Pitchfork's Chris Ott takes No Prisoners

The idea that people’s futures might be economically determined deeply offends U.S. sensibilities. We want to believe that individual moxie matters, that a person’s creativity, effort, and intelligence will lead to economic success. Stories of exceptional strivers, heroically overcoming a stacked deck of obstacles, divert our attention from the data. But the large mega-trends are now indisputable. If you fail to pick wealthy parents and want to experience the American dream today, move to Canada.

on a journey thru the past

worked for win butler

canada ain't all it's cracked up to be

smh @ Everett True

kinda tangential question to the career musicians here - seeing that you're not multi-millionaires (i don't think, maybe i really misunderstand the indie economy), to what extent do you find yourself sticking to 'brand' to ensure that your career doesn't fall apart? (no judgment implied here, i'm 100% cool with musicians i like not starving to death.)

i have a day job so I don't know if I count as a career musician or not but I've been in a band that tours and puts out albums for 18 years or so, and it's a fine line between trying to evolve and playing to your strengths. since we try to have a conceptual orientation that is distinct that drives each album we kind of built into things the notion that we would change, and electronic music has such relentless trend turnovers that you can't really play catchup without seeming kind of spray-on and phony, so we don't bother too much with that. Every band is different in terms of how wide or narrow the initial genre frame already is- like if you're 60s garage rockers, you can add some country or some gospel or some soul, but there's a core there. But no matter what the genre, you can't not be aware of the fatigue issue for your fans and listeners- when they have eight of your albums, do they need number nine too? and you can start to feel threatened by your own past, as if you're competing with yourself and people's first impressions as much as with the cluttered landscape. not to be morbidly grandiose but in a weird sense every career "falls apart" insofar as contexts change and you change too and you just can't be the same person, onstage or on records, that you were when you started. cue Soft Cell's "the art of falling apart" . . . .

yeah i feel like the difference between how a musician navigates their career and how a critic navigates theirs are so fundamentally different that i wouldn't even want to compare them in any meaningful way. apples and oranges.

If you fail to pick wealthy parents and want to experience the American dream today, move to Canada.

Here, I have a song for you

If you wanna be a star
if you really wanna sell
you better buy the best PR
you better choose your parents well

Britney Spears to thread

"if you wanna party in France, you better work bitch" etc.

nuff sed

sorry, this is just happening at a particularly scary time in the writing landscape

the entire american economy sucks unless you come from family money/got a solid pre-Bush/Cheney.Crash career going

thank God for my solid pre-Bush

Bush/Cheney.Crash

common misnomer. recession, and grinding "recovery," totally due to obamacare.

not just obamacare but barney frank iirc

oh good just what this thread needed

obamacore

^^^^^^^^^^^^ new genre.

focus, people

丂んﾑﾚﾚӨω ЯΣЩΛг๔ร ‏@shallowrewards 56m

@coreybeasley @cryptochromatic I AM THE SOLUTION. I AM DOING WHAT IS A SOLUTION 2 THIS PROBLEM. NOT SELLING MUSIC IN2 AD-SUPPORTED PR LAND

There has to be some way to articulate what kind of person finds the "replace each letter in your username with a wacky symbol shaped like that letter" an interesting and unique choice in 2013

witch house is gonna come back, dude ^^^

But he's not even using the right witch house fonts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88zQ_sf6BMg

hey I made this choice in like 2006

oh you meant that guy, cool

if you wave this image in his face does he explode into flames

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Moby_play.JPG

Saw some fellow getting of the subway this afternoon, studied his upswept do and said to myself " now that, in contrast, is a happy pompadour."

There has to be some way to articulate what kind of person finds the "replace each letter in your username with a wacky symbol shaped like that letter" an interesting and unique choice in 2013

― 乒乓, Tuesday, December 3, 2013 2:02 PM (2 hours ago)

http://th00.deviantart.net/fs70/200H/i/2012/276/0/1/no_love_deep_web_by_fatal_nostalgia-d5gpzgi.png

We know how to read webtstats, son. *snicker* Yeah, we're BEGGING to inflate our worth. Money is made on valid stats, you think we fooled New Line Cinema with hocum? You. Are. Always (I can only assume). Wrong.
― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Tuesday, September 23, 2003 10:07 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

noticed a response to the sexism accusation in the comments box of that everett true post - apparently, it's the people HIRING young women who are the sexists.

It’s quite sad to me that in aid of developing a justifiable ad-hominem position Jake and his pals have invented the position that I am “against female writers” and believes age is a relevant basis for debating intellectual and ethical concerns. This sort of gap-seeking, self-martyring nonsense is endemic in your circle. Stop looking for reasons to invalidate your critics and confront them word for word.

Elitist cliques pull this whenever someone says something to upset their harmonious network of fast friends trading self-celebration, reinforcing their position while circling the wagons. All I’m trying to point out here is the wagon.

The “authentic experience”-hunting brands and the portals they pay for (like Pitchfork and the NME) want young women on the wagon for far more sexist reasons than you might understand. Their reader base is 70% male. And these young women chose to put themselves in my line of sight, I didn’t seek them out.

"And these young women chose to put themselves in my line of sight, I didn’t seek them out."

ted bundy quote?

And these young women chose to put themselves in my line of sight, I didn’t seek them out.

Ok I don't know if dude is actually a sexist asshole or just an asshole but this sentence is super crepey.

haha xp

the lack of self-awareness is kind of staggering

This guy gives a bad name to all of us who

Like music
Used to play in a crappy band
Have a day job
Don't exercise or cut our hair as often as we should

lol

"giving white guys a bad name since 2003"

idk there are dudes who have non-pompadour affectations, like getting swole and having youtubes about it

丂んﾑﾚﾚӨω ЯΣЩΛг๔ร ‏@shallowrewards 9m

@RcmndedListen No, but I am a cancer to people who use music to draw an audience to sell shoes to.

i don't think he knows how cancers work

or maybe he just meant the crab

CANCER...

rhythm is a dancer

his bit about how you don't have to deal with the advertising venture capital world thanks to twitter and tumblr reminds me of the various glenn beck speeches railing against socialism that include a part where he goes to the library.

he adorably missed the part where tumblr was sold to yahoo for a billion dollars

Fucking venture capitalists, demanding a ROI on everything

Post your content to Twitter instead. They're clean

s1ocki otm, there's no voice as impassioned and offbase as from someone whose god failed them

you don't have to deal with advertising venture capital because kickstarter or w/e will fund your sugar ray cruise

I have no idea what post this is on or whose pal I am (I have literally never spoken to or chatted with Jake in my life), but if most of the blame for a systemic problem sustained by ad execs, CEOs and venture capitalists is placed on mostly beginning-to-mid-career female writers, and when their male writer counterparts are criticized only in terms of being pals with and/or wanting to sleep with said female writers (this isn't hyperbole, I'm pretty sure I remember a post saying some male writer was "just looking for a handjob") -- then yes, I'm going to make a wild guess and call that sexist

also, less from the "sexist" category and more from the "what the fuck is wrong with you," apparently said comments section goes and calls this one 19-year-old girl (who lives nowhere near Bushwick) a "dumb fuck" for asking what was going on and whether she should be discouraged from writing because of it, A+ everybody, fantastic work

what post is this i didn't see the link in the thread?

http://www.collapseboard.com/everett-true/christopher-j-ott-the-other-guvner/