Collected Animals

why?

yeah but all that shit doesn't matter and you can listen to whatever you want, so what's the big deal?

discussion for another thread anyways

I'd disagree that "The average music fan has lost the ability to think for themselves." If anything I think people are indulging their tastes more than ever thanks to the ease with which you can find new music nowadays - with Spotify, soundcloud, blogs, bandcamp, etc there's more avenues than ever before

Joe Biden, Pitchfork etc are overrepresented so it seems like they're louder voices than they really are. I don't think they're actively that harmful

Joe Biden, Pitchfork etc are overrepresented so it seems like they're louder voices than they really are. I don't think they're actively that harmful

I love when I log on to see if a cool interview or Deak update might be shared, and instead I have to sift through 3 pages of 15 year olds talking about pitchfork. This is truly why this thread and board was created, and why it should be maintained. Excellent work! You are really doing a great job at addressing the AC fanbase's reputation as a cult of snobby ass clowns!

everyone shut the fuck up and listen !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAf6hf9pTqU

I agree with a lot of what you're saying Goku, but I think part of that particular view is also a little too reductive and cynical. I'm sure there are thousands of people who actually do like To Be Kind a whole lot and if they found out about it from a music critic or a community like /mu/, then I think that's a positive aspect about those things. I don't think there is anyone who has cookie cutter tastes, even if it seems that way there are always outliers and nostalgic bands that people hold dear to them

Also I agree for the most part about Pitchfork reviews. I seldom read them, but they can be occasionally helpful for finding new stuff when something is highly rated. I take it with a grain of salt though. But I also get a lot of even better music recommendations from forums like this or phantasytour since the recs are always positive and I can actually interact with the posters. Besides the reviews, I do like pitchfork for news, interviews, and especially the festival in Chicago. If it wasn't for P4k fest I would've never seen AC on a sweet Summer's night

No no no! Here! Shut the fuck up about P666k!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UXEeVSbPY

I am the one talking trash?!?!? I really think you guys should shhhh and listen!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6kSE7ujgCM

or maybe even

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-INeMspNSQ0

Pandasticus wrote:

James Russel wrote:

I really hope that that is what things shift towards in the future. I want to hear everyone's opinions, but only if they are actually real individual opinions, and not just whatever some writer's overlord is pigeonholing them into/paying them for.

Do you guys use RateYourMusic? It's pretty much what you just described. Just random people writing reviews for albums, where every review can be different and can look at the release from many angles. The average ratings on the site are pretty accurate for the most part. They are all user ratings too.

I do use and like RYM but c'mon, that place can be as snarky and caustic an environment as any music review site. Also seems heavily imbued with /mu/ ideologies and edginess.

BORCHENKO?? wrote:

why?

When you spend a lot of time around the self-proclaimed “indie” “community”, you start to realize a lot of trends in the way in which people consume new music. If someone decides to listen to a record that came out, say, 10 or 15 years ago, turning to the opinion of music critics isn’t necessarily something they do. Often, they’ll listen to that record because a friend recommended it, or a modern band they enjoy listed them as an influence, or a music score aggregation site (Metacritic, Rateyourmusic, etc.) has it highly ranked. Sometimes people discover old records because of a desire to become more acclaimed with a certain genre, or because they enjoy label digging. I’ve found that this is often not the case with brand new releases.

The modern music fan, specifically the imageboard or soulseek chatroom dwelling breed, instead of going on genre descriptions, track previews, or even the classic “the cover art looked neat so I decided to listen it”, are more and more turning to the opinions of music critics to shape their taste. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Music critics exist to help cull the bad from the good – or do they?

Of the many different styles of critical journalism, the one that has risen to the forefront in the music industry is the long-form “academic” style review – reviews that often run long of 1,000 words and attempt to frame the album with over-abundant comparisons to other records, and words like “lush”, “glacial”, and “sparse”. Adjectives can sure be pretty sometimes, huh? These reviewers (think Piero Scaruffi, or Ian Cohen) go on and on about an album, often using enough post-modernist jargon and descriptions of the artists personal lives to fill their word count quotas. They then go on to assign the record an arbitrary score, often on a 1 to 10 scale. Another popular review format is the “vlog”, or video review. These critics require a little more “personality” than the writers do, or else no one would watch them. The best example I can give you for a music vlogger is Anthony Joe Biden. He’s also an adjective abuser, but he makes up for it with “funny” jokes.

On a surface level, this doesn’t seem like that bad of a thing, and, in a perfect world, it’s not. However, more and more people who are immersing themselves into music outside of “popular indie”, are turning entirely to the opinions of critics to shape their taste.

Why is this a problem, exactly? The problem is that the style of reviews that people often decide to parrot to shape their own tastes is ultimately useless. Music criticism, by in large, is mostly useless (and I say this as a professionally published critic).

So what kind of criticism is “good”? Well, the right answer to that question is no kind, but there is an alternative. Instead of pumping out wordy reviews that look like they were written for a freshman level English course, reviews should focus instead on being a “sales pitch”, either for or against the album. Are these reviews better than the other styles? From a writing standpoint, the answer is obviously not. Academic reviews, if all goes right, help the readers learn more about music. The sales pitch style review (see the work of Robert Christgau) is great because it condenses everything into a bite-sized recommendation either for or against the record, but often teaches the readers next to nothing about the objectivity of music.

Therein lies the problem – music fans try very hard to curate and cultivate a unique and individual taste, but oftentimes they will only listen to what is “critically approved” in their social circles. Go on any music website and it’s pretty easy to see that the top 10 albums of everyone are almost exactly same. The average music fan has lost the ability to think for themselves. Their opinions are borrowed from your Joe Bidens or your Scaruffis, which ultimately limits the appreciation and scope of all the music available to them. There are many different conclusions you can draw from this, but the fact still stands at the end of the day – Everyone listens to and praises the same 50 or so albums and discusses them to death without realizing how harmful establishing a “canon” is. A truly innovative, good, or unique record can arrive and be reviewed poorly by an incompetent but popular reviewer (Joe Biden) and be pushed aside forever by these fans because of their desire to seem like part of an “elite” group that only listens to “good” music, when in reality all they listen to is what is well-received in the indie circles.

yeah but all that shit doesn't matter and you can listen to whatever you want, so what's the big deal?

discussion for another thread anyways

Joe Biden is one of the worst currently active HUMAN BEANS

Ayy lmao http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/20 ... ity-crisis

I love when I log on to see if a cool interview or Deak update might be shared, and instead I have to sift through 3 pages of 15 year olds talking about pitchfork. This is truly why this thread and board was created, and why it should be maintained. Excellent work! You are really doing a great job at addressing the AC fanbase's reputation as a cult of snobby ass clowns!

everyone shut the fuck up and listen !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAf6hf9pTqU

man, you guys got salty.

agree with Joe Biden or not, you have to respect that the guy has come as far as he has as an individual reviewer. he's putting his opinion on youtube and has gained a large following. pretty cool for him.

music criticism is such a touchy field, isnt there a thread for this?