The taste maker echo chamber

This thread will be the place to vent about all things related to the mentality of certain music fans just tracking and being into the bands/songs/album that websites like Pitchfork tell them about.

edit:

when i was younger i used the internet to discover music but it was almost like playing an RPG, where i would talk to other like minded music fans and traverse through a landscape of new and different or obscure music until i landed on something that really struck me.

Back then you almost had to pick a subculture or music genre to research and stay with it for a while, sometimes even scouring it. There seems to be less of that these days, but maybe I'm just old?

Does this new phenomenon take some of the fun out of the music geek culture? Is it just a natural byproduct of communication technology?

anything that isn't super new/unknown will be mapped out, made more efficient and inevitably stripped of its charm/mystery/sense of wonder. i feel the same way sometimes, but on the plus side there's a lot more you can actually get done using the internet now. there was an appeal to that slightly impenetrable, inaccurate phase of internet usage, but there's also a lot more clarity now, meaning you can actually find what you're looking for. i know that makes it easier to be a shallow dick, bopping from one trend to another and missing out the deeper parts of musical culture, but i think this would have been true regardless of the convenience. most people don't really give much of a shit, they just want new thrills etc.

maybe when internet 2.0 is out, there will be a naive, childlike phase for a while again. unless the people that alpha/beta tested it write up FAQs and ruin it for everyone else.

Have you stopped doing that?

very good points so far

most of the pitchfork nonsense I just ignore. the thing that irritates me the most is how quickly these people (mainly pitchfork) burn through ideas and fads like kindling. they're always moving from one "subgenre" or idea or hip thing or artist to another. i feel like the concept of being a fan of an artist (or label) long-term (really truly interested in how they evolve and what they do next) is being diminished in favor of loading up your ipod with torrented copies of whatever pitchfork gives the almighty Best New Music rating to.

I do respect mark richardson

  On 11/3/2011 at 1:20 AM, Awepittance said:

very good points so far

  On 11/3/2011 at 4:54 AM, Joseph said:

i feel like the concept of being a fan of an artist (or label) long-term (really truly interested in how they evolve and what they do next) is being diminished in favor of loading up your ipod with torrented copies of whatever pitchfork gives the almighty Best New Music rating to.

I remember on p2p network I frequented in college (04'-05') one user had folders of the top 50 pfork ablums to download. I had a bad habit of randomly dowloading too much back then. Now I've found myself streaming more than ever. Multiple hard drive crashes of downloaded music helped me purge and focus on labels, artists, and genres I actually really like.

  On 11/2/2011 at 4:12 AM, magnetandsteel said:

I wouldn't say pitchfork etc has ruined anything, if anything they have created a 'middle-class' of band obscure-ness. Before, you were famous or you weren't. Now you can be like 100 shades of famous. There's still bound to be as good musicians to find as ever.

I've thought about this often! "Radio famous" and/or "signed to a major" seem increasingly irrelevant. I find the whole indie-music-in-ads phenomenon another strange "fame" marker. Or the bumps/soundtrack music used in teen dramas and reality shows. When I heard DJ /rupture was name-dropped in Gossip Girl I laughed my ass off, but I also found myself being mindfucked. Could nothing stay underground anymore? But honestly, I remembered who actually watches that show, and felt relieved that such a superficial audience won't even try to find out more.

  On 11/2/2011 at 12:53 AM, Awepittance said:

when i was younger i used the internet to discover music but it was almost like playing an RPG, where i would talk to other like minded music fans and traverse through a landscape of new and different or obscure music until i landed on something that really struck me.

Back then you almost had to pick a subculture or music genre to research and stay with it for a while, sometimes even scouring it. There seems to be less of that these days, but maybe I'm just old?

Does this new phenomenon take some of the fun out of the music geek culture? Is it just a natural byproduct of communication technology?

What noise said below to some degree. Personally I've found WATMM, soundcloud, (even) facebook groups, etc great ways to geek out over music. It's easy to find and join close knit groups of fans. There's the personality of fanzines and local underground scenes without the challenge of finding the content or limiting yourself to a certain label or genre. Compared to 5-6 years ago, it seemed like an overwhelming mess to find and listen to music. Part of that was my own fault, but the existence of broad, superficial social networks like myspace and livejournal seemed to add to it. Before mp3 blogs, lastfm, steaming sites, etc it was harder to navigate and discover music I really liked.

  On 11/2/2011 at 2:41 AM, noise said:

anything that isn't super new/unknown will be mapped out, made more efficient and inevitably stripped of its charm/mystery/sense of wonder. i feel the same way sometimes, but on the plus side there's a lot more you can actually get done using the internet now. there was an appeal to that slightly impenetrable, inaccurate phase of internet usage, but there's also a lot more clarity now, meaning you can actually find what you're looking for. i know that makes it easier to be a shallow dick, bopping from one trend to another and missing out the deeper parts of musical culture, but i think this would have been true regardless of the convenience.

this

pitchfork is a good webiste that brings up a lot of different music, internet is enormous and there's much more great music inside of it.

/thread ?

  On 11/3/2011 at 3:18 PM, eugene said:

pitchfork is a good webiste

I find like 90% of their reviews to be superficial poorly researched/thought out pieces of shit. compare a pitchfork review to a quietus or popmatters review of the same album and i guarantee it will be an eye opener.

Unorganized thoughts:

Most of the featured artists this forum was built around have held people's interests for 15+ years. There's got to be a reason for that. There were plenty of other artists from that era that we've forgotten (either intentionally or not).

There seem to be a lot more labels now, but that could just be that we are more aware of them because of social media rather than them slaving away in obscurity in a microscene before dying after 3-5 years. Instead of reading a magazine article about some obscure label 20 years after the fact, we can watch them from birth to death in real time.

As for researching and finding music, I am of two minds. I do really like the better organization and digital distro sites that allow for ease of purchasing music I'm after, but there was something to digging through tons of forums and media sites to find the one or two tracks that you are looking for.

  On 11/3/2011 at 5:42 PM, Joseph said:

  On 11/3/2011 at 3:18 PM, eugene said:

pitchfork is a good webiste

 

I find like 90% of their reviews to be superficial poorly researched/thought out pieces of shit. compare a pitchfork review to a quietus or popmatters review of the same album and i guarantee it will be an eye opener.

I take their reviews with a grain of salt but they've improved. Metacritic and wikipedia help lead to easy comparisons of differing reviews anyway. It's still a good site to check out in regards to getting a feel for what's out there, without getting in a bubble of a specific scene or genre. They aren't fixated on electronic or rock exclusively like many sites and they don't have to cater to the major label signings (Spin, NME, Rolling Stone)

Personally, I find Dusted Mag and The Wired reviews far more informative and thought out than anything that's been mentioned so far, but they don't excel in regards to "browsing" new music... http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/

just saw this Ted talk which nails the problem with online reinforcing of content

People are waking up to the fact that Pitchfork's primary interest is growing the Pitchfork brand and maintaining their image. It's fine to read it, but you have to be aware that they have various agendas and their range of interest is limited by these same agendas.

I kind of agree with the idea in that video and also think that we ourselves self-censor our own output to some degree. There's some non-electronic albums that I love from this year that I don't mention on Watmm just because I assume this isn't the appropriate forum for it, for example.

The personal relationship with music is a bit fragile and is treated casually like Potatoes Au Gratin and sour cream nachos served with orange juice outside on the patio at your brand new Thomas Cast Aluminum Dark Gold 3-piece Bistro Set, on a warm breezy afternoon with some childhood friends.

  On 12/28/2011 at 10:41 PM, Awepittance said:

just saw this Ted talk which nails the problem with online reinforcing of content

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s

and the fun thing is that most people don't give a rat's ass about how things are filtered on the internet so that they stay in their safe bubble. they just want entertainment.

Is that the talk where he discusses how personalization of google news etc leads to a filter? It's a good theory.

one of my favorite ways to discover new music in the bygone days of the internet was to fire up slsk, and browse through user's inventories. Find friendly users and get recommendations based off what they seemed to specialize in. I had one guy who was a mountain of wealth about old reggae/dub for example.

Does soundcloud have a chat feature? That was vital for slsk I feel.

  On 12/29/2011 at 5:57 AM, chenGOD said:

Is that the talk where he discusses how personalization of google news etc leads to a filter? It's a good theory.

 

one of my favorite ways to discover new music in the bygone days of the internet was to fire up slsk, and browse through user's inventories. Find friendly users and get recommendations based off what they seemed to specialize in. I had one guy who was a mountain of wealth about old reggae/dub for example.

Does soundcloud have a chat feature? That was vital for slsk I feel.

soundcloud doesn't have a chat feature (bar sending people small slow personal messages), I think a functioning chat ability would be ideal for soundcloud, very ideal....

Yeah I think i would visit the soundcloud site more often if there was a chat feature, and you had the ability to control who you were chatting with, like in slsk.

pitchfork seem to have becomes really samey in the last couple of years. what happened to the holier-than-thou attitude that trashed all my favourite records? it's like the entire staff has been replaced by a bunch of anaemic interns. i mean real estate, really? really?

  On 11/2/2011 at 12:53 AM, Awepittance said:

 

when i was younger i used the internet to discover music

 

 

but maybe I'm just old?

 

  On 12/31/2011 at 5:48 AM, marf said:

  On 11/2/2011 at 12:53 AM, Awepittance said:

when i was younger i used the internet to discover music

 

 

but maybe I'm just old?

 

lol troof.

I remember going to the library and borrowing LPs based on album covers. Found a few good ones that way :)

the only way to escape is to realize your true 'taste

to realize your true 'way

this is how you become who you are, see

because you already are who you are, one must escape the influence

music is a way to reflect this reality

for instane, i listened to Test Icicles

I also listened to The National and LCD Soundsystem

Now I listen to Psychic TV and DEVO

And I 'm so comfortable with my Body

SEE THIS IS IT. this is life. and you ahve to accept yourself.

sO I acCepTed MySElF and my body

it was very important whe/?????? NO NO N

  On 12/30/2011 at 2:43 AM, fondles the cat said:

pitchfork seem to have becomes really samey in the last couple of years. what happened to the holier-than-thou attitude that trashed all my favourite records? it's like the entire staff has been replaced by a bunch of anaemic interns. i mean real estate, really? really?

check out rateyourmusic. look at music YOU like. then find more music from that at lists and reviewers who give YOUR favorites 5 stars. then go from there. don't read pitchfork!

  On 12/31/2011 at 8:47 AM, vamos scorcho said:

check out rateyourmusic. look at music YOU like. then find more music from that at lists and reviewers who give YOUR favorites 5 stars. then go from there. don't read pitchfork!

Good advice. I often find this works best with more obscure releases, because there are a lot of hipsters there who LOVE confield (say) because it's SO avant but the rest of their tastes are dog shit

i just think more music listeners than not feel no need to go out and discover music that would appeal to them, they are comfortable and fulfilled by just listening to whatever catches their attention in the ether of media. Beyond that i really think that only music 'geeks' are dedicated enough to seek out new artists. Its just an interesting era where a lot of people who don't have the music geek inside of them try to pass themselves off as being hardcore music geeks by name dropping a bunch of obscure music that they all heard about on one blog.