The zeitgeist guys

Indie rock is a fickle thing. One moment the reconceptualization of 1970s guitar rock rules the underground zeitgeist. Then, without warning, the ‘80s are cool and you had better own an electronic keyboard.

Those who seek to chronicle this milieu need a finely tuned cultural barometer and the authority to speak convincingly to the kind of musical purists who swear by vinyl records and gag at the Grammys.

The music webzine Pitchforkmedia.com possesses both. Nine years after it started, Pitchfork has become an essential part of the iPod generation’s lexicon, a must-read for music geeks seeking snarky critiques and timely news columns. It’s a regular destination for concert promoters, radio programmers and record label executives advocating artists and bands with an aversion -- intentional or not -- to mainstream acceptance.

“They are one of the best front-end places for people who are interested in finding out what’s about to happen next in music,” said Celia Hirschman, a New York-based music consultant who also manages Bjork’s record label, One Little Indian, in North America. “The reality is, the record business has gotten so small as an industry that people like Pitchfork perform an enormous service because of the credibility and traffic they generate.”

Pitchfork speaks to the music fan who attends the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and spends too much money at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. Buoyed by the increasing popularity of indie rock acts such as Franz Ferdinand, the Shins, Wilco and Bright Eyes, the site has carved out a following of about 1 million online visitors a month, a figure that rivals Rolling Stone magazine online.

In some circles, Pitchfork has become synonymous with indie rock and has higher visibility than competitors such as epiton ic.com and dustedmagazine .com.

Launched by its editor in chief, Ryan Schreiber, from his parents’ suburban home outside Minneapolis, Pitchfork in 1999 established itself in Chicago and has since evolved into the online equivalent of a glossy magazine with daily features and columnists.

Generating buzz

One of the site’s big coups was helping unveil the critically acclaimed band the Arcade Fire to an audience beyond its hometown of Montreal. Shortly after a glowing Pitchfork review came out in September, the Arcade Fire’s label, Merge Records, was hounded by nearly two dozen publications asking for copies of the album.

“I said, ‘Sure, but didn’t I send you a copy two months ago?’ ” said Martin Hall, a promoter for Merge, which has seen its fortunes change after the band’s debut album “Funeral” made critics’ Top 10 lists from the Village Voice to the Los Angeles Times.

“They’re obviously passionate music fans,” Hall said of Pitchfork. “What started out as a forum has developed a lot of cachet and clout. In the last three to four years, they have really hit their stride and have become the first thing I read every morning. They’ve gotten to the point not only where record buyers rely on it for recommendations, but plenty of journalists read Pitchfork to get tips on new bands.”

While Pitchfork has benefited by appearing painfully hip, its chief editor, Schreiber, seems anything but. The 29-year-old runs Pitchfork from a gray basement in Chicago’s north side and looks nothing like the fashionistas from Echo Park, Brooklyn or his neighbors in Wicker Park -- the kind of people you can picture dancing to the music he champions. Instead, he personifies the Second City’s distaste for pretense: Schreiber’s jeans appear several hundred dollars’ short of vintage.

His Vans sneakers are contemporary, not the retro slip-ons that are de rigueur among the urban set. And his neat hair is specked with white along his sideburns.

‘They deserve success’

With a look of boyish ambition (think Tom Cruise circa “Risky Business”), Schreiber is inclined to say earnest things like, “I think these bands we like and write about are so great that they deserve success and deserve to make a living off their art.”

When you meet Schreiber and his two full-time staffers, managing editor Scott Plagenhoef and advertising director Chris Kaskie, it’s a mild shock that they are amiable, considering the vitriol their site is capable of at times.

For instance, they’ve skewered experimental records such as Sonic Youth’s “NYC Ghosts & Flowers,” describing it as “an unfathomable album which will be heard in the squash courts and open mike nights of deepest hell.”

With its rising profile, Pitchfork itself has become the target of indie backlash on Internet chat forums and even from people at established record labels who questioned how much recognition Pitchfork deserved for discovering some bands.

“I don’t mean to imply they jump on any bandwagon; I give them credit for their success,” said Chris Jacobs, marketing director for Sub Pop, an institutional indie rock label from Seattle best known for releasing Nirvana.

“I just don’t like the notion that Pitchfork staff are as important as the bands. The extent to which they can take credit for the Arcade Fire ... is probably overstated. The credit has to go to the bands.”

Sub Pop staffers even went so far as to spoof Pitchfork with a mock webpage that suggested the men of Pitchfork were trend junkies and had trouble wooing the ladies.

Ears everywhere

Turns out Schreiber is married. As for the reviewing, Schreiber leaves most of that these days to 60 freelance staffers spread throughout the country, mining small clubs, listening to releases from mom-and-pop record companies and seeking word-of-mouth buzz. The site features five new reviews of mostly never-before-heard-of bands five days a week. A news department keeps up on things like which group’s drug-addicted guitarist has been dumped for burglarizing his bandmates’ apartment.

“I call Ryan the Walter Winchell of indie rock,” said Cory Brown, the owner of Absolutely Kosher Records in Berkeley and the person who introduced Schreiber to the Arcade Fire.

The operation today is a distant cry from when Schreiber started Pitchfork out of his childhood bedroom in 1996. The site’s name is a reference to a moment in one of Schreiber’s favorite movies, “Scarface,” when Al Pacino’s character reveals a pitchfork tattoo -- the sign of an assassin, though Schreiber says he has no designs of assassinating anyone, even metaphorically.

Growing up listening to everything from Olivia Newton-John to the Cure, Schreiber said he dreamed up Pitchfork shortly after discovering the Internet. Its early success was often driven by the fact that it was the only destination online where fans could read about bands that sometimes had fan followings no larger than a junior high school classroom. Today, almost any obscure band or record label maintains a website.

Pitchfork supports its site with advertising, with indie record companies such as Matador, Epitaph, Interscope and even the skeptics at Sub Pop paying for space on the site’s home page.

Despite scathing critiques, the Pitchfork staff knows of no label that has pulled advertising over a review. Schreiber would not disclose financial details but said Pitchfork was doing well enough to soon pay some of its reviewers more than the $40 per review they get now.

As the site’s recognition grows, there are signs that Pitchfork’s musical tastes have expanded. Reviewers have come to embrace commercial hip-hop, essentially giving the soundtrack of modern night-clubbing the kind of artistic scrutiny often reserved for those who strum acoustic guitars.

“I used to fear getting older,” Schreiber said. “The key is to be open minded about music. I didn’t like hip-hop and electronica for a long time. But the problem with a lot of critics is they stop loving music and start loving the nostalgia of music they used to love.”