They made their name as self-professed tastemakers, praising and panning albums to ridiculous extremes, shaping the modern indie rock scene almost at will, wielding their absurdly overwrought reviews without an ounce of self-doubt or journalistic integrity.
As the company expanded, the absurd hyperbole that marked the majority of their early reviews ("I had never seen a shooting star before") was largely abandoned, their youthful exuberance replaced instead with the poised indifference of an aging kingmaker with nothing left to prove. In a neat little "jumping the shark" moment, writer Sean Fennessey used the term "post-dubstep" in his 2010 review of Plastic Beach, only to have editors remove it from the article almost immediately. The times had clearly changed.
Yet even as their reviews became more levelheaded and mature, Pitchfork's most defining and most toxic characteristic continued on, perhaps growing even worse over time: the "set 'em up, knock 'em down" hype cycle.
There is no better example of this process than Tokyo Police Club.
They emerged from a burgeoning Canadian indie rock scene in April 2006 with A Lesson in Crime, an EP of catchy synth-driven tunes that actually managed to break into the Canadian top 200. Pitchfork gave it a 7.9 rating in August, noting in their review that Tokyo Police Club was already "blogger-approved," their four-month stint in the hype machine rendering them veterans of a world where a single show can make or break a rising act.
From there, the fuse was lit. Those six brief songs circulated at astounding speeds, gathering so much attention that even dinosaurs like Rolling Stone took notice. The "next-big-thing" label had been officially applied, and the music world waited anxiously for the mindblowing follow-up to their opening statement.
Of course, that mindblowing follow-up never came. They released the decent-enough Smith EP in 2007, which fueled anticipation even further, while notably adding nothing to the formula of their debut. Yet even with the increasing evidence that Tokyo Police Club was never going to advance beyond "Nature of the Experiment," the hype continued, the game-changing full-length lurking forever on the horizon.
By the time Elephant Shell was released in 2008, Tokyo Police Club were a bunch of has-beens. Pitchfork had moved on to a new batch of indie darlings (Vampire Weekend! Fleet Foxes! Crystal Castles!) who were not only more interesting, but also objectively better.
After two long years, there was virtually nothing the band could do to fulfill the promises that had been lined up for them. So, when their first LP turned out to be another batch of decent indie rock songs--which was all they had ever really made in the first place--they received a tame 6.3, banishing them to the well of middling artists that would continue to receive middling reviews as long as they put out middling records, a fate arguably worse than being panned outright. (Their follow-up, Champ, actually received a 7.6, but don't be fooled: anything less than an 8 is still a noteless "meh.")
All things considered, Tokyo Police Club emerged from the belly of the beast more unscathed than most. (When's the last time you've heard Tapes 'n Tapes mentioned by anyone?) They're still putting out albums, they're still touring, and they've graduated to a level of popular recognition that even granted them an opening spot for indie-pop giants Foster the People. They never met their media-assigned potential, but ultimately that's the real point of the hype machine: setting up impossible expectations, only to trash anything that falls short. There's nothing particularly wrong with Elephant Shell, but thanks to the hype machine, it will forever be remembered for not being A Lesson in Crime, Part Two.
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