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

your honour I move to have this article removed from the thread

Denied.

An editor should have shortened that 3 quote rappers making money section.

A editor should also have pointed out that a reference to a mixtape title is not an emphatic confession of ignorance about race.

*rages censoriously*

http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-music/magazines-blogs-or-both-preserving-the-craft-of-music-journalism-in-the-digital-era

Yet from the 60s and even through the 90s, rock journalists were stars in their own right. Music fans followed their favorite writers and knew them by name, as much as they knew their musical heroes' names. Critics walked side by side with the gods, and we relied on them to tell the story. Publications like Rolling Stone, Spin, Creem, and Mojo were sacred texts; they taught us about the true heroes of rock. The men and women who wrote these pieces were their translators, and the gospel is what they wrote.

*against the dying of the write* xp

the rolling link to the tweets at the bottom is a treat

@COCACOLACO
Facebook COO @sherylsandberg empowers & encourages female Coke employees during recent visit: http://t.co/buAZcdN7Vs #CokeUnbottled ^MP

age age

xps the iggy azalea article seemed so unremarkable, I remain curious what ideas you'd need to esteem in order for it to seem heinous

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ms-becky-g-essay-20141006-story.html

"When is that last time you heard a new female rapper break through in the vein of, say, Kendrick Lamar or Frank Ocean?"

If that's the timeframe you're using, Nicki Minaj. Otherwise, this is more of a rap crossover problem than a female rapper problem, but Angel Haze? Shit, despite how much she generally sucks Iggy Azalea would probably qualify, though this article slots her into "empty calories" on grounds of... well, of something.

"What about high-profile female rockers competing with the Black Keys or Jack White?"

The rock charts are not exactly a bastion of female artists (well, they are until they get retconned out, like Lorde and Tove Lo), but: The Pretty Reckless was No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart and currently have a single in the Top 20. Before them were Dead Sara. Really, you could slot half a Vampire Diaries soundtrack into this question. Or Alabama Shakes.

"Surely there are Ed Sheeran types, girl singer-songwriters chasing him up the charts?"

Sara Bareilles? Ingrid Michaelson? Christina Perri? Just because everyone forgets this genre exists (and charts) doesn't make it stop existing.

probably could toss into that last category Colbie Caillat and gee I don't know TAYLOR SWIFT, although I guess she stops qualifying now

"When is that last time you heard a new female rapper break through in the vein of, say, Kendrick Lamar or Frank Ocean?"

just like rapper Frank Ocean

late to the party but i don't get the point of that iggy article, it just seems arbitrary to say "iggy is just a pawn being used by TI, the true villain" like why stop there, why go up one rung of the ladder to TI (with this sort-of implication that he's selling out his race) when TI is pretty far down the ladder himself? "we all hate iggy... but someone else is profiting off of her act!" iggy is also profiting off of it. she was already doing it before TI picked her up. there are "root problems" here and they go far beyond TI and the covery has no interest in actually talking about them directly

"the covery" = "convery" idek

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4148321-kaleidoscopic-love--dis-meets-caribou

So this isn't a 'bad' piece of music journalism - it's pretty bog-standard stuff, not especially insightful, not particularly well written, but it's not insane or offensive or anything dreadful.

But it is littered with typos and errors and just clumsy sentences like this: "Someone who lists ‘crate-digging’ under their their list of hobbies"

And maybe it's the fact that I'm 35 and manage publications for a living and look after a style guide for an institution etc etc, but stuff like that just makes me feel sad now. I read stuff by 23-year-olds (including old stuff by 23-year-old me) and sigh and think "fgs worry less about metaphors and crazy adjectives and more about understandable subordinate clauses and not making errors and being understandable".

#old

Drowned in Sound has always been pretty sloppy, hasn't it? I don't expect any degree of competence from it. The reviews are pure junk writing.

I thought the AV Club Hateclub thing with Mary Timony was good, but the new one, with some comedian, talking about "Pink Houses," is so full of stupid. It's not my favorite song, but her reading of it is totally wrong and she gets all sorts of stuff wrong, especially silly since it's really just a poor man's death of the dream "Born in the USA." Like, she claims right-wingers use it in rallies, and blames the Coug, but the Coug has always told them to cut that shit out. And then the writer and comedian both think the pink house in the song is some sign of individuality, and not, like, a crappy pink house. And then the comedian rips on "Do They Know Its Christmas," which is a fair and easy target, but she does it all wrong, by claiming it's an example of Americans (?!) being up their own asses, even though it's overwhelmingly UK. And then she cites Bono's - who she notes is not American! - blurted "Tonight, thank God it’s them instead of you" as only quasi-ironic. I mean, it's a dumb line, but it's *entirely* sarcastic. And so on.

I never heard that line as sarcasm

maybe mid-80s Bono wasn't the right dude to give your ironic line to

Yeah, that's the totally fair criticism (or any criticism of Bono, really). But do people really hear his "tonight, thank god it's them instead of you!" blurt as an earnest, phew, at least we aren't starving in Ethiopia! I always heard it as Bono sarcastically accusing people of selfishly ignoring the famine as something happening to someone else somewhere else.

its obviously completely sarcastic. and it's it a 100% uk/irish recording?

Except for Kool and the Gang!

I wouldn't call that line sarcastic. It's basically another way of saying "There but for the grace of God go I."

Well, he does say "God."

I just read that Bono and Geldof fought about the line as Bono thought it would be misinterpreted

to be honest I never listened to the lyrics of that song closely. I just kind of hear Bono's voice as signifier for mid-80s hypersincerity.

http://www.liketotally80s.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/best-christmas-song-photostrip.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrdAI3kwIbU

lol yet another article calling frank ocean a rapper

also "shower" is pretty distinctive for a dr. luke production -- and it's wonderful besides.

I am deeply suspicious of poetry professors who own albums by Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/magazine/streaming-music-has-left-me-adrift.html?referrer=

it's little pink houses, plural, for you and me (yeah), how could that be a sign of individuality?

let's just skip that one, please

That article is shit

I am stunned that the opening sentence "It’s hard to imagine now, but there once was a time when you could not play any song ever recorded, instantly, from your phone" appeared on an editor's desk and did not immediately cause the piece to be spiked.

To be fair it could have been worded that way to be a joke.

could we really just not do this

It's not that hard to imagine a time like that

A lot of discussion of this article already on the Millennials Ask Old-Timers thread

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/oct/15/playlist-world-eek-islam-chipsy-souad-abdullah-maurice-louca-faycal-azizi
(The first blurb)

?

Really it was just this line:

The tightly syncopated rhythmical assault is in a lot of ways analogous to carnival or marching musical forms such as soca, New Orleans second-line drumming, dancehall and calypso.

otherwise the writing is fine

so it may not be the worst piece of music writing in the history of the world is what you're saying

Is that a terrible line?

Seems like a very useful article.

IDK it seemed pretty o_O to me -- like what does it have in common with those styles of music other than being syncopated and not by white people?

they all use a marching-style pattern

YES! I've arrived…

http://www.artistdirect.com/entertainment-news/article/feature-5-reasons-logic-s-under-pressure-is-the-best-debut-of-2014/11247386

resonances??

pretty sure resonances is 100% not a word

i mean i'm not sure what we should be expecting from like, artistdirect, but even so woooooooooowwwww.