Agree with all of this, even as a music journalist! One of the biggest problems with album scores is that we'll read a Pitchfork article and see a 0 or a 7 or a 10 and then take that objectively as a score of how 'good' it is. But these articles aren't written by some music god who perfectly applies scores based on the quality of the music, they're written by people, and those people are gonna have biases and their own musical taste. What those numbers actually represent is how much THEY liked the album. I've definitely heard albums that I loved but a magazine has given a low score, and albums that have gotten glowing reviews that I didn't enjoy.
What we really need are more ways to access communities of people who love music, find people who share our tastes, and then trade music with those people. Cause no one in the world has the exact same taste as Pitchfork does.
so happy to read this! what you've described - the community of people who love music and pass it around - that's exactly what i've been trying to build here. i started out thinking i was just eschewing the old gatekeepy "this record is good/this record sucks" critic model and curating music instead (and i am!), but i didn't realize that the community would be a much bigger deal. we all just want to be excited about music again and find likeminded folks to share that excitement with.
Great read Gabbie and you are spot on. I used to really enjoy publications such as The Big Takeover (still available) and Under The Radar. The later is struggling financially which is a shame. Uncut and Mojo are okay and I can read them digitally through my local library, but the issues seem to come out so far in advance which is crazy to me. I was disappointed in the Brooklyn Vegan news as that was becoming a great way to get new music recommendations and reviews. I am thankful for the work you do to help music enthusiasts informed about new music that is not necessarily mainstream.
still lots of great online mags. and still, i find myself preferring to curate my own slapdash, haphazard little universe of all of the different outlets, big and small.
Agree with all of this, even as a music journalist! One of the biggest problems with album scores is that we'll read a Pitchfork article and see a 0 or a 7 or a 10 and then take that objectively as a score of how 'good' it is. But these articles aren't written by some music god who perfectly applies scores based on the quality of the music, they're written by people, and those people are gonna have biases and their own musical taste. What those numbers actually represent is how much THEY liked the album. I've definitely heard albums that I loved but a magazine has given a low score, and albums that have gotten glowing reviews that I didn't enjoy.
What we really need are more ways to access communities of people who love music, find people who share our tastes, and then trade music with those people. Cause no one in the world has the exact same taste as Pitchfork does.
so happy to read this! what you've described - the community of people who love music and pass it around - that's exactly what i've been trying to build here. i started out thinking i was just eschewing the old gatekeepy "this record is good/this record sucks" critic model and curating music instead (and i am!), but i didn't realize that the community would be a much bigger deal. we all just want to be excited about music again and find likeminded folks to share that excitement with.
I recent read the book This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You
and this book had several ways to think about music and taste I really appreciated outside the I like this / I don’t like this binary!
it was co-written by cognitive neuroscientist and legendary former Prince staff engineer Susan Rogers alongside Ogi Ogas
Thanks for being one of my favorite stackers. Yours in the Burgh, D.
keep my hometown cool, brother
Haha. Thanks sis. I’m in LA now, but you can take the boy out of Pittsburgh…..
Great read Gabbie and you are spot on. I used to really enjoy publications such as The Big Takeover (still available) and Under The Radar. The later is struggling financially which is a shame. Uncut and Mojo are okay and I can read them digitally through my local library, but the issues seem to come out so far in advance which is crazy to me. I was disappointed in the Brooklyn Vegan news as that was becoming a great way to get new music recommendations and reviews. I am thankful for the work you do to help music enthusiasts informed about new music that is not necessarily mainstream.
still lots of great online mags. and still, i find myself preferring to curate my own slapdash, haphazard little universe of all of the different outlets, big and small.