Why Did Pitchfork Score Homecoming a 9.3?

Duffy reaches 2019's Homecoming and states the score, a 9.3 and Best New Music. Mike does not want a long debate. He calls it absurd to rate a documentary and pretend the live album is the same thing, and he compares the move to rating Bo Burnham's Inside as if the special were only a record.

Mack sets the scene for a listener who missed the earlier argument. Homecoming is the Netflix special Beyoncé put out, documenting her Coachella performance and the lead-up to it. He then reads the Pitchfork review of the album. Homecoming does not stand on its own as an album experience, separate from the film. It probably does not need to. Beyoncé and her sister Solange increasingly rely on visuals to paint a fully embodied vision that includes music. Homecoming, next to the concert film, feels as if it was never meant to be heard in isolation. Still, the review says, it could be one of Beyoncé's most important releases for how it illuminates her past and her future. Mack says that is the review that gave the album a 9.3 and Best New Music, and that the 9.3 is the highest rating of Beyoncé's career, handed to a live album. He thinks Pitchfork wanted an excuse to shout that Beyoncé is the greatest thing since Jesus Christ himself, and used a record they do not think deserves to be heard alone as a lifetime achievement rating.

Mike calls the same review a straight-up SEO grab. Search Homecoming, he says, and Pitchfork wants the visit, even while the review admits the album is not really an album.