Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Today in the Death of the Music Critical Industrial Complex

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:17 AM

Music critic Christopher R. Weingarten on why folks like he and I won't have jobs this time next year (please hold your applause for the comments):

(via Idolator)

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Comments (14) RSS

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Jason Josephes 1
Of course he's upset. His job is obsolete. As a former music writer, I say good riddance.
Posted by Jason Josephes http://www.myspace.com/bluemoonseattle on June 17, 2009 at 12:05 PM
Keekee 2
Right On!

And yes he is correct: Fleet Foxes DO fucking suck.

Thanx for posting this Mr. Grandy.
Posted by Keekee on June 17, 2009 at 12:07 PM
3
Please elaborate on why fleet foxes "fucking suck?" KeeKee....... 3!Oh3, they suck or Brokencyde, maybe the worst band in the history of music (look 'em up seriously). They FUCKING suck. The Fleet Foxes, they don't suck. I'm not a super fan, by any means, but indie backlash is ridiculous...
Posted by Ty on June 17, 2009 at 1:15 PM
mackro 4
Already posted some thoughts here:

http://nick-lcc.tumblr.com/post/12536432…

But I'll repost it here...

As Old Music Geek Guy, I'll say stratification has been around since the music industry started. Initially, it was a geographical limitation and lack of distribution. During the 80s and early part of the 90s, it was less of that and more relient on magazines. And niche magazines definitely existed.

Now we have it all on one Internets, so it's the opposite problem. People choose a single channel, because there are too many -- as opposed to people fighting to create several channels because there were only too few.

For every person deciding to customize his or her music world to Metal, Metal, and Metal (find/replace single genre here), another now has the freedom to do a cross-genre grab-bag of songs, and then descend down each of a gazillion branches there.

That latter part hadn't really existed until now. Criticism lives on, but it's far less this uni-directional top-down thing anymore. There's a lot more of an army of amateur critics with constant back-n-forth feedback all on the ground over-poulating each other and getting in each other's way, because hovering above apparently isn't economically feasable for the time being or perhaps moving forward. In either case, Sturgeon's Law applies in all cases.

The crux is that no one needs to construct an environment to discuss music anymore. It's easily available everywhere, anywhere, for free, if you have net access. The above premise is filled with too much pessimism (and hoo boy do big festivals trigger the pessismim gland!) It's a matter of figuring out how best to use all this free shit on the internet, rather than complain about how people are running away with it now.

To be honest, I don't see the problem with what we have. No one has had the time and/or creativity and/or technical learning to make something useful out of all of this yet.

When critics learn some programming skills, things will absolutely improve wrt Weingarten's complaint. And don't let people tell you otherwise -- programming is just a skill, like cooking, or retail, or whatever. It's just a trade, not this rocket science thingey that's too hard to learn.

Jason @1:
Of course he's upset. His job is obsolete. As a former music writer, I say good riddance.

This is much easier said than done, but now is the time for aspiring or current critics to get to learn how to *create* more of the Internets rather than *depend* on it. And this involves some basic software dev and digital network theory with some initiative to write some scripts.

This isn't *the* solution. Main point, when your current trade is outsourced and/or is dying, either you diversify your skills, or you fall.
More...
Posted by mackro http://mackro.blogspot.com on June 17, 2009 at 1:35 PM
trstr 5
I took a look at Weingarten's twitter reviews, and it's abundantly clear why he'll be out of a job next year: His reviews suck. Hard. More than half are lazy comparisons to other bands. Anyone can do that, and they generally do.

Yes, popular music sucks. It always has (except for a brief period c. 1959, but I digress); it always will. The problem I don't think is as much crowdsourcing rather than plain old simple recuperation. If there's money to be made, the moneymakers will swoop in and suck all of the marrow out of a revolution's bones. They'll replace the vanguard with their own sycophants until all that's left is the husk. There will always be folks that don't give a crap about careers or Bud Light tours or Bonnaroo - folks who make they music because it's in their blood. If they're lucky, they might make something good. It's the job of critics to hunt these people down, not just accept whatever shows up in the mailbox.

There will always be a place for intelligent arts criticism. True, it may no longer be profitable, but it's probably better that way.
Posted by trstr on June 17, 2009 at 1:57 PM
6
awesome! another pointless, beardo shithead talking about TWITTER.

can't these guys get a new fucking idea already???

Posted by Brandon Ivers on June 17, 2009 at 2:07 PM
jz 7
this guy is very, very confused. he brings up some good points--i like the plea for more "because" in criticism--but he contradicts himself left and right.

first of all, just look at him. what is he trying convey with his appearance? just with-it enough to not be scoffed at by hipsters, just nerdy enough to feel comfortable delivering a talk at the twitter convention. yet he falls short of either. he looks foolish bc he believes he exists out of social context.

which is why he blames "crowdsourcing" for killing punk rock. sorry, guy, but that was social evolution killing punk rock. that was the passage of time. you need to get out more, christopher, bc things die in the real world. and good riddance--now that punk is dead it can (and will) be reborn a million times over, and critics will have no say in how its done.

then he skirts the fallacy of "popular=bad" by blaming his friends for not knowing who katy perry is, then he embraces it by chastising the masses' bad taste. you cant have it both ways, dude. your nerdster/critic bias is showing.

dude goes to bonnaroo--the largest, most diverse music festival in america--and leaves with a bad taste in his mouth because...? people arent twittering right? wha? get over yourself.

which leads to that "because" he mentions, and ultimately misunderstands. the because has become implicit in the message. the because used to be--and hed have to agree, based on his argument--"because I'm the critic, that's why. bc I'm writing for a bigtime magazine or newspaper. bc i'm being paid for my opinion about art. bc i've listened to a lot more music than you." that ivory tower criticism bullshit is over. like @1 says, good riddance. now that everyones writing for free, the bc is different.

be it a blog, twitter, a weekly newspaper, a magazine, whatever, there are only two reasons to write about music. either you really care about what you're writing about and want to share it with others, ego-free; or you want to be a tastemaker, a role that involves personal recognition and superiority. both involve the "because" but present it in entirely different ways. weingarten cops to the second, which is why, rightfully, he fears for his job.
More...
Posted by jz http://search.nwsource.com/search?sort=date&from=ST&byline=Jonathan%20Zwickel on June 17, 2009 at 2:10 PM
8
JZ, for the win.
Posted by Jeff on June 17, 2009 at 3:16 PM
9
Christopher R. Weingarten ran the now defunct Paperthinwalls.com; I imagine the failure of that site gives him a keen insight into the future of music journalism. Also, his spiel is pretty damn funny.
Posted by Greydon Clark on June 17, 2009 at 4:55 PM
Keekee 10
@3:
Really? Do I really have to explain dis??

oKay, here goes: Fleet Foxes suck for the very simple reason that everytime I hear one of their songs, (and it's been numerous) my first reaction is ohh, is this the new My Morning Jacket? Or is this the new Band of Horses? No, it's somebody that doesn't have an original bone in his body, so he copies other artists' sound down to a tee, and then sands down anything interesting from said plagerized artist so that the music goes down smooth for mass consumption. Not that I'm a big fan of My Morning Jacket, or Band of Horses, but those bands at least have their moments whilsts pillaging the past 40 years of recorded music.

Add to that the Fleet Foxes over-reliance on harmony vocals, and endless oohh's & aahh's. Plus those beards are a serious turn off. Take a shower & shave already.

I don' claim to be one of those people that hate something because it's popular. I like plenty o' mainstream stuff. It's jus' that I don't think Fleet Foxes bring anything new to the table. And there's nothing wrong with that per se, but why not just be honest and call yourself a Folk-Rock tribute band???? I'm sure they could do a cool Tim Buckley cover. Maybe...
Posted by Keekee on June 17, 2009 at 8:40 PM
11
Keekee, you are a fucking idiot. You clearly don't anything about songwriting, chord progressions, or lyrics. Go back to working as a Cha Cha barback, loser.
Posted by get me a beer, slut on June 17, 2009 at 9:19 PM
12
Who said anything about having to like Katy Perry to have some idea who she is? It's not about taste, it's about breadth of knowledge and not living in an indie bubble--something Seattle people, including myself, tend to do a lot of. It's about writing to a more and more rarefied audience instead of presuming a broader one.
Posted by Michaelangelo Matos on June 18, 2009 at 6:33 AM
cosby 13
There should be a button on this blip.tv player that makes his voice less nasally. If he's trying to say that he himself is important and his ideas are valid, he's making a really poor case.

Also, 2002 called - they want their Ego Trip shirt back.
Posted by cosby http://www.myspace.com/cosbyshownights on June 18, 2009 at 9:05 AM
14
soon the human experience will be obsolete.
Posted by CPU on June 18, 2009 at 1:24 PM

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