I know that reviews have affected my curiosity and purchasing so I know this statement is false. But beyond that, I would venture to say that my relationship to the sphere of opinion about music is as complicated as my relationship to music itself. The idea that there is a mythical standard unit of opinion that creates a standard unit of market activity is absurd. There is a rich contextual element at play in both realms, music and "reporting" about music. A workable name for that element is: culture. Culture makes the balls bounce "funny" (unless, as a participant, hip to the context, one has insight about why the balls will bounce that "anomalous" way).
There's a lot more to say about how culture works. But what's important is that the various practices that make up a "professional", "bankable" "market-oriented" "investment opportunity" must NECESSARILY be blind to new cultural formations that thrive ONLY BECAUSE they destabilize the contextual pattern of the existing cultural order. "It's so out it's in!"
Pitchfork is Rolling Stone. Whatever the next Pitchfork is will be blinded its institutional success and become the Rolling Stone of its time. This pattern of contextual catastrophe is endless, but also, in the right light, alive and fun.
I know that reviews have affected my curiosity and purchasing so I know this statement is false. But beyond that, I would venture to say that my relationship to the sphere of opinion about music is as complicated as my relationship to music itself. The idea that there is a mythical standard unit of opinion that creates a standard unit of market activity is absurd. There is a rich contextual element at play in both realms, music and "reporting" about music. A workable name for that element is: culture. Culture makes the balls bounce "funny" (unless, as a participant, hip to the context, one has insight about why the balls will bounce that "anomalous" way).
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot more to say about how culture works. But what's important is that the various practices that make up a "professional", "bankable" "market-oriented" "investment opportunity" must NECESSARILY be blind to new cultural formations that thrive ONLY BECAUSE they destabilize the contextual pattern of the existing cultural order. "It's so out it's in!"
Pitchfork is Rolling Stone. Whatever the next Pitchfork is will be blinded its institutional success and become the Rolling Stone of its time. This pattern of contextual catastrophe is endless, but also, in the right light, alive and fun.
(I mean, until the oceans are dead.)