Dear Jann
DEAR JANN,
We were so excited to open our mailbox today and see the lovely and talented Stacy Ferguson on the cover of your "Hot List" issue [RS 1011]. The article was, in a word, risiculous! But why edit the list of featured stories? (The original touted Austin Scagg's hard-hitting piece on kind bud. We were stoked.) We're guessing: (A) putting "The World's Best Pot" next to a recovering drug addict sent the wrong message, or (B) you realized you're making Austin out to be the staff stoner. Or (C) no one gives a shit about James Bond? Anyway, just wondering! Keep up the good work. And thanks for the piece about music bloggers destroying the bands they love. Now we're never gonna get promo CDs, lolz!!!
Stereogum, New York
Posted at 6:22 PM
Tags: Arctic Monkeys | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah | Cold War Kids | Fergie | Tapes 'N Tapes
First what does it say about the current state of widespread music coverage when Jerry Lewis, the Rolling Stones and Dylan are all on the front cover? What they're not talking about 1966? I'm not saying they don't deserve coverage, but it would be nice to see them actually break a new band into the spotlight. I guess that would be too much for many to handle. Sex sells over talent. Then with fergie being the only young artist featured on the front. Seems a bit out of touch..not that rolling stone has meant anything in who knows how long.
Then they have the nerve to insult the bloggers,who break hundreds of bands a month. I'm noticing a pattern in their chart there. It appears to be the inevitable parabola of nearly any new successful band. Band plays concerts, word of mouth reaches other fans, demo is recorded, bloggers begin to tout band and post demo(or leaked album), more touring ensues, pitchfork picks up on hype, blogosphere hits peak when pfork gives them a good review, they hit their peak when album is released and tour it. Then as they tour the album into the ground is it really that surprising that hype wears off as fans pursue other bands with new albums? Way to kill the bands bloggers! Independent bands would get much better exposure and success without you! You should leave it to rolling stone to cover indie music, they're the ones who know what's hot and how to keep it that way.
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Rolling Stone has been reporting on and reviewing THE SAME BANDS SINCE THE MAGAZINE WAS STARTED 40 YEARS AGO.
Eventually, all of its readers will die and the magazine will be forced to confront its staggering irrelevance - which has been obvious to observers outside their target age group for decades.
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Check out the chart: it isn't all blogs ruining the music scene, it's just Pitchfork. Haha...
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Wait, doesn't every single one of those pencil-necked nerds who writes about music on that Interweb thing like the exact same bands? I'm confused, somebody help me, nothing makes sense anymore...
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whats so stupid about this chart is it's all base
ed on blogger's quotes.
blog A says cool band is cool
4 months later, blog B says they suck.
that's a trend? that's an indication of soaring popularity and plunging record sales? all it's saying is that two different blogs had two different opinions and two different times.
rollingstone, i think you are late for your don henley interview for the eagles retrospective.
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Tapes 'n Tapes do really suck, though. I think people are starting to figure that out now
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Oh my god, is there a worse blog than Said The Gramophone? When they're not posting embarrassingly undergrad prose-poem impressions of music, they say stupid shit like "I have no love whatever [sic] for Tapes 'n' Tapes." I mean, I AGREE, but get your shit straight.
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Umm... Maybe they just realized they needed to leave room in the lower left-hand corner for the mailing label.
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A few points -- Rolling Stone was a counterculture magazine in the beginning... but counterculture was mainstream at the time. They've never been outside the mainstream, so why would that change? Moreover, they at least don't come at their reviews with ridiculous preconceptions of the bands in the way certain alternative publications do. I'm not saying Rolling Stone doesn't have some real shitty coverage at times; what I am saying is that their reviews, for better or worse, are usually pretty on target.
I have often wondered why Pitchfork et al even feel the need to review a Pearl Jam record or a Neil Young record. No one goes to them for that information anyway, nor have they ever.
Also, Richard -- have you ever even read Rolling Stone? They always have and still do hate the Eagles.
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So did The Dude; but that didn't mean you could trust him in all things.
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What Devin said.
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Yeah -- realize the possibility of the 'room for mailing address' issue ... Though it's never stopped them from putting text in the lower left before. Chart is the interesting part, obvs.
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I still love Tapes 'n Tapes. Pitchfork is what Rolling Stone used to be. The fact that they have Furgy on the cover says it all.
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They're so right. Stereogum, you're singlehandedly ruining popular music for today's kids. You should be ashamed of yourself for writing about all those bands. All you people make me sick.
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Fergie eh? Check this out http://theinandouts.wordpress.com/2006/10/06/meth-od-acting/
The most popular post on VH-1's Best Week Ever.
Cheers.
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" the bloggers,who break hundreds of bands a month"
um ... no.
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Anyone see the pitchfork review of the new Jet album? Even if they've gotten better with their reviews for the most party, that was ridiculous.
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please someone line up the cold war kids and break their fingers so they can't play music ever again. they suck exceptionally.
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someone should do a graph of Rolling Stone's subscription numbers and cross tab that with the number of new bands they can't keep up with covering over the last 5 years.
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Didn't Pitchfork give CYHSY's debut a 9.0? How is that saying it's one of the worst albums of the year? Maybe a different writer said that, but to imply that the site soured on them as a whole all of a sudden doesn't exactly sound like fair and accurate reporting - say what you want about Pitchfork, but they aren't The Borg. I think the whole point is that the blogosphere just makes everything happen that much more quickly so the hype dies down faster - they're just annoyed b/c their target audience isn't buying as many records as they used to. . .and I'm not just talking about the baby boomers.
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i love the clap still
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Tapes N Tapes are bad. BAD. I'm glad that excessive hype has destroyed them and they will now be banished back into the 8th circle of Hell (reserved for Frauds) from whence they came.
I realize I may have overstated it there, but honestly, why did anyone decide to 'hype' them in the first place? Awful.
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theinandouts; that clown-vid was priceless! :-)
as a kid she already had the face of a 30yr. old..
I have no idea what her yob is, but nowadays she looks about Madonna's age.
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i still can't get over how ridiculous that chart is.
leave it to a magazine to view the blogosphere as a unified entity with some sort of unified overarching editorial control to it. those examples listed above are all different sites from different people with different view points, and you can't just fit them on a timeline to make it look like consensus. it's insulting for us, and pretty telling for them.
i'd propose a contest in which someone creates a similar chart of their magazines' rise and fall towards media conglomerate incompetance, pop idol irrelevance, all the way to the piece of trash it is today. sorry if it sounds cross, but i'm tired of these people dumbing down america's musical consciousness. it is a crime.
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yes, nate, i have read rollingstone. but it's been years. i didn't realize the entire magazine was united in scorn for don henley and the eagles.
i guess that hatred explains the following:
- Rollingstone named "Hotel California" at 37 in their top 500 albums of all time. (They also gave Henley's "Building the Perfect Beast" a home at #73.
- Named the song, "Hotel California", at 49 in their top 500 songs of all time. (They even listed "Boys Of Summer" somewhere in the 400's.
- The were the cover band/story twice in 70's and once in 94.
- This year, they printed a Sheryl Crow article praising the Eagles.
- In 2003, RS reviewed their new Greatest Hits package and gave it 5 out of 5 stars.
- And yes, i am that lame that i actually did some research.
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I haven't dug back into the archives to verify this, but i recall Pitchfork saying that the song "Clap your hands!" was one of the worst songs of 2005, but that the album was one of the best. If that is, in fact, the case, Rolling Stone needs better fact-checking.
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i think that rolling stone's gist is that bloggage has quickened the curve between bands initial hype & inevitable backlash.
many have made the point that bloggers fall all over themselves to break open a new batch of hype on the next big thing. the problem this is creating for those complaining a&r folks, that blogs create a false sense of hype, seems logical. you've got all these bands that aren't given the traditional press vetting (let's face it, ya'll are definitely not journalists) and bands are getting "big" really quick, & then exposed for being less than exceptional not too long after that.
now, my final blog complaint is that this medium seems to be completely devoid of one very important thing--joy. bloggers don't ever seem to have a favorite band, but rather a series of fetching but ultimately mediocre bands that they "support." the reason the bubble bursts on bands like tapes 'n' tapes or CYHSY is that no one ever falls in love with them, they just have a night of drunk sex with them, sneak out in the morning, & then head back out to ludlow st. the next night to do it all over again.
maybe it's time the esteemed members of the music blogosphere grew up, ditched the one night stands, & maybe look toward some more long term commitment.
or at least buy their latest conquest breakfast in the morning?
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So, Rollingstone, what exactly does the y axis on that chart represent?
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i think that rolling stone's gist is that bloggage has quickened the curve between bands initial hype & inevitable backlash.
many have made the point that bloggers fall all over themselves to break open a new batch of hype on the next big thing. the problem this is creating for those complaining a&r folks, that blogs create a false sense of hype, seems logical. you've got all these bands that aren't given the traditional press vetting (let's face it, ya'll are definitely not journalists) and bands are getting "big" really quick, & then exposed for being less than exceptional not too long after that.
now, my final blog complaint is that this medium seems to be completely devoid of one very important thing--joy. bloggers don't ever seem to have a favorite band, but rather a series of fetching but ultimately mediocre bands that they "support." the reason the bubble bursts on bands like tapes 'n' tapes or CYHSY is that no one ever falls in love with them, they just have a night of drunk sex with them, sneak out in the morning, & then head back out to ludlow st. the next night to do it all over again.
maybe it's time the esteemed members of the music blogosphere grew up, ditched the one night stands, & maybe look toward some more long term commitment.
or at least buy their latest conquest breakfast in the morning?
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So, Rollingstone, what exactly does the y axis on that chart represent?
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Gorilla Vs Bear was overwrought in his hype for a shitty band? Really? That's impossible!!
This was obviously designed as a last minute space-filler, as there is no content whatsoever to this chart, and simply feeds into RS's readership's deep suspicion of those newfangled music blogs.
Why do we have to keep reminding ourselves that RS is culturally irrelevent? It's blindingly obvious to everyone except the RS editors, apparently.
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I love Fergi's lumps so much I am going out to buy a copy right now.
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I'm glad that most people realized how ridiculous the chart was, but that it still gave three or four Tapes 'n Tapes haters enough of an impetus to support the backlash Rolling Stone says exists against the band. I still like Tapes 'n Tapes' first album, thought they put on a great live show both times I saw them, but agree that only time and a few more albums can tell how great of a band they are. Also, I agree that bloggers keep searching for bands to "have a night of drunk sex with," and then everyone else wants to get a piece while the going's good, but just because a band gets gangbanged and overhyped doesn't mean someone can't legitimately fall in love with the whore. I think we've come to expect blogs to be peep shows and overexaggerated entrances into indie rock, but at least they expose people to a kinkier array of musical tastes than mainstream magazines like Rolling Stone who keep fucking the same broad far into menopause.
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those bands all suck. it isn't that the bloggers like and then hate good bands, it's that they like shitty bands, and then realize they were wrong. duh. I don't see any bloggers shitting on the arcade fire, who are the real deal.
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Fergie is no big deal, RS had the fucking Olsen Twins on the cover a couple years ago, and once called 'N Sync the best band in America when they had them on the cover.
d and Craig make good point too--on the one hand, I have to say that none of those bands(which have all been hyped by various blogs, although not necessarily this one) aren't anything spectacular, and they all failed to induce any sort of repeated listening for me(which is the only way for me to say for sure that I actually like a band, and that they're "good").
On the other hand, it doesn't mean that a lot of people don't truly love some of these groups, and that with some patronage by the blogs, they might get better. Most bands don't produce a great album on their first outing(with some notable exceptions), so maybe they need some more long-term loyalty from people online who initially supported them.
Then again, maybe some bloggers shouldn't be so concerned with trying to be out in front of the curve that they just jump on every damn bandwagon that comes out of the gate.
Am I making any sense? Probably not. I just don't feel like anything has been "happening" in rock since the first half of the '90s. The mediums have shifted, but there haven't been many great bands to go with them.
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Someone called Austin Scagg writing about drugs? That's too perfect!
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I thought Stereogum's letter was pretty respectable until the lolz at the end. Campaign for separation of IM and non-IM speak!
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This was a great chart. The internet blogs are like premature ejaculation. Bands get 'broken' (no pun intended) wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too early these days because of over eager blogger beavers. They have no time to grow/germinate/take shape anymore. What could be a great band someday, often finds itself 'the talk of the net' in its' embryonic stage and then inevitably said band suffers the same fate as would a baby being ripped from the womb too soon.
I'm totally right about all this BTW.
I will also unabashedly continue to read awesome music blogs like stereogum as long as they're around.
PEACE!
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I would still like to put my dick between Fergies Funbags.
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It's taken long enough, but glad to see more realizations that Pitchfork needs to be taken out for good, just as RS was culturally put out to pasture eons ago.
And the NME overhyped a band? Somebody tell Obvious Magazine they have their November cover story.
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"pitchfork needs to be taken out for good"?
what does that even mean? In this day and age especially, we all need more sources, more leaders, more reviewers, more bands, more everything....you can't stop it, you shouldn't want to stop it.
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About the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!/Pitchfork thing, just as munkiveli said, pitchfork gave the album a 9.0, and put it as best new music, and placed it at #18 on their "Top 50 Albums of 2005" list. Where Rolling Stone twisted their facts was in the "15 Worst Releases of 2005", where the Schreibster said that "Clap Your Hands!" was a terrible song. Which it is.
Way to go Rolling Stone. A high-school student just outresearched you.
Also if you go to the 15 Worst Releases of 2005 page, you can see a picture of Fergie pissing her pants onstage. Kinda sick but hilarious.
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I really hate bogs. Why anyone would waste their precious time on this earth reading someone's blog is beyond me.
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Here's an idea. How about lame bands just stop sucking? That way, no amount of blogging snobbery or pointless RS charts can "kill" them?
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Tapes 'n Tapes are pretty much amazing, sorry. I thought so before the hype.
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People are always going to hate whatever is hyped/popular simply bc it is hyped/popular, just to seem "cool" or different. Or the same people who adored the band later hate them when its trendy.
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