OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

there, deleted. please let me know what is and is not acceptable as a topic to write about on my blog in my spare time.

oh come on, k, your post was great

katherine that was one of my favorite things i've read about music criticism ever

crazy xposts hooboy whiney i think you of all folks would get that conflict, regardless of investment in either side of the argument, draws attention outside of rock critania.
questions about whether this stuff MEANS anything, well i dunno. the argument one way or another about crusty rock vs. glitterpop are pretty meaningless to me as a listener and as a publicist, most of the people I know who like the most kawaii k-pop are also scandimetal nerds. as a principled argument, i'm against purism and segregation as a point of faith.

i'm against purism and segregation as a point of faith.

haha so are most accused of being rockists

its so disheartening to see people even READING, let alone ENGAGING with the NYT article

Pretty much every critic under 35 just sees pop and rock as two acceptable types of music that you get emails in your inbox about and then turn into content for traffic. The identity politics stuff about "ROCK BANDS PLAYING REAL ROCK MUSIC" is for comment section people and olds. No one gives a fuck about this crap anymore

mmm pretty sure there's a very popular Lorde song specifically about this crap

put your piece back up, katherine, #noshots

katherine you always bring the real shit

i haven't thought this through in detail, but is the insipid thing in that piece not just that it takes up the ethical aspect of the rockism/poptimism/etc. debates in the same post-neoliberal-web-academic-privilege-questioning framework that everything (esp. at npr) is taken up into now? which is tiresome in connection with rockism/poptimism because it fritters away the artistic/aesthetic core of those ideas and supposes that they're really just coded moral postures that need a good dose of genteel thoughtfulness to be suitably broadened, to dissipate the conflicts about them.

i feel like there's an almost compulsive re-framing going on throughout too.

― j., Tuesday, April 15, 2014 3:42 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just wanna say I think this is a good post and describes something pretty well that I haven't been able to put my finger on. In a slightly oblique way it reminds me of that article I read about how the Google execs handled a disruptive protest calmly through "mindfulness" techniques.

well, if you expect any NPR writer to tell its audience it's full of shit it ain't happening

just a guess but isn't that compulsive reframing symptomatic of the culture shifting? same way that articles written a decade or more ago have a tendency to look far more sexist or classist or racist than they were intended as? tho i suppose there's a fair bit of "fuckin hell can't i just like led zep and call it (c)rap; what else do they want to pry from my cold dead hands" always going on

could be, i was noticing it more as a concomitant of the deliberately point-free 'convo' format, like a constant will to sweep idea-oids into the maw of the content-feed out of avoidance of actually just saying a thing as themselves, in their voices, not in the auto-distancing npr 'we' voice

j.'s post is really interesting. Curious as to what is meant by "post-neoliberal" in this context. I've previously heard "neoliberal" mainly used to describe laissez-faire economic policies; I think theres a specific cultural definition or context I don't understand here. Obviously arts/culture and economics are closely linked, just a little unclear on the specific meaning here.

my kneejerk reaction to neoliberalism is "Democratic sellout."

xp ah, you mean the "i'm not saying but i hear people are saying" method that keeps the 24 hour news cycle humming until something happens to a rich person

no, everyone is right, it was wrong for me to get sucked in

this spectacle of people (mostly straight white men of a certain age) angry that we treat music made with drum machines, or for dance floors, or with rapping (unless it's 'political'), or by Beyoncé with the same respect and depth of thought we'd devote to anthems sung by bands of guys with guitars.

Seriously does "this spectacle" exist?
It seems more like a self-satisfied dig at mostly imaginary squares... and even if they do exist, isn't a music critics primary job not to give a fuck what that kind of person would think?

they exist

like the Republicans they hate they're dying too.

I can't even with discussions of "rockism" and "popism" in 2014...

Pretty much every critic under 35 just sees pop and rock as two acceptable types of music that you get emails in your inbox about and then turn into content for traffic. The identity politics stuff about "ROCK BANDS PLAYING REAL ROCK MUSIC" is for comment section people and olds. No one gives a fuck about this crap anymore

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, April 15, 2014 3:35 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

xpost

but who cares if they exist? it's like a visual art critic spending forever debating the "my 5 year old could do that" people.

in my experience if you talk to people -- i was gonna say educated people of a certain age, but really it's anybody -- about what should be valued in music and you get a lot of romantic talk about authenticity and truth and realness and the test of time. it's like a reflex almost.

on the other hand i think most people who hold these views hold them pretty lightly. it's a majority view but only a small chunk of them are cluttering up youtube comment boxes in anger about it.

it's like a visual art critic spending forever debating the "my 5 year old could do that" people.

i suppose, but art critics write in a narrow sense with gallerists and curators and broadly to people who go see art and pick up art publications; that's a pretty tight focus.

music critics talk to a general public, the same public that listens to the radio, hears songs on commercials and tv, sees the super bowl halftime show. i think the 'base' opinion just looms larger in the whole deal.

write in a narrow sense *to gallerists etc, i mean

i do agree that i wish critics would exercise a little hegemonic muscle and just write about whatever as if the question was settled, but as long as my parents are alive, having the argument is going to catch eyes.

intheblanks, i don't know what i mean (i would like to understand 'neoliberal', as a term of critique/abuse, better than i do). something like, the recognition that marketification of society, privatization of everything possible, is an untenable solution to social problems...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/neoliberalism-and-higher-education/

but more than that, the icky post-internet last-ditch efforts to do something about those problems by, like, doubling down. incorporating a healthy dose of… hep branding, crisp design on the cheap, fee structuring, intonations about the perplexities of identity, chuckling about the all-too-human need to make a dollar, an entrepreneurial perspective on ethics and culture combined with an opinion-page passivity about politics and a whole-foods presumptiveness about who 'we' are and what's important to us…

i don't know, like i said, i haven't thought about this, just skimming that 'convo' makes me feel gross. but i think the important thing is the core that's barely touched by a lot of what they were talking about, which i'm summing up tendentiously w/ 'post-neoliberal' (and the word 'npr' heh). and that's the aesthetico-ethical valence of those ideas about music and criticism, which it seems is reduced to almost nothing.

I just don't buy that there's a "spectacle" of angry old white dudes worried about drum machines, rap, and Beyonce in 2014. The vast majority of people who might be angry about any of this stuff do not care enough to get angry about any of this stuff anymore.

Also maybe some people spout the same old golden age of authenticity test of time stuff - but that now includes drum machines, rap, and Beyonce for many

xp Thanks for the response, definitely gives me a better understanding of what you meant

hmmm....the way I understand neoliberalism as practiced by American Democrats since the 1980s is a diluted form of Republicanism that takes for granted that unions destroy industry, Wall Street should be respected, and market forces to be encouraged so long as abortion rights and gays are protected.

"music isn't as good as when I was 16" is not a thing that will ever go away - but I don't think it's a critical stance worth debating any more than "I want a painting that matches my couch"

parachuting into this thread to say that i think it's important to lay out counterarguments to things in the nyt, given that when i get the inevitable 'so what do you do' question from people not in the ilx hivemind i can have something to point to that *isn't* in the paper of record

(also forks clearly you didn't read to the piece's last graf, which sums up the 'fite' aspect imo)

also david carr had nothing to do with that piece

music critics talk to a general public, the same public that listens to the radio, hears songs on commercials and tv, sees the super bowl halftime show. i think the 'base' opinion just looms larger in the whole deal.

Nah; music critics talk to each other, and to music geeks (who would be music critics if they could type a coherent sentence). Normal people don't give a shit. They listen to the radio, they buy CDs at Target or Walmart or from Amazon, and they don't give a fuck about a review or a thinkpiece. The crucial task of the music critic right now is to get normal people to give a shit, because that's the path to turning music criticism back into a paying gig.

I just don't buy that there's a "spectacle" of angry old white dudes worried about drum machines, rap, and Beyonce in 2014.

alfred, that is no doubt accurate. i am thinking of the kind of 'neoliberal' that gets thrown around by leftist academics as a term of cultural critique. i suppose that that blanket usage includes, say, normalization of gay marriage (and associated things) as ~the~ political end goal vis a vis sexuality, status quo acceptance of economic arrangements that only need to be broadened/enjoyed more widely to achieve social justice, etc etc

i'm not sure offhand what the parallel would be in that case, of avowedly liberal/progressive positions taking over anti-progressive contentions as basically correct, but no doubt they're in there.

Normal people ... listen to the radio, they buy CDs at Target or Walmart or from Amazon

Is this 2005

maura, i read the piece all the way through; i'm talking solely about optics and virality and not your message or the quality of writing... both of which, I hasten to repeat, I'm in appreciation of / agreement with you on! But when your URL includes the-new-york-times-sucks, I would argue that the FITE quality is the primary selling point that's pushing the article to people outside the inner circle.

i mean, if anything, i'm co-opting the points in your last graf here

Alfred, I've heard that as the political definition, basically "Third Way" technocratic Democrats. The main definition I was familiar with before that was specific to economic policies advocated by people like Milton Friedman, which is totally related to the definition you laid out but also not perfectly the same thing. Hadn't encountered it in the discourse around culture and was curious to learn more.

of course they exist - but are they any kind of "spectacle"? anything that needs to be debated, or talked about in terms of defining critical parameters? are they really ANGRY about what rock critics write? the rockist horde is pretty much made-up at this point

sorry xpost to forks there

ahhh that makes sense, intheblanks and j

I think there's kind of a false populism to the approach Ann Powers is describing, one that, like I said, is really only suited to critics whose job it is to listen to and consider everything. When I was younger, having angry, prejudiced opinions about music was part of the passion and fun of being a music fan. Now I don't have those so much anymore, but I also just don't feel as much desire to force myself to consider music that doesn't appeal to me. I mean I still have curiosity and will still give almost anything at least one listen, but I just don't have the time and energy for the sophisticated, all-embracing tolerance she suggests. I'm perfectly willing to concede that I might be missing something interesting about the way Miley Cyrus's presence alters the meaning of a song written for Rihanna, I just don't have a reason to care.

I never liked Lester Bangs at all, but I get why people liked Lester Bangs, because he writes about music in a way that touches on the connection his readers feel with liking and disliking certain kinds of music. There are people who write about pop and dance music with the same kind of fervor, including many all the time on ILM, and I like that spirit. All this "consider the fact that they are trying to make money" stuff still feels bloodless to me. I don't have a problem with people writing thinkpieces about Miley Cyrus or any other artist. It's all worth writing about. But I find writers that mistrust their gut opinions about things too much to be very dull.

brio, i dunno about critical parameters but they have buying power and disproportionate impact because of it in much the same way that country (where people still routinely buy physical media) does. They spend money on tickets, they buy albums in digital and physical format, they buy the t-shirt and the magazine and that makes them an industry rudder that determines a certain type of market and reflective discourse. Or maybe we're talking different types of inside baseball here; that is entirely possible too.

maybe so... I guess I'm just wondering what any of that has to do with critics writing about Beyonce or Rihanna or whatever, who are also HUGE

I think mostly I'm saying the angry white guy who's mad about drum machines, rap, and Beyonce is just a dated old and not particular useful trope

whole "rockist" thing seems super dated to me now. maybe they're talking about their image of country fans but don't wanna say that?

i think 'technocratic' is a good word there, if there were just the right counterpart to that perspective in the sphere of ethical/social/private culture, that would be perfect.

a lot of the times when this sort of a recurrent mess is on my mind i think of the picture nietzsche paints in the first two untimely meditations of the state of culture as basically one in which there's a constant bustle underway to know all the little factoids about everything little thing in all the ages, so as to count oneself as cultured, without ever incorporating any of it, without ever being fundamentally dissatisfied with the resultant failure to grow from within or really change in any way, risk anything. (that's a bad summary.) it's basically the food-review internet that katherine mentioned the other day on her tumblr, or the npr music model of 'here's another cultural thing!', or (i'm saying) the tepid reframing of fights-about-music in that wilson/powers convo into the territory of no-fault humane universality.

i don't know how but i feel like the posture is simultaneously agreeing, what you listen to matters for who you are (matters ethically, spiritually, politically, etc.), while also in practice not really believing that it matters. and it comes across, that disbelief.

'here's another cultural thing!'

could easily be the name of an NPR program

and yet another great post from j

I don't know how but i feel like the posture is simultaneously agreeing, what you listen to matters for who you are (matters ethically, spiritually, politically, etc.), while also in practice not really believing that it matters.

Also the fact that the critic's approach doesn't actually reflect that "mattering" since it's so flat and all-encompassing

Tell me more about "normal people", ILX.

they listen to Stockhausen and Albert Ayler

but only from their husband's stupid record collections