pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

i'm still waiting for the day when i can find an affordable copy of uncle sam's curse. by above the law. on vinyl OR cd. it hasn't happened yet.

the ABBA thing today is so bad, jeez

skimmed, landed on this sentence, wtf:

This is how ideology works: by presenting a convincing, sometimes disingenuous account of your culture and identity.

this piece is straight bonkers!

i took the headline "A band beyond taste" as an indication that it would be more bullshit narrative wankery that is 100% about rock criticism and 0% about music.

ABBA rules because it's songs rule, this is why they are huge. taste has nothing to do w it.

seeing "The Pitch" right under the headline = skip this article

:'(

I like the detail of the writer being this jaded/cool at age "6 or 7":

When “Dancing Queen” kicked in, my response was not active resistance but ambient distaste. Sounds like a classic, I thought, instantly forgetting it existed.

ABBA is one of those bands that I admire/respect in theory but never, ever have the urge to actually listen to

mostly listen to ABBA when I feel like dancing but also sometimes when I really wanna rock out to this jam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf7xZhzgF7A

my favourite ABBA atm is ‘Eagle’ which I only recently realised sounds like it could’ve been made by some obscure folk rock band like Trees or Mellow Candle or someone

When I was 6 or 7 I loved pretty much any song I was listening too.

dancing queen is the pinnacle of all pop music. it's scary, almost psychedelic

Zaireeka rules. Played it with 3 at my buddies - dove tailed into a k hole and called it a day. Deserves a 8 at least

Best ABBA is solider

“Ring Ring” or gtfo

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/what-chelsea-manning-is-listening-to-right-now/

I’m, uh...not sure of what to make of the fact that this exists.

This was on a playlist I made in 2015 [while in prison]

🤔

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/40063/1/how-reviews-affect-artists-mental-health

this piece is bad

leavebritneyalone.mp4

That is a weird article and I read nothing but weird responses to it after it was posted yesterday.

I think it's a good line of query but that article was missing all the targets, a little more focus and research would've been useful

i.e. There is a neurological reason as to why "creative" people struggle with perceptions of their selfhood, and why commentary-- not just professional reviews, but Youtube comments, random tweets, and off-hand comments from family members at Thanksgiving dinner-- tends to cause an inordinate amount of internal upheaval. It's been studied and it could have been researched and commented upon.

or, i.e. There is also a tendency in music writers to, essentially, write like toxic fans. There is less an engagement with the work, and more of a desire to exert control over the artist who created it-- or a desire to assert one's own selfhood in the criticism. Sometimes music writers transcend this?

My favourite song is when a music writer/critic finally releases their long-awaited first book and then has "an emotional moment" on Facebook because they've never had to face criticism-of-their-work before. Suddenly, these new authors realize that their prospective readers are not only interacting with their talent and viewpoint, but also responding to their appearance, their age, their id, their history of poorly-chosen words, the circumstances of their book's release, comparison to other similar books, commentary on the jacket and blurbs, remarks about the author's family history, remarks about what the critic had to eat before they read the book, or mutual friends with the author that the critic happens to know (and attendant anecdotes), and then the first-time author feels shocked and appalled that a commentator might be judging them based on criteria beyond their control. It's my favourite song! despite my love and care for these writers/authors it feels somewhat vindicating to be like "you see? you see how crazy it is to 'make work you're proud of' but then have that work be subject to 'judgement of your selfhood'?"

r, i.e. There is also a tendency in music writers to, essentially, write like toxic fans. There is less an engagement with the work, and more of a desire to exert control over the artist who created it-- or a desire to assert one's own selfhood in the criticism. Sometimes music writers transcend this?

It's a tendency that goes back further, I think. When I was younger I was enraptured with Oscar Wilde's "The Critic as Artist," in which he asserted (among many other things) that the artist exists for the critic, not the other way around.

I think the article had a lot of good points to make about all the clueless white know-nothings running amok in our improbable media bubble, but the fact that this piece somehow conflates that with a mental health problem is what makes the article v strange. I think if it was just called Music Writing Sucks Now, it would have hit its target, but (and, let's be clear, I blame an editor, not the writer) it was shoehorned into a box for MENTAL HEALTH WEEK on DAZED DIGITAL.

clueless white know-nothings running amok

does this fail to describe any age of music writing

they've never had to face criticism-of-their-work before

at first i was like “how is this even possible anymore” but then i suppose the public event of putting out a book is more comparable to putting out an album than writing a piece that got withering twitter comments

xp @ Alfred lol I hate that essay. Wilde plays all the same rhetorical games that J*rdan P*terson does. Drop an unresearched stinkbomb, proclaim the idea to be dangerous "ah but are not all ideas dangerous?" then grow weary of the discourse and propose instead that we look at the roses and the amaranth as the sun rises

@ Brad ya it's a very specific experience! It is uniquely dehumanizing

@ Whiney there is a distinct connection between "the creative act" and "a mental health phenomenon"-- one that I've only learned about casually in therapy and online reading-- but has been described to me as the link between "creative states" and "manic states" in people with bipolar disorder. In a sentence: it is hard for creative people to hold on to any fact and believe it to be actually true; they will flip-flop, second-guess themselves, redefine their relationship-to-their-self. But yeah, that article was not about that

it is hard for creative people to hold on to any fact and believe it to be actually true; they will flip-flop, second-guess themselves, redefine their relationship-to-their-self

kinda ot, but it was nice to see this written out, not to make this about my own horseshit but i’ve been kinda locked inside this dynamic lately, so thank you fgti

My therapist (background in neurology) told me that there is a part of the brain whose job it is to decide what is "true" and what is "false"-- creative people, people with bipolar symptoms, and people with full-blown bipolar disorder? this part of the brain underperforms. It can create unstable relationships to one's selfhood, cause rumination (constantly replaying events to try and re-establish the accuracy of conclusions one has already arrived at), and-- most importantly-- drive a person toward being creative, conceiving of things that are not but could be? or something. It's all the same brain thing

it is hard enough for creative people, they are their own biggest critic. i think on some level the push to create comes from a constant desire to do better, to surpass all of the flaws they are painfully aware of. that this dovetails with self esteem or mental health issues makes perfect sense. but yeah that is all internal dialog during/after the creative process.

as for external/critics/reviews/etc. i would be shocked if most artist pay close attention to it at all. and if they are sensitive enough to be damaged by external reviews then no doubt they have already been through those arguments/criticisms with themselves and by the time it hits print it's just salt in the wound.

imo it has absolutely nothing to do with seeing things as "true" or "false"

Kinda xpost with Brad, but all of this "pity the poor creative person with their mental problems" BS overlooks the fact that writing is a creative act. Most music critics are every bit as self-loathing as any fucko with a guitar. As someone else said on Twitter, the writer wants critics to see artists as human beings but the feeling doesn't seem to run the other way.

xp It's not "seeing things as true or false", Adam, but the part of the brain that fixes truth and falseness within one's brain. "My partner loves me," "my work is useful," "life is worth living," "discourse on ILX is a good use of my time," these ideas are constantly being tested and re-evaluated within my weird brain, instead of decided upon and set aside to simply exist as constant truths (or lies). It's an inability to make draw conclusions and stick to them, basically

@ unperson "writing is a creative act" yes it definitely is but there is a vast gulf between ["spending two years recording an album/writing a book" + "reading a review that wilfully misses the point of my work" + "wondering if I'm going to need to get a part-time job as a result"] and ["writing a review" + "reading the comments" + "wondering why other people are getting all the otms and not yourself"]

"White men and women are often deeply unqualified to cover certain forms of music. White people had a good run covering genres like rock and indie, which were dominated by musicians that looked like them."

"Jenna Wortham’s piece on Janelle Monae managed to ask probing questions of its subject, and frame critical moments sensitively, because it was a queer black woman writing about a queer black woman. I would love to see all criticism come from a similar place of empathy and reflection."

When do we get the definitive list of which "forms of music" each race should be allowed to write about?

I love the idea of diversity in critical voices, and I do think we're moving closer to it. Well informed and thoughtfully considered criticism has value from all perspectives. But this article literally says they'd like ALL criticism to come from someone who looks like/has a similar background to the artist? Yeah, I can't agree with that.

Critic and artist and the audience will never agree on intentions, though.

Kinda xpost with Brad, but all of this "pity the poor creative person with their mental problems" BS overlooks the fact that writing is a creative act. Most music critics are every bit as self-loathing as any fucko with a guitar. As someone else said on Twitter, the writer wants critics to see artists as human beings but the feeling doesn't seem to run the other way.

― grawlix (unperson), Friday, May 18, 2018 9:41 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it also overlooks the fact that this is a low-water mark in recent memory for the public's attitude toward the media, and while music critics aren't getting body-slammed by greg gianforte, if you're going to make the argument that "career prospects are fleeting and intangible. Our nerves are shot already from the constant self-doubt that haunts every living, working artist, and it can be a push over the edge to have someone attack you in the centre of your vulnerabilities" then you should stop and ask whether this exact argument applies to writers and journalists

like Those friends are still out there, often overthinking their work, because the devil on their shoulder is now in residence, likely re-broadcasting the very worst of what was said. yes I am fucking aware of this phenomenon, I did not need to be informed of its existence

also, "why other people are getting the otms" absolutely has an effect on whether writers get work in the future, considering that "social media following" or some derivation thereof is a prerequisite for most media and creative jobs, and considering that in reality most of the people giving said otms are people with hiring power.

I hope that I didn’t seem at all unsympathetic to the realities of being a freelance writer— quite the contrary. Just that “interacting with institutional criticism” is quite different from reacting to reacting to more casual (but still career-trajectory defining) systems of evaluation

All in all the larger problem is self-evident imo— how can any creative person expect to be “sane” when their livelihood and well-being is not defined by “how good is their relationship with Karen from HR” but by Reddit threads, think pieces, and page views?

In short: if the rent/income quotient was lower we’d all be saner and more capable of processing critical response

also, "why other people are getting the otms" absolutely has an effect on whether writers get work in the future, considering that "social media following" or some derivation thereof is a prerequisite for most media and creative jobs, and considering that in reality most of the people giving said otms are people with hiring power.

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Friday, May 18, 2018 9:13 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTFM. Lately I'm paranoid when my high-profile work doesn't get shared/liked a lot. I really have zero interest in being on Twitter but sometimes wonder "would more people read me if I were on Twitter? would more pitches be accepted/considered?"

you and katherine otm

"would more people read me if I were on Twitter? would more pitches be accepted/considered?"

1. no 2. maybe but not worth it

I don't think Twitter's ever done a damn thing for me professionally. But my first paid byline was in 1996, so I'll defer to others who've grown up neck-deep in shit.

as a non-writer and less-interested reader these days, I tend to read articles and reviews shared by friends or friends-of-friends more often than I just browse around sites

just to give a small example, I released a creative project the other day and I am fairly sure 80% of the people who have seen it saw it via twitter. (not necessarily my twitter, but RTs)

idk the last time i used twitter (2015?) i basically came to the conclusion that it's worthless for self-promotion unless you're already established. ymmv. so much noise

I don't read much music criticism anymore but my impression is that, at the most prominent publications at least, it's generally pretty nice? I mean, isn't that one of the big complaints you hear about criticism nowadays, that pubs have such little leverage with artists that you rarely see truly scathing reviews anymore because it might jeopardize their ability to have future access to that artist or even a whole label?

That's not to say I don't regret things I wrote when I was younger that were snide and flippant and dismissive, and I think trying to meet an artist on their own terms and take them seriously is always the best approach, I just feel like that IS the approach most of the better critics take these days, and that wasn't always the case.

Unless this all just about random dickheads with shitty blogs and readerships in the triple digits.

Link pls!

Off topic but Twitter and Facebook and any site that presented “user specific” content is terrible for ones mental health; I’m trying to stick with newspapers and “clicking every thread on ILX” methods to let my brain expand outside of internet echo chambers