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Columns Pop & Circumstance Pop & Circumstance: I Know the Last Couple Years Have Been a Rough Transition | Pop & Circumstance: I Know the Last Couple Years Have Been a Rough Transition |
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| Written by Max Ross | |
| Monday, May 5, 2008 at 11:32 AM | |
 No Depression #75—the final print issue. This evolution had an instant impact, but its subtle ramifications have only begun to resonate. Along with file-sharing and MySpace came the blogs, and now, people whose job it was to document this change in the way we listen to music have found that the way we write and talk about music is changing as well. But while film critics have been getting laid off left and right, for the most part the music industry’s critics are weathering the storm in one way or another. Still, with the current culture of online-only album releases and the emergence of blogs as legitimate forums for criticism, the job description has changed quite a bit. Reveille talked to Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot, who review pop music for The Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Tribune, respectively. Together, they host the radio show “Sound Opinions” on American Public Media. We also chatted with Peter Blackstock and Grant Alden, the editors of No Depression , a revered print publication that is making the transition into the digital realm. Reveille Magazine: Have your jobs, or your writing styles, changed at all as so much music writing has moved online?  Greg Kot Jim Derogatis: For a lot of things, blogs can be really great. Like, I can go cover Lollapalooza, and instantly report on a dozen or so music acts that go on there. And that’s good. But on the other hand, no one wants to hear about if I ate a hot dog for lunch (or if they do, it’s a very sad sort of person). And a lot of the stuff going up on blogs can tend toward that. Grant Alden: Online journalism is about as fun (and long lasting) as phone sex. Only I’ve never tried phone sex, so maybe I’m giving it a bum rap. I think mostly [reviews online are] just of lower quality, and less carefully written. And that would be true of mine, as well. Print is a kind of permanent record. Online is not, despite whatever may be said on its behalf. It’s temporary, the essence of Warhol’s 15 minutes. All those reviews I wrote during Web 1.0? They’re gone. Vanished, save for the drafts I kept here. And I never cared, never wrote them with the care I devoted to reviews which would appear in print. Why? I don’t know, exactly. An emotional disconnection and a sense of that impermanence, I guess. Or that would be my excuse, tonight. Peter Blackstock: In No Depression’s case, the web is in some ways more limiting than liberating, space-wise, simply because one of the hallmarks of our publication was that we frequently ran extensive in-depth articles. Our future plans involve shorter-form content on the web (reviews, news, smaller profiles), whereas we'll continue publishing longer-form pieces in print via our new deal for a twice-annual "bookazine" with University of Texas Press. Reveille: There’s been a lot of press lately about film critics getting laid off from their papers. You have reviewers from Village Voice, Newsweek, and Newsday losing their jobs as print publications lose money because advertisers are moving online. Is the same trend affecting music critics? Derogatis: Newspapers and other print media aren’t doing well. It’s not pretty at the New York Times; it’s not pretty at the Gary, Ind., Tribune. But there’s always a local element to music coverage. Jesus, if you’re in Omaha, in Saddle Creek, there’s a big music scene worth covering. Whereas, with movies, you can just pick a review up off the AP wire, and it’s basically the same everywhere. Kot: One thing newspapers are discovering too late is that cultural coverage is important to readers. Since I started writing, there’s been a complete reversal in attitudes toward entertainment versus so-called "serious" writing. A lot more attention is being paid to the writers covering what’s happening in your back yard. It’s Journalism 101: If you cover your own back yard well, you’ll be fine. Reveille: Do you feel there are any drawbacks to the way criticism has been evolving online?  Jim Derogatis Blackstock: But really that same game has long been played out in print as well. Scooping the competition has always been one of the primary motivating factors for journalists. It's just more accelerated in the web world. With any luck, it won't result in people running fake reviews before they've actually had a chance to hear a record, just to get the scoop. But of course that already happened recently with Maxim [with The Black Crowes' Warpaint]—and that was in PRINT, not on the web, so I don't think it can really be argued that this is some sort of systematic internet concern. Alden: Faster is not better. To borrow from Don McLeese, great writing comes from great thinking. And the essence of even tolerable writing is having enough time—and discipline—to think through the argument you’re making. What I see online now is basically advertising blurbage, or nasty for the sake of nasty. Neither of which are criticism. And it mirrors the inability of the music industry to build long careers, and to believe in long careers. Kot: The first day Radiohead released In Rainbows online, there were people doing instant reviews. Are you really going to be able to "get" a Radiohead album having listened to it just once? Is that review really going to be worth reading? These reviews are just saying "Buy this" or "Don’t buy that," but in terms of depth, there’s not a lot there, sometimes. Blackstock: No Depression always has had a very low tolerance for snark, and we have no intention of changing that aesthetic for the web. Which is not to say we don't occasionally print an off-the-wall writing style—anyone who's familiar with our occasional reviews by Claire O. can attest to how far-out we'll sometimes stretch the "colloquial" twists of the language … but the misuse and overuse of snark is far more common, to the point that it's probably the single most detrimental element in music criticism today (and especially so on the web). Reveille: How does an established reviewer maintain his reputation amidst all the millions of blogs and online music sites? Derogatis: It’s about the quality of the stuff you’re putting out. Not a lot of people have the experience Greg and I have. No one else put together a case that got R. Kelly indicted like I have. No one else has covered the technological shift as deeply or thoroughly as Greg has. Kot: And there haven’t been any voices that have stood out in the blogosphere. You think of Rolling Stone, and immediately a shortlist of great reviewers comes to mind. But there’s no one on the blogs whose reviews I look forward to reading. Even on Pitchfork—can you name me the best reviewers on Pitchfork? [“Point taken,” said Reveille.] It’s a lot of inexperienced writers who have a difficult time putting music in context. Not to say that a reviewer needs to know everything there is to know about music to write a review—if you’re a seventeen-year-old kid who can capture exactly the essence of some music, I’ll put you on assignment to cover the Rolling Stones in concert. Blackstock: If you go beyond just the realm of reviews, there are certainly lots of ways in which web content could and should be different from print content, because it is a different medium, indeed. Obviously websites have the ability to interact much more directly with their audience, and they can also bring other elements of communication to the table (i.e. song clips, podcast interviews, video footage). The fundamental principles of good writing, though, remain what they have always been. The web won't change that, at least not for any site which posts text content that's actually worth reading. Max Ross is a freelance writer in the Twin Cities. He has contributed to The Rake, Minnesota Monthly, and Metro Magazine. Currently he runs the books blog, Cracking Spines, for rakemag.com. |
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| Last Updated: Monday, May 5, 2008 at 11:40 PM |
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