The Worst Music Writing Of The Year: Is This The Best We Could Do?

Every year pop critics await the coming of January with a sense of trepidation and a healthy amount of schadenfreude, because it’s time for our own year-end analysis, Jason Gross’ annual rundown of year’s worst music writing. (Gross’ long-running look at the dregs of rock scribbling is actually part of a package of the worst and best music writing of the year. But c’mon, we all know which part we really care about.) And now that our trepidation has passed (nothing we wrote in ’07 made it to Gross’ “Bottom Of The Barrel” category!), we can get to the schadenfreude (which of our peers did make it to Gross’ “Bottom Of The Barrel” category?).

The funny thing is that not many of our “peers” actually made it to this year’s list, unless that peer group now consists of Jermaine Dupri and Ted Nugent. There are two limp attacks on funk and post-bebop jazz by crit folks writing for Slate and the Guardian. But the bulk of Gross’ worst list is made up of bonehead industry types and equally boneheaded musicians. And that’s gotta be more of a sign that the corporate flunkies are cranking out more awful propaganda than ever as the industry collapses than a sign that the quality of music criticism is on the rise. What’s really disheartening, if that’s the word for it, is the total lack of blog entries in the “Bottom Of The Barrel” category, which probably just proves that most bloggers’ “bad” writing is as forgettable and bland as their recycled PR stuff “good.” (Step up your crappiness game, MoveableType jockeys! You’re getting beaten by the Nuge!)

The top spot (though the entries aren’t ranked) rightly goes to Sasha Frere-Jones’ much-dissected New Yorker essay on indie rock’s de-blackening, but since the fallout from said essay proved that SFJ enjoys bad attention regardless of the effect it has on his writing or rep, I’m not sure if this accolade will necessarily be healthy for him or his productivity. We wouldn’t want to distract him from his hard work profiling all those funky indie rocking white people he’s covered since “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” ran in late October.

Best Music Scribing Awards 2007 [Popmatters]