Is the Guardian's music coverage getting good?

I think it's getting more competent but not neccessarily better. Time was when a really dreadful piece by Cox or whoever would provoke you a bit, at least mke you articulate why it was bad. Whereas Petridis clearly is no fool but he doesnt seem to have anything "interesting" even if wrong to say.

Gunnip: I glanced through the Reynolds, it looked pretty good, admirable stuff. From my POV, like a cross between Hopkins (the material) and Troussé (the emphasis on pop being invigorated by non- pop things).

Well, yeah, that's his background. He's honest about it. It's also the background of the majority of people on ILM. But what he was trying to do in that ' risible' article was explain his own musical journey and in the process give his thoughts on the state of music today. He's come to the Guardian via Mixmag, knows about R&B producers, cares about chart pop, and Tom - he even lists Basement Jaxx among his favourite current acts. Look, he even makes cheap dig at Travis, what more could you want?

OK, so of course it's not all about having a similar set of tastes to one's own (although it tend to help). But hey, I think he is a competent writer who doesn't rest on easy assumptions, and that's good enough for me. OK, so he's not a life-changing, maverick rock journalist like Lester Bangs or Tom Ewing, but hey, who is?

There's probably something in what Mark S says about music journalism never catching fire in the pages of a traditionally organised broadsheet. But until the media revolution comes, I'm not going to worry about it.

My point was that people still seem to think the Guardian's music agenda is in the Tom Cox era, when it clearly isn't. I think some people just like straw men.

As for "it's a bit like '73", the first person I can remember saying that was Jerry Dammers - in 1983. I've been hearing it so regularly since that I'm sick of it.

I'm not at all sure that I buy 10 or more CDs a year - *certainly* not new releases. And I Love Music.

BUT I have just dug out the Spears review and it is total garbage. A ton of clichés and the usual unquestioning subservience to rubbishy contemporary pop, same as you get all over the place. He says, for goodness' sake, that the last 45 is 'startling', and an example of the 'superb' contributions of some producer characters. Pssssshhh.

I think the pinefox proves my point too. He's useful for that.

The other piece you guys are on about, I haven't seen. But then, I don't believe in The State Of Contemporary Music anyway, as far as I can remember.

eg their review strategy is identical, their subjective response just happens to be different

As for whoever mentioned the Irish Times, they have alot of shit writers and maybe one or two good ones.

Mark S: my goodness - why so hostile?

Nick: have now read the article. It's very standard stuff. And no-one should get away with saying 'we all loved Oasis', 'we all sang along with Wonderwall', etc. That kind of untrue generalization only ever alienates and annoys.

There you go, I've said something.

no-one should get away with saying 'we all loved Oasis', 'we all sang along with Wonderwall', etc. That kind of untrue generalization only ever alienates and annoys.

I agree with this totally, and think it is very well put. I don't think that Petridis fellow is particularly bad, but I found his state of the nation piece to be so much boring filler. Most of the anti -responses to said piece make some good points IMO. Personally, I think such a piece is about as worthwhile as those "100 best singers/guitarists/albums/whatever - official!" screeds they print in Mojo from time to time, in that all it does is re-inforce a conformist view. Also, I read that John Peel piece in today's guardian, and even though "Teenage Kicks" is indeed great, and one of my favourite rekords, I just wish he'd GIVE IT A REST.

Petridis' "clued up agenda" = liking the same 'fashionable' discs every other newspaper music journo plugs. Has anyone ever heard abt a rec FIRST in the Guardian? I think Andy Gill's reviews in the Indie are much better - nothing startling, just solid, competent writing backed up by a slightly broader range of musical reference/knowledge than Petridis and his chums can manage. They should get rid of that doofus John L Walters too.

Doesn't necessarily like them. But does review them. And gives them due prominence. In the past, they'd be giving far too much coverage to Americana and Q magazine style bores at the expense of a lot of, well pop for a start. Now it seems have more of an idea about which records people are talking about and buying. Maybe in a style mag way, yes. But I agree with Suzy - you can't expect a broadsheet to be all about discovering new acts and following some agenda free from the fashions of the day. That's just not what they're about. Until mark s's Numan-backed revolution comes.

i'm talking the injection of passion, betrayal, disappointment, yearning, inadvisable tattoos, STDs, potential blackmail, bandy legs etc.

True. But ideally, said broadsheet might be able to say something interesting about the fashions of the day. It also might be able to convey to a mainstream audience why they should care about more obscure music. Reading through the stuff from Friday, I'd give it about 6 out of 10 in those terms. Bottom line: There's a hell of a lot of stuff out there, and nobody has to settle for competent.

Anyway, I nominate NY Times writer Kelefa Sannah as someone who's doing a great job of writing about both familiar and unfamiliar music for a (relatively) mainstream audience. He/she wrote this kick-ass thing about why Aaliyah was important (as a musician, not as an icon, which is how most media tried to spin it) after she died. And this weekend he/she has a long thing about Aphex Twin and Richie Hawtin (who might as well be aliens as far as the Times' regular readership is concerned) that both explains what it is that they do, exactly, to non-acolytes and has a pretty interesting take (trad musical instruments as organizing principles for electronic composition) for those who think Aphex Twin is an institutional figure who must be reacted against.

It's not passion, betrayal, disappointment. But it is great writing and original thinking.

What a thought!

i'm talking the injection of passion, betrayal, disappointment, yearning, inadvisable tattoos, STDs, potential blackmail, bandy legs etc.

I like the idea that there is this division between inadvisable tattoos and advisable ones.

I like Alexis Petridis too, I don't think I would disagree with many of the faults pointed out above - but half way readable musical critisism is now so rare since the weeklys gave up that I can forgive some minor sins.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/15/paulmccartney-thebeatles

OK, couldn't find / remember the usual guardian thread, so used this one.

Um, is this a cack handedly written article?

Specifically, this bit:

While it's John Lennon who has retained the reputation for rabble-rousing, "I politicised the Beatles," McCartney insisted. And now he has passed the "megaphone" to a new generation of political artists, he said. People like Bono.

Bono, meanwhile, was honoured in Paris this weekend, at the Peace Summit. "I am an over-awarded, over-rewarded rock star," Bono said after receiving the Man of Peace prize. "You are the people who do the real work."

Somewhere in England, Paul McCartney is squeaking: "Me too!"

Swash Dogs and Diet Coke Heads: the 2008 rolling Guardian zing thread

though i guess we need a new name for it.

soon

Sean Michaels is a worse music writer than his "AIDS-stricken Chippendale" name-a-like wrestler would make.

he's writer for the Montreal-based music blog Said the Gramophone. what have you ever done?

I called it as cack-handedly written.

I don't want his job. Still, though.

the indie section sort of peters out about 1992 which seems accurate

spiral scratch ep a stunning omission from indie

wow there are as many as four genres now?

lol surprise I have several issues with the hardcore punk article (written by our own Stevie) as well...

(although that's just a matter of opinion, not a factual error like the other one)

this one? http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/14/ian-makaye-bad-brains-hardcore

don't have any issues w/ anything in the main text, guessing he didn't write the section headline

Ah, well if that's the case then that was what I was mainly objecting to, and how that colours the rest of the article.

Like if it was Ian MacKaye and Bad Brains popularise hardcore then fine (but I'm picking nits).

xpost Spiral Scratch is mentioned in Morley's piece about the Lesser Free Trade Hall gig.

very much a potted history - ie what do our writers know about - than a definitive one. just another way for the site to get more visitors/to sell more papers through a not exactly essential supplement.

Yep, a potted history. But what do people expect in a series of 24-page supplements?

In the interests of honesty, I ought to confess to those who don't know that I edited the indie one and the rock one.

Pretty sure the ILM hip-hop poll is a more useful resource/archive for any possible purpose than the Guardian hip-hop timeline.

A+ interface though!

Just fyi then,

Recorded during the Falklands war in May, flexidiscs of How Does it Feel to Be the Mother of 1,000 Dead? were smuggled, guerrilla-style, into random albums by distributors Rough Trade. It sailed out under its own steam in November, replacing Robert Wyatt's Falklands-themed Shipbuilding at the top of the independent chart.

The flexi that was smuggled into random albums was Sheep Farming In The Falklands, and it was recorded the year after the Falklands war.

Morley writing about the Free Trade Hall Gig? Woah! I was wondering when he'd break his silence about that gig. So many unanswered questions about whether Mick Hucknall was standing stage left or stage right, and whether Peter Hook tried to smuggle three cans of Top Brass bitter into the gig in a Tesco carrier bag or not.

xp. You're half-right and I was half-wrong. Sheep Farming, not How Does It Feel, was indeed the flexi but it was recorded and first released during the war - it was only the official seven-inch that appeared a year later.

It's true, "Sheep Farming" was a 'comedy' song, until they decided that it needed a more serious response once people started dying...

I was wondering when he'd break his silence about that gig

haha

it was only the official seven-inch that appeared a year later.

Haha shit you're right, I had a feeling as soon as I submitted that I was myself going to be wrong in some way, it's the pedant's curse.

Always tricky to pinpoint the first truly indie release. I get the argument for making it "So It Goes" - but as I recall, Stiff weren't absolutely totally unquestionably 100% independent, although memory fails as to in what respect. So I've always benchmarked Spiral Scratch instead: a fully homegrown operation, giving a platform to a new band (rather than a former member of a signed band). Or then again, you could start with The Count Bishops' Speedball EP on Chiswick, at the back end of 75...

Stiff's first bunch of singles were distributed by United Artists.

Then they 'joined' Island records, sort of.

Desperate Bicycles? Or is that way too late?

Ah, I had Island in the back of my mind. Yeah, Desperate Bicycles were, ooh, about three or four months after Spiral Scratch - and SS did the whole "breakdown of production costs on the sleeve" thing, which kinda marked it out ideologically.

I think the Speedball e.p. is also what I would say.

Then again, there's always been 'independant' records, I'd even consider "Immediate" to be in the running...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/a-history-of-dance-music?page=3 dance music bit is pretty good.
thought the 90s section of the Indie one was baffling.

apart from cringey uk bits

It's mostly UK though.

Actually, seems like recent UK dance music (dubstep and onwards) gets an undue amount of prominence, it's a bit 'history as rewritten by the (current) victors'. Including Rusko and Blackout Crew is very odd when all that the entirety of Europe gets is a nod towards Daft Punk and Villalobos.

it's not possible to condense things into these sort of lists, and it's just a newspaper covering music in the deficient way that newspapers do, is what i have to repeat to myself if i bother to start getting annoyed.

I really like the layout and the idea and the articles

but it's just never going to be close to finished is it?

if it was a standalone website with a staff like amg or something it could probably be amazing but its weird to tack it on to the guardian

actually a standalone website for the dance section entirely consisting of youtubes of seminal tracks would keep me occupied for months

It's something to sell papers: seven supplements in seven days. The problem is that these things can never be marketed as what they are: "Seven supplements containing some things we think are interesting and will entertain you for the duration of your commute" because that's not a strong enough sell, so a stronger form of words is employed. With the result that they are then criticised for not being definitive, when they never could be within their constraints. It's true of all supplements published by all publications on all subjects, really.

That Petridis article linked at the top is such a treasure trove.

As the spell of the 60s wore off, everyone realised they had made a terrible mistake. They didn't actually want to live in communes and share mung beans with their neighbours. Instead they headed back to the safety of their bedsits with only Joni Mitchell or James Taylor for company.

Eek. Or to bring it up closer to the present day:

Britpop died the night England were knocked out of Euro '96

! Or:

I have absolutely no idea what the next Chemical Brothers album is going to sound like.

In 2001?? I did!

xpost completely otm. even the process of trying to be definitive irritates me, or (and this is awful in guardian music stuff) the comments section reserved for "what we forgot" where the first 30 are like "seems you have criminally forgotten hercules and love affair" or "i believe you've omitted booka shade, not exactly comprehensive is it???"

A while ago, every "punk" retrospective seemed to start with the NY scene, added the london scene, and then for some reason ended with James Chance / jazz.

As if someone was desperately trying to make a case for the Wag club being the natural successor to the Pistols and the 100 club..

Are we including an implicit "in the UK" when we're talking about the 1st indie release here?

Throbbing Gristle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_Records

Seems to me there's been an increase in the Guardian's metal coverage in recent months, mainly in response to the complaints of one or two serial posters on the comments board. Today there's a "classic interview with Van Halen", whoop-de-do. The problem for these commenters is that they are always whingeing that the paper's music coverage targets its core demongraphic, without saying why that's a bad thing or a surprise (you wouldn't expect to see Bonnie Prince Billy reviewed in Terrorizer). The end-of-year readers' poll was remarkably similar to the critics' poll, suggesting that the paper is getting its coverage about right.

or its readers are sheep ;0 baaaa

Think it's also because there are quite a few interesting things happening with metal at the moment and the guy they have writing some of the stuff (Dom Lawson, i think) is good. Not sure they'd see Bonny Prince Billy as being the default kind of music they're good at covering.

Do they review metal albums now? or just 'crossover' ones like Mastodon?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/jan/04/adele-success-major-label

xp Mostly crossover stuff that has a bit of traction in the alternative press - Liturgy, Wolves In The Throne Room, Ghost, etc but there are bits and pieces that cater to a wider variety of fans.

idk, i think it's great that a national newspaper has a blog whose last few pieces have been about D'angelo, Adele, David Lee Roth, Taiwanese Chart music, Goldfrapp and Maurizio Pollini.

ahh stuff I like then. Maybe I should read it every day rather than when someone links me to it.

It's funny, I love reading reviews in print mags but I never really read online reviews. I don't even read pitchfork or anything like that.

http://www.brilldream.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/for-record-debunking-myth-of-vinyl.html

Imagine, if you will, a world where the media gets itself all excited about a beer revival. The BBC makes programmes about beer, full of hazily recreated shots of a heavily side-burned young man entering a 70's pub and wistfully buying a pint in a handled glass. The great and the good trip of themselves to comment about how great buying beer is. "You never forget buying your first pint" says one. "There's that silence, then a clink of glass" chimes another "then you get your first sip. It's like magic". The press flies the flag for beer. 'The Beer Revival' screams the Mail headline. "An online poll of 1,700 beer buyers found that 86 per cent of them said it was their favourite ale format. A third of today’s beer fans are aged under 35. 'Beer is back' says another. "The first half of 2013 saw sales of beer increase by over 33%, based on the previous year’s numbers.' Great, you may think to yourself, I like beer. But hang on a minute, I've been buying beer since my late teens and have never stopped, how can it be back if it never went away?

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/nov/27/vinyls-making-a-comeback-dont-believe-the-hype

The other night, outside one of those preposterous city-centre places that is both a grocer and a restaurant, I noticed a remarkable deal on offer in the boxes of produce stacked up outside. A bunch of half a dozen or so carrots, green stalks attached at the top, soil clinging to the orange roots, was on sale for a bargain £2.50. You can stick your £1 for a bag bursting with the things from Morrison’s or Iceland, because those are the carrots I want, oh yes. And given that the stupidly priced bunch of carrots with green tops and soil is cropping up in farmers’ markets and chi-chi grocers all across Britain, then I’m calling it now. Never mind that the vast majority of people are still buying their carrots from supermarkets at a much cheaper price, and that there’s no sign of that ever changing, because I’m willing to say there’s a stupidly priced bunch of carrots comeback!

if you're trying to infer that the second article has plagiarised the first then I don't think you have even a glimmer of a case and if not idk what your point is

no inference at all. just thought it was funny.

I wrote the Guardian vinyl blog. Had no idea about the other piece.

did not know but honestly nothing was inferred just that it seems to be a common argument used with slight variations. No offence intended.

None taken. Just pointing it out.

Also making a comeback:
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/abacus.jpg