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

The vinyl me please guy rhapsodizes about wanting people to spend time with albums that matter meanwhile my buddy gifted me his (arrived in the mail like this) warped Vinyl Me Please copy of Dan deacon's Spiderman of the Rings.

I promised I'd be more charitable in 2018 but I am trying to wrap my mind around fighting The Evil Algorithms by going to major-label artist playlists. (the whole "Spotify can tell me that people who listen to Lorde also listen to other pop songs by young women, but it can’t pick out just the right one the way Lorde herself can" thing is showing up in more and more criticism.)

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16840940/spotify-algorithm-music-discovery-mix-cds-resolution

tech sites' music coverage is terrible

true but you'd expect them to be better than music sites at not talking about The Algorithms the way you'd talk about Bigfoot

(this is probably one of my biggest pet peeves right now because

a) the word "algorithm" has an actual meaning. like, every time you've done a multiplication problem, you used an algorithm
b) algorithms don't appear from the autonomous mind of skynet or whatever, they are made by people, but it's much easier to blame it all on The Algorithms than to think about why people might make the coding decisions they make and what influences them
c) the existence of an algorithm does not make something automatically bad)

Feel like that article could be a short little blurb suggesting people pay attention to how the music presented to them got to be presented to them and put time in to find ways of getting music presented to you in ways that work best for you.

Feel like it's not really doing that but gesturing towards it, but missing looking at how the songs got presented to Lorde in the first place (possibly algorhythmically) and to (take things a cynical step further) assuming that she just chose those cuz she liked them and not for label promotional reasons, etc...

it's almost certainly not Lorde (or anyone else), though, it's a 23-year-old in the office coordinating with other 23-year-olds when Justin Bieber can spontaneously tweet about this great new song he discovered

it's those damn 23 year olds!

to be fair sometimes they're as old as 29

don't trust anyone under 30

there's another "ooh spooky algorithms" piece by Rhett Miller in the outline (admittedly it touches on other subjects)

Didn't see it up there, does it have a bafflingly incongruous title or something?

can't link rn but it's actually in The Baffler, sorry

i think it’s in the baffler

can't link rn but it's actually in The Baffler, sorry

― Simon H., Friday, January 5, 2018 8:21 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

goddamn you for making me try to find a story on the outline

lmao sorry

anyway it's not really bad enough for this thread I don't think but man if I were a white rock musician in my 40s I'd think long and hard before writing dismissively about "SoundCloud rappers"

I like a lot about The Outline, but they do make it hard to find what you want.

the outline had a decent piece on this a few months back, albeit not about music: https://theoutline.com/post/2362/the-algorithm-is-innocent

anyway it's not really bad enough for this thread I don't think but man if I were a white rock musician in my 40s I'd think long and hard before writing dismissively about "SoundCloud rappers"

No one in their 40s should be thinking about SoundCloud rappers at all. Accept that not everything is for you, and that that's a good thing, and move on.

wait up there hoss - some of that soundcloud stuff you're dismissing is just fine for the over 40 crowd, maybe not for you tho'

As a 40 year old, I'm cool with soundcloud rappers. I also recognize that what I might have to say about them isn't notable or relevant to them (or anyone much, really)

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MpA2HVftSFntl9HhmhlQA3MEjIU=/0x0:1409x785/1200x800/filters:focal(622x252:846x476)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55701647/Screen_Shot_2017_07_13_at_1.09.20_PM.0.png

A thread where white people old enough to remember the Challenger Explosion debate whether "I took a white bitch to starbucks/That lil' bitch got her throat fucked" is for them

That's not really what's happening but whatever gramps

Ageism goes both ways.

whiney if u aint' down with the kids how can u be down with the clown?

also NB: your immediate access to xxx bars is very suspect, i daresay you may be a greyhair turncoat

does anyone under the age of 40 use that Buscemi meme anymore, is my question

this piece is seriously called “cut the c-rap”

https://www.city-journal.org/html/cut-c-rap-15692.html

when does the pmrc reform

City Journal is the nation’s premier urban-policy magazine, “the Bible of the new urbanism,” as London’s Daily Telegraph puts it. During the Giuliani Administration, the magazine served as an idea factory as the then-mayor revivified New York City, quickly becoming, in the words of the New York Post, “the place where Rudy gets his ideas.”

lord help us

The guy looks like an Isaac Asimov cosplayer

http://myronmagnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/MyronMagnetAlexanderHamilton-x400.jpg

Peggy Noonan is on their publication committee.

i love that he quoted the skit from reasonable doubt as jay-z lyrics

Fuckin' Magnets, how do they work?

not so much music writing as racist concern trolling tbf

lmao "myron magnet"

from the creative team that brought you "geir hongro"

the corruption and oppression of their kleptocratic governments that keep the proles in poverty, ignorance, and fear; their religions that teach violence or passive resignation; and their cultures that oppress women, devalue learning, promote superstition

but enough about america,

👌

that photo is perfect not-alt right "I am upholding civilization against the barbarian darkness" fantasy

Looks like Chris Cantwell's attorney

to whom do i write a sharply worded letter about rescinding mr magnet's national humanities medal

Too late, it'll be pretty firmly stuck to him

shoulda checked the couch before he sat down

the only magnet we acknowledge here is penelope magnet

some of these ageing aesthetes are better off just staying safely inside their posh wanking pits, and refraining from saying anything until the death. Then we all win.

posh wanking pits

wait are these bad now?

nowt wrong with 'em!

But people like Sir Roger Scrotum should stay inside them.