beyond that, the way we write about music has to change fundamentally. and that goes across genres. a basic artist profile is close to irrelevant now that fans have the means to observe the day to day of musicians endlessly via twitter, youtube, etc. an album review that simply describes the music is useless now that listeners can preview a record in less time than it would take to read a description of it. yet most of the writing about music i read only does one of these two things (hell most of the writing i get paid for asks me to do one of these things.) writers need to either figure out a way to transcend the limitations of these formats or obliterate them completely. personally i think that we (readers, writers, editors, publishers) need to put more value in analytical and research driven writing or else it will be fully supplanted by pitchfork scores and wordless nah right style firsties. but then again, resources are dwindling so i am basically asking people to do more work for less money. and that doesn’t seem like a successful approach.”
Jan 132010