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

http://www.mtv.com/news/2794813/vanderpump-rules-tegan-sara

maura otm

anyway this essay is quite well written and not about music but belongs in the conversation as it speaks grimly to a number of your concerns Kat:
http://thebaffler.com/salvos/rest-advertising

the glazed ham of $4 a word is spoiled more than a bit by these ghosts of christmas future:

I began to wonder if, like me, this veteran editor was just trying to earn his fee. How much was he making, I wondered? How much does an editor who presided over an industry’s golden age receive to consult for the same industry during its hospice years? Did he hate himself too, at least a little bit, for using his decades of expertise to gin up propaganda for corporations that, were he to approach them as a journalist, would shoo him away with a curt “no comment”?

My questions became nagging anxieties and then, over the next few nights, a full-blown existential crisis. I was a month away from the release of my first book, a critical treatment of the big tech companies and the world they’ve made for us, and here I was sweating over an assignment glorifying some of those same companies. And I couldn’t even figure out how to do it properly! I had the impression, common to many anxiety sufferers, that my problems were self-made but also eminently real. This sentiment merged with a number of other ugly feelings—my disgust toward the media establishment, my distaste for advertising, my profound frustration with the older editor, my fear that I would be grinding out bullshit work like this for the rest of my days—until I thought that I just couldn’t do it. I began to wonder how I would explain to my spouse that, because I couldn’t finish this assignment, we would have to change our names and move to a foreign country. It all made a kind of sense.

Because it’s a venture-capital-funded company, valuing growth above profit, Casper can afford to spend lavishly on product sample giveaways for potentially influential fans, whether they’re magazine journalists or Kylie Jenner, who once Instagrammed a photo of her Casper mattress. My Maxim source mentioned that colleagues at BuzzFeed also received free mattresses last year—and in February, BuzzFeed published a sponsored post authored by Casper, followed in March and June by glowing reports about the company, one written by a freelancer, the other by a BuzzFeed staffer. As the staffer’s article noted, BuzzFeed and Casper “share some investors.”

In the case of Maxim, Casper naturally hoped for something in return for its largesse. After the mattresses went mostly unreturned (one of the company’s selling points is that you can send back a mattress you don’t like), a PR rep began probing Maxim, asking where the coverage was. The site’s editorial director asked a gathering of staffers if any of them had accepted the free mattresses. About ten hands went up, representing nearly $10,000 in gifts. That was too much, the editorial director decided. They would have to write an article. Eventually, the site published a Q&A with one of Casper’s founders.

On the face of it, this is a familiar tale: wherever free product samples appear, positive coverage is not far behind. But there’s an added twist. In addition to its giveaway initiative, Casper had a little something going on the side. After the mattress haul, three Maxim staffers were approached by the same PR firm to find out if they wanted to interview for positions at Van Winkle’s, a new website dedicated to “smarter sleep and wakefulness.” In May, Matt Berical, a Maxim editor, decided to jump ship for the new venture.[*] It is not immediately clear who sponsors VanWinkle.com, but if you poke around, you’ll land on a familiar name: “Van Winkle’s is published,” says the site’s About page, “by Casper Sleep, Inc.”

Getting steady requests from good editors and earning money for nice food + air fare are all I hope for in the market.

read it, but getting those $4-a-word gigs, however dismal, is also a door closed to me

feel like a broken record at this point but I'm pretty sure the latest noisey kanye piece is the worst music writing ever

Even by the standards of "a Noisey thinkpiece about Kanye West," that was fucking horrible.

xp I know, and it's a shame for a lot of good young writers who just need a bit of help to get better. Really basic stuff like: This needs examples. This generalisation is weak. This transition doesn't make sense. Opinion pieces particularly need that attention because they're much harder than interviews or album reviews.

― impossible raver (Re-Make/Re-Model), Wednesday, March 16, 2016 8:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not that i've ever had much in the way of any sort of advice, but i wish as a young writer i'd received ~career advice - like, how to navigate and progress through this industry if you want it to be long-term. the writing stuff you figure out on your own, most good writers i know agonise over the minutiae like that anyway (if anything being more relaxed about your writing might be better advice for certain personality types). but the career stuff, how to figure out where the next step up the ladder should be when you're not in a defined workplace, how to get different types of work and maybe even a slightly better income, all of that i'm still at a loss about. but then "how to think in long-term career terms" is apparently not such a problem for others

Holy shit, the Casper press page just goes on forever:

https://casper.com/press/

Is there a writer out there not sleeping on one of these things?

from that link, disappointing 404s of our time: http://stylecaster.com/how-i-got-rid-of-my-boyfriends-ghosts-of-girlfriends-past/

Is there a writer out there not sleeping on one of these things?

i am ikea and proud

i am ikea and not proud

who says freelancers sleep?

xp Career advice is hard — I've hardly received any — because so little is universally applicable. I could write it in a postcard:

1. Write well and relatively fast.
2. Be well organised
3. File clean copy on time and never let an editor down.
4. Be pleasant to deal with even when you disagree with your editor.
5. Say yes more often than no.
6. Write for a range of titles (if you can) in case one goes out of business.
7. Write about a range of subjects in a range of formats (if you can). Everyone gets pigeonholed but make your pigeonhole as broad as possible.

The rest is luck.

And don't tell an editor after they've made you rewrite something a bunch to take your name off of the review and change it to the name Rick Rockrite. They hate that.

Write well and relatively fast

N.B.: Writing fast and relatively well is not an acceptable substitute.

shorter postcard:

1. don't fuck up
2. don't be a fuckup
3. if you're worried about whether you are, in a field that demands 24/7 sociability and a bottomless chalice of self-confidence in the face of all evidence, you are probably a fuckup

How many times can #1 happen before I move into phase 2?

in all seriousness though I actually have had quite a few high school or college students email me for advice (why they emailed *me*, instead of any number of other writers, suggests they probably genuinely do need the advice) and I've never known what to say, because I don't have any pat palatable advice that I can endorse with a clear conscience

Then tell them what it's like and how things generally work rather than what they should do.

Tell them to post on ILX and one day their job can be tasting pineapples and fig newtons on Gawker

in all seriousness though I actually have had quite a few high school or college students email me for advice (why they emailed *me*, instead of any number of other writers, suggests they probably genuinely do need the advice) and I've never known what to say, because I don't have any pat palatable advice that I can endorse with a clear conscience

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Thursday, March 17, 2016 5:05 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't write any crit yourself.

this old anvil laughs at many broken hammers
there are men who can't be bought
the fireborn are at home in fire.
the stars make no noise,
you can't hinder the wind from blowing.
time is a great teacher.
who can live without hope?

Carl Sandberg in a music thread has to be a tribute to something or other.

Didn't think this week could gobble it;'s own dick any more, but Stereogum is straight up running WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE WHITE MEN stormfront propaganda

http://www.stereogum.com/1866209/sorority-noise-and-pinegrove-save-indie-rock-at-sxsw/franchises/sounding-board/

Emo has become the best refuge for those turned off by indie’s longstanding flight from guitar-driven rock music toward synthesized pop.

On a purely musical level, the way they fused DIY and arena rock elements was glorious; they wielded power chords and vocal harmonies and cleverly self-deprecating lyrics with such profound force that for the first time in 15 years it didn’t matter that Weezer fell off.

indie rock saved at brooklyn vegan afterparty presented by gretsch

i love a lot of the music he describes, what an awful way to frame it

Emo, country, mid-’90s VH1 pop-rock: I realize none of these are particularly reputable styles among an indie rock audience

lol this sentence appears right after 9 paragraphs talking about "emo’s creative renaissance" and right before comparing the band to Wilco

also I've played Cheer Up Charlies indoor stage it does not hold "more than a couple hundred people" it's about the size of a Dunkin' Donuts.

possibly i have "emo is back!!!! in pog form" thinkpiece fatigue

Like Sorority Noise’s Boucher, Evan Stephens Hall is one of the great lyricists of our time

obviously

too bad this wasn't the time or place to ask an all-male band about why they named themselves Sorority Noise. it's not like a context for that discussion was set up in the first paragraph

i've never listened to them for that reason lol

This was a party, a religious experience, and a workout routine all at once.

ok i mean i hate to pile on but can we end live reviews now

I honestly find Sorority Noise a less offensive name than A Great Big Pile Of Leaves. Whoever came up with that should be force-fed leaves until they fucking die.

hahahahaha

i'm enjoying this new snark-free whiney persona

has he given up Subway?

i'm enjoying this new snark-free whiney persona

― k3vin k., Friday, March 18, 2016 4:11 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Swore off it on Twitter, never said anything about ILX

lol fair

zing fresh my friends

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/03/justin-bieber-continues-his-assault-on-kurt-cobains-legacy-by-performing-inside-a-heart-shaped-box/

The name "Sorority Noise" is good cause to once again trot out this Ian Svenonius quote:

The powerful associative effect of names is often misunderstood. While fondly thought of, mammalian names are a mistake--unless one chooses a mythical beast. A wild animal is a graceful creature that needs no clothes or grooming to look spectacular, and your onlookers--their expectations heightened--will inevitably be disappointed by the oafish onstage display of whatever crew of humanoids you've managed to muster. "Oh dear," they will say, "they are nothing like wolves/foxes/etc." If one hangs sucha name on one's group, one is raising the bar too high.

Male groups with "Girls" in their name have a similar problem. In literature and film, the "girl" represents the reader's/viewer's pure self-image. The audience is supposed to identify with the "girl," who is innocent, brave, artless, attractive, and clever (e.g., Chihiro of Spirited Away, Pippi Longstocking, and Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz). Film noir is predicated on the opposite idea--that audiences like to identify with cynical, morally bankrupt, been-there done-thats. These roles are typically played by middle-aged men with five o'clock shadows (Humphry Bogart, Glenn Ford, Robert Mitchum). Most groups now resemble the stars of the noir genre, physically if not sartorially. Bands with "Girl" in their name are almost invariably these kinds of hairy and less attractive men. As a rule, then, males should avoid group names with "Girl."

> As a rule, then, males should avoid group names with "Girl."

attn https://soundcloud.com/girlband

Girl Band are so completely fucking awesome I barely even consider their name, but fair point Ian.

assumed 'Girl Band' as a name was a commentary of sorts on the vapidity of the term 'girl band' as used in rock writing or w/e, which is a little different to what Svenonius is talking about there I guess

Really giving four white guys who cover techno songs a lot of credit there

don't feel strongly about their music either way but they seem bright enough guys

if you're implying that covering a Blawan track is racially problematic I'd suggest that's a bit of a reach