“In many ways, the writers at Pitchfork and the Village Voice bloggers are picking up where the late rock critic Lester Bangs – who wrote for Rolling Stone and, later, a pre-blog Village Voice – left off, adding a dose of irony lifted from satirical magazine the Onion to his self-referential, often impenetrable reams of excited babble. Thanks to the bloggers’ often highly subjective rants, bands become much talked about on the internet long before they enter the charts. It’s all about being in the know, or at least pretending you’re in the know.”