Do we have a PAZZ AND JOB 2009 thread yet?

also w/ a lot of popular music these days, especially R&B and rap, there's such a long lead time between singles being released and their parent albums being released that they're increasingly straddling different years

Yeah, Andy, I realized belatedly that it's far more common for dance/electronic artists to release stand-alone singles.

like, the 2010 album Big Boi had a single off of on this year's poll also had an earlier single get 6 votes in the 2008 poll (xpost)

ilxor, did you see one of nabsico's Tumblr posts from earlier? you were quoted.

Didn't see this, actually... mind pointing me in the right direction?

xp True -- I voted for a Kid Sister song in 2007 that eventually turned up on her 2009 album.

Didn't see this, actually... mind pointing me in the right direction?

http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/344749076/a-lengthy-hack-through-recent-music-crit-stuff-mostly

Thanks!

i almost wonder if the pop critics are dying out because indie-critics have the DIY ethic where they're happy to do a review for $20

what do you base the idea that there was ever a wide U.S. audience for pop crit? Seriously. It's always been for rock or things that sprouted from punk/new wave/etc. No different then as it is now. We have no legacy of Smash Hits or The Face. Blender lasted as long as it did because of its covers, corporate money, and celeb-based features, not its writing (sorry). A lot of other crits wrote for papers and stuff about pop stars but that audience now has gossip mags, celeb sites, tv to find out about, say, Rihanna. People want photobooks of Fergie not 400 words on her new LP. Now they don't need the words to see the photos. They don't to read how some critic thinks she bit M.I.A. in order to hear about her personal life.

When the Lex claimed Rihanna's TV iviews were proof that people cared about her LP, not only did it not matter she had an LP out, it probably didn't matter she was a musician in the first place. She was a celebrity. If she was ScarJo and Chris Brown was Ryan Reynolds and everyone involved behaved the same way, the narrative would have played out the same-- except more people would have cared since film is so much bigger than music.

Isn't it possible that, like I said before, a lot of people used to get paid a lot of money to write a lot of words about things that in actual fact nobody wanted to read? And now that we have direct metrics to measure online what is read, and less utilitarian need for critics (from a reader not a cultural POV), that has been found out to a degree?

I'm far far from celebrating that. It's depressing as hell. But I'd guess that music crit is being kept alive by (and therefore populated by), as one of my colleagues said, the exact same people keeping record stores alive. Those are the diehards and the specialists and the people who care enough to buy product. And to read and reviews. And they listen to indie. And AnCo is #1 in pazz and Jop. And VW can sell 125K records on an indie label.

That is simplistic as hell, but I still think there are elements of sad sad truth there. People are asking "where are the non-rock/indie crits" and maybe they should be asking "where are the non-rock/indie readers." You could start by locating where they were. If they existed.

(btw "where are the non-rock/indie fans." is not the same as "where are the non-rock/indie readers" btw. the answer to the first is, I assume, justjared, ew, people, perez hilton, etc. And maybe...that's all those listeners ever wanted to know about those artists other than their music.)

aw, you know i love you, scott! and i def don't mean to sound cranky or antagostic either!

And i DEFINITELY don't p4k is a lark. I mean, i think the popularity of pitchfork has had a huge influence on indie culture being the dominant critical discourse and probably even has a huge effect on the singles list being more "songs" than "singles" these days and pushing certain songs into that arena. and i think we both agree that pfork is the dominant factor for the ACCELERATION of bands like dirty pro

And maybe...that's all those listeners ever wanted to know about those artists other than their music.

cough

"i def don't mean to sound cranky or antagostic either!"

!

antagostic were robbed by the way. best death metal album of the year.

Wow- scottpl's post just keep getting better the more irritated he gets. I'm serious. That last one was awes.

where are the non-rock/indie readers

This is where someone should introduce class and race, right? WELL IT'S NOT GONNA BE ME.

I don't think it's a matter of class and race. It's a matter of those who like to listen to music vs. those who like to think & read about it. Those who like to think & read about their music by and large listen to indie (if they don't listen to classical or jazz or samba).

o really

after jaymc posted some Alexa rankings earlier in the thread, I decided to go check out the numbers on some more music pubs and blogs. here's what i found:

PUBS

Drowned In Sound - 27,794
The Quietus - 85,535
Tiny Mix Tapes - 96,162
Cokemachineglow - 161,925
Dusted - 164,749

BLOGS

Brooklyn Vegan - 14,921 [?!]
Idolator - 36,194
Hipster Runoff - 52,139
Largehearted Boy - 67,700
Gorilla vs. Bear - 74,497
You Ain't No Picasso - 162,415
MBV - 176,732
My Old Kentucky Blog - 234,986
Fluxblog - 262,131
Chromewaves - 279,463
Said the Gramophone - 289,300

This conversation is about to turn really lovely.

Oh sorry to offend yr delicate sensibilities Ned.

I'm not sure I was being really serious above. I didn't even vote in P'n'J. Carry on then.

The thing is, pop music doesn't have to generate as much relative interest in criticism and analysis, compared to indie, to be profitable or able to capture an audience. If (let's say) Rihanna sells 20 times as much as Animal Collective, she only has to have 5% as many fans interested in reading an intelligent, well-written review of her album, and it doesn't really matter if the other 95% just follow her through the gossip sites and fashion rags, if that review is well targeted toward its potential audience.

And I mean, it's not like there aren't drooling, barely literate indie rock fans either -- ever take a look at the Stereogum comments section?

Oh sorry to offend yr delicate sensibilities Ned.

Haha I was talking about o.nate's response, not your post!

i don't know how me and scott end up arguing because i agree with like 95% of what he says

Those who like to think & read about their music by and large listen to indie

Wow. Uh...I have no words. (Though it's nice to know where all the great "thinkers" have been hiding lately, I suppose.)

I've always kinda felt that the more common ground you have with somebody, the better and more interesting your arguments will be about what little you don't see eye to eye on. I mean, The Lex is my #1 most similar voter on glenn's site!

I was just as much of an artist completist and producer credit scavenger when I was 12 and listening exclusively to Twin Cities Top 40 radio as I was when I discovered college rock after being thoroughly repulsed by hair metal's ascendancy shortly thereafter. I strongly suspect most of the other people here were the same way and I also believe we aren't measurably different from most other voracious music heads.

wow I can't believe I got all the way through that without typing "STFU"
oh, damn

Two more Alexa rankings:

Metalsucks.net 48,828
Blabbermouth.net 67,208

for the love of god everyone ignore that o nate post

hahahaha uh oh

I was just as much of an artist completist and producer credit scavenger when I was 12 and listening exclusively to Twin Cities Top 40 radio as I was when I discovered college rock after being thoroughly repulsed by hair metal's ascendancy shortly thereafter. I strongly suspect most of the other people here were the same way and I also believe we aren't measurably different from most other voracious music heads.

wow I can't believe I got all the way through that without typing "STFU"
oh, damn

― Vajazzle My Nazzle (HI DERE), Thursday, January 21, 2010 2:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, this is a good point -- i was definitely a big overthinking nerd about music even when i listened exclusively to grunge and pop rap and classic rock.

although tbh my tastes haven't advanced very far since then

Sorry, guys, please ignore my post. Scottpl said it better , "Where are the non-indie readers?" - and not the ones who read JazzTimes or Gramophone.

But I'd guess that music crit is being kept alive by (and therefore populated by), as one of my colleagues said, the exact same people keeping record stores alive. Those are the diehards and the specialists and the people who care enough to buy product.

This kind of says it all for me, really. The "diehards" we're talking about here aren't buying indie singles or metal albums, or used vinyl, but. . . "product."

are you offended that that word makes the transaction sound all dirty and capitalist or something?

i'm worried that it's reducing an argument to an incomprehensible abstraction

anyway i disagree w/ that premise -- i'm betting the majority of the people sitting in front of their computers reading and writing about music all the time are the same ones constantly downloading leaks and never going to record stores. (xpost)

ppl weren't clear on what "product" covers?

ha, that's probably true xpost

another but important point to keep in mind is that there are only so many hours in the day, and if you work full time, esp. if you work somewhere where you can't really surf the internet, you have a really limited amount of absolutely "free" time to do whatever you want when you come home. so, out of the people who are music fans, most of them are going to want to spend that time downloading and listening to records rather than reading someone's analysis of those records, which seems healthy and sane. the people who are interested in criticism, esp. as anything beyond a buyer's guide, is always going to be a really small portion of even the hardcore music fan demographic, and most of those people are going to be other critics.

*another obvious but

Further to something o.nate (and sorta Scott) is saying: I think one reason a lot of written criticism is about "indie" or "underground" music is that for a long time writing was one of the main ways anyone could hear about that stuff, and that got wound into its whole culture. (E.g., zines -- because the music wasn't on the TV, the radio, etc.) When the internet came along, fans of niches had a lot more motivation to leap out and talk to one another than did people whose enthusiasms were already more in the common sphere. In the case of indie fans, they also had a history and vocabulary and toolkit for doing this through analytical writing like criticism, and on some level I think we're still very much seeing the effects of that. That REALLY doesn't mean they're more thoughtful about music than anyone else, just that writing/reading "thoughtful" stuff is maybe a bigger part of how they relate to music.

Of course, the same thing is sorta true of people who are really into, say, non-charting rap, which leads to the next thing: the way lots of indie fans learned to talk about music fits with our general idea of what constitutes informed, analytical, "proper" criticism. I worry less that the "critic" way of talking about music tends to correlate with liking particular music (people who all talk the same way are bound to have values in common), and worry more about making myself experience totally different ways of talking about music. This can be hard, because I'll freely admit that written, middlebrow criticism is the manner of talking about music that's the most fun and comfortable for me. But as a way of engaging with music, there's obviously nothing about it that's any more important than the chatter on the Hot 97 morning radio shows or among teenagers in comments boxes -- they're all just different spheres where people talk about music in different ways.

anyway i disagree w/ that premise -- i'm betting the majority of the people sitting in front of their computers reading and writing about music all the time are the same ones constantly downloading leaks and never going to record stores. (xpost)

― some dude, Thursday, January 21, 2010 3:06 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

uh leak dudes have been statistically proven to buy the most records at record stores

i think those studies are kinda flawed tbh.

(are leak dudes super into susan boyle and taylor swift?)

was going to make a snarky post but realized it led to the idea that leak dudes are totes into the idea of boning Susan Boyle

that's quite the dream you are dreaming there, dan

Isn't it possible that, like I said before, a lot of people used to get paid a lot of money to write a lot of words about things that in actual fact nobody wanted to read?

to nitpick, i don't think "a lot" of people ever made "a lot" of money. a handful made a living, maybe a bigger handful than do now, but even in the golden age (whenever it was) it was always, like you say, a niche pursuit for a small number of people. but all this roundabout of credit and influence and whatever still leaves me with a more fundamental question about why this sensibiilty, this consensus, now? i'm more curious about what it means that animal collective is "the best album of 2009" than who said it first. i think the vv essay is right in connecting it to wild things, just as whoever it was who said it was right to connect vampire weekend to wes anderson, but those are surface affiliations that still i think need some elucidation about what's going on there. at least, if you're the sort of niche weirdo who's interested in such things.

I think a bit part of it is also cultural perception. Indie has becomed perceived to be "educated" music - like classical and jazz (which was once a populist form, but I digress). NPR is probably as big a part of this as P4k. It's music that makes you look smart if you like it. You won't be embarrassed if your coworkers or friends see "Stillness is the Move" on your Ipod, in fact you'd probably feel self-congratulatory, but you might be worried if they catch you singing along to "Whomp that Ass" or whatever.

why the fuck would i ever care what my co-workers thought of my music, is the larger question i have for you