<i>Sites like these regardless of their merit (which is really low IMO), are indispensable in the saturated music market.</i><p>This is an extremely contradictory statement to me. Can you elaborate how a &quot;sifting&quot; or &quot;gatekeeper&quot; type publication has low merit when there&#x27;s so much content to review&#x2F;digest?<p>I think it&#x27;s hilarious people look at Pitchfork and see snottiness, when every single genre of music eventually devolves into arguments about merit &#x2F; influence &#x2F; purity &#x2F; micro-genres if given enough time. If Pitchfork integrated something like &quot;-core&quot; genre distinctions, it&#x27;s because they were picking up on audiences and potential readers already using it.