who is Bob Lefsetz?

Lefzetz meets Pitchfork, world implodes.

this guy's paragraph breaks are so psychotic.

someone needs to get the Pitchfork Reviews Reviews guy and Bob Lefsetz together

Have you heard of the Weeknd?

is this revive actually from 2011

Psychotic Paragraph Breaks would be a good name for a genre.

I still read his column all the time. Setting aside his stylistic tendencies towards a hranguing tone, I like his open, straightforward style, his siding with a certain kind of artist who doesn't particularly want to be a publicity hound, and his fairly enlightened and, these days, quite rare advice about the importance of concentrating on developing your craft over a long period of time. It's a tonic to all those 'Zap Pow Future Music Biz 2.0 Ideas Machine' type blogs. Also: how often do you get this forward looking, optimistic, rallying kind of pep talk from an avowed baby boomer? He recently he even got turned on to Deadmau5, which was a delightful thing to behold. So my view of him is that he's a character, and not without a certain uncanny capacity to hit on the important things to do with art and the creative process that get lost in the wake of internetty and publicity oriented stuff.

thing is even when he talks and talks about ART and CREATIVITY he still sounds like a suit who knows to pay lip service to those values as opposed to a serious music buff. also this is his idea of insight in October 2011:

Throw out all your twentieth century thinking.

There’s more ways to make money in music than selling discs.

But the old players can’t see this.

So they’re going to be left behind.

and his next line is

Ian Rogers never worked at a major label.

not at a label, but he he worked for a major label act for the first five years of his career, worked with major labels at Yahoo, and works with major label acts now. not to denigrate the dude's genuine forward-thinking in any way, but Lefsetz' point is offset by Rogers' cashflow having pretty much always originated at majors, no?

i always imagine this guy as looking like the monopoly guy, except dressed as a parrothead.

even when he has the occasional point there's not much sadder than people whose central motivation is making sure you know that whatever the kids believe, that's what they believe too

The 10,000 Hour Rule"
In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours

He is so obsessed with this point from Gladwell's Outliers book regarding what you have to do to be good at something

does malcolm gladwell have a use besides blowing the minds of first year business majors?

You can turn him upside down and scrub out your toilet.

does malcolm gladwell have a use besides blowing the minds of first year business majors?

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown

You might be right, but he still writes for the New Yorker so more folks than just college kids quote him. A parent of a kid on my son's high school baseball team is frequently quoting him to me.

x-post-- yep that hair of Gladwell's is something

Today everybody's so into image, everybody's got such narrow tastes, but back then you could like Zeppelin AND Loggins & Messina. You were open to everything, we were all in it together.

I don't think this music is going to be remembered, there's not going to be a Loggins & Messina renaissance, but "Mother Lode" holds up. Play it on a long, dreary drive, you'll see your whole life unfold in front of you.

Yeah.

back then you could like Zeppelin AND Loggins & Messina.

people's taste seems so much broader to me than it ever was now

Jesus Christ people who fetishize the 70s AOR era will just always always be even more annoying than any other era-specific cheerleaders, which is a bummer, because buried amidst their starry-eyed walks down memory lane are some actually true things about that era and what made the records good (in short: more studio budget, engineers with more open ears i.e. dudes who weren't yet locked into a style, less tech to smooth out takes that needed to be redone)

(Have you heard Eminem recently?)

You were open to everything, we were all in it together.
lol that's great. the 70s, a time of great cultural unity.

lol otm

and fwiw loggins messina renaissance is already underway, come on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpmr9P2_K4g

so everyone is mad at lefsetz for this today: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

"I wasn’t sure what to do after Beyonce’s appearance, join a gym or masturbate." stupid line, and the guy is an awful writer, but i fail to see how this piece is sexist or racist. maybe it's because I personally can't stand Beyonce because I hate her music and everything about her. But I restrained myself from saying anything in person or online last night because I knew I'd get my head bitten off. I don't doubt the dude is a pudgy Boomer prick with an ancient outlook, but what about this piece is getting everyone so pissed off, aside from his dislike of Beyonce's performance?

another egregious line tho - "hip hop is full of attitude"

x-post

On what are you basing your suggestion that this piece is getting more people pissed at Leftsetz than other ones? Tweets? facebook? ???

I've read almost as much twitter vitriol on the subjext today as I read about the superbowl itself yesterday.

in addition to the masturbation thing this part was pretty sexist (and just gross generally in other ways:

Who do we blame? Madonna? Who invented a new paradigm and then went for a victory lap wherein she dieted down to nothing and spent hours a day working out? Do you think Adele works out? Ha!

"Do you think Adele works out?" Go fuck yourself, Lef.

"the Lumineers are bigger than Alicia Keys" Yikes.

but i fail to see how this piece is sexist or racist

you mean as in only one or the other?

lol j/k who cares what this nobody-guy writes on a blog

x-post -- Tweets About Beyonce or about Leftsetz re Beyonce?

Leftsetz has a huge mailing list of industry people and musicians who always seem to put up with his cluelessness

I saw Ned talking about it on twitter and then saw the deluge of music crits and randos going nuts...

@LauraSterritt I'm so so appreciating all of the men I'm seeing calling out Lefsetz's Beyonce post. Really heartwarming.

@1000TimesYes Everyone please quit calling the Lefsetz post "sexist." It's racist too!

@robmitchum So McCain and Lefsetz both committed social media suicide before noon today. This could turn out to be a pretty great week.

‏@randlechris lefsetz confused here. "ONLY MUSIC MATTERS" but if women made it you apparently prefer to write about their bodies with a pair of forceps?

@Marcissist Truth RT @maura hey bob @lefsetz: you are a gross sexist scumbag and the fact that anyone takes you seriously about anything is embarrassing

@lfitzmaurice The easy joke there is that Bob Lefsetz would be better off choosing the gym
^lol

@lfitzmaurice What RT @Lefsetz: Alicia Keys is the new Sheryl Crow. Showing up everywhere. Hey Alicia! There's a supermarket opening around the corner!

@killquilty if there's anything more infuriating than the lefsetz letter it's the lefsetz letter wasting time focusing on amanda palmer

@brandon_weigel @notrivia Couldn't get past the second sentence of Lefsetz's garbage.

The assertion that the Lumineers are bigger than Beyonce was pretty lol.

there's not one sentence of this that rings true at all.

I wasn’t sure what to do after Springsteen’s appearance, join a gym or masturbate. It was spectacle befitting the game, one could argue strongly it was more dynamic and exciting than the game. You had no desire to check your Twitter feed, all you could do was pay attention.

But how much did this have to do with music?

Who do we blame? Tom Petty? Who invented a new paradigm and then went for a victory lap wherein he embodied blue collar America in a tight t-shirt? Do you think Tom Petty works out? Ha!

Springsteen made Tom Petty look old. He proudly strutted his beefcake arms, in one fell swoop making a whole swath of America’s men feel good about themselves.

She proudly strutted her luscious thighs, in one fell swoop making a whole swath of America’s women feel good about themselves.

Stupid Beyonce liking ladies.

man I'm glad no one sexualizes Prince

x-post- you should send that Springsteen satire to Leftsetz

Scroll down to the previous Lefsetz Letter for pure Patrick Bateman vibes - an ode to Phil Collins' Face Value.

even the under-the-radar digs are just meaningless, like:

The thought of her drinking Pepsi is akin to believing Alicia Keys uses a BlackBerry!

uhh you can very well believe keys uses a blackberry. shitloads of people use them! she endorses them, right? (esp if lefsetz means "BB" as a stand-in for smartphones in general) and no, it doesn't make it more likely that beyonce drinks soda.

really annoying that i feel compelled to direct any brainpower toward this crap, but this guy is inexplicably influential

i saw the twitter hate but not the reason why til now. feel slightly unclean.

why DO people pay attention to this guy though?

For posterity, here's the link to the actual super bowl/beyonce post rather than his blog's generic url:
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/02/03/beyonce-at-the-super-bowl/

"She proudly strutted her luscious thighs, in one fell swoop making a whole swath of America’s women feel good about themselves." nvm somehow i missed this one, moronic and offensive. but. man i hate beyonce's music and thing.

...though i wonder if he really is. is there a term for people who don't advance thought in any way but have a career bravely telling people what they already think? it's not really 'influence' but, idk, management

Blame the CD, where subtlety doesn’t sound good.

you are totally illiterate about your own field of expertise, jesus

The pundit class?

Xpost

wish wcc had saved her powder for this dude

well of course, but i meant a succint term as opposed to 'influence'

"confluential" maybe, lol

people pay attention to him because the music industry, including the gameable bullshit awards like the grammys, are more about appealing to the executive wisdom and idiocy of the lefsetzes of the world than actually making music.

same old shit

Woud You Go To A Festival?-SiriusXM This Week