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

i am gonna be the guy who says, “why is anybody surprised that this guy is among the biggest assholes ever, and the Times is doing puff pieces for him”

If that's supposed to be a "puff piece", I really want to see the guy's hatchet jobs because uh, this is exposing Wenner's assholishness to entirely new audiences, going by what I'm seeing on social media.

they would've gotten someone other than marchese if they wanted a puff piece

Yeah. NYT interviewer went pretty hard during that section, at least

lol the preview text and the headline definitely made it seem like a puffy, i didn’t read it cuz fuck Jann Wenner

The interview is the definition of give em enough rope

We have a new contender in this review of Boston Lyric Opera’s updated production of Madama Butterfly:

https://www.classical-scene.com/2023/09/18/correcting-butterfly/

Among all the horrors of war, the experience of Japanese Americans in camps seems relatively mild. Yes, 1,800 people died from medical problems while in the camps and about one out of every 10 of these people died of tuberculosis—the given cause of death for Cio-Cio-San’s baby in the current version. How many would have died had they remained in San Francisco’s densely populated Japantown?

I’m amazed that this was written and published without the author ever rereading it and thinking “is this REALLY the hill I’m dying on today”

It reads like he accidentally pasted Facebook group posts he made under an anonymous account

that is an amazing passage in a review of a 120yo opera anywhere

It’s an updated production that moves the setting to San Francisco in the 40s so there’s context that makes it comprehensible but nothing about it actually makes sense

I got too out of breath trying to find the end of the sentences in the first paragraph and gave up.

Don’t ever upset the opera queens.

Counterpoint: upset the opera queens as often as humanly possible

that part that omar quoted is

O_O

Why did BLO depict the Poston camp with a sharpshooter in a guard tower taking aim at Suzuki during an argument? A Wikipedia article on the Poston camp said that “the site was so remote that authorities considered building guard towers to be unnecessary.” Did the conceit lay a guilt trip on us?

of all the things I expected to show up in this thread, "interning japanese-americans during ww2 was good, actually" was not one of them

You’d think “internment camps are bad” would be considered fact at this point in time but you don’t expect “but they weren’t THAT bad” as a kicker

lol the comments are getting lively now

claims he's not taking down posts for any reason other than valid emails, took all three of mine down within seconds!

lmao

lol

"Ashley"

The eleven singers (six of whom had Asian-sounding names)

lmao

It’s the job of a journalist to question received wisdom, event sometimes when he personally agrees with it

also the writer responded to someone who criticized the piece by saying "you didn't seem to take umbrage when we reviewed your performances positively in the past!" like....what?

"we gave you a good review, you have no right to criticize us!"

lol so my comments eventually got posted. it's ridiculous - their 'verification' system isn't automated.

not long after you post the comment, it disappears, then you get an email that someone manually writes to you saying "Is this you?" and nothing else, and if you reply "yes" they say thank you and post the comment

What comment is yours, actually?

(There’s a Facebook thread of people tracking vanishing comments and it would be good to point them to it so it’s clearer that dude is 100% fossil)

lol mine is "Peter Bobles"

We got a live one here!

https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/05/taylor-swifts-popularity-is-a-sign-of-societal-decline/

They just don't make 'em like Tom Petty any more.

Petty was obviously very masculine and a baby boomer

Unlike, say, Taylor Swift or Barack Obama.

this horrible seeming website that I already regret giving a click to also provided me with a pop up ad about open carry permits #onethread

lol at twitter account “heminator”

Still, someone who truly, deeply cares about the state of popular music has to stand athwart Taylor Swift, yelling “what is this @#?!,” and it might as well be an intellectually dyspeptic Gen X guy with nothing to lose.

ahhhhhahahahahaha

he wishes

Negative partisanship is making me a fan of Taytay

let's anticipate

Pondering a column about Taylor Swift and American conservatism, pray for me.

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 26, 2023

i've been so ponderin with a column every day tay won't say that we've fallen

People say Swift is a good songwriter but have you considered The Beatles?

This might be the most absurd claim I've ever seen, no one ever wrote songs about how their ex was bad until Taylor!

To that end, she has almost wholly pioneered a new genre of what an acquaintance of mine calls the “bellyaching about a boyfriend” song.

yeah weird that Swift came out of Country Music where that kind of song is never written

there is obviously space for thoughtful countering of taytay's cultural supremacy. feel like this guy might not quite bring that

maybe the experience of seeing grown adults fantasising about her swinging the next US election to the Dems was the real critique all along

they'll be begging her to run next!

you laugh, but she's having a real impact as far as I can tell

I for one welcome a future in which our leaders are determined by pop stars

Guy needs to hear "Here, My Dear" by Marvin Gaye