Yeah, there’s that too. Just between you and me and the four other people that read this, I haven’t totally made my mind up about the @SPINreviews thing. While I’m not exactly into the idea of paring an album review down to a sentence and a number, I understand the impulse behind it and I feel like the long-form pieces they’re publishing have been getting better, quality-wise. I wonder sometimes if it has to do with the expectations of the general readership, like how lots of people only glance at the rating/BNM tag on Pitchfork. Not that it doesn’t still steer the discussion in an undesirable direction, of course, but part of me thinks you can’t fault people for not wanting to read a 600-word review, no matter how brilliant it may be. You and I and actual professional music writers (and hopefully at least some other people who love music) are concerned with the shape of The Discussion, but a lot of people just want a hot tip about what to download next and the Internet has taught them that they shouldn’t have to read beyond a tweet’s length to get it. The other part of me wants to stick to its guns and not give the Internet the satisfaction, and as you can probably tell from the long-winded crap I post, that part’s still winning. Team Writerliness!
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Yeah, there’s that too. Just between you and me and the four other people that read this, I haven’t totally made my mind up about the @SPINreviews thing. While I’m not exactly into the idea of paring an album review down to a sentence and a number, I understand the impulse behind it and I feel like the long-form pieces they’re publishing have been getting better, quality-wise. I wonder sometimes if it has to do with the expectations of the general readership, like how lots of people only glance at the rating/BNM tag on Pitchfork. Not that it doesn’t still steer the discussion in an undesirable direction, of course, but part of me thinks you can’t fault people for not wanting to read a 600-word review, no matter how brilliant it may be. You and I and actual professional music writers (and hopefully at least some other people who love music) are concerned with the shape of The Discussion, but a lot of people just want a hot tip about what to download next and the Internet has taught them that they shouldn’t have to read beyond a tweet’s length to get it. The other part of me wants to stick to its guns and not give the Internet the satisfaction, and as you can probably tell from the long-winded crap I post, that part’s still winning. Team Writerliness!

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  1. popcornnoises posted this

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