the fall and rise of the taste-maker critic

Some see the demise of the taste-maker critic in music journalism as a positive - "I have a secret to tell...it's okay to like ANYTHING!!! The age of the tastemaker is OVER. It's all yours. Now go explore!" writes one embittered prog rock fan on Facebook (8.43pm, 21/6/09), "P.S. Don't listen to old farts whose opinions were given to them back in the late 70s by punk bores. You can make your own choices. Trust yourselves."

Thank Bangs that folk haven't entirely given up on taste-maker critics in games journalism, then. This link is genius (thanks Lloyd). Some great insights from Kieron here.

Look out for a forthcoming web 2.0 series based around "the death of the critic", curated by myself and featuring Kieron, that bloke from Mogwai, possibly Simon Reynolds, a couple of university academics and numerous ex-Plan B sorts, among others. I'll keep you posted.

death of the critic (reprise)

There are some really excellent arguments around the whole 'death of the critic' argument (particularly when applied to web 2.0 and what some commentators are calling 'the death of print') posted right here. The blog comments are equally as incisive.

P.S. Equally, much of the most interesting stuff on this blog is contained within the comments.

the immediate aftermath

...and now, of course, the two most popular posts on my music blog are this and this - proving, if nothing else, the old adage that sex and death sells. I haven't had enough to time to assimiliate the barrage of comment that has followed Plan B's demise...but it's interesting to note that the overwhelming majority of it is occuring within specifically web 2.0 environments, particularly on Twitter and in the blogosphere - none from the mainstream whatsoever (aside from a cursory mention or two in trade journals).

There again, why should The Guardian (for example) write about Plan B's demise? They weren't exactly quick to pick up on the death of this guy, either.

Plan B Magazine R.I.P.

Plan B Magazine R.I.P.

challenges to the dominant ideology of rock criticism

Top passage by your man Chris Atton, in his article, "Writing About Listening: alternative discourses in rock journalism".

"During the 1990s there arose 'a growing conformism of journalistic style' (Laing, 2006, pp. 334) in response to industrial rationalisation, employment conditions and competition, particularly in the market for adult-orientated rock magazines. This period was characterised by an increasing homogeneity of writing styles...This homegeneity functioned as a counter-challenge both to individualism and to the meaning-making practices of British 'subcultural' journalism: while the music press has always included elements of the consumer guide, the 1990s saw this practice consolidated to a remarkable degree." (pp. 54, Popular Music Vol. 28/1, Cambridge Journals Online, 2009)

He then goes on to ruin it all by stating that The Wire is the "only commercial monthly magazine in Britain dealing with avant-garde and experimental music of a wide range of genres".

Yeah, right. The only...

residual value

I have long since doubted the power of my words - that any residual impact they may have fully lies within the meaning charged them by my readers, the fondness they have for this persona 'Everett True'. The notion of myself being the creator seems foolhardy at best. And what has my entire life as a critic been if not some sort of stance against the notion of critic as 'authority', from my first tentative steps at NME where I was unable to even construct sentences properly and my notion of a well-reasoned argument was the number of exclamation marks applied.

When I was in my late teens and attending gigs, I would grade them all accordingly (doubtless, in some sort of throwback to my strong mathematical inclinations) - but not in a straightforward, NME/Pitchfork/Q/Mojo way, rather as a form of numerical shorthand. One mark for 'performance' and one mark for 'enjoyment', thus unconsciously ackowledging the relationship between author and reader, the inter-dependency of both in the 'value' of art. Yet you could equally argue that I was setting myself up for a fall by separating the two values, 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity', that they cannot be separated anyhow.

everything is miscellaneous

Does anybody think that Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory can be applied to music critics? In other words, with the advent of the concept of the infinite catalogue, instead of everyone reading a handful of immensely powerful, hip critics, there are 500,000+ critics to read on the Web now and the residual power lying with these few is growing smaller and smaller (even accounting for immensely influential nodes such as Pitchfork and Australia's Mess And Noise).

According to Chris, 40% of all record sales are now in releases that sell less than 10,000 (as Wikipedia says, citation needed).

Or does criticism still remain about heirarchy - and all that has changed are the structures? Goddamnit, don't look at me. I don't know anything. I can't even write about music anymore without worrying about context. As I stated in Plan B a few months back, my greatest strength used to be that I took everything OUT of proportion. Being a parent fucks you up in so many different ways. I'd kind of always assumed that the critical heirarchy was based on the same philosophy that kept the men behind the Cold War so gainfully employed for so many years: but what happens when all notions of objectivity and balance are finally removed (cf: blogs, paysites such as amazon, eBay etc)? The centre is lost. The centre is lost. I might well feel that my interpretative paradigm borders on a feminist-slanted post-structuralism, but I don't necessarily enjoy seeing life that way.