were far too many horribly-written brown-nosing writers on EDM websites, each coming off as desperately seeking free promos and never actually being critical of poor music -their scales of "1-10" seemed to forget there were actually numbers below seven.

That wasn't the whole story though. Another part of it was the infuriating pretentiousness of other websites that would cover EDM, specifically those that catered to indie crowds. Pitchfork, Tiny Mix Tapes, Drowned In Sound, and so on. Whatever practical facts or opinions they presented were so often buried in English Major prose, it renders reviews nearly unreadable. Boomer Rock journalism was bad enough in carrying annoying self-importance, but at least you figured they still knew how to, well, party. You seldom get that sense from indie rock journalism, with dry attempts at witty wordplay designed to impress their peers being the norm. It's why Mark Prindle remains one of my favorite music writers (check him out if you haven't yet!), as you can tell he's just a guy who likes to talk music, make his well-informed opinion, and throw in a few dick jokes along the way. He's not trying to create something as daft as journalistic art or something.

So it's quite refreshing to see someone take the time to actually critique these websites. It's a fairly new website, called RipFork [UPDATE: website no longer exists, sadly], and he's already managed to tick off a few of the 'established indie journalism elite'. It appears to be nothing more than a hobby right now but many of his points are solid and amusing. Who knows how long he'll keep this up for, but provided he doesn't run into a rut, it could become a popular website for those weary of Pitchfork's shtick. Also, if you ever find yourself writing in the manner of some of the reviews he's taken to task, for the love of God rethink what you're doing!

I'll admit I'm far from the greatest music writer out there but I at least attempt to follow Prindle's form in being a personable writer. We need more like that out there, and definitely less of the Pitchforkian Prose types. Yes, I'm looking at you, Resident Advisor. Get your head out of your ass before it's too late!