Music Criticism in Video Form

having an army of fans must help of course

Look what it did for Pewdiepie. Or, God forbid, Logan Paul.

i first became aware of him in 2009 because he was one of the first search results for a free jazz record i was obsessed with at the time, throat by little women. imo his initial bump was just because he reviewed so many records

I guess his continued success is also a function of most listeners needing no more than one music critic.

btw a negative point for Spectrum Pulse: having dedicated time to the new Weyes Blood album, he only gave it 6/10, which demonstrates suspect hearing functionality. But as I say, good writer

I mean he's also filling a void that traditional journalism does not serve since there's a particular demo of ppl who find the idea of a rubber-faced man talking at them about King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizzard for 12 minutes appealing, and it can probably be traced to a lot of the same demo that made Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson popular.

As well as the rise of ASMR and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVEdQJ7qtJw

you are correct but damn you for making me see that

That's not even the most upsetting link Whiney has posted itt (see https://youtu.be/LkqsexgTXYg?t=97).

i will not see!

I will make you see! Give in to your inner masochist.

i'll save you some time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk8LoHqHkGI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W2xrjMa_j8

feel like i know many dudes like this dude

I've learned fairly recently that Todd in the Shadows credits the All Music Guide -- and among others both myself and Stephen Thomas Erlewine by name -- with helping him get more interested in music in general as a teenager in the early 2000s. Which was kinda cool to learn, I admit! He's been a good follow on Twitter.

Todd in the Shadows is excellent and has been for many years.

yeah, I give him credit for being a lot more plugged into the music writing world than a lot of similar youtubers

(which sounds super pompous, maybe a better way of putting it is, he seems to give a shit)

'excellent' might be pushing it, unless he's leveled up to a large degree since i last saw some of his videos

He's better than Fantano that's for sure

https://twitter.com/theneedledrop

fantano is having a sincerely excellent 2020, both in terms of the artists he (and of major publications, only he) is boosting, and in terms of his response to what is happening in the US right now

great, be sure to let me know when he apologises for the video where he appears with alt-right shitheads and tells "sjws" to "drink bleach"

lol Fantan-no

the tone of his entire feed seems a p conclusive walkback from that. idk if there was an apology. people can change? idk

yeah, that's not nearly enough.

i wish he was dead

He doesn't exist in my world, but if he's come around, that's a start. Hard to be enthusiastic about an internet nerd who built his empire on alt-right ppl changing his tune, but surely it's better that this is his response instead of amplifying the other side (which a couple of years ago he probably would).

People can change. No it's not enough. But I do not wish he was dead I suppose.

change and improvement are always to be celebrated, and consistent new behaviour means more than apologies

fuck this particular clown-ass doofus obv, going from "alt-right burner account" to "performative wokeness" casts doubt on his sincerity, but y'know, general principles

consistent good new behaviour is fine, but unless he addresses the stuff he made before, we should all be deeply suspicious of his motives. the fact that he has not already apologised and explained his behaviour aside from what amounts to "it was just shitposting, u mad bro?" is very telling about the level of privilege he has been given.

look, among all the woke stuff, he liked this tweet just yesterday

Ezra Marcus wrote an expansive reported story on cult leader Larry Ray for NY Mag. His resume includes a sloppily reported story about @theneedledrop for the Fader filled w/ weird extrapolations/inferences w/o any basis. It got scrubbed from the publication because Anthony sued. pic.twitter.com/SVPtYjKHKI

— safy (@SafyHallanFarah) June 2, 2020

maybe we should ignore him and just listen to the new music he's been boosting. never too early in the morning for horrorcore, especially when it captures the moment so precisely

tbf my continued policy of ignoring this wasteman is unchanged by any political pose he might assume for money

tbf my continued policy of ignoring this wasteman is unchanged by any political pose he might assume for money

^^^

I find Fanta o abhorrent to watch but good on him if he's improving as a person, most "personalities" don't

good on anybody and everybody for working to improve as people but what little i've seen of this guy's criticism suggests it's bloviated garbage so i care about him around as much as i would any youtube "celebrity" which is to say not much

yeah I want to stress I don't watch his videos but the artists he boosts often seem really grateful to him and that's nice. it shouldn't have to be this way - very 'patron of the arts' - but he gives props to people who need them and he has been extremely emphatic and unambiguous on the issue of the current riots (and has constantly retweeted those with the most important voices)

this isn't to say that I wuvs melon - his videos are v not my thing and I find his centrality to the rym discourse almost as irksome's as pitchfork's is or was here - but it feels nice to say that someone with as large an audience as him is speaking up for the oppressed

Fuck a Fanta, but ILX's thinly-veiled Calvinism never ceases to amaze me.

It's entirely possible he's just canny enough to know that there's just no real place for RW views in american music criticism, but even then it's a good sign

Is it a good sign? That white guys can get away with being involved in the alt-right and cynically move on and pretend it never happened, but a black woman does the same to a much lesser extent and she's roundly cancelled?

i have not cancelled doja cat, even if i do not like her music, and you'd be a fool to cancel her over this (i generally dislike 'cancelling' anyway unless they're an unambiguous shithead punching down)

If every day isn't a struggle session for you, you're doing it wrong.

xp not blaming you or anyone on here for that matter, just that this is what makes me sick about fantano.

both in terms of the artists he (and of major publications, only he) is boosting

he still fundamentally sucks at explaining why music is good so i'm not sure why i should care?

lol c'mon Doja isn't 'roundly cancelled' in any meaningful sense of the word, she literally has a Billboard Top 5 hit this week

don't really wanna defend Fantano here cuz I don't care about him much but I'll say this at least. our generation is the one raised on Family Guy, Eminem, South Park, and gruesome internet shit, which I think naturally turns people into edgelords, especially if you've lived through the 90's when people were generally optimistic and it was maybe a bit easier to separate the jokes from real life. especially if you're a teenager growing up in a white town where none of that shit feels particularly real to you. humor is wrapped up in that Borat-era concept of "hah, wouldn't it be funny if anyone took this seriously". edgelords find edgelord communities which are generally incredibly accepting while communities that look down on that sort of behavior are generally not. so you have your tribe. and then, hopefully, you grow up and understand how the world really works, spurned on possibly by the nonstop avalanche of terrible shit that's been happening since 9/11, particularly everything from 2016 on where suddenly the racist cosplay stuff is revealed as actual racism with actual consequences, and then hopefully if you aren't a worthless human being you change. I would've liked to see him actually address the shit he did rather than handwave the whole article away because it was riddled with inaccuracies (which, to be fair, it was) but in general I don't see any indication that he's just playacting a 'woke dude' to make a career in a field that basically does not exist.

like good for him

i remember his participation in alt-right memes very clearly. it wasn't that long ago. but good for him

if some idiot gave the idiot thumbs up to something i happen to like it wouldn't make them a force for good

i also don't think we should be necessarily going out of our way to applaud white guys for being decent allies right now, seems to be beside the point

half this thread feels like people applauding a t-shirt with a picture of Pepe the Frog saying "Black Lives Matter" on it

What would be the most helpful and diplomatic way for him to make amends and express solidarity? Genuinely curious.

could have given Fiona Apple a 10