Pitchfork's Chris Ott takes No Prisoners

His point seems to be that music writing should be a hobby for the already affluent. Or for people who live on air. Much like the pro-piracy hardliners who resent any band who expects to earn any money.

"His point seems to be that music writing should be a hobby for the already affluent."

some would call this a bug, not a feature

I really hate how he thinks he has music writers "shitting their pants" - like what people are responding to is His Great Truth instead of his poor reasoning

Really uh, lol, that when he talks about independent music pubs that don't depend on ads he fails to mention Maura Magazine which iirc is entirely based on reader subscriptions, but then later calls out Maura as not having the independence to say what she wants to say?!

that shit was heinous. also i still don't know what a collapse board is

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, December 5, 2013 9:48 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

especially weird because it looks like he writes for Maura on occaission??
http://www.maura.com/451/unreal-is-here

waterface doesn't agree with ott but is powerless to resist the siren song of such percfecto online assholism

Everyone wants to always invoke riot grrrl as if it was some fucking scion of feminism—you weren’t fucking there, I was there.

They don’t know. They’ve demonstrated that they don’t know… I cannot allow that. If you’re going to start talking about things like punk and DIY, then I can’t allow that.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/90s-punk-decries-punks-of-today,1486

xpost totally, that plus the fact that he's calling out names. Take the bizarre NME/Pelly section out of that video, my guess is that the online response to Ott decreases about 60-70%

xxpost on that last one

waterface doesn't agree with ott but is powerless to resist the siren song of such percfecto online assholism

I agree with him u numbskull

i don't care

you have achieved perfecto online assholism

nah man i'm a nice guy

online posting should be for the intellectually affluent

delurking to comment that oddly Ott's position reminds me more than anything of these quotes from Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek I read in a Corey Robin article this year:

However important the independent owner of property may be for the economic order of a free society, his importance is perhaps even greater in the fields of thought and opinion, of tastes and beliefs.

The importance of the private owner of substantial property, however, does not rest simply on the fact that his existence is an essential condition for the preservation of the structure of competitive enterprise. The man of independent means is an even more important figure in a free society when he is not occupied with using his capital in the pursuit of material gain but uses it in the service of aims which bring no material return.

It is only natural that the development of the art of living and of the non-materialistic values should have profited most from the activities of those who had no material worries.

http://jacobinmag.com/2013/06/nietzsche-hayek-and-the-meaning-of-conservatism/

to think this could have all been avoided if people had funded his kickstarter (well, and mark mcgrath's)

ha

I mean, everyone is kind of painting Ott's argument on some NO LOGO, SHEEPLE 9/11 truther shit because, well no doy, brands have been tacking themselves on to bands since Fred Astaire was shilling cigarettes in the '30s.

But I think what's getting lost here (probably since Ott can't make a cogent argument) is that the gap between the oligarchs at the top of the internet food chain and the bands they cover is probably wider than it's ever been.

It's one thing to talk about how Bob Guccione Jr or Ryan Schrieber bought a nice house covering Husker Du or Tapes N Tapes, but another thing when the FABULOUSLY WEALTHY (ie, Vice is a BILLION DOLLAR company, Mountain Dew's record label, Converse Rubber Tracks) are taking advantage of the new culture of cool: writers and editors who will work for the lowest rates in the history of music journalism, and bands who've existed less than a year.

It sucks and that's the way things are headed now.

I don't know if blaming the writers is the answer, but I wish editors would pay more since this is basically hastening the eventual demise of "music journalism" as a career even faster than Spotify can

(probably since Ott can't make a cogent argument)

this appears to be the crux of the problem, resulting in the whole "blaming the writers" thing

I mean, everyone is kind of painting Ott's argument on some NO LOGO, SHEEPLE 9/11 truther shit because, well no doy, brands have been tacking themselves on to bands since Fred Astaire was shilling cigarettes in the '30s.

But I think what's getting lost here (probably since Ott can't make a cogent argument) is that the gap between the oligarchs at the top of the internet food chain and the bands they cover is probably wider than it's ever been.

It's one thing to talk about how Bob Guccione Jr or Ryan Schrieber bought a nice house covering Husker Du or Tapes N Tapes, but another thing when the FABULOUSLY WEALTHY (ie, Vice is a BILLION DOLLAR company, Mountain Dew's record label, Converse Rubber Tracks) are taking advantage of the new culture of cool: writers and editors who will work for the lowest rates in the history of music journalism, and bands who've existed less than a year.

It sucks and that's the way things are headed now.

― tuostprophets (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, December 5, 2013 10:29 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know if blaming the writers is the answer, but I wish editors would pay more since this is basically hastening the eventual demise of "music journalism" as a career even faster than Spotify can

― tuostprophets (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, December 5, 2013 10:30 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're right of course

it's all horrible

then Ott's essentially like a guy walking through a field in Bakersfield screaming "SELL OUT" at the migrant workers & asking to be treated like a hero for doing so

considering you want editors to pay more to help "music journalism" as a career survive, i don't believe what you see as being lost is what ott's trying to have found

The writers are to blame if they pretend they aren't contributing to the corporations. Isn't that the point he's making?

and the crux of *that* problem is, suppose a writer agrees. suppose a writer feels chastised, they have SEEN THE LIGHT, they want to do right, come to jesus, what have you. what can they do? "Get a job. That’s what I did. I got a job." I mean, fuck, at least evangelical christians offer people a sinner's prayer they can do right away

evangelical Christians in America these days would want you to get a job before they pray for you, so maybe Ott's missed his calling.

ott isn't exactly articulating problems that pretty much EVERY JOURNALIST isn't aware of and hasn't been discussing at length already

Well, he isn't saying anything about how easy it is to get a job. He's just saying if you give a shit about whether you are contributing to corporations by compromising your actual opinions about music, than don't expect music criticism to be the way in which you expect to build your career.

ha god if only that was just what he's saying

"hey, principles can get in the way of career, guys. sucks but it's true. anyway, curve's new album..."

Ads on YouTube videos are not mandatory, btw. You have to opt in.

This isn't true, in my experience. Over and over YouTube asked me if I wanted to monetize my videos by including ads and I always said no, so eventually they just put ads on them anyway.

I was perhaps too smarmy on Twitter about this, but if I gave a shit about whether I was indirectly contributing to corporations, I could not use this laptop, populate these sites by tech corporations, drink this coffee, take this cold and flu medicine for the cold I have, probably live in this house, definitely not live in this city, or really do anything but go off the grid.

a stance he paints as absurd because he is not anti-corporation. he's just anti-taking a paycheck from corporations for knowing about or creating indie rock. that's literally all he's anti.

I don't see how he ISN'T saying (overall) "Look, if you care, keep your music criticism untainted by keeping it a hobby and make money another way, because it is extremely difficult to both make enough money to live on AND keep your opinions untainted".

as for compromising my opinions about music, I've never done that, not even when I primarily covered pop music. (this is honestly the part that baffles me -- why he doesn't go after THAT segment of the music press, considering the problem is even more endemic there and -- this is mean but -- there are plenty more young female writers working there.)

I appreciate Whiney making the argument Ott's too blinkered to make. I posted somewhere itt that some of Ott's big picture stuff about the economics of music journalism right now seemed pretty good, but the rest of the argument was filled with crazy nonsense.

ya, he's not anti-capitalist, he's saying people like him are the only ones who can express a pure opinion and others are all tainted by drawing paychecks

(this is what reminded me of Hayek)

you can use their platforms for free, you can work in their IT dept. just don't write a 5 Best Siouxsie & The Banshees listicle for $30, cuz then you're scum.

Well, he isn't saying anything about how easy it is to get a job. He's just saying if you give a shit about whether you are contributing to corporations by compromising your actual opinions about music, than don't expect music criticism to be the way in which you expect to build your career.

― Evan, Thursday, December 5, 2013 10:42 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

again as croup and others have pointed out SEVERAL times, he for some reason thinks it's ok to use twitter and tumblr which is contributing to corporation in no less of a way, but for some reason if you actually see nothing from the work then it's ok in his mind...also the other relevant point that "just get a job" part of his argument for a lot of people will involve other corporations that will often be morally compromised in ways a whole lot worse and more important than selling converse to young people

My other gripe with Ott, besides his singling out primarily female writers as the main source of vitriol, is that his interest in issues of economic inequality come to a screeching halt for anything other than the music writing business.

Obviously these trends that Whiney outlined above are far from specific to music journalism. It's basically the story of the last 20/30 years of many industries in this country, with rapid acceleration in the last 5 years or so. I'll grant that it's probably more pronounced in music and journalism, two fields whose earning power has been slashed by the internet.

But if, as everyone knows, the gap between the wealthy and everyone else is increasing everywhere, why is music and music journalism basically the only place we should be raising a stink?

I dunno, katherine, I do think it's really lame how much something like Mountain Dew can benefit from an artist as small and inconsequential as Neon Indian; or how companies have gone from giving bands $10k to use songs in their TV shows to giving them little more than "exposure"; or how sponsored content is funding multiple websites that pay their writers the most dogshit wages in history.

I think I'm allowed to be upset at that without being all "Oh, I'm wearing shoes so I guess the corporations win, Ayn Rand 4-eva"

whiney why are you pretending people mocking ott's stance are mocking your stance.

i mean, he could have just mocked bad shitty articles, laughing about all the losers trying to scrape together a living by doing dumb listicles, making pennies pushing mediocrities for mountain dew ads, etc etc etc etc, but instead he has to pretend he's KEEPING MUSIC PURE. it's ironically the piety, not his arbitrary abuse of writers, that really does him in.

I mean, I'm upset at that too -- I don't think anyone in this thread isn't -- but at the individual writer level there is really not much that any one person can do without either a) getting a lucky break or b) taking the kind of hardline moral stance that does beg to be applied en masse.

he is not concerned about broader economics, in fact I bet he's an Atlas Shrugged kind of guy at heart. he's only concerned about purity which is why his stance has very old conservative echoes, that only the independently wealthy are pure enough to think clearly and express a true/right opinion

only in this context merely working a non-music journalist job for 94k plus bennies = independently wealthy

and, yeah, intheblanks, the income gap between the haves and have nots in music journalism is widening just like the erosion of the middle class in america. so it's hard out here for anyone content with 94k plus bennies

which is honestly the most frustrating thing about all this (as opposed to the infuriating thing, which is that this kind of vitriol directed in this direction means the venture capitalists give zero shits and the earnest new writers give all the shits -- this distribution seems a bit familiar, doesn't it?): I am sympathetic to a large portion of this argument but when it comes to what one is actually supposed to do, as a writer, to be in the right, there is a blank and "get a job, you lazy shit."

it's true that millenials are def the most "I'm gonna be a ballet dancer/writer/musician/artist/professional video game player" generation in history thanks to helicopter parenting and this is one forum where the chickens are definitely coming home to roost

"hey guys you're so focused on his nonsensically selective anti-capitalism that you're missing the real point, which is FUCKING MILLENIALS MAN"

jus sayin

not blamin

in that case I apologize.

(that wasn't smarmy, it's sincere, I don't like being entitled and I try to battle it in myself but sometimes I slip.)

@whiney I absolutely agree re:"haves and have-nots," and I think those are the part of Ott's video that are good. The gap between the haves and have-nots is growing everywhere, and wealth and power getting concentrated isn't a good thing in music journalism, or public policy, or agriculture, or any field.

I just don't get combining the "don't be a tool of the wealthy" with the "94K plus bennies"/"Get real job, man!" components of his arguments.