Pitchfork's Chris Ott takes No Prisoners

gotta be in the 1000s

this ott's for you

xpost I don't think it's corporate pressure he's worried about. He doesn't think Converse executives are pushing bands on Ryan Schreiber and Mark Richardson. He's saying that the corporations are exploiting these guys' taste/talent/skills/whatever to turn fans of hip music into converse customers. And that it sets up a culture of "finding what's cool" because that's what advertisers covet.

for the record i don't really care too much about that. Most of the argument is so toxic I feel like I need to distance myself even when I'm citing parts I agree with.

not literally toxic, I don't want waterface to chime in with "I missed the part in the video where he poisoned the water supply."

it's literally toxic in that I feel sick to my stomach

out of fear, mostly. which I suppose is the solution to the income/success/whatever-you-call it gap in music journalism: instill more fear in writers.

i'm probably we're dealing with two parallel problems here, the first is that ott's analysis is shaky, narrow and conspiratorial. the second is that he's a belligerent jerk.

the belligerent jerkiness is where i checked in, specifically his white collar down-punching (the now famous "94k + bennies") but more importantly, his crude, sub-breitbart gay-baiting trolling of ed droste. and it's readily apparent in this big exchange here; a bunch of people have tried to engage critically w/ him on twitter and gotten another blast of name calling etc. i don't know what he's like a critic or a writer; indie rock isn't really my thing and the discourse around it really isn't my thing.

factor all that out (not that you should; you shouldn't) the analysis itself doesn't hang together. and yeah, it all rests on the assertion that Music Is Special and should be Untainted.

the first step is that contemporary internet music media outlets aren't really what they are, they are just fronts for venture capital. people have asked how this is different from earlier ad-funded/print media era and he said that was just as gross, or something (https://twitter.com/shallowrewards/status/408407992061931520). people have also asked, well, how is that different from the rest of capitalism? and the argument is "capitalism is fine" (https://twitter.com/shallowrewards/status/408414088545705984) but capital's relationship to music -- really ANY relationship between capital and music writing -- is heinous (https://twitter.com/shallowrewards/status/408645007084515328). it should all be free, i guess, somehow.

the second step is how writers who take money from these sites are implicit in their own corruption, or blind, or something. and the third is that nobody should care about any of these bands anyway, because nobody cares anymore about the bands he wrote about ten years ago.

yeah, it's a monastic/aristocratic argument. do it as a hobby. i do it as a hobby, i'm in the upper middle class. do what i did, start your straight career during the clinton era. or i'll call you a cunt on twitter.

my advice, if anybody is listening, is the opposite. get by! survive. for god's sake, take the money. there's less money out there for anybody, for anything, period. are you kidding? take the hundred bucks or whatever. why not?

er that first sentence is garbled -- "i'm probably repeating a lot of what has already been said, or will be, by the time i hit submit"

Good summary. I think that deep down thinks music writing should be a hobby (which, fine! Ignore pro writing!). But he also doesn't like a lot of the music that is getting written about, and attributes it to shady forces behind pro writing..

also he hates women

Sure, take the money, but don't pretend to think you're doing anything worthwile or lasting, you're just shitting down the throats of a million people

what is the morally superior alternative, then? preferably, is there a morally superior alternative that is attainable and will allow one to pay the rent? this is a serious question.

In his opinion, it's finding a job and doing the music writing as a hobby.

Have you guys read that article this morning about SWARM????

I'm not being smarmy. if I came off as smarmy, that is my fault and I apologize.

As D-40 pointed out, this http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/node/8599 also picked up on the way bands seem to be treated the same way a new flavor of Doritos from a marketing standpoint online.

"Shitting down the throats of a million people" is a necessary consequence of making a living as a citizen in a modern first-world country unless you are rich enough to have piles of liquid cash that are not tied to any market or commodity that you can then distribute to people in need. Also, said cash must be distributed from the hut floating in the middle of the ocean that you forebears lived in by you as you live your life naked and eating fish that you have caught and killed with your bare hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw0C5Sga6So

to make an argument about the endangered purity of music and music journalism that ignores ones relationship with the world beyond it, or the history of music, music journalism and advertising, is stupid and vain.

"Shitting down the throats of a million people" is a necessary consequence of making a living as a citizen in a modern first-world country

Ok, totally. But you don't have to make a living as a music writer.

...If you would feel guilty shitting down people's throats in that way.

You can be a good citizen and do a different kind of job, one that doesn't involve writing music reviews

So... "you should find some other avenue to shit down people's throats" is the argument being advanced here? That doesn't seem to solve the core problem.

That's my argument, yes, and I agree it doesn't solve the core problem of our shitty economy

If you're forcing the premise that no matter what you do in a modern first-world country you're shitting down throats then yes.

i mean, points to waterface for acknowledging and embracing the whole of ott's stance - "career musicians and critics suck" - rather than picking and choosing which parts to alter and defend

the problem with that argument is that many people do not have the means or luck (or 94K and bennies to stall with) to find some other avenue to shit down people's throats, at least not quickly enough not to go broke. (it isn't just millennials either -- the largest category of job hunters I know is 40+ women who've been left by their husbands and suddenly need to enter the job market they hadn't prepared for -- but really that's beside the point.)

if the whole world is systematically unfair and exploitive
then why are we begrudging some people who write about music their beer money

also when was this fantastical tyme when music journalism was uncorrupted and advertising and marketing free?

which you do acknowledge, but it does put the person receiving the argument into a bit of a bind. "You are morally bankrupt! And you don't even have the option to become less morally bankrupt! Probably the most moral thing you can do is drop dead, I dunno."

if anything waterface is probably more ideologically consistent than ott, who seems to pick and choose which pro writers should be called out for being pro writers

some music is free and critique seems beside the point

http://www.dead.net/30daysofdead

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

― tuostprophets (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, December 5, 2013 11:03 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

def lots of proven facts in this post

― My Chief Keef Keef (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, December 5, 2013 11:17 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually i retract this as it might have just been whiney starting intra-spin beef w/j0rd

i mean, points to waterface for acknowledging and embracing the whole of ott's stance - "career musicians and critics suck" - rather than picking and choosing which parts to alter and defend

Thanks, man!

waterface ilu

why

guys it's time, can you feel it

combing in the hair tonight

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr02/2012/12/6/14/enhanced-buzz-9394-1354823884-4.jpg

i feel like that should be a still from some paul thomas anderson film i haven't seen

is it true that phil collins wrote that song about seeing ryan schreiber sell out indie and then sang it directly to ryan schreiber at a concert and then ryan schreiber was like "damn"

In some versions of the story i've heard schreiber then went home to kill himself, in another he is arrested by awaiting police officers.

take a look at me now

"You are morally bankrupt! And you don't even have the option to become less morally bankrupt! Probably the most moral thing you can do is drop dead, I dunno."

if the whole world is systematically unfair and exploitive
then why are we begrudging some people who write about music their beer money

Context...

As I understand the point:

Do you care about covering what you want and saying what you want about it? Probably much harder to get paid to do that.

Therefore, find a different kind of job and cover music as a hobby, or stop caring and happily continue making a living as a pro writer.

That's as much of his broad point as I'll defend.

Xp Its just a 404

someday shriebs is gonna be dying and ott won't have a car but he'll drive his lawnmower across the country to see shriebs and they'll sit out on the porch and crack open two beers and look out at the sunset while that one wrens album plays in the background

Sorry- not "defend", but that's what I interpreted him to mean at least.

lol matt

evan WHY are you doing him the favor of ignoring the self-righteous bile and contradiction, and trying to pull some friendly "hey writers and musicians, if you don't wanna deal with commercial grief, get a day job and do your shit on the weekends and nights" sentiment out of his shit?

dicrescenzo and passantino will be inside the house playing nba jam

xpost

while that one wrens album plays in the background

I love you