Kensington Blues

The answer’s easy: it doesn’t work for music. Unless you were living under a rock on Friday, you probably read Techcrunch’s post, “The Sorry State of Music Startups.” Without going into great detail, Arrington’s completely right, and for once, he doesn’t resort to the whole “music just wants to be free” argument so common among Web 2.0 types. Instead, he writes that “free streaming music” is about as sensible as trying to douse a burning pile of money with a gallon of gasoline.

With all due respect to Bruce Houghton at Hypebot and Andrew Dubber at New Music Strategies, the dream is over. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. (more…)

Here’s my absurd, reductionist viewpoint on why editorial will survive the demise of the music industry: just because big conglomerates won’t make money selling music doesn’t mean people will stop making it. Artists will keep doing all sorts of beautiful, irrational things, often at considerable personal expense, even if there’s no one to buy it. Someone still needs to dig around to find what’s great, right?

If we as critics concentrate solely on solving the music industry’s problems, we won’t be able to adequately address our own. Jason Gross and I have been going back and forth quite a bit about this on Twitter. He wrote, “Music biz = our bread/butter (& our love). As for saving criticism, do you mean the whole scribe trade or our just our own turf?” Conflating the music business with music itself is silly. (I’m sure Jason agrees, but his tweet is illustrative nonetheless.)

If criticism survives it will be as a cultural filter. It sounds impersonal, but it’s of crucial importance to an audience. We have to stop thinking of ourselves as servants of the music industry and concentrate on being of value to an audience with precious little time to spend thinking about our passion. Remember, critics have always been cultural curators, so it’s not a radical change in job description. We just have to think of our role in broader terms.

Our love is writing about music. Let’s not forget that.

I know insiders claim that people are listening to music now more than ever before, but what if people are just not as interested in new music as they used to be? Has perceived demand for new product outstripped consumer interest?

The answer is easy. Search your heart. Everything will be easier if you can just admit what you know to be true.

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Thinking about the music industry’s continued commitment to release dates got me thinking about the Royal Tenenbaums. You remember the scene where Eli Cash is on a show very similar to Charlie Rose and he says, “Wildcat…was written in a kind of obsolete vernacular”? I think release dates are part of the music industry’s obsolete vernacular. I’m guessing not many on the label side would admit it publicly, but they will eventually. Release dates just don’t matter to anyone anymore. (more…)

Decibel Magazine‘s year-end issue is a monster disappointment. It’s been a bad year for publishing — just check out this offer to see how bad it is for writers — but Decibel’s year-end issue is usually something worthwhile, an oasis of interesting music writing in a holiday season — a desert of awful greatest hits albums, Christmas albums, and standards recorded by wizened pop artists.

This issue was emaciated 96 pages. It was a bad year for metal, or at least it seemed that way to me. When I am familiar with most of the top 40 metal albums, I know something’s amiss. (I haven’t paid serious attention to metal since I accepted my current gig. I still love the music; I’m just not seeking it out as much.) The top ten features the usual suspects: that Disfear record that came out ages ago; the obligatory Opeth nod; relative upstarts Made Out of Babies; Baltimorean black metallers Nachtmystium; and mind-bogglingly awesome pop metallers Torche. The list is so underwhelming that Torche doesn’t even rate a cover!

It is worth noting that my favorite Japanese doomsayers Coffins rated the 40th spot for their 2008 joyride, Buried Death! Hails!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of these people dancing on print media’s grave. Heck, I’m asking for Beer Advocate for Christmas! Our household is littered with print media. That’s partly why I can’t really wrap my head around what made all print media decline so rapidly, and why magazines I’ve loved (and worked for) fade so fast.

I know printing and mailing costs have risen, but that doesn’t explain how people declared their independence from print overnight. They’re not all autodidacts are they? They still want to read all kinds of lists and have things recommended to them by authorities of one sort or another. Where are people finding that sort of content, if not in magazines that have provided it for generations? Have their audiences really become so Internet savvy?