Weird Era: How Pitchfork Changed Music Forever: A Memoir

Named a Most Anticipated Book by NPR and Lit Hub

"Pitchfork really did change music forever, which makes Ryan Schreiber one of the major innovators of this era. This book is a fascinating exploration into Pitchfork, and as a tribute, I put it at number one in my list of top books of the year." — Fred Armisen

"More than a gripping memoir, Weird Era doubles as a history of indie rock in the 21st Century and its equally unlikely journey from snarky outsider to Zeitgeist sound." —Simon Reynolds, author of Still In A Dream

An Almost Famous–like memoir for the twenty-first century: Pitchfork’s founder opens up about running the most influential, and infamous, music publication of the internet age.

In 1996, as legacy media slowly went digital, a nineteen-year-old Minneapolitan named Ryan Schreiber fired up his family’s desktop computer and brought his dream to life: a daily online music zine published for, and by, nerds like him. He wasn’t yet a writer, but he was passionate about discovering and sharing new music; he figured if he didn’t do it, someone else would. He named his site Pitchfork, an homage to the assassin tattoo Tony Montana sports in Scarface. Schreiber also decided to eschew a five-star rating system for a new one based on a decimal scale from 0 to 10. Little did he know that he had launched what would become one of the most consequential cultural forces of our time.

Thirty years after Pitchfork’s founding, Schreiber recounts the extraordinary story behind the site and the generation of listeners and musicians it fostered. He was in the room for it all: the consequences and thrills of Pitchfork’s make-or-break criticism; the boom and bust of digital media; and the albums, concerts, and meltdowns he witnessed from some of this century’s most beloved musicians. Along the way, he writes candidly about the site’s and his own growing pains as he sought to stay true to Pitchfork’s roots despite its morphing from a bedroom blog to a global behemoth, a journey that culminated in the site’s shocking sale to Condé Nast in 2015.

From one of the most influential names in the industry, Weird Era is a compulsively readable and revealing memoir of fandom, music, media, and the power of trusting your gut.