This is incredible. So here we have beloved friend-of-SOTC Christopher R. Weingarten, he of the "reviewing 1,000 records on Twitter in 2009" phenomenon/craze 1000 Times Yes, giving a speech at the 140 Characters Conference. Mr. Weingarten, whose brief remarks on the future of music criticism (it has none) are vivid, sardonic, and incredibly profane, to the crowd's unending delight. Indicative phrases: "gilded geekazoid," "falling down a shit spiral," "people have awful taste," and "Fleet Foxes fuckin' sucks." During that last bit Chris ascends to Bill Hicks/gospel-preacher heights of divine fervor. Love the hat, too.As a former music critic, I found this speech especially relevant. I agree that music blogs will never take the place of a trained, disciplined, enthusiastic music critic. I haven't done any music writing for a few years now, but I can appreciate his frustrations with the music industry, which Weingarten articulates well. Watch:
June 21, 2009
Music Critics of the World, UNITE!
Here's a synopsis of the clip from the Village Voice:
1 comments:
I have no idea how I even found this blog, but I'm glad I found this post. Thanks for putting it up.
I wish to God that music sites would actually get back to the "whys" and "hows" music writing, to wit: What does this artist set out to do on this album? How is this goal achieved, if at all? Is the result relevant or important?
Instead, we get sites like Pitchfork which pile on useless imagery, make random connections between music and art (so as to make their "critics" appear insightful), and extrapolate from limited bases of knowledge.
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