OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

i think its pretty disingenuous to act like that blog everyone's talking about isn't written in the midst of huge shared cultural context regarding music knowledge and gender and nick hornsby and whatever, and its pretty disingenuous to act like the "oh look there are lots of words" uptalk-ish voice isn't just a _bit_ of a put on with some pretty gendered connotations. and as a whole the idea that there isn't some notion of how men and women listen to music latent in that blog, at least implicitly, and if someone sees something then its something "they" are bringing with them, that sort of puts the hammer down on most any cultural criticism.

i mean that said treating the blog as evil or something is pretty dumb.

crit can be creating something if it's fostering and developing a new idea and the art criticised is just a useful model organism, if there's some larger insight that still urgent long after whatever guinea pig you've spliced open has had an ihc run on it. this describes maybe 1% of the pop crit out there though. not to say other pop crit can't be useful as a consumer guide (whether the internet has rendered this purpose more or less necessary is still up in the air apparently), but even here at its peak its usefulness didn't compare to a record store clerk or dj. if you're part of that 99% and yr calling means that on a good day you still aren't as beneficial to humanity as a record store clerk after a few years it might be time to set yr sights higher, grow up. yknow, like daniel stern at the end of diner.

katherine - https://fafsa.ed.gov

yeah, i don't think it's evil. it just bugged me. especially how the husband gets the last word on a lot of entries and "explains" things after she is done. there is a great piece of writing to be written about male/female music relationships and the tyranny of the record collection, but this isn't it. i see a lot of women stand behind their husbands/boyfriends in my store while the husband/boyfriend looks at records and the woman is literally only looking at whatever the man decides to look at and in a lot of cases - brace yourself - he will then hand the records he wants to the woman to hold for him as she follows him around the store and it drives me a little crazy. so, this blog just reminds me of that for some reason. i wish them well though. even if they bug me.

but okay maybe i should have looked for a thread about blogs that bug you or whatever. sorry. i knew this would get attention from other sites though. the pomplamoosification factor and all.

yeah focusing on this blog reminds me of the naming and shaming of bigots on twitter only there at least it's ppl saying actually toxic shit, there's an argument for heaping derision on anonymous morons. here the worst thing said is 'man i do not get this albert ayler record'. someone doesn't get free jazz the first time they listen to some. who would have imagined such a thing was possible.

ok, the fafsa site, cool, will go pass that on to any 17-year-olds reading this

as far as the blog my only thought is "oof I might not put my initial thoughts to paper if it were me, but it isn't me, you go do your thing" -- I mean, more people probably have rather similar initial reactions to records than would admit it, and the thing's hardly 300 Sandwiches

especially how the husband gets the last word on a lot of entries and "explains" things after she is done

lol it kinda is 'mansplaining: the movie'. there have been alot of these 'let's play some hip obscure music for some old ppl/children/general unknowing innocents and then record their hilarious wrong reactions' things, a means of making fun of animal collective and making fun of ppl who don't even know this is animal collective how do you not know animal collective. there are small pleasures to be had from this - my dad used to always ask 'is this inxs?' to anything i played in the car, unless it was actually inxs in which case he would ask 'is this eurythmics?' - but they are small pleasures (and on the flip side i would usually ask 'is this the doobie brothers?' to anything he played in the car but tbf it usually in fact was the doobie brothers).

I didn't read much of the blog, but it struck me as an expanded version of what a bunch of us were doing on the albums of the year results thread.

BOOM

i totally did this with pitchfork's top 100 singles on my blog! and i was just as faux-clueless. but i'm OG faux-clueless. pre-blogger faux-clueless even. i'm probably just mad that everyone jumped on my steez over the years.

naive comments are only illuminating if the person writing them makes them so -- if the writer's background somehow informs the decisions in an interesting way or whatever. i can see these two people finding this endeavor fun/amusing on a private level but i don't know why the rest of us need to be dragged into "the conversation". she's not really saying much of interest.

It's not like they're forcing anyone to read it!

that's true
i didn't read much of it

so she isn't dragging anyone in to it

is anyone dragging anyone into reading their music journalism? and if so how do they do it?

your cheque bounced stevie so im not reading yours anymore

Just adding my vote to the not-having-much-of-a-problem-with-that-blog camp

Honestly I relate a little bit to the way she hears Albert Ayler even though I like Albert Ayler

My take on that blog is I didn't read it also why the hell would anyone read it

Like I'm aware of the existence of "non-music fans" already. No offense to the man but I wouldn't read deems's music blog either

I liked reading a few selections from it. I don't need her take on multiple Louis Armstrong records, but it's interesting to hear a "layperson's" take on certain kinds of nerdy music.

i mean what if you just did the old gender flip with that blog? would it be as shareable? PROBABLY NOT. and i'm not sure why that isn't something that can be critiqued, especially since more people are probably reading it than, say, fact at this point.

c or d: making amateur critical judgments about someone else's amateur critical judgments

it would be totally shareable no matter the gender

it's an outsider's perspective on nerds, always very interesting

it would definitely not be as shareable, come on. i mean, viral content is all about reinforcing already existent stereotypes.

maybe for you it is

Premise of this blog reminds me of this:

wifeinspace.com

tho there the couple are engaged in the project together, which i think lessens that "this is the way men listen to albert ayler" tone

i gotta say the blog would be way better without his writing

it should be noted that most of the responses i have seen to this have been really positive. most people like the high concept.

think i like the album conceptually somtimes more than the execution. she's really obnoxious re: albert ayler

yeah npr yuppie is not a sex linked trait but obv this plays w/ the hook of 'record nerd bf/poor ignorant gf', you can probably find some 'funny' sports variations of this (it's even a sitcom trope of sorts w/ some dum girl doing better at sports picks than the guys and omg she's just picking based on who has a prettier uniform!). also apparently they are literally npr yuppies, dude is apparently on on the media.

and i do predict some level of buzzfrenzy. its only monday. saw it one more time on my facebook today. the first time i saw this was via one of the wolf eyes dudes on facebook. and again today via another wolf eyes dude. husband was a michigan noise show regular back in the day apparently.

it's going to be a while before she reviews wolf eyes records

http://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/20i1nt/lady_goes_through_her_husbands_records_reviews/

scott's always on about this npr stuff also! i gotta say man for someone who can't stand them tv dinners you sure do eat enough of them motherfuckers.

lol at wolf eyes all flustered this morning over some tumblr

glad all you guys are around to explain sexism and the way the internet works to me, whew

i have a whole host of reasons for feeling the way i do about this particular blog, not the least of which is that such an experiment was once performed on me, only it was more high concept (there was an end goal) and it was never made public (though my husband did make lovely bound copies for the participants).

okay, i'm out. seeya peeps lates. one luv.

http://rlv.zcache.com/dont_ask_jeeves_ask_me_shirts-r4bc0b8ccd4e84a4384c634e900558a79_8n2rj_324.jpg

oh but the wolf eyes guys liked it! wanted to make that clear. they are nice enough fellas.

scott, your pitchfork thing was hilarious

maura otm, there's a super high degree of 'i am just a girl' going on in the way that makes it viral
comparable to a kid listening to records. or your stoner cousin. but less marketable as less "adorkable"; this video explains a lot of the appeal and derision imo
https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/FBD07082241052805603967344640_14e61eb7a1d.4.8.15931423460955070825.mp4?versionId=Zt52IjShOoBU7Vp7Yxzbl0jRFfjuucsL

yeah, i don't think it's evil. it just bugged me. especially how the husband gets the last word on a lot of entries and "explains" things after she is done. there is a great piece of writing to be written about male/female music relationships and the tyranny of the record collection, but this isn't it. i see a lot of women stand behind their husbands/boyfriends in my store while the husband/boyfriend looks at records and the woman is literally only looking at whatever the man decides to look at and in a lot of cases - brace yourself - he will then hand the records he wants to the woman to hold for him as she follows him around the store and it drives me a little crazy. so, this blog just reminds me of that for some reason. i wish them well though. even if they bug me.

― scott seward, Monday, March 17, 2014 1:19 PM

You know what? I am also familiar with this stereotype, both as a person who has worked in record shops, and spent a great deal of my life hanging around record shops.

But have you ever actually gone and asked those women why they are trailing around after their partners, instead of choosing their own records? Because I have spent a lot of time talking to women about music, and specifically about why they don't participate in music-culture more, even though they are interested in music and enjoy listening to it.

And one of the things that comes up in talking to women about why they don't participate in music more (whether that's women who don't make the purchases at a record shop, or women who are super into music and will make their own purchases, but don't participate in music forums etc.) one of the answers that comes up again and again is: the fear that they will be disparaged for their choices, be sneered at for the way they engage with music. Dudes in record shops will laugh at the CD you want to buy, and dudes on messageboard will tell you that are you ~listening wrong~ or engaging wrong.

So when you witness this whole phenomenon, as both a dude who works in a record shop and a dude who posts on a music messageboard, and you decide that the way to compensate for this is to: disparage a woman on a blog writing about music, for writing about music ~the wrong way~ I'm sorry, but you are contributing to this phenomenon way more than some librarian failing to understand an Albert Ayler record.

I think Maura gets at *something* when she says that it is the gendering of this blog, and how it reinforces stereotypes which is contributing to its "shareability". But I think there's a way to talk about that and address it, and a way to just contribute and reinforce those things. And this thread went down the wrong way.

how about there's a super high degree of she's an outsider crashing into the nerdworld

Anna Minard has been doing something very similar in The Stranger for years, a column called "Never Heard of 'Em."

i dunno someone who has NEVER heard of Albert Ayler listening to Albert Ayler and writing about it? seems p. interesting to me