Pretty Goes with Pretty

tl;dnr

Don't know if you saw it or if you cared about it, but Drowned in Sound dedicated the week to articles on the death of music journalism--perhaps four days too many to cover a subject that I feel has been beaten to death. I'd be curious to know from DiS's stat-counters how popular the series was (compared to other week-long series on, say, slow-core, shoegaze, or alt-country). Personally I feel invested in only one facet of the issue. I don't care much about the ramifications of new technologies, and I don't care much that business models are crumbling; I just care about good writing.

I gather that there are, in fact, two problems at hand. The first (less interesting to me but more interesting to people trying to make a real living off of music writing) is tied to the music industry itself. As the industry dies, so goes the financial viability of all its ancillary industries. Yeah, artists don't get paid. Also, magazines fold or go online, where the advertising opportunities are fewer and less lucrative. So the writers looking for money are, to put it mildly, in a pinch.

The second problem has more to do with the quality, variety, availability, and unfiltered nature of music writing itself, now that so much of it is on the web. One of today's DiS articles, by Ringo P. Stacey, tries to differentiate between the death of "criticism" vs the death of "writing," using as a jumping off point Christopher Weingarten's recent rant (worth a watch if you haven't seen it, though I do have some problems with its content). I think that's a much more worthwhile topic to bellyache over, personally--less the authority of the critic than the pleasures of great prose. I grant that many writers need to worry about getting paid, but writers--and I mean very specifically those of you/us who consider yourselves writers--ought to put quality of output ahead of everything, regardless of platform or paycheck. This is one thing Weingarten says in his rant that I think is right on (though I still loathe Twitter). Were the general quality of music writing on the web to increase, I wonder whether or not everyone's game would raise. Other writers, musicians, fans: everyone. (I'm not trying to put myself above it: I have a tumblr and it's full of half-thoughts. It could be better. I'm also not trying to say that good writing doesn't exist--but it could exist more.)

Stacey ends his article claiming that "to date, although online critics have triumphed, the best music writing is still originating offline." He also claims that there are a lack of good editors when it comes to online writing (true!). Couple that with Ben Myers' "Day in the Life of a Music Critic," also posted as part of the DiS series: "I maintain a blog but it is worthless. Blogging isn’t writing, it’s masturbating." Clearly there's a disconnect happening here. Everyone looks to the web for music, and thus for whatever text accompanies that music, whether it be from Pitchfork or DiS or me or some other amatuer who says little more than "Atlas Sound + Panda Bear OMFGyessssss!" But the guys who consider themselves real writers aren't bringing their A-game to the web--unless they get paid for it! If they don't get paid, then they're not writing, they're masturbating. Great. But FYI the readers don't give a shit whether you got pait for what you wrote or not. They're looking for great content. So let's all think about that when on the one hand "blogs are masturbation" and "all the good writing is happening offline" while on the other "music journalism is dying" because no one reads print mags anymore. Not only that, but most readers/consumers of content are not differentiating between sites with true mastheads and sites done by dudes in their living rooms. If the reader isn't discriminating but the writer is, then the writer is in a pickle.

In the comments to Stacey's post someone complains about the glut of music--too many people can make, record, and disseminate music nowadays for people to keep up with or process. That seems tangential to the present discussion but it does give cause to bring up the parallel--anyone who wants to can write about music nowadays too. I'd actually argue that more people are reading about music today than ever before, thanks to the internet! Unfortunately many of the providers of content don't consider themselves writers, and many who do seem to consider their blog their "side thing," less important and not worthy of quality control. That could have some relation to the sentiment I often hear from the more cynical mp3 hounds out there who think writing about music has become irrelevant now that we can simply listen to anything we want. That misses a crucial point: writing about music is itself an artform. It's not mere utility.

[Related: Tom Ewing did a post today that rounded up a list of newish youngish writers out there. Some I know, others I don't. Worth exploring.]

Let's Not Be Assholes

The news of the day today was that the new Grizzly Bear had leaked—three months before its official release date and apparently of a quality substantially below what the band intends. This post at Idolator, in which people were actually asking Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste outright if he would point them to the link for the leak, or better yet be a sport and leak a higher-quality version, was the most entertaining thing I'd read about it all day, though also the most depressing.

Back in December when the Animal Collective album had yet to leak there were similarly entitled claims, appeals, and threats related to a stupid rickroll that got out of hand. In both cases the moral of the story is this: don't tease indie rock fans. We deserve our music when we want it, without payment. We place no value on a musician's artistry. Albums have become like bounties one can collect on, holding them up and shouting to the masses "LEAKAGE!"

I'm sick of it. It's gotten to the point that it's just... gross. And sad.

I'm not innocent. Though I've never been to a bittorent site or downloaded a full album prior to its release, I have hunted down individual mp3s, often amounting to a full album, through places like Hype Machine. I don't acquit myself of anything. I will say: I've never pointed other people to a full-album download for a record that hasn't come out yet. I've always felt like that was kind of a dick move.

Anyway, the point is, whether I've participated or not, I've typically accepted that that's just the way it is these days. Leaks happen. People get excited and it's there so they download it. But then two weeks ago Touch & Go essentially went out of business. And a bunch of people who care deeply about music—independent music—were laid off as a result. A bunch of smaller labels that depended on T&G's distribution aid were left to figure something else out. It might be too soon, but could some of those smaller labels go belly-up as a result of this?

It sucks! And sure, you can be cynical about it and see nothing new under the sun here—the current climate of downloading is ruining record labels big and small, yawn. And Animal Collective's album leaked but they also hit #13 on Billboard in their first week of release (selling a whopping 24,000 copies... see, it's still sad). And Grizzly Bear may well hit a similar mark. But come on: think about a label like Touch & Go, one of the most venerable indie labels of all time. It's all but gone now. And we're all a bunch of assholes for helping them toward their ruin. You think they'll be the last? You don't have to be the douche twittering in Ed Droste's face to be complicit in all this.

 Chill on the Grizzly Bear and all those other records. Just let them come out when they're supposed to. And if the leaks are out there, don't be the asshole who flashes the big blinking arrow. Let the bands retain a little control over how and when their art is consumed—and for god's sake give them some money. Hype don't pay the bills, bitches.

I'm just a little tired of it all. I feel like someone's parent right now, lecturing on a subject you've been lectured about a million times before. All I ask is you just think a little about what hunting down a leak is all about—or worse, offering a leak to others. You're being an asshole.

It’s a Matter of Trust

It’s the month of lists, you’ve no doubt noticed. It’s an entertaining yet tedious time of year: we get to find records we might have slept on and argue over albums that are underrated or underhated. Maybe it's the lack of galvanizing consensus albums this year, or the oft-repeated complaint that everyone's favorites are too boring, but I'm detecting an odd, if fascinating tone to the usual kvetching this time around. It's not the same old sux/rulz dichotomy: rather, there seems to be a distinct lack of trust, a suspicion of the listmakers' motives.

Over at Idolator, Dan Gibson asked readers—genuinely!— “Have you had any luck yet with the mysterious albums that seem to populate the middle of these lists? Is that Girl Talk disc everyone seems to list any good?” To wonder aloud whether an album frequently appearing on everyone’s list is actually any good says something about Gibson’s lack of faith in his music-consuming peers. It’s doubly amusing considering he is asking the vague entity that is “Idolator readers”—many of whom are probably the same ones putting Girl Talk on their lists. Is Gibson going to feel any more inclined to download Girl Talk based on some commenter’s recommendation? (Not likely, when the next commenter will say it’s overrated.)

I don’t think Gibson is alone. It seems to be assumed by all readers that somewhere on any given top ten list, a gap must exist between the truly outstanding and the merely good. The question is, where is that gap? No one’s list includes that important detail, hence no one’s list is trustworthy. Add to that one's  personal knowledge of how few of 07 picks still get regular play around the house. Surely the same will happen with these 08 releases. All the more suspicious then: these lists must be designed to swindle you out of your time, money, and belief that indie rock can change your life. Right?

Too, we have no reference point: okay, you’ve got a top ten—how many albums did you actually hear? How can I possibly know how discerning you’re being? Shit, you’ve got a top fifty—are you just ranking every album you bought? How can I possibly know how discerning you're being?

It’s easy to mistrust the hobbyist bloggers—all of whom, surely, are too lazy, stupid, or sheeplike to stake out their own personal tastes, independent from the domineering tastes of Pitchfork’s critics or the Machiavellian commercial interests of Stereogum. I mean, it’s one thing for Vampire Weekend and Lil’ Wayne to show up on their lists—it’s in their editorial interests, right? For some reason? Cuz they're pro?—but why would the hobbyists, for whom nothing is at stake, claim to like these albums? They’re clearly drinking the Kool-Aid and can’t be trusted. Right?

Then there are the Kool-Aid dispensers: Pitchfork, Paste, Q, et al. As this ILM thread demonstrates, such lists are to be dissected in order to determine each publication's true motives, for surely it cannot be that they like all these albums. Probably they’re catering to their readers’ tastes—but, predictably, they must throw in a few albums from outside their stock genre in an attempt to display the illusion of critical breadth. So there's a "token" hip hop act, a "token" dance album and a "token" pop album. You see through it, don’t you: these mags are puffing themselves up in hopes you don’t notice how critically corrupt they are. Right?

In further effort to show how on-the-pulse their critics are—because even the publication knows its list is bullshit!—you're made privy to their individual lists. See, staff-derived lists place undue weight on populist albums like that dastardly Fleet Foxes record that appeals to everyone but is no one’s favorite. (right?) So it racks a bunch of points in the staff polling and places high on the list, way ahead of that one actually outstanding album that not enough people spent time with, hence its inclusion on the low end of the top 100. But the individual critics’ list rectifies that! Except that all that amounts to is a bunch of jerks that, other than their inclusion of Fleet Foxes, are just trying to show off how obscure they can be. They’re not being honest—if it were that good, we all would have heard of it. Right?

You can’t win.

What does it mean, as an avid reader of indie music blogs, that you suspect the motives of every blogger you read? Can no one steer you right? Is every blog's purview too limited/populist, too wide-ranging/obscure, too professionalized, too amatuer? Must you depend on Largehearted Boy’s list of lists to surmise some nebulous overall endorsement of ten supposedly outstanding records? Maybe you do. Maybe that’s also why so many people view this year’s indie releases as boring. Reading so many reactions to the lists that have come up so far is like seeing a mass realization that the trainspotters we depend on aren't flagging down the right cars. (Don't look at me: when  I get around to posting my list, you’ll see some of those boring releases, too.) How's that Stephen Stills song go? If you can't find the blog you trust, trust the blog you're with?

I don't really know what it all means. I just sense some collective feeling that indie rock—or was it the critics and bloggers?—let us down this year. Or we let ourselves down, by not trying a little harder to find that album that really meant something—to me, to us, to music. It's probably out there: who found it? Pipe up!