Matthew Friedberger featured in Dusted Magazine’s Listed. Read it for his fond remembrance of Dick Allen.
What’s Next for Music Criticism?
While I’m pretty sure some of the articles pronouncing music criticism dead have reached puberty at this point, there remains an open question of its value (and virtue). Is it possible that the future of music criticism isn’t written? That’s not a rhetorical question. Is it possible that the future of music criticism is…vlogging?
I’ll start with Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop. Anthony, the self-proclaimed Internet’s busiest music nerd, cranks through tons of reviews and posts them on YouTube. It’s perfect bite-sized content that uncovers some records that may not get as much attention buried in the fourth and fifth slot in a daily rotation. A pretty novel content strategy when everyone says they’re inundated, no?
Chris Ott is taking a decidedly different approach. His Vimeo channel, Shallow Rewards, is music criticism the way I remember it; equal parts oral history, hagiography and ritual sacrifice. I’m still in awe of his two-part series on shoegaze. If you’re someone who is old enough to remember the free associative spirit that made music criticism magical for many of us, you’ll want to watch every week.
Why I Switched to Poster
You may have noticed some changes here recently. Here’s a hint: fresh content! Want to know my secret? The Poster app! Now I know we’ve all heard that the iPad is not a content-creation device, but I’m finding it pretty easy myself. In fact, I haven’t reopened my MacBook once, not even to change my blog theme!
Why do I like it so much? It doesn’t try to do anything more than allow you to draft, schedule and publish content. I don’t need a reader baked into the app, or to see stats on my personal blog. I just want to dive in and bang out 250–500 words about something I liked enough to write about. Like Poster! If you want to start using your iPad for blogging, you should check it out.
Ramsayings at the Movies
I used to write about culture! Let me see if I can still flex my capsule muscles.
- Argo: Damon got action. Affleck got auteur. Nice to see Ben make a movie outside his backyard.
- The Dark Knight Rises: Tom Hardy’s voice was so silly I barely noticed Bale’s Batvoice.
- Looper: A mash up of Look Who’s Talking and Back to the Future! Awesome!
- Margaret: Possibly more depressing than Synecdoche, New York!
In Praise of Richard Buckner
I first learned about Richard Buckner in the late nineties. I’d joined the Pavement listserv and when we weren’t arguing over which Pavement album was the worst (people hated BtC) we’d talk about all sorts of artists popular at the time among the indie crowd. Richard Buckner was one of the names that got mentioned often, so I bought a copy of Devotion + Doubt. I fell in love with it immediately.
I hadn’t listened to it for quite some time, having checked out of alt-country or whatever that was all those years ago. Then I read about Buckner’s struggles. and I revisited his work.
Devotion + Doubt is still a breathtaking album. Buckner deserves the attention that’s been lavished on Bon Iver. I can think of few albums that do so much with so little. The sparse arrangements leave ample room for Buckner’s expressive voice. The storytelling is great and he never lapses into the singer-songwriter treacle that dooms so many solo artists. It’s just the right mix of sentimentality and scorn.
If you haven’t heard Buckner before, check out this live video of Ed’s Song from Devotion + Doubt.