The Slow, Agonizing Death of National Alt-Weekly CD Reviews

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Heh, from a column that just got linked to on ILE Twitter thread: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/janet-street-porter/editoratlarge-twitter-ye-not-for-it-will-not-change-the-world-1772833.html

If I want to know whether a show is worth going to at the Edinburgh Festival, or if Bonnie Prince Billy's latest album is worth buying, I certainly don't want a 140-character Twitter; I want an intelligent review written in real sentences, not some bastard lingo that's the ugly love-child of texting and abbreviations.

Women Respond To Bassong (DJ Mencap), Monday, 17 August 2009 15:20 (fourteen years ago) link

damn whiney got aired out by jane austen

max, Monday, 17 August 2009 15:21 (fourteen years ago) link

Looking at the Chicago Reader's archives, it looks like the extent of non-local CD reviews they've published this year amounts to three columns of "short takes" (two by Peter Margasak, one by Jessica Hopper) and one long reviews (Noah Berlatsky on Antony & the Johnsons).

But then I can't remember them ever having regular album reviews. At least as long as I've been reading the paper (10 years or so), it seems like CD reviews get published only if one of their contributors pitches the idea. The headline on Hopper's column, for instance, is "Last Week on the Internet:
A bucket dipped into the torrent brings up Bat for Lashes, Micachu, Moderat, and more," as though she just downloaded a bunch of stuff and asked the paper if she could review it for them.

I guess I feel like show previews end up reading a lot like album reviews most of the time, anyway, with maybe an additional sentence at the end if the band is especially known for their live performance.

― jaymc, Friday, August 14, 2009 5:12 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this might be true but there have been weeks in a row where like 95% of the show alerts/previews/blurbs have been for out-of-town bands. i have thought of tallying up this info over a month or two and then sending them a letter about it but don't want to come off as bitter (since i'm in a local band). but i just feel like jordan, it doesn't seem necessary, i can read about these national bands from like a million other sources, the info i need from them is about the awesome local bands that aren't getting any other press ... i feel like the reader used to be a lot better about this.

congratulations (n/a), Monday, 17 August 2009 15:24 (fourteen years ago) link

two years pass...

Creative Loafing Inc, New Times, and other pubs--budget cuts, freelancing or blogging for free

Chicago Reader possibly getting new owner

curmudgeon, Monday, 14 May 2012 13:48 (twelve years ago) link

is that like google reader for ppl who live in chicago?

markers, Monday, 14 May 2012 13:49 (twelve years ago) link

wow david shapiro, you should get a job writing monologues for jimmy fallon

contendo entertainment system (some dude), Monday, 14 May 2012 13:54 (twelve years ago) link

two years pass...

providence phoenix shut down last week too

maura, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 14:09 (nine years ago) link

when i pick up the chicago reader these days i'm embarrassed by how feeble the print edition is, but i'd be very sad if they went under.

I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 15 October 2014 15:53 (nine years ago) link

and yeah music reviews just don't happen in the print edition; not sure if they happen online either. margasak had (has?) a blog thing where he talks about new music, but it never makes it to the print edition.

I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 15 October 2014 15:53 (nine years ago) link

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/10/14/san_francisco_bay_guardian_shuts_down_the_decline_and_fall_of_a_great_alt.html

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, October 14, 2014 8:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

providence phoenix shut down last week too

― maura, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:09 AM (8 hours ago)

Damn, two that were close to my heart.

sarahell, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 22:26 (nine years ago) link

i'm not that familiar w/ the Knoxville one, but Providence and SFBG are such significant losses

more to come, i wonder? i've read a couple articles over the past few years that predicted a period of widespread bloodshed to come. wonder if we're getting there :(

alpine static, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 22:34 (nine years ago) link

i wonder how the chicago reader is doing

I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 16 October 2014 04:09 (nine years ago) link

right now chicago has (at least) two arts weeklies

I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 16 October 2014 04:09 (nine years ago) link

eleven months pass...

Thanks for posting those. Contracts with alt-weeklies incl. fairly rapid reversion of all rights to the author, in my experience---which doesn't incl. Philly City Paper, but makes me wonder if Broad Street Media really could make "intellectual property rights" stick, if faced with a suit, by the writers union, for instance. Anybody remember Contentville? They had "backdoor rights," technically, but disappeared pretty quickly.

dow, Friday, 9 October 2015 16:10 (eight years ago) link


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