so i talk about the fork a lot, and now i have an opportunity to explain why.
every time they publish one of these "poptimist" columns, i know damn well that something stupid is contained within -- something abrasively, arrogantly, obviously stupid. i'm sure one or two can be dug out that aren't masturbatory pieces of garbage, but if that's what you go in suspecting you usually won't be disappointed.
this one, subtitled "chartopia" is quite disturbing in that it addresses much of the crap i've been yelling about on and off for a few years now. he's talking about culture, about our much vaunted "new media", and how it's affected whatever remains of aggregate taste.
he says something that is stupid, and it's importantly stupid. "In a recent blog post, marketing guru Seth Godin touched disdainfully on the much-predicted demise of newspapers, writing 'Neatness is for historians.' This bon mot duly buzzed around the digiverse. Godin was addressing-- and dismissing-- journalism's much-honored role as 'the first draft of history,' its mission to make sense of the world for its readers. Social media, according to Godin and many similar thinkers, give people the tools to do this for themselves."
now here's why this is really stupid. some people call bloggers "citizen journalists". david simon once asked if you would call a man who puts out a small trash fire he sees while on a walk a "citizen firefighter". he then asked if your next conclusion would be that real firefighters are obsolete.
in reality, bloggers tend to be parasitic (as this blog). we live commenting on other companies' actual reporting. foreign policy blogs link to the new york times and the washington post, and most people don't follow links, meaning readers are consuming the product of a news company, but the company itself has no imaginable way to profit from it. aggregators (blogger's spell check doesn't recognize this last word; is it made up?) like google news and huffington post are the biggest violators of this, but the same dynamic exists for low-traffic blogs.
now, extend this to "social media" (i'm now realizing how orwellian this term truly is). some asshole TWEETS about a band; of the thirty five people who read his TWEETS let's say five take interest in the band; of those five presumably plugged-in folks, let's say one buys a few songs on itunes, while the rest torrent every single song the band has ever recorded and proceed to live the rest of their lives with thirty additional never-to-be-listened-to mp3s. the artist thanks the tweeter for the additional eight cents of income.
the problem with newspapers going out of business is that in order to produce news you actually have to pay some poor cunt to go somewhere and ask some questions and write some shit down. as adorably motivated as most "citizen journalists" are, someone needs to buy your food while you sit around at courthouse all day. reporting news is not an inherently profitable thing to do. neither is making music.
what tom ewing promises in his column is that social media allows people "to make sense of the world". i disagree. i think social media confuses its users, and disrupts any perception of the difference between the real world (of people, things) and the digital world (of pixels, numbers). as this happens, the real life institutions of the real world (newspapers, concert venues, etc.) die very rapidly, because the entire money-having nation spends ten hours out of every day typing and staring and typing and staring and typing and staring, all the while expanding their knowledge of everything, finding more people they know, being lords of their own universe.
sideshow bob once threatened to kill all television from a jumbotron, and i feel kind of like him, i guess. a luddite born in the 80's has a hell of a time these days. at the end of his sprawling, unfocused column, mr. ewing actually says, "There is still a great deal to be poptimistic about." as a musician, i find myself in another camp.
"social networking" (another phrase our society could probably do without) is incredibly useful for self-promotion. as an artist without any institutional support, it's more or less irreplaceable. but the rest of you, those non-creative people, whose generosity has fed us guitarists since the birth of our profession, you need to get off your god damn screens (right after you agree to attend my show). stop talking to each other all the fucking time and do something!
there's only so much that people can share. part of the equation has always been injecting new ideas, previously non-existent and unknowable, into the stream. mr. ewing thinks new media can do this job just fine, and that's why i called him stupid before. for real culture to happen, culture that we can be proud to pass to our children one day, we need to interact with one another in a way that can never be mechanized, a way that simply won't be made obsolete by tiny little machines that break if you kick them.
i'm talking, of course, about live music and fucking. who's with me?!
Friday, July 17, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
this post has been heavily influenced by african rhythms
pitchfork has an interview up of the dirty projectors guy, and even though he's talkiing about the fact that he's more of a band than a one-man act, even as we see pictures of the newly formed group being a group, the interview is with the guy and the guy alone, who says an awful lot of shit. wow, what a lot of thoughts he has. must be sharp.
anyway, what i want to focus on is the african influence section of the interview. check:
Pitchfork: You've been influenced by musical styles from Africa, and I wondered if you could speak to what you've listened to and the avenues you took to find it.
DL: To me it started with being into just sort of like, Motown shit, and into some of the earlier James Brown shit. And then there's that Brian Eno essay about the return of these Americanized African music to Africa, in music like Fela Kuti. I guess that's where I began, and I quickly ran through a whole bunch of those Nonesuch and the Okura discs, more like ethnomusicological folk musics.
And there's that book by John Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensibility, in the same way that Ian McDonald's Revolution in the Head served as a kind of gateway to me getting into 4-tracking and the recording artifice as something to be into.
Pitchfork: What do you think that influence has brought to your music?
DL: I don't know. I guess it's an ideal for me to take what you love in the same way that you take elements of your life, your personal experiences or whatever, and digest them into something new and incoherent. I like the idea of trying to make what you love unrecognizable. Although Bitte Orca is also sort of about doing the opposite of that.
i've omitted nothing. this is the entire bit of conversation on african anything in the whole stupid interview. seriously, it's as if it's a major influence, only it's not at all, even for a moment, relevant to any of the direct questions asked previously. when the journalist (hehe) asks questions about specific songs, about lyrical phrases, about various creative choices that were made, african music does not come up.
when prompted, however, by the statement "You've been influenced by musical styles from Africa," Mr. Dirty Projector, of course, has an answer loaded up. needless to say, the answer is incomprehensible. he heard some records, read a book, and though he likes the idea of making "what you love unrecognizable", his most recent record is about the opposite of that (this last part is a doozy). a simple listen to his music reveals the dearth of African influences, such as the writer means here. does this guy like african music? probably, but if it's altered his music in any significant way i can't tell. (to my ears it still sounds more Lauper than Farka Toure.)
but there's another aspect to this trend (and it is a trend; i have to hear about "african influences" playing out in all these white as paper bands and i'm like "nigga what? nigga please."): if you listen carefully, most indie rock adheres pretty strictly to the twelve-bar blues. arrangements may be getting out there (dirty projectors). vocal harmonies can be piled on top of one another until the listener gets the impression of depth (animal collective). broadly speaking, though, all of these college educated culture-loving wankers are playing songs that were written by people whose FUCKING GRANDPARENTS WERE FUCKING BORN IN FUCKING AFRICA.
just saying.
anyway, what i want to focus on is the african influence section of the interview. check:
Pitchfork: You've been influenced by musical styles from Africa, and I wondered if you could speak to what you've listened to and the avenues you took to find it.
DL: To me it started with being into just sort of like, Motown shit, and into some of the earlier James Brown shit. And then there's that Brian Eno essay about the return of these Americanized African music to Africa, in music like Fela Kuti. I guess that's where I began, and I quickly ran through a whole bunch of those Nonesuch and the Okura discs, more like ethnomusicological folk musics.
And there's that book by John Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensibility, in the same way that Ian McDonald's Revolution in the Head served as a kind of gateway to me getting into 4-tracking and the recording artifice as something to be into.
Pitchfork: What do you think that influence has brought to your music?
DL: I don't know. I guess it's an ideal for me to take what you love in the same way that you take elements of your life, your personal experiences or whatever, and digest them into something new and incoherent. I like the idea of trying to make what you love unrecognizable. Although Bitte Orca is also sort of about doing the opposite of that.
i've omitted nothing. this is the entire bit of conversation on african anything in the whole stupid interview. seriously, it's as if it's a major influence, only it's not at all, even for a moment, relevant to any of the direct questions asked previously. when the journalist (hehe) asks questions about specific songs, about lyrical phrases, about various creative choices that were made, african music does not come up.
when prompted, however, by the statement "You've been influenced by musical styles from Africa," Mr. Dirty Projector, of course, has an answer loaded up. needless to say, the answer is incomprehensible. he heard some records, read a book, and though he likes the idea of making "what you love unrecognizable", his most recent record is about the opposite of that (this last part is a doozy). a simple listen to his music reveals the dearth of African influences, such as the writer means here. does this guy like african music? probably, but if it's altered his music in any significant way i can't tell. (to my ears it still sounds more Lauper than Farka Toure.)
but there's another aspect to this trend (and it is a trend; i have to hear about "african influences" playing out in all these white as paper bands and i'm like "nigga what? nigga please."): if you listen carefully, most indie rock adheres pretty strictly to the twelve-bar blues. arrangements may be getting out there (dirty projectors). vocal harmonies can be piled on top of one another until the listener gets the impression of depth (animal collective). broadly speaking, though, all of these college educated culture-loving wankers are playing songs that were written by people whose FUCKING GRANDPARENTS WERE FUCKING BORN IN FUCKING AFRICA.
just saying.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
yo
this guy's thesis, broadly speaking, is: "The model for record labels was that the U2s paid for the Hold Steadys, and that's supposed to keep regenerating. But obviously the labels aren't able to do that so well anymore because they're shrinking their rosters." this is true, but he misses what is important, which is that bands like the hold steady were always an awkward fit for the mass media industry. t-pain can sell millions of records; simply put, sleater kinney cannot.
you have to shell out a ton of money before you get a marketable mainstream hip-hop album, while the cost of producing an "indie" record ought to be quite modest. with such records, modest sales should be able to reap modest profits. these profits are way too small for GIGANTIC companies like sony and time warner, which is why i've always found it odd that the big labels want anything to do with indie music in the first place. undeterred, however, labels merged and acquired all sorts of smaller, once independent labels over the last ten years (as was the style in the times). and now they bitch that the hold steady doesn't make enough money.
there's another problem here, one which steve knopper, rather oddly, doesn't mention: there aren't any record stores left (if he expects to find a viable profit model for digital distribution, then he should really give the new york times a call; i hear they've been waiting for one of those for a decade). it's hard to make money off of theft, and bundling your digital product (easily attainable for free all over the internet) with a t-shirt and a concert ticket is a stupid fucking idea. the music is the product, and if you can't sell it, then you can't fucking sell it.
at this point i would say, "figure something else out", but that's not what i believe is going to happen. more importantly, that's not what i think SHOULD happen. the record industry is FUCKED, and that's OK. record industry folk believe, as does knopper, that the purpose of a label is to "develop" new artists, but nothing could be further from the truth. an entire, globe-spanning industry has been built on the profits that are made from the sale of music; all of those salaries (fewer and fewer every year, but still) are paid for by the sale of music. they make the music as much as a supermarket makes soda. the industry develops nothing; its only jobs are promotion and distribution.
but the digital revolution is really a self-promotion revolution, and now that there aren't any record stores left, exactly who are they distributing to? and if they're so goddamn good at developing musicians, why are they all broke?
what profits there are to be had from making and selling music will be paltry -- generally, this has always been true and it will always be true. music may even be such a poor career choice that it might make sense for us to declare ourselves "not-for-profits". shit, my private liberal arts college did that, and they charged 36 grand a year. but whatever the particulars are of whatever future model we can imagine, i would hope only that ALL profits generated by the sale of music return to those who were integrally involved in the creation of that music.
the key word there, of course, is "integrally". edgar bronfman may own dozens of different imprints, he may be very rich, but it's creativity that makes music, not capital.
my advice to decaying labels would be this: if you want to make money selling music, maybe you should write a song or two; i insist, however, that you stop shitting down my throat and calling it cake.
you have to shell out a ton of money before you get a marketable mainstream hip-hop album, while the cost of producing an "indie" record ought to be quite modest. with such records, modest sales should be able to reap modest profits. these profits are way too small for GIGANTIC companies like sony and time warner, which is why i've always found it odd that the big labels want anything to do with indie music in the first place. undeterred, however, labels merged and acquired all sorts of smaller, once independent labels over the last ten years (as was the style in the times). and now they bitch that the hold steady doesn't make enough money.
there's another problem here, one which steve knopper, rather oddly, doesn't mention: there aren't any record stores left (if he expects to find a viable profit model for digital distribution, then he should really give the new york times a call; i hear they've been waiting for one of those for a decade). it's hard to make money off of theft, and bundling your digital product (easily attainable for free all over the internet) with a t-shirt and a concert ticket is a stupid fucking idea. the music is the product, and if you can't sell it, then you can't fucking sell it.
at this point i would say, "figure something else out", but that's not what i believe is going to happen. more importantly, that's not what i think SHOULD happen. the record industry is FUCKED, and that's OK. record industry folk believe, as does knopper, that the purpose of a label is to "develop" new artists, but nothing could be further from the truth. an entire, globe-spanning industry has been built on the profits that are made from the sale of music; all of those salaries (fewer and fewer every year, but still) are paid for by the sale of music. they make the music as much as a supermarket makes soda. the industry develops nothing; its only jobs are promotion and distribution.
but the digital revolution is really a self-promotion revolution, and now that there aren't any record stores left, exactly who are they distributing to? and if they're so goddamn good at developing musicians, why are they all broke?
what profits there are to be had from making and selling music will be paltry -- generally, this has always been true and it will always be true. music may even be such a poor career choice that it might make sense for us to declare ourselves "not-for-profits". shit, my private liberal arts college did that, and they charged 36 grand a year. but whatever the particulars are of whatever future model we can imagine, i would hope only that ALL profits generated by the sale of music return to those who were integrally involved in the creation of that music.
the key word there, of course, is "integrally". edgar bronfman may own dozens of different imprints, he may be very rich, but it's creativity that makes music, not capital.
my advice to decaying labels would be this: if you want to make money selling music, maybe you should write a song or two; i insist, however, that you stop shitting down my throat and calling it cake.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
dear fork
you really need to be more selective with your "best new music" category. for instance, the music nick cave released over 20 years ago isn't "new". the vaselines recorded some music 17 years ago, but if sub-pop is willing to put it out , then sure, it'll be some of the best new music out there.
simply put, any release commemorating that it's been decades since a record's inception simply should not be presented as new, let alone the best of what newness has to offer. if you consider music from the age of thatcher "new", i think you're officially becoming old and lame.
meanwhile, tara jane o'neil has released a new album, and while it does garner three whole paragraphs full of praise (about half the length of the vaselines review), i can't say i'm surprised that the work of a prolific and relevant songwriter is simply not as best (or maybe not as new) as the music nick cave put out while i was breastfeeding.
no disrespect to mr. cave, of course.
simply put, any release commemorating that it's been decades since a record's inception simply should not be presented as new, let alone the best of what newness has to offer. if you consider music from the age of thatcher "new", i think you're officially becoming old and lame.
meanwhile, tara jane o'neil has released a new album, and while it does garner three whole paragraphs full of praise (about half the length of the vaselines review), i can't say i'm surprised that the work of a prolific and relevant songwriter is simply not as best (or maybe not as new) as the music nick cave put out while i was breastfeeding.
no disrespect to mr. cave, of course.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
did you know
...that "nightmare on elm street III" and "boogeyman II" are very, very simmilar movies? the former stars a young larry fishburne; while the latter showcases anne from "arrested development" dying at the hands of, yes, the boogeyman. both films are classic "gather some kids and kill all but two of them" stories, both taking place in mental assylums, hellholes where even after half of them are dead, the inmates cannot reach the outside world.
the only difference, aside from two decades of AMERICUH, is that freddy kruger is astonishingly vulgar (pretty chill about calling jailbait horror movie starlets "bitch" and "cunt"); while "boogeyman II" spends much more time graphically destroying the flesh of young hot institutionalized teenagers.
teenage mutilation is HOT -- teenage sexuality is NOT.
the only difference, aside from two decades of AMERICUH, is that freddy kruger is astonishingly vulgar (pretty chill about calling jailbait horror movie starlets "bitch" and "cunt"); while "boogeyman II" spends much more time graphically destroying the flesh of young hot institutionalized teenagers.
teenage mutilation is HOT -- teenage sexuality is NOT.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
you know, this band makes me think of this band which makes me think -- wait, what's playing?
Art Brut
Hold Steady
Counting Crowes
Bloc Party
Franz Ferdinand
Velvet Underground
Gang of Four
John Darnielle
Jeffery Lewis
Jens Leckman
Los Campesinos!
The Tough Alliance
Nodzzz
Kanye
Jonathan Richman
Frank Black
Coldplay
Brian Eno
U2
Weezer
The Smiths
Death Cab for Cutie
Travis Kooks
Kaiser Chiefs
Razorlight
Iggy Pop
Vampire Weekend
Beatles vs. Stones
ok, what do all of these bands have in common? they are all mentioned in pitchfork's review of the new Art Brut record, "Art Brut v. Satan" which i'm fairly confident will suck just as much as everything they've ever put out.
the record recieves a 7.7 rating, while drawing the critic's attention to no less than 26 bands whose records he isn't reviewing. i've read tepid reviews of tepid records where the critic has actually talked about the music. for, like, the whole thing. imagine that!
in the few parts when he's not dropping names, you kind of wish he would. "It's not irony, it's self-aware sincerity."
"The beautiful people and their sycophants will always outnumber lovable losers. But this is a record I like."
and my personal favorite...: "Not that Satan gives a damn about songs that communicate aspects of everyday life with clarity and human charm."
check it, "human charm". way better for music than "horse charm". even better is the idea that the album "communicates aspects of everyday life"; which aspects are being communicated really doesn't seem to matter. so long as the songs aren't challenging to figure out ("clarity"), and are delivered with the Supreme Ironic Pose of the Decade ("self-aware sincerity").
we are told that Art Brut's 2005 piece of shit full-length "Bang Bang Rock & Roll" is "the closest our decade has come to The Modern Lovers", and i suppose that's meant as praise. putting aside the fact that the album was obviously, stunningly awful, isn't it a little wierd that this guy (Marc Hogan), who seems to like this band very much, can't find much of anything to say about what the record sounds like? all he can talk about are other bands that he likes, and a few that he doesn't. are the sounds on this album really that forgettable? that they receed into the background while making you wish you were listening to iggy pop? IS THAT GOOD?!?!
we are left to assume that Art Brut is now filling the middle ground between the Mountain Goats, Gang of Four, Velvet Underground, U2, and Vampire Weekend. i admit, i've often had mad visions of fusing all of those styles together, but it's kind of like that scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, where the fat guy orders the whole menu. the waiter asks, "would you like each dish individually, or mixed up in a bucket?"
Hold Steady
Counting Crowes
Bloc Party
Franz Ferdinand
Velvet Underground
Gang of Four
John Darnielle
Jeffery Lewis
Jens Leckman
Los Campesinos!
The Tough Alliance
Nodzzz
Kanye
Jonathan Richman
Frank Black
Coldplay
Brian Eno
U2
Weezer
The Smiths
Death Cab for Cutie
Travis Kooks
Kaiser Chiefs
Razorlight
Iggy Pop
Vampire Weekend
Beatles vs. Stones
ok, what do all of these bands have in common? they are all mentioned in pitchfork's review of the new Art Brut record, "Art Brut v. Satan" which i'm fairly confident will suck just as much as everything they've ever put out.
the record recieves a 7.7 rating, while drawing the critic's attention to no less than 26 bands whose records he isn't reviewing. i've read tepid reviews of tepid records where the critic has actually talked about the music. for, like, the whole thing. imagine that!
in the few parts when he's not dropping names, you kind of wish he would. "It's not irony, it's self-aware sincerity."
"The beautiful people and their sycophants will always outnumber lovable losers. But this is a record I like."
and my personal favorite...: "Not that Satan gives a damn about songs that communicate aspects of everyday life with clarity and human charm."
check it, "human charm". way better for music than "horse charm". even better is the idea that the album "communicates aspects of everyday life"; which aspects are being communicated really doesn't seem to matter. so long as the songs aren't challenging to figure out ("clarity"), and are delivered with the Supreme Ironic Pose of the Decade ("self-aware sincerity").
we are told that Art Brut's 2005 piece of shit full-length "Bang Bang Rock & Roll" is "the closest our decade has come to The Modern Lovers", and i suppose that's meant as praise. putting aside the fact that the album was obviously, stunningly awful, isn't it a little wierd that this guy (Marc Hogan), who seems to like this band very much, can't find much of anything to say about what the record sounds like? all he can talk about are other bands that he likes, and a few that he doesn't. are the sounds on this album really that forgettable? that they receed into the background while making you wish you were listening to iggy pop? IS THAT GOOD?!?!
we are left to assume that Art Brut is now filling the middle ground between the Mountain Goats, Gang of Four, Velvet Underground, U2, and Vampire Weekend. i admit, i've often had mad visions of fusing all of those styles together, but it's kind of like that scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, where the fat guy orders the whole menu. the waiter asks, "would you like each dish individually, or mixed up in a bucket?"
Friday, April 17, 2009
just LOOK at this asshole
i stopped writing here precisely because i didn't want to sound like this asshole. now, i think people who use "twitter" are fucking retarted. my anti-technology streak is so strong now that i struggle to stop myself from knocking perfect strangers' phones out of their hands, while they check their screens to look at a map which can show them EXACTLY WHERE THEY ARE!!!
William Bowers, over at the pitched fork, feels the same way. but he can't just say as much. he has to use a lot of space to make clear how sincere his luddite pose really is.
"You want gauche? I got no game console. I got no cell phone. I've never been in an American Apparel store, despite their advertising's relentless, almost artless ass-baiting. You want archaica? I still read books. In a rocking chair. On a porch." to which my response is: (1) who gives a fuck you miserably self-involved piece of shit?! you have a rocking chair? and a porch? you read BOOKS? and here i was thinking hundreds of millions of americans read books in chairs every single fucking day. (2) so you refuse to buy american apparel, bully for you. but short of a full-on consumer boycott, you're essentially doing their market research for them (i.e. since you've given no particular reason to avoid the company aside from your general disposition, and since you've indicated no opposition to "buying stuff" per se, the only conclusion to be drawn is that the brand doesn't resonate with you).
he also, of course, needs to anticipate his reader's reaction and pre-empt it with a subtle blend of self-mockery and masturbatory reference-dropping (no quotes necessary; follow the link if you don't already know exactly what this sounds like.)
among many other objections (the fact that a pitchfork writer is bemoaning our culture's deteriorating attention span is one; the fact that, "It champions impulsive utterance at the same time that it highlights the disposability of that utterance. It reduces communication to the parameters of an advertisement. Make your pitch, bark your slogan, get out," is written about twitter and not about pitchfork would be another), i'd like to point out that the word "populist" has been sucked dry of any meaning whatsoever.
consider: "It is a lot more populist and I think that can be attributed to Twitter's significantly larger userbase. Everyone from teenage Hannah Montana fans to Rachmaninov-loving college professors are on Twitter. So you get a pretty interesting diversity between the songs typically tweeted about." in this quote, from an unnamed executive at a private company, people who are too poor to afford computers simply don't exist. "everyone... are [sic] on twitter."
but many of us make exactly this mistake: technology that costs a hell of a lot of money to access is "democratizing". the ability for people with cell phones and computers to communicate with other people who have cell phones and computers -- of course that means "everyone can talk to everyone." who else is there?
with all the references that William Bowers tosses into the mix (bon iver, kubrick, voltaire, emily dickensen... you get the point, motherfucker's been to school and back), almost none of them seem to have any relevance to his argument, whatever that might be. they are, at best, tangentially related to tangents. so, i'm gonna suggest one, that could have saved the author a lot of mental gymnastics. (something tells me, however, that the gymnastics are precisely what he enjoys, in which case, has he tried twitter?)
a simple line from thoreau, which could really substitute for the entire article and still have more resonance: "can it be, perhaps, that massachusets and texas have nothing to talk about?"
William Bowers, over at the pitched fork, feels the same way. but he can't just say as much. he has to use a lot of space to make clear how sincere his luddite pose really is.
"You want gauche? I got no game console. I got no cell phone. I've never been in an American Apparel store, despite their advertising's relentless, almost artless ass-baiting. You want archaica? I still read books. In a rocking chair. On a porch." to which my response is: (1) who gives a fuck you miserably self-involved piece of shit?! you have a rocking chair? and a porch? you read BOOKS? and here i was thinking hundreds of millions of americans read books in chairs every single fucking day. (2) so you refuse to buy american apparel, bully for you. but short of a full-on consumer boycott, you're essentially doing their market research for them (i.e. since you've given no particular reason to avoid the company aside from your general disposition, and since you've indicated no opposition to "buying stuff" per se, the only conclusion to be drawn is that the brand doesn't resonate with you).
he also, of course, needs to anticipate his reader's reaction and pre-empt it with a subtle blend of self-mockery and masturbatory reference-dropping (no quotes necessary; follow the link if you don't already know exactly what this sounds like.)
among many other objections (the fact that a pitchfork writer is bemoaning our culture's deteriorating attention span is one; the fact that, "It champions impulsive utterance at the same time that it highlights the disposability of that utterance. It reduces communication to the parameters of an advertisement. Make your pitch, bark your slogan, get out," is written about twitter and not about pitchfork would be another), i'd like to point out that the word "populist" has been sucked dry of any meaning whatsoever.
consider: "It is a lot more populist and I think that can be attributed to Twitter's significantly larger userbase. Everyone from teenage Hannah Montana fans to Rachmaninov-loving college professors are on Twitter. So you get a pretty interesting diversity between the songs typically tweeted about." in this quote, from an unnamed executive at a private company, people who are too poor to afford computers simply don't exist. "everyone... are [sic] on twitter."
but many of us make exactly this mistake: technology that costs a hell of a lot of money to access is "democratizing". the ability for people with cell phones and computers to communicate with other people who have cell phones and computers -- of course that means "everyone can talk to everyone." who else is there?
with all the references that William Bowers tosses into the mix (bon iver, kubrick, voltaire, emily dickensen... you get the point, motherfucker's been to school and back), almost none of them seem to have any relevance to his argument, whatever that might be. they are, at best, tangentially related to tangents. so, i'm gonna suggest one, that could have saved the author a lot of mental gymnastics. (something tells me, however, that the gymnastics are precisely what he enjoys, in which case, has he tried twitter?)
a simple line from thoreau, which could really substitute for the entire article and still have more resonance: "can it be, perhaps, that massachusets and texas have nothing to talk about?"
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