The Pitchfork Review

Puja Patel talks to staff writer Alphonse Pierre and Pitchfork contributor Dylan Green about the year in rap music. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel and Jeremy Larson talk to culture critic and Pitchfork contributor Julianne Escobedo Shepherd about the pop star’s immaculate dance record. Read our review of Renaissance . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel and Jeremy Larson talk to Pitchfork Features Editor Ryan Dombal about the music of 2022. Read our Best 50 Albums and Best 100 Songs of 2022 lists. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel and Jeremy Larson talk to Pitchfork Features Editor Ryan Dombal about the music of 2022. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel and Jeremy Larson talk to Associate Editor Sam Sodomsky about new releases from Weyes Blood and Dream Unending. Read our interview with Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering and our Best New Music review of Dream Unending’s Song of Salvation . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel talks to Jeremy Larson about Alvvays’ latest album Blue Rev and to Staff Writer Madison Bloom about Endure by Special Interest. Read our reviews of Endure and Blue Rev . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel and Jeremy Larson talk to Staff Writer Jazz Monroe about the experimental pop icon, digging deep into her new album. Read Jazz’s cover story . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel talks to Pitchfork Editor Anna Gaca and Staff Writer Quinn Moreland about the highs, lows, surprises, and disappointments of the new Taylor Swift album. Read our review of Midnights. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Puja Patel and Jeremy Larson talk to Pitchfork Features Editor Ryan Dombal about the polarizing band’s latest album, hanging with frontman Matty Healy, and what makes them charming, fun, and more than a little absurd. Read our review of Being Funny in a Foreign Language and our 1975 cover story . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Brought to you by the music critics at Pitchfork, The Pitchfork Review is a show for music fans/obsessives who can’t wait to talk about the latest releases. Hosted by Pitchfork editor-in-chief Puja Patel, this podcast pulls back the curtain on our reviews and scores, dives deep into new music, and gives an expert guide to what's exciting, what’s great, and what’s just plain terrible. Learn about y...

Everything else aside, 2020 was a banner year for music. In addition to some truly stellar albums and songs , there was also plenty of sillier stuff to dig into: misguided anthems about the pandemic, casual covers and collaborations, good and bad tweets galore, and of course, Bernie Sanders introducing the Strokes and Soccer Mommy . On this episode, Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel is joined by Associa...

Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters isn’t just the best album of 2020, it’s the sort of masterpiece that defines an entire era. On this episode, Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel is joined by Contributing Editor Jenn Pelly, who wrote Pitchfork’s 10 Fetch the Bolt Cutters review and spent the year in communication with Apple for a series of follow-up pieces, and Features Editor Ryan Dombal, who wrote Pi...

In the latest installment of our year-end podcast coverage, we’re talking about 2020’s best rock and rap albums. Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel is joined by News Editor Evan Minsker, Contributing Editor Jayson Greene, and Staff Writers Alphonse Pierre and Madison Bloom, who argue in favor of their personal favorites, from Yves Tumor and U.S. Girls to Westside Gunn and Jay Electronica . They also get...

Over the last several years, American listeners have grown more and more attuned to the sounds of West African pop music—also known as Afrobeats–whether it’s the swaggering Nigerian Afro-fusion of Burna Boy, the playfully genre-bending anthems of Ghanaian-American singer Amaarae, or the enthusiastic dabbling of stateside superstars like Drake and Diplo. On this episode, Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel...

Building Pitchfork’s year-end lists of the best albums and songs is a lengthy and painstaking process, involving careful consideration of the 1,000-plus releases we review each year, and others we may have missed. We include innumerable factors in our decision-making, but sometimes it’s a matter of following instincts: with a gun to your head, which would you choose? On this episode, Pitchfork Edi...

A few months ago, we launched the Pitchfork Request Line, asking listeners to call in with requests for music to soundtrack whatever is going on in their lives. On this episode, Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel is answering your requests along with Contributing Editors Rawiya Kameir and Philip Sherburne. They take calls from a midwestern transplant who’s nostalgic for her suburban D.C. hometown, a Manc...

In a year of historic protests, on the eve of a critical election, we’ve been thinking a lot about the place of music in movements for social and political change. In this episode, Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel speaks with Jason King, professor at NYU and founding faculty member of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, and Allison Hussey, Pitchfork Associate Staff Writer, about the changing r...

A global pandemic hasn’t slowed the prolific output of Adrianne Lenker , who released her gorgeous solo collections songs and instrumentals this week, not long after making two of 2019’s most celebrated albums with her band Big Thief . On this episode, Lenker chats with Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel about the music that accompanied her occasionally turbulent journey from childhood as a musical prodi...

What is hyperpop? A movement? A meaningless label? A Spotify playlist? Whatever the answer, it surely has something to do with 100 gecs , the duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady, whose songs sometimes sound like the last three decades of popular music happening all at once. On this episode, Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel interviews Les and Brady about their conflicted relationship to the genre they’ve c...

It’s been six months since the live music industry operated under any semblance of normalcy in the U.S., thanks to COVID-19. Which means most of us haven’t seen a proper show in at least that long. When will concerts come back, and what needs to happen before they do? Are outdoor events and reduced-capacity venues safe and financially viable options? Can a livestream really match the energy of an...

This week brought new albums from a pair of beloved artists who emerged a little over a decade ago as purveyors of artful indie folk: Fleet Foxes , who announced their fourth full-length Shore on Monday and released it 24 hours later, and Sufjan Stevens , whose eighth solo album The Ascension arrives today, September 25. Each has navigated listeners’ weighty expectations in their own way: Fleet Fo...

Next month, Matt Berninger of The National will release Serpentine Prison , his first solo album, produced by the legendary Memphis multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones. On this episode, Berninger chats with Pitchfork Staff Writer Sam Sodomsky about the songs that shaped him as a musician and informed the new album, touching on his childhood infatuation with Olivia Newton-John, The Smiths and U2...

For years, Enya’s music was treated as a cultural punchline, the eerily soothing soundtrack to countless crystal shops and Pure Moods commercials . But lately, a new generation of artists—from Weyes Blood to Nicki Minaj—is proudly claiming the misunderstood Irish auteur as an influence. On this episode, Pitchfork Editor Puja Patel is joined by Contributing Editor Jenn Pelly, a recently converted E...

After its launch a few weeks ago, the Pitchfork Request Line is still ringing off the hook with listeners calling in for recommendations of music to soundtrack their lives. This week, we’re taking requests from an aspiring metalhead, a road tripper making a move from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and someone who just wants to get the hell out of 2020, if only for the length of a song.  If you want...

A few weeks ago we launched the Pitchfork Review hotline, asking our listeners to call in if they want help finding music to soundtrack their lives. Thank you to everyone who’s called in. It’s been pretty great going through all the voicemails that we’ve gotten in from all over the country and hearing a little bit about what’s going on with you. In this episode, we answer requests for music to get...