pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Sounds like someone does not remember Northern State

The average critic's review only generates a few thousand hits, but everyone who clicked on the link joined ILM.

I voted for Gore

music criticism was already like 90% of the way dead in 2009. now it’s like 99.99%

100% opposite of this is true fwiw. music criticism has all but vanished from the world and people’s music tastes are less idiosyncratic than ever. the world is awash in middlebrow lcd gruel. people liked to complain about them but critics, tastemakers, hipsters etc were good. also the pitchfork scores are fun and quite informative if you know how to read them imho

― flopson, Sunday, November 5, 2023 5:35 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

100% otm

Average listeners are being exposed to decades and decades of obscurities that have reached them via smart music supervision and algorithmic buoyancy.

I think this is true, but I also think this reliance on prestige tv music supervision and algorithmic buoyancy can engender an incredibly superficial relationship with music. Then again, you did say average listeners.

like if you transpose this to film, would anyone argue “people should just scroll netflix and watch whatever idiosyncratic garbage they find there” and that critics like pauline kael roger ebert—or just the random critic in any local news paper before that industry died—would occasionally have some influence in getting random ppl to go see something new and good they wouldn’t otherwise. seems obviously wrong, because it is. true for music too

the music in prestige tv (the curation of which is complete shit) is a good example of a negative consequence of the degradation of music criticism in society. the fact that that feeds into peoples music tastes is a feedback loop into yet more crap. critics were better gatekeepers

Ppl seem really into “film” these days though! To a degree that surprises me

kids must be lost at sea these days without robert christgau to tell them who's fuckable and who's a prude

I’ve also found some really good and (genuinely “artistic”) movies on streaming services that I never would’ve heard about otherwise, and I have to imagine the same thing is happening with music for some folks…

Male kids never read reviews -- too busy in school figuring out who's fuckable.

That doesn’t take so long

merriweather post pavilion was a bit overrated, but “my girls” is an incredible song. 2009 was a weird time in music, but even the modal critic wasn’t entirely wrong

“combining music that isn’t supposed to go together” is the essence of og hipster ideology

some of the post punk/whatever u wanna call it music that young people make now is quite good, and those bands would be more popular and would be able to make more money if a media ecosystem with prominent music critics existed. much harder for bands who generate buzz today to get off the ground

My generation was toughened up by having to read two-star ratings and single-line toss-off reviews of great records in the Rolling Stone Album Guide. All the 9.1 retrospective reviews in the world will never allow us to forget.

it’s super weird because I used to go to somewhat fringe music festivals with a lot of acts I hadn’t heard of that I’d listen to ahead of time or get into after attending. I didn’t make it out to much of anything this year but the festivals I missed had a lot of acts I do know, from other artists and friends mentioning them on instagram, bandcamp articles, curated (and sometimes algorithmic) playlists on streaming

then I ride in my friend’s car and she’s pleased by a spotify playlist it made for her that’s playing mid-00s fare

weird!

lol fwiw I missed a couple posts while writing and my friend’s spotify auto-generated playlist included “my girls”

the idea that people left to their own devices to trawl some streaming archive or other platform will watch or listen to good stuff is a fantasy. everyone i know who watches lots of good films, listens to lots of good music, is also interesting in reading criticism, following some curators, djs, or other tastemaker/gatekeepers. partly because they’re intelligent and curious people, but also for the obvious reason that it’s an efficient and reliable way of aggregating lots of information

But that’s social media and that’s vibrant, right?

the idea that people left to their own devices to trawl some streaming archive or other platform will watch or listen to good stuff is a fantasy. everyone i know who watches lots of good films, listens to lots of good music, is also interesting in reading criticism, following some curators, djs, or other tastemaker/gatekeepers. partly because they’re intelligent and curious people, but also for the obvious reason that it’s an efficient and reliable way of aggregating lots of information

― flopson, Sunday, November 5, 2023 3:52 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is 100% true, ime. a friend of mine who is 18 years older than me and i were talking about this the other day— while we're both not young any more, we follow music actively and voraciously, whereas many of our peers seem to have stopped caring in their mid-to-late 20s. frankly, it's fine with me and i'm not complaining, but the argument that streaming allows people to actually engage with stuff they wouldn't normally hear otherwise is, simply put, wrong.

also re: 2009— it was a pretty good year for house and techno, if my memory serves. that was the year i began working for XLR8R.

Those ppl wouldn’t be reading music reviews either

even if you grant that older millenial pitchfork critics have been supplanted by a new vanguard of young cool kids who make garish mashups or w/e, that's ultimately just an inter-micro-generational narcissism of small difference among the top percentile of music nerds. criticism is arguably irrelevant among this group who are getting it "straight from the source" (going to shows, parties, socializing with other ppl into music). criticism had a broader impact among the bottom 99 percent. the notion of something being "critically acclaimed" as separate from commercially successful shaped what stuff people were willing to try out, which then went on to influence their tastes. nowadays people have a naive belief that taste just exists in some ambient space. they say things like "people can listen and figure out if they like it why do they need a critic"--imho the people who say this are deeply wrong, and dumb

yeah but critically acclaimed stuff is often garbage so where does that leave us

Commenting on a message board.

I do read criticism btw that's partly why I came here but critics have frequently lagged behind both mass culture and subcultures when it comes to recognising the most vital and interesting music of their times

also this implied listen to the gatekeepers or surrender to the market dichotomy is just as nonsensical as it was when people were using it during the r****** vs p******** wars

critically acclaimed music is pretty good. like i have my own tastes that diverge from critical consensus in some respects, but pretty often i'll re-listen to something i thought was overrated and find that it was actually good all along. so i err on the side of giving critics the benefit of the doubt on the downside. like for the longest time i thought i didn't like planxty, turns out i was wrong and i actually love planxty. that may not be a good example, i dont actually know how critically acclaimed planxty are (i'm not irish)

Alfred you're a good critic even though I disagree with half your opinions so I'm not saying all criticism is shit but I have no desire to return to the days of old p4k, wenner stone, nme ladrock etc

most of the canon is alright I guess but plenty of stuff it leaves out is better

but critics have frequently lagged behind both mass culture and subcultures when it comes to recognising the most vital and interesting music of their times

subcultures: it wouldn't be the vanguard if no one was behind \o/

mass culture: i agree that the poptimist critics are right and rockism is wrong

also, since you brought up christgau earlier, he was one of the first critics to write positively and seriously about hip hop

i kinda think we have the opposite problem and mainstream critics/follow-on rubberneckers catch on too quickly to cool subcultures and blow up the spot

Who’s up for: Listening thread: every tack on Spotify

also, since you brought up christgau earlier, he was one of the first critics to write positively and seriously about hip hop

Agree with flopson. I think people confuse a call to bring back gatekeeping as a call to bring back the racist & sexist hierarchies that existed in the production of “prestige” but with critics gone (for example) the production of (sexist and racist) prestige continues without them… even critic-figureheads are produced by critical-audiences in the shape of ie Fantano, to continue producing the required slanted Prestige … instead of a community of writers you end up with symbolic audience whisperers for whom parasocial relationship takes over the entirety of the critical role… people rally around a micro celebrity figure who mediates their existing biases via performance

The loss of gatekeepers isn’t simply about critics. It’s also about DJs, independent label heads, etc, anyone who has a major curatorial role is relegated to Bossy Curator in the mind of the average consumer who thinks They Know Better “discovering” music marketed to them through algorithmic and influencer channels, through wildly untrustworthy mediums, through manipulations of social news sites (tmz akademiks popcrave) or even the news itself

Grear independent minded or iconoclastic curators are stuck putting together playlists for six of their friends who trust them, compete with social media influencers for spots as djs, compete with finance bros for spots running labels, generally have been marginalized by an ecosystem that treats them as The Man

This is as true within the communities typically known for being sources of culturally innovative music and art as it is in the realm of “very online indie” or whatever that most people probably think of as critic music

agree with flopson, too

Don’t read anything he wrote about early ‘90s gangsta rap if you want to keep using this argument
― The SoyBoy West Coast (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, 5 November 2023 10:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lolol

people can listen and figure out if they like it why do they need a critic

I think people have always made this argument and just never bothered to consider there were market forces and curators involved in getting that music from the people who made it to their ears. There’s payment for placement on streaming and promotion driving you to a soundcloud

It's easy to find things on streaming services that flatter your tastes. Not so easy to find things that are fresh and new and outside your comfort zone.

It's only anecdotal, but as far as what "kids" are listening to, I have kids (granted, now older kids) and I always ask them how they learn about new music. Most of the time, afaict, it's drawn from the social media zeitgeist. Tik Tok videos, TV soundtracks, maybe commercials, that sort of thing, but of course also playlists and whatever the algorithms suggests. The fact that so many of them listen to the same stuff - like, I dunno, Gracie Abrams or Sabrina Carpenter or Madison Beer or Melanie Martinez or Suki Waterhouse or any number of people I've never really heard but assume don't get played on the radio or get high profile reviews or whatever - makes me think the zeitgeist (or whoever underwrites it) has been pretty effective at consolidating their tastes. Needless to say, they also listen to Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo and Lana Del Rey and Kacey Musgraves, but also sometimes stuff like, I dunno, Miranda Lambert or Zach Bryan, who I can see popping up on a Kacey playlist. I have no idea why both of my kids know the words to Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride," though.

It drives me a little nuts that with almost unlimited options and paths they kind of follow the safest one, but I suspect I (and many of us musically restless listeners) remain the outlier.

D-40 otm

Break My Stride was used in Stranger Things

A thing I wonder after seeing all these kids movies that use 90s hip hop, if there will be a generation that knows more about De La Soul than Drake.

Spotify is the biggest "curator" out there and it's depressingly weak, repetitive, artists are forced to play the game, etc. The enthusiasm of individuals has always been where it's at, either coming from the best critics or sites (pitchfork at its best and many of the critics there who are also here on ilm, resident advisor, unperson writing on jazz, a few others), extremely thoughtful and deep-diving labels releasing either new or old music, compilation geniuses like Bob Stanley, college radio djs, etc. Bandcamp is pretty solid too, though we'll see where it's headed now.

This does all go for film as well, and curated services like Criterion channel are so crucial these days as more incisive critics get thrown over for dimestore amateur hour scribes who are hired to write pieces telling you to be excited by a random assortment of ten landfill movies that are coming to Netflix/Amazon/etc this month.

Lots of revelations on that front lately, from people setting up blogs separate from their day job in order to do Rotten Tomatoes reviews that boost garbage movies to the HBO exec telling his employees to make burner Twitter accounts and Deadline commenter accounts to fire back against critics that hurt his feelings

oh yeah, social media has its own form of film canon creation, but it's more along the lines of "What is the most badass scene in cinema?" followed by 200 Tarantino gifs.

in my day we didn't have gifs we just injured each other trying to recreate scenes from action movies

Back before cameras, that's how action legends were passed down from generation to generation. Just people kicking each other in the crotch.

a lot of these trends are indeed bad but people are having all kinds of other conversations including ones that were hard or impossible to have in whatever the golden age was

and so many people who mostly rely on steaming for music are also sharing each other's weird noise projects and making their own music with whatever's available

I'm rarely the least pessimistic person but there is so much great music being made all the time within and outside of these structures so some of the doom and gloom feels a little premature. maybe not with film? it doesn't mean as much to me as music so idk what's going on there a lot of it doesn't sound good

Relevant to this convo: https://dirt.fyi/article/2023/10/the-state-of-music-criticism

The fact that so many of them listen to the same stuff (…) makes me think the zeitgeist (or whoever underwrites it) has been pretty effective at consolidating their tastes.

Josh, do you feel like kids generally had more diverse tastes when we were the same age?