Video of an interesting talk by Christopher R. Weingarten on Twitter and music criticism from The 140 Character Conference:
Makes some good points, most of which I agree with. The old position of the music critic, with free access to music before the release date and as the person who listens to everything, is no longer here. Which is a good thing - now everyone has access to everything - the privileged position of the critic as arbiter of taste is, thankfully, no more. I like his comparison to movies - films still have some of this about them because they require more effort and time to download. The position of the critic is no longer to tell us what to listen to - he indeed reverses this, blogs etc., now tell music critics what to write about - and music criticism no longer forms opinion, it reinforces opinion, he says.
The bit I disagree with is where he criticises crowdsourcing as "tending towards the middle", only that which is safe gets picked up on, the radical, the challenging gets left to one side. My problem with this (though his slagging off of the Fleet Foxes is funny and something I completely agree with), is that wasn't this always the case? It's not something new to now (anyone who ever read the NME and had to put up with a string of rubbish acts gracing its pages simply because they sold copies would know this). It's something inherent in people, rather than a result of social networking. Twitter can be used against this trend. Any criticism of Twitter in this vein risks losing the fact that everyone uses Twitter differently, so that those who always tended towards the middle will stay in the middle. Ditto his criticism of the compartamentalism of music, hip-hop fans only following hip-hop people, metal people only following metal people. Wasn't this tribalism always a part of music? And doesn't Twitter allow for the easier branching out from this tribalism - it's so easy to follow anyone, so easy to find new scenes, discover new music, via Twitter, via google search. If I don't like the middle ground that my crowd has sourced, I find a new ground, and it's a lot easier to this now than it ever was.
The central point though, that it ain't easy to make a living doing music criticism is presumably (I've never tried it) correct, a thought occurs - that to mix up this as a bad thing for music critics and as a bad thing for music criticism is wrong, although in many ways he's probably right about the amount of inane "criticism". Good criticism will always shine through, and his point that it is possible to write well within 140 characters is a good one (and made me vow to put more effort into my tweets...), and I imagine will always find a place in the economy, there'll just be less rubbish music critics on the payroll.
And Christopher R. Weingarten's reviews are well worth following on Twitter, even if I completely disagreed with his Green Day review... (and his Sunset Rubdown review, 3 stars, grumble... hey, it's just like the old days! reading reviews and grumbling when your favourite band gets a bad review..) he demonstrates that it's possible to write well in 140 characters. With less room to move, to pad, it could well be harder than writing long things...
Makes some good points, most of which I agree with. The old position of the music critic, with free access to music before the release date and as the person who listens to everything, is no longer here. Which is a good thing - now everyone has access to everything - the privileged position of the critic as arbiter of taste is, thankfully, no more. I like his comparison to movies - films still have some of this about them because they require more effort and time to download. The position of the critic is no longer to tell us what to listen to - he indeed reverses this, blogs etc., now tell music critics what to write about - and music criticism no longer forms opinion, it reinforces opinion, he says.
The bit I disagree with is where he criticises crowdsourcing as "tending towards the middle", only that which is safe gets picked up on, the radical, the challenging gets left to one side. My problem with this (though his slagging off of the Fleet Foxes is funny and something I completely agree with), is that wasn't this always the case? It's not something new to now (anyone who ever read the NME and had to put up with a string of rubbish acts gracing its pages simply because they sold copies would know this). It's something inherent in people, rather than a result of social networking. Twitter can be used against this trend. Any criticism of Twitter in this vein risks losing the fact that everyone uses Twitter differently, so that those who always tended towards the middle will stay in the middle. Ditto his criticism of the compartamentalism of music, hip-hop fans only following hip-hop people, metal people only following metal people. Wasn't this tribalism always a part of music? And doesn't Twitter allow for the easier branching out from this tribalism - it's so easy to follow anyone, so easy to find new scenes, discover new music, via Twitter, via google search. If I don't like the middle ground that my crowd has sourced, I find a new ground, and it's a lot easier to this now than it ever was.
The central point though, that it ain't easy to make a living doing music criticism is presumably (I've never tried it) correct, a thought occurs - that to mix up this as a bad thing for music critics and as a bad thing for music criticism is wrong, although in many ways he's probably right about the amount of inane "criticism". Good criticism will always shine through, and his point that it is possible to write well within 140 characters is a good one (and made me vow to put more effort into my tweets...), and I imagine will always find a place in the economy, there'll just be less rubbish music critics on the payroll.
And Christopher R. Weingarten's reviews are well worth following on Twitter, even if I completely disagreed with his Green Day review... (and his Sunset Rubdown review, 3 stars, grumble... hey, it's just like the old days! reading reviews and grumbling when your favourite band gets a bad review..) he demonstrates that it's possible to write well in 140 characters. With less room to move, to pad, it could well be harder than writing long things...
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