July202009
The Death Of Music Criticism, Or How Crowd-Sourcing Killed Indie Rock
Christopher R. Weingarten (@1000TimesYes) - Music Writer, RollingStone.com and Village Voice at The 140 Characters Conference in New York. June 16, 2009
I’ve watched and written about this video before, but ever since then I have re-watched it over again, and I’ve realised this short speech really does hit home the reality that will face the luminaries of music journalism soon (your Rolling Stones, Q, NME et al). It doesn’t look good for them at all.
In a way, this video doesn’t bother me so much in the sense that people will always still be writing about music (probably more so than before) and that varience of opinion provides for fruitful and great debate about the art of creating sound. But I’m unsure if that idea of exclusivity circle jerk kind of attitude within the music community is fully gone as of yet.
There is a certain sense of self deprication with Christopher’s speech, which surprises me for a music journalist of his standard. Many of his contemporaries would be more snooty nosed about the change in music journalism we are currently seeing today.
Okay, this is fucking amazing. It really hots up around the 7 minute mark and basically, Christopher is totally spot-on with what he says.
My favourite parts: “Crowd-sourcing killed indie rock. Why? Because crowds have terrible taste.” And, talking about blogs and popular indie rock outfits: “It’s not the music that’s the best, it’s the music that the most people can stand.”
Reblogged from buy her candy.
