The Wisdom of the Illiterati


	those who live by the pitchfork... The closest thing to a contentious moment at the EMP conference—at least that I saw—came at the very end, during the discussion on the "Future of Making a Living Thinking About Music", when Amy Phillips, news editor at Pitchfork, in a voice full of adrenalin and import, announced that she, and the rest of Pitchfork Media, had come to eat our lunch, and maybe other parts of us as well. The gist was that since there was so much music out there to process, it was necessary for critics to churn out their reviews at an incendiary rate, possibly without bothering to listen to the entire record first, or risk losing the ear of teenagers who previewed music in 20 second snippets (30 seconds on iTunes). It was a brand new jungle out there, she said, and we had to evolve or perish. The howls of the older animals in reaction to this were immediate. Simon Reynolds was shaking his head and declaiming "No, no, NO" before Phillips had even finished. "No, no. Ruminate. Ruminate...marinate." In a way, I kind of liked Phillips' attitude: it was cocky, aggressive, dominating, it was rock and roll. But real rock and roll has a tendency to burn away, or explode, and I don't mean explode in a good way. If Phillips is right, then Pitchfork will ultimately be destroyed by its own philosophy. Instant reaction writing is great for news, and the Pitchfork news page is cool, but for criticism it's meaningless, more a form of information processing, or even marketing, than criticism. Maybe it's just their point system for rating albums, but in some ways Pitchfork reminds me of the wine critic Robert Parker. Parker has helped to create a much stronger wine market in an economic sense, but he has also created a wine market that is more homogenized, more overwhelmingly full-bodied than flavorful, and entirely too fruity. Moreover, if speed in getting information to music consumers is what matters most to Pitchfork, they may find themselves being usurped by the market itself. If what Tim Quirk, a member of Too Much Joy and Vice-President of Music Content at Rhapsody, had to say about the future of music marketing is true—that at some point most music will be delivered instantaneously on demand via subscription services—then Pitchfork will be rendered meaningless by the logical extension of their own youth-must-be-served democratic principals. The kids who go to Pitchfork now for info will simply stream all the music they want to hear the moment it becomes available, essentially for free, and ignore reviewers of any kind. In time, though, those kids who want to learn more, who want to find more, who want to appreciate more, will, as Oliver Wang pointed out, turn to us, the journalists, the critics, the marinaters. What Phillips didn't seem to realize when she delivered her urgent warning/threat, is that for well over 80% of the people in that room, what she was saying made no difference whatsoever. Music journalism isn't going to go away, either online or in print, and as other presenters pointed out, the academic opportunities for pop critics are steadily increasing. Our work—not necessarily mine, but pop critics' in general—will last; Pitchfork's won't. Phillips thought she was scaring us, when all she was doing was getting our blood up. Update: According to some folks at ILM who spoke to Phillips after the conference, she said she wasn't trying to suggest that Pitchfork style was the only option, and that she only wanted to make sure that people knew how the terrain was changing. Fair enough, but in that case she really needs to hone her presentation skills: just about everyone in the room came away with the impression that she was saying something along the lines of "Pitchfork will destroy you all." To which all us slow ruminating types could only reply, in the immortal words of the Bonzo Dog Band: "We are normal and we want our freedom!" \| [Archives] Search entries:		top ten 1966 top ten OTHER OCCASIONAL RAMBLINGS Hail Blogoslavia! ~~100~~ 45 or so things about JSM The Saga of the Lone Biscuit OTHER BLOGS Blogroll Me

those who live by the pitchfork...

The closest thing to a contentious moment at the EMP conference—at least that I saw—came at the very end, during the discussion on the "Future of Making a Living Thinking About Music", when Amy Phillips, news editor at Pitchfork, in a voice full of adrenalin and import, announced that she, and the rest of Pitchfork Media, had come to eat our lunch, and maybe other parts of us as well. The gist was that since there was so much music out there to process, it was necessary for critics to churn out their reviews at an incendiary rate, possibly without bothering to listen to the entire record first, or risk losing the ear of teenagers who previewed music in 20 second snippets (30 seconds on iTunes). It was a brand new jungle out there, she said, and we had to evolve or perish. The howls of the older animals in reaction to this were immediate. Simon Reynolds was shaking his head and declaiming "No, no, NO" before Phillips had even finished. "No, no. Ruminate. Ruminate...marinate."

In a way, I kind of liked Phillips' attitude: it was cocky, aggressive, dominating, it was rock and roll. But real rock and roll has a tendency to burn away, or explode, and I don't mean explode in a good way. If Phillips is right, then Pitchfork will ultimately be destroyed by its own philosophy. Instant reaction writing is great for news, and the Pitchfork news page is cool, but for criticism it's meaningless, more a form of information processing, or even marketing, than criticism. Maybe it's just their point system for rating albums, but in some ways Pitchfork reminds me of the wine critic Robert Parker. Parker has helped to create a much stronger wine market in an economic sense, but he has also created a wine market that is more homogenized, more overwhelmingly full-bodied than flavorful, and entirely too fruity.

Moreover, if speed in getting information to music consumers is what matters most to Pitchfork, they may find themselves being usurped by the market itself. If what Tim Quirk, a member of Too Much Joy and Vice-President of Music Content at Rhapsody, had to say about the future of music marketing is true—that at some point most music will be delivered instantaneously on demand via subscription services—then Pitchfork will be rendered meaningless by the logical extension of their own youth-must-be-served democratic principals. The kids who go to Pitchfork now for info will simply stream all the music they want to hear the moment it becomes available, essentially for free, and ignore reviewers of any kind.

In time, though, those kids who want to learn more, who want to find more, who want to appreciate more, will, as Oliver Wang pointed out, turn to us, the journalists, the critics, the marinaters. What Phillips didn't seem to realize when she delivered her urgent warning/threat, is that for well over 80% of the people in that room, what she was saying made no difference whatsoever. Music journalism isn't going to go away, either online or in print, and as other presenters pointed out, the academic opportunities for pop critics are steadily increasing. Our work—not necessarily mine, but pop critics' in general—will last; Pitchfork's won't. Phillips thought she was scaring us, when all she was doing was getting our blood up.

Update: According to some folks at ILM who spoke to Phillips after the conference, she said she wasn't trying to suggest that Pitchfork style was the only option, and that she only wanted to make sure that people knew how the terrain was changing. Fair enough, but in that case she really needs to hone her presentation skills: just about everyone in the room came away with the impression that she was saying something along the lines of "Pitchfork will destroy you all." To which all us slow ruminating types could only reply, in the immortal words of the Bonzo Dog Band: "We are normal and we want our freedom!"