a decent read. i can't even find too much to disagree with. it does ask an interesting question: have folks stopped caring what 'professional' critics think about art? i say no, though their influence is severely diminished.

did people ever?
honest question.

i think that they did; back when mainstream america used to read, for example, i believe that the reviewers in the NY Times review of books were taken dead seriously; and i think there were corresponding moments in music, particuarly late 60's - 70's were professional critics writing for mags that we now trash were also taken very seriously.

i just like to find reviewers that have similar interests to mine so that i can "trust" their opinion. But, and this is the tough part, i don't want their opinion too similar to mine in order to discover music i wouldn't normally find..

you don't need a journalism major to love music and write about it. Sure, it probably helps if you have at least a high school graduate competency about writing (english), but other than that, i don't care where the review comes from.

i think about how Rolling Stone when it was still "releveant" and "cool" how it trashed Led Zeppelin and question if anyone ever cared what they had to say.

I used Spin's Top 90 of the 90's as my basic guide for music growing up but have since not been able to find anything even remotely influential on my taste.

I think with the death of brick and mortar music shops and the rise of individual MP3s I think it's going to become harder and harder to really grab hold of the audience. Along with more choices and a shorter attention span within almost all current target markets, what's new may be the only guideline to what's viable.

We may start seeing bands and artists releasing single songs monthly intstead of albums every two years. It's not a new concept but it may become more regular.

I was just thinking the other day that it might make more sense for bands to simply put out a new EP every 6-9 months, instead of waiting 1-2 years between albums.

and ep's these days are about the same lenght as CCR albums were back in the day . . . so maybe this would just take it back to the way things used to be.

I'd also like to never read anything from most of their writers again for exactly the same reasons he notes. I can't believe PFM is still considered relevant anymore.

I haven't read PFork in about two years, maybe a bit more than that, but I still have reviewers to hate. Kyle Ryan, Josh Modell, Amelie Gillette,... Hell, even Nathan Rabin, I'm looking at you.

It's sad, really, too. The ONION AV Club used to be solid, thru '99 or '00, but in this new willenium of ours, the entertainment page has started to resemble the readership of the paper as a whole. So, while the fictive content has its peaks and valleys, the reviews has just gone down, down, down. Only the occasional Tasha Robinson review redeems things, and (if he still writes for it) Andy Battaglia.

I think this is sort of the falacy of the innocent past. "When America used to read..." when? I guarantee that there are more books published and purchased now that at any other time in the history of the world. I also bet that say, The Corrections has about as copies sold as say, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and that The Da Vinci Code has sold more copies than all the books on Time's top 100 combined.

And if you think that your average kid in Kansas knew who Lester Bangs was, or even Nick Tosches, I think you are further deluding yourself.

I like to read reviews, but I take most of them with a grain of salt, after having picked up too many albums that had teh suck based on some numbnuts' opinion, which is what he really thought people wanted to hear anyway.

and yeah, a 6-9 song ep -- isn't that Let it Bleed?!

I remember when I used to read Wired.

I remember when I used to read Pitchfork.

Hey, I was at that "small club at the outermost edge of Brooklyn to see the group play an unannounced show." Thanks, Katie!