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

also, it's a little strange to say people are only writing about pop music because that's where the conversation is.
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Thursday, March 10, 2016 9:42 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What's strange about this? The writers who used to make money writing about Robert Pollard and Sebadoh are, for better or worse, no longer able to do that, so they either adapt (become poptimists, write about Lana Del Rey and hip hop mixtapes) or they quit writing about music professionally. If you want proof, email NPR tomorrow and pitch an interview with the Bottle Rockets. I'm not saying you can't make a good living writing for, I don't know, Downbeat or something, but I don't think that would make you part of the "conversation" as we are defining it.

― Jimmywine Dyspeptic, Thursday, March 10, 2016 10:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's strange because there are just as many people who are genuinely interested in pop music and want to write things about it, conversation or no. these people can also listen to robert pollard or sebadoh! it's not impossible!

i write about rap and rap mixtapes & pop music, yet only occasionally does the Conversation reflect the scope of what's happening w/in the genre, there's no way to really be on top of the conversation except by chasing it which leads mainly to dispassionate or fake-passionate writing ime

like, the conversation is more driven by memes and vines and what ian connor reblogged on his soundcloud account and what the few publications with $ at a given time think they should care about than it is the actual fundamentals of what is happening in music

Though I once wrote a review of a Derek Bailey album in which I said that since it was improvised music that had only been played once, I was reviewing it after only listening to it once.

conceptually sound.

I hate that thing that went up on the New York Times website today, for example.

Yeah. The huge circle jerk things like that trigger among music writers on social media is really ugly to me. I enjoyed reading music writing a lot more when I didn't know who the writers behind it were.

seeing that Nabisco-curated symposium at NYT reminded me of all his old "OTM" posts that I only skimmed or skipped outright ;)

become poptimists, write about Lana Del Rey and hip hop mixtapes

whoa I've been doing this all wrong

if you are not part of the conversation you and by extension your future and your career (which involves money, and which most people probably have to find some way to keep going for 30+ years) do not exist.

A different point I know, but is "the conversation" ultimately helping to produce good music writing? I feel like it's causing what was already a greatly diminished art to eat itself into redundancy.

I listened to quite a bit of that Rotting Christ album and didn't hear flute #1.

all this "part of the conversation" talk is giving me flashbacks to my first days at art school when the teacher was challenging us to "be socially conscious" with our art and "start a dialog" and i just wanted to paint some cool stuff.

A different point I know, but is "the conversation" ultimately helping to produce good music writing?

i would argue 'sometimes,' although imo those occasions are becoming rarer and rarer as every angle has to have one of the top ten whatever shoehorned into it. especially since those top 10 are not always entirely reflective of what music people outside of the conversation are consuming. (katherine's points made elsewhere about the lack of critical writing on rachel platten, who had one of the biggest songs of last year, are salient here.)

but more importantly it's pushing other writing that might not fit its contours (and be written by its most prominent participants) even further to the sidelines, which is a net negative

otm

see: Pitchfork getting rid of The Out Door

maura otm but what I'm trying to say also is that it's also reshaping those genres which are ostensibly in the center of the conversation by warping what is valued w/in them. this isn't like pre-poptimism where we bemoan that popular stuff is popular or that our tastes are so different from the mainstream; it's more that the Conversation is driven by memes, not music; that what is shared isn't necessarily even what the general public likes as music but what it likes to share and to participate in as a part of this social media 'culture'

i guess people said that about pop stars n stuff like 'why do you care about costumes n music videos shouldn't it be about the music man' but imo that stuff is Cool but a meme saying LOL Norm Says Drake Killed Meek Mill is not cool its goofy

oh and music writing is forced to reflect this online "culture" rather than music or the culture of music

yes totally

happy fifth anniversary of 'friday' btw

it's a weird echo chamber that's only serving to disenfranchise itself

d-40 otm

it also contributes to ageism, where "ageism" is defined on the hollywood scale.

that said I wouldn't necessarily say it has much to do with the top 10 -- "fight song" was itself top 10! (#6, to be exact.) if you look at the exact top 10 right now it only resembles The Conversation in passing. sure you have bieber and rihanna in there, but also twenty-one pilots (the NYT piece was a bit of an outlier here, as otherwise the only people talking about them are to crack yuks), flo rida, g-eazy/bebe rexha, kelly clarkson and GOOD GRIEF WHEN DID LUKAS "STRIP NO MORE" GRAHAM GET IN THERE.

and sure, the hot 100 has a lot of problems with accurately representing reality (it's near-devoid of non-rihanna hip-hop and r&b, for instance), but it does show the extent to which The Conversation doesn't track exactly to what people actually listen to.

also, in almost all these cases, The Conversation could be replaced, "hastily installed chrome extension"-style, with "the twenty or so people I followed on twitter two ears ago"

tbf there is only so much one can write about 21 pilots, flo rida and lukas graham before temping front desk work at a hedge fund starts to look pretty good

and are hedge funds even looking good these days #thanksObama

katherine the 'top 10' i was referring to wasn't the charts necessarily, but the list of 10 artists who get shoehorned into every headline. who often don't have anything on pop radio! (in part because pop radio has become so depressingly white)

and sure, the hot 100 has a lot of problems with accurately representing reality (it's near-devoid of non-rihanna hip-hop and r&b, for instance), but it does show the extent to which The Conversation doesn't track exactly to what people actually listen to.

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Friday, March 11, 2016 10:24 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf there is only so much one can write about 21 pilots, flo rida and lukas graham before temping front desk work at a hedge fund starts to look pretty good

― ulysses, Friday, March 11, 2016 10:28 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both true facts but you can look more closely at the more widely-considered-listenable artists: the 1975 just doubled the sales of macklemore and kendrick lamar but you wouldn't know it by the press response to either. Of course, macklemore did this (intentionally?) by tapping into a conversation subject that is understandably at the forefront of everyone's minds in the current moment (white priv)

lol i didn't mean kendrick lamar! i meant to write ryan lewis! weirdest brain fart ever

fair enough!

(bieber is a good example, because it's easy to simultaneously get caught in the "HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE BIEBER" rhetoric-blast from writers and "HOW CAN YOU NOT INSTANTLY DISMISS BIEBER" from about 60% of the other people you encounter in the world and the mental effect is a little bit like having two people stand on either side of you and punch you)

also I'm not sure the 1975 is the best example here because a) there's a fuckton of writing on them lately and b) at least some portion of their popularity was from siphoned-away (well, not *away* but still) taylor swift fans

maura otm but what I'm trying to say also is that it's also reshaping those genres which are ostensibly in the center of the conversation by warping what is valued w/in them. this isn't like pre-poptimism where we bemoan that popular stuff is popular or that our tastes are so different from the mainstream; it's more that the Conversation is driven by memes, not music; that what is shared isn't necessarily even what the general public likes as music but what it likes to share and to participate in as a part of this social media 'culture'

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, March 11, 2016 9:06 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess people said that about pop stars n stuff like 'why do you care about costumes n music videos shouldn't it be about the music man' but imo that stuff is Cool but a meme saying LOL Norm Says Drake Killed Meek Mill is not cool its goofy

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, March 11, 2016 9:08 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh and music writing is forced to reflect this online "culture" rather than music or the culture of music

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, March 11, 2016 9:09 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd like to point out that d-40 has been otm in this thread

i think the amount of e-ink spilled on the life of pablo and kanye's weeklong twitter hissyfit and weird release of it is another example of an album that got wrote about more than people actually want to listen to it even now like 2 weeks later

at least some portion of their popularity was from siphoned-away (well, not *away* but still) taylor swift fans

Interested to know more about this. I reviewed the 1975's debut for Alternative Press; have they gotten Taylor Swift's blessing in some way since?

if it bleeds it leads yo

also I'm not sure the 1975 is the best example here because a) there's a fuckton of writing on them lately and b) at least some portion of their popularity was from siphoned-away (well, not *away* but still) taylor swift fans

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Friday, March 11, 2016 10:40 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel like most of this came out after they went no. 1. critics on the edge paid attention but the only publication in the states that gave them a real feature prior was Spin, right? lol

at least some portion of their popularity was from siphoned-away (well, not *away* but still) taylor swift fans

Interested to know more about this. I reviewed the 1975's debut for Alternative Press; have they gotten Taylor Swift's blessing in some way since?

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Friday, March 11, 2016 11:44 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in the tabloid sense, which in music may as well be the same thing

"Even 誤訳侮辱 likes them!" might be a good marketing strategy.

i know someone who was writing about the 1975 in 2013

http://mauramagazine.com/article/554a86c9ada6e2283e75618f/hold_you_tight

who gave you access to my diary??

lol

I just don't understand how it can be possible to be so *on* all the time. I work 38 hrs a week in a day job (and I don't have the luxury of being able to select music or use headphones at a desk, lol retail), I have friends and family I spend time with around that, and then it's a struggle to find time to catch-up on what The Conversation suggests I should be listening to, as well as all the stuff I want to listen to outside it, then form opinions on it and write/blog about it. If I wanted to establish myself as a critical writer, I'd need to throw myself into Twitter culture and it feels overwhelming and exhausting on top of real life. And its easy to say "don't chase the same rainbow, establish your own niche" but there's still bills to pay.

Also I think pop music writing is so big now because it traditionally hasn't been seen as "worthy" due to rockism and patriarchy etc - thanks to the rise of social media, Tumblr, etc, people are finally taking audiences outside of old white men seriously. Like, if Taylor Swift/The 1975 had been around twenty years ago there would have been just as much writing due to the scope of their celebrity, but the tone, style, attitude etc would be very different.

Well, I don't know I feel like artists like Madonna and Prince were written about pretty extensively and seriously at their Peaks. Or Michael Jackson or Janet Jackson, the original "popist" movement of writers were basically UK writers who are now old white men... And people like Kogan, Eddy etc... Hip hop was taken as an important movement pretty much from jump

Jonny Garrett is now assistant editor of jamieoliver.com and reviews craft beers on youtube

it pains me to say this, but I'm not sure those audiences are being taken seriously. I think there's a lot of condescension toward those audiences, which is not the same thing

it pains me to say this, but I'm not sure those audiences are being taken seriously. I think there's a lot of condescension toward those audiences, which is not the same thing

Condescension from whom? I know the shorthand is that Rolling Stone and Mojo and Q (is Q even still around?) sneer at pop and champion past-it old man bands, but is that even true? RS seems to do both with equal fervor - put this month's young sensation on the cover, then turn around and release a "Special Edition" tribute to Keith Richards or whoever. Mojo is Mojo, yeah, but they're no less of a niche publication than The Wire and they know it. It seems to me that the dominant mode of pop music writing - and I don't just mean dominant as in "this is what everyone's doing," but dominant as in "this is everywhere" - is about whoever's at the top of the charts, and it's either blanket celebration or (in the case of Beyoncé and to a lesser degree Rihanna) an attempt to show why buying the same album - or watching the same YouTube video - as ten million other people is somehow a politically insurgent gesture. I mean, if you want to find condescension toward pop audiences, you're pretty much stuck going to ultimateclassicrock.com or someplace, which at that point aren't you basically actively seeking out the thing you dislike, so you can complain that it still exists at all?

*searches for beyoncé on the charts*

it pains me to say this, but I'm not sure those audiences are being taken seriously. I think there's a lot of condescension toward those audiences, which is not the same thing

Condescension from whom? I know the shorthand is that Rolling Stone and Mojo and Q (is Q even still around?) sneer at pop and champion past-it old man bands, but is that even true? RS seems to do both with equal fervor - put this month's young sensation on the cover, then turn around and release a "Special Edition" tribute to Keith Richards or whoever. Mojo is Mojo, yeah, but they're no less of a niche publication than The Wire and they know it. It seems to me that the dominant mode of pop music writing - and I don't just mean dominant as in "this is what everyone's doing," but dominant as in "this is everywhere" - is about whoever's at the top of the charts, and it's either blanket celebration or (in the case of Beyoncé and to a lesser degree Rihanna) an attempt to show why buying the same album - or watching the same YouTube video - as ten million other people is somehow a politically insurgent gesture. I mean, if you want to find condescension toward pop audiences, you're pretty much stuck going to ultimateclassicrock.com or someplace, which at that point aren't you basically actively seeking out the thing you dislike, so you can complain that it still exists at all?

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Saturday, March 12, 2016 2:08 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

condescension from editors, whether it's "these kids will click on anything" or "they won't care if it's good or not."

(and yes, I have heard both these statements and/or variations on them, it's not my reading anything in)

condescension from editors, whether it's "these kids will click on anything" or "they won't care if it's good or not."

Since I'm mostly out of the field at this point (I don't even write for Alternative Press anymore - an outlet that I think really does respect its largely teenage, largely female readership - I'm mostly covering jazz now) I genuinely don't know whether the low quality of current music journalism is attributable to condescension-toward-audiences-presumed-dumb or to the writers and editors themselves being kinda dumb. (There are a lot of currently prominent music journalists and editors who I think are very bad at both thinking and writing.)

It's probably fair to say that if The Conversation involves The 1975, you're probably better off walking away and looking for a different conversation.

you never have!

i don't think i would know the 1975 if they shook a stick at me. maybe i know them from the radio without knowing it.