Last week was a tough one for music nerds. I use that phrase with love and kinship — I am (like you are, perhaps) the kind of listener who loves music so much that it hurts. And that kind of passion for new and beloved sounds can make those like us odd, or at least amusing, to "normal" people who maybe only listen to their college favorites and only go to one concert a year, because it happens to be in a park or at the pier.
I offer this declaration of fellowship because that sometimes petty distinction surfaced in a real way last Wednesday, when the editorial director of media behemoth Condé Nast sat in a conference room wearing sunglasses and told the staff at Pitchfork that the renowned music webzine would be absorbed, Star Trek-style, into the men's magazine GQ, and that most people present would be laid off pretty immediately. Her memo condescendingly thanking Pitchfork's editor-in-chief, Puja Patel (who was let go) leaked online soon after, announcing that this decimation is what Condé thinks "is the best path forward for the brand." While its renowned reviews section will live on, Pitchfork's remaining staff is a skeleton crew. GQ's paywall is likely to diminish the reach of what the site publishes, and its identity — the thing that led musicians and fans alike to make it their home page or check the day's new reviews at midnight — will inevitably be challenged. I've been through similar bloodlettings at other publications, and what they do to morale and manageable workloads can't be overstated.
