Black Kids and Pitchfork: Screw-up or hubris?

If you go to Pitchfork for their review of the new record by Black Kids, you’ll see a SORRY message with two long-faced doggies. Cute but you have to wonder if they’re not tooting their own horn a bit here. True, they named Black Kids a phenom not long ago (hence the apology) but do they really think that they alone were responsible for the band’s ascendancy and now have to apologize about this because the group put out a crappy record?

The Guardian, Vice and NME had written about them before that and Rolling Stone, the New York Times and the Village Voice wrote about them afterwards so how do you quantify that it was Pitchfork alone that put them over the top? Even if that were somehow the case, why does Pitchfork itself think they have to apologize? It’s not their fault that the band can’t follow-up a good EP. That’s like saying ‘we built them up and now they suck and so don’t get mad at us about it, OK?’ That’s a lot of assuming and even more chutzpah.

What’s worse is that the review they have up now might not even be their first crack at the latest record. According to one source, the original review earlier in the day was a 0.0 (which they promised to do away with after their Travis Morrison fiasco) with the text saying ‘Everyone makes mistakes’ (if anyone else saw this, please respond!). They sure do make mistakes but if that’s the case here, Pitchfork has a lot more to apologize for and not just to the band.