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May 01, 2006

Pitchfork Killed Travis Morrison's Solo Career?

Like the 'Fork or hate it, that is some power (or abuse of power) there:

Morrison was the frontman for the Dismemberment Plan, a D.C. art-rock band that was adored by Pitchfork's staff -- so much so that they named the group's "Emergency & I" album of the year in 1999. Five years later, though, Morrison released a solo project, "Travistan," that Pitchfork deemed a complete disaster.

The album was branded with a dreaded 0.0 rating (Liz Phair and Sonic Youth are among the other artists who've suffered that indignity), and Morrison's bandwagon quickly emptied: College radio programmers cooled to his new project, a record store in Texas initially refused to stock the CD, and fans suddenly decided they probably shouldn't like Morrison anymore, either.

"I just got the sense [Pitchfork] thought I was a rock star and they wanted to take me down a peg, but I don't think it occurred to them that the review could have a catastrophic effect," says Morrison, who is working on a new album, with a new band. (He's also working a day job as a programmer for Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive.) "Up until the day of the review, I'd play a solo show, and people would be like, 'That's our boy, our eccentric boy.' Literally, the view changed overnight. . . . I could tell people were trying to figure out if they were supposed to be there or not. It was pretty severe, how the mood changed.

"The review isn't the story. The reaction to it is. The seriousness with which everyone takes Pitchfork is kind of mind-boggling."

Update: Long DCist thread on the issue [via].

Update: Derek discovered that Pitchfork may have reduced the new Tool album's rating by a point a day after the review was filed.

Posted by timothompson at May 1, 2006 01:05 PM