Is SPIN really circling the drain?

I had an offer to get a year of Spin for like $5 but I didn't and I feel kind of bad, because... Whiney and stuff

denying whiney a five dollar footlong, shame on you

haha

for better or worse i do think that brands that have been around since the print media days (spin, xxl, rolling stone, etc.) still have more 'authority' tied up in their names than a lot of places that get way more hits these days, i don't think getting a 8/10 on @spinreviews instead of in the pages of Spin will really stop people from putting that in their press package or referencing it as a signifier of an album's success/acclaim

tbf, I think Whiney probably gets less than a nickel per new subscription

But what does that mean outside of the world of people who get one-sheets? Things have become a lot more Darwinistic in this respect, much moreso over the past 18 months I'd say.

But what does that mean outside of the world of people who get one-sheets?

it was never really as important as bands thought it was, though in the early 90s a good Spin superlative could literally open doors that were otherwise shut - I namedropped our first Spin mention to a southern California booker 94 after he'd just told me "no openings for a month" and bingo suddenly a space opened up

people more connected now, you could have three consecutive 10/10s from anyplace and the person being asked to book you would still just look at what your actual draw is on data readily available to him & base his offer on that, not on "these guys must be big & I just haven't heard of them"

aerosmith otm, although lately i've been thinking about whether in some ways media/online buzz is becoming MORE important for at least some kinds of artists just because a lot of times people can be a pretty big deal (or at least seem so) w/o having impressive sales figures or even have a single record available through any kind of retailer. like do those acts just book one show, sell it out, and then use those figures to book a whole tour, or are they totally just basing their whole existence off of what sites they've been mentioned on?

i think the immediacy would work in an artist's favor. they can re-tweet a positive spin tweet and the whole world will be tweeting about it. it makes sense.

Underrated aerosmith spin stories I have bought

http://s11.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/t/e/tedtfjbccou2tdj2.jpg

Hey here's a daft idea for what to do with these tweets (maybe someone already does something like this anyhow, i dunno): having a smartphone app that could read the barcode on the back of CDs and bring up the relevant review. If you were in a record store or somewhere, you probably wouldn't want to read something that was more than 140 characters long anyway.

mr. tyler how does it feel to be on the cover of one of spin's infamous 'hiv denier' issues

nickb's making me think of that classic jaymc post about the dorks he saw in a record store picking up CDs and recite from memory what their pitchfork rating was

WR that issue

man SPIN was obsessed with Getting The Facts Straight About AIDS wasn't it

xp that was why I was screaming, I was like "no you guys that's poor science wtf" and the photographer kept spinning out the conspiracy theories and I was like "no no no aaaaaauuuuuughhhh" and then they snapped the pic

true story

nickb's making me think of that classic jaymc post about the dorks he saw in a record store picking up CDs and recite from memory what their pitchfork rating was

it is also dumb because who buys CDs anyway right?

nickb's making me think of that classic jaymc post about the dorks he saw in a record store picking up CDs and recite from memory what their pitchfork rating was

― something may go drown tonight but it ain't gonna be jobs Weingarten (some dude), Thursday, 12 January 2012 15:43 (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

p sure these were pfork writers trying to get as close as they could to the "author in a bookstore" moment

pretty sure CD stores don't exist anymore???

there is one across the street from me! it sucks!

Well, online

i did buy two CDs there a month ago though. despite my distaste for the place.

Really, if they're going to have reviews that short they might as well try to sell the content to a company like Amazon, emusic, or spotify to show in extended album info or in genre/new music roundups.

that classic jaymc post about the dorks he saw in a record store picking up CDs and recite from memory what their pitchfork rating was

I have no memory of this! Are you sure it was me?

yeah maybe it was someone else? thought it was you though, this was probably well over 5 years ago

i have more than one friend who does that. parent-out-with-teenager level of public embarrassment.

Reviews custom printed on coffee mugs, underpants, t-shirts

More long form music crit is good, hooray.

The success of 1000TimesYes year of tweet criticisms was rooted in the fun/preposterousness of it, tho, tiny take-downs and tiny celebrations etc. Whiney's one voice. I don't think it will translate to an ecumenical context.

I don't know, the idea of where people get their news now is just something I've been puzzling out in my head a lot lately.

Me too

Facebook probably

This guy, that guy and this girl posted about Coachella.

i'm facebook friends with lots of people i have written about, and this is a new development for me. i don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing. they seem nice...

i mean i don't really worry about journalistic LINES being crossed or whatever, i'm no journalist, but it still seems weird.

yeah in a weird way the whole web 2.0 'everyone is accessible' thing puts you face to virtual face with the people you're writing about way more often now. it's helpful if you like doing interviews and stuff, doesn't seem to be a problem too often if you don't.

this was probably well over 5 years ago

Oh well, then I suppose it's possible.

oh man I had that Steven Tyler issue - in the HIV/AIDS community that story ref'd on the cover is infamous (and not in a good way)

sorry I see some dude's already made that point carry on

was dave grohl in that issue?

nah spin was about 10 years ahead of the nate mendel curve on that one

i'm facebook friends with lots of people i have written about, and this is a new development for me. i don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing. they seem nice...

In terms of jazz at least, it's helped me out tremendously - I don't have to try and remember who someone's publicist is when I want an interview, I can just message them and see if they're interested. (Jazz musicians very rarely turn down interview requests, btw.)

yeah, the people i've written about are in the noise/weird/whatever camp, and most of them are happy to get a mention anywhere. and are genuinely appreciative of kind words. i just don't want to ever censor myself anywhere cuz so and so is friends with this label or that guy...that kind of thing. i've never had to worry about that at all, cuz i never go anywhere and don't know anybody. but now my, uh, circle has expanded.

http://twitter.com/#!/1000TimesYes/status/157527382905978881

the ivory tower quip obv stupid, but dude makes some salient points imho best of which is that music criticism as consumer guide has been a bankrupt idea for a long time.

xpost loooool

yeah it'd be hard to imagine, say, a publication branding their favorite records as the "best new music" and consumers rushing en masse to check out those records (xpost)

i don't think it's necessarily fiscally bankrupt. i think it's intellectually bankrupt. has criticism ever been quite as explicitly linked to purchasing product as music crit?

I was gonna say, I've heard from more than one record store owner about how they immediately double their stock whenever a Pfork drops a BnM.

::shrugs:: a big part of music writing will ALWAYS be "here is something new that you may not have heard yet, and here is why it is or isn't worth hearing." for better or worse i don't know if there's any getting away from that.

xpost

that's the dominant paradigm of music writing in 2012 but it's not the only kind of music criticism that is done and it's far from the only kind of criticism that is done. like he mentions in his post - you don't read art criticism to decide what art to buy. sometimes you read book reviews to decide what books to buy but often you read the review bc you want to get a survey of the field, or a discussion of the book's themes and you never even intend to buy the book. not to mention all the critical writing about books that you can only really read after you've read the book. film criticism often takes popular form as consumer guide, but that's dying off too and tons of film crit still survives. etc

so it's the dominant paradigm AND a bankrupt idea. got it.