JAKE CLELAND

A Rough Timeline of a Twitter Discussion Regarding Young Writers.

Mark posits that young writers are less interested in being critics than they are hanging out with bands.

Tom says the main reasons he thought to be a critic were interviews (hanging out) and freebies.

Eric Harvey says that most bands these days are too “knowable”/boring to fit the “distant/celebrity idol” stereotype.

I don’t think it matters because for the kids in question, there’s still social currency, i.e. look who I was near, to be gained regardless. I also posit that it leads to people unwarrantedly propping up bands they’ve met for fear of seeming less cool by association.

Chris says it’s a case of writers who like music vs writers who like the music scene and asks “Do you want to be heard by the greatest number of people, or the people you want to hear you?”

Brian brings up Almost Famous, maybe the most ruinous act of myth-making ever perpetrated regarding music criticism.

Eric says that at least William Miller learned how to call bands out on their bullshit. Also I just got what Eric said earlier which I couldn’t parse because it’s late when he replied to Mark’s tweet, “I think you mean young label employees/publicists.” And yo, I know so many people on the promotions and scene-making side of the music industry. An unbelievable amount. I don’t even think I’ve met a critic (in the physical sense) who wasn’t spiritually doing the same work as well. Most of them are my friends and really nice folks, but I think it’s a shame so few young music people are interested in criticism. And I mean seriously interested, in criticism. At the risk of unfairly elevating myself, there are critics I’ve met who could only very generously be called “music critics,” for being more or less indifferent to what that actually means.

Everything splintered into individual discussions after that. 

  1. jakec posted this