Quote:
Originally Posted by Anteater
I'm in full agreement here. They're Indie's Rolling Stone. = /
True, but don't you find the whole thing kind of pathetic? Instead of seeking out things for themselves, people would rather have someone else (AKA Pitchfork or some other publication) put an opinion in their mouth, followed by brazenly wearing it on their sleeve as evidence that their taste is music is superior to someone elses. It's always been that way I know, but that's no excuse for folks to sit on their asses and rally behind crappy biases. I mean, Christ, where did the desire to learn and experience things for oneself disappear off to? Loving them or hating them isn't even worth the effort involved when you could be listening to something interesting instead.
And finally, I could care less how appealing their approach is to those who indulge themselves in this sort of trash: anyone who writes off King Crimson, ELP, and everything Yes did after Close to the Edge as "grotesque", yet acknowledges such groups' influences on the musicians they adore isn't worth piss in my book.  |
How does one seek out music 'for themselves' without reading music publications? When you're like me, and had no friends who listened to indie until a year ago, you rely on stuff like allmusic and pitchfork, because they're the only other ones out there that share musical taste.
After I got bored of the radio, I searched around allmusic taking reccomendations from music I liked, and it was reading reviews about bands like My Bloody Valentine and Neutral Milk Hotel that led me into 90% of what I listen to now. The only way I hear about music from places that aren't music websites is from labels that already have bands I like on them. To your 11th grade Brad Stengel, who's only non-radio albums were 'Meat Puppets II' and 'Smile', my musical curiosity could only be quenched by reccomendations for those who liked similar bands; i.e. music journalists.
And honestly, people bitch constantly about supposed 'pitchfork worshippers' who write off anything they hate. Id say the ratio of people who try to write off stuff pitchfork likes to people who write off stuff they hate is about 5:1. Why be an elitist and worship Pitchfork when you can be an uber-elitist and call it trash, while never heralding any other source to find music? At least give us another good resource to discover new music (besides this website of course, where I've also found a s
hitton of good bands).