Tag Archives: music criticism

They’re Just Not That into You

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.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “They’re Just Not That into You”

The Release Date Ritual

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. Con­tin­ue read­ing “The Release Date Ritual”

Decibel Magazine’s Year-End Issue

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?