#How to Use the Pitchfork Reviews Explorer

This year, Pitchfork will celebrate its 25th anniversary. Though our site has grown to encompass many things over the past quarter century—including ambitious feature stories and reporting, podcasts, video documentaries, and music festivals that span two continents—in-depth music criticism and discovery has always been core to our mission. Since 1996, our writers have reviewed more than 28,000 (!) albums, documenting the shifting landscape of music along the way. (Many of those albums have been great. Many have been terrible.) To make it easier to navigate our expansive archives, we’ve created the Pitchfork Reviews Explorer, an interactive tool designed to help you discover new albums, rediscover old ones, and enjoy some great writing in the process. 

Here’s how it works: Type an artist’s name into the search bar, select that artist from the dropdown menu, and see their reviews, plus reviews of similar artists (as determined on the backend by Spotify’s algorithm), arranged by rating in a graphic interface. You can also filter the results to show which album recommendations are designated as “Best New Music” releases, and sort reviews by date.

A lot has changed over the past two-and-a-half decades of Pitchfork, operationally and spiritually. For one thing, our earliest reviews have been lost to various CMS migrations, so the site’s existing archives only go back to 1999. Also, the current iteration of Pitchfork reflects the site’s continual growth and is a more enlightened and inclusive space than it was back in the day. What you may unearth is reflective of the moment and staff of its time, for better or worse.

Give it a try here. Happy exploring.