Ah, trend stories, the bane of every journalistic enterprise. On the one hand, they are handy for editors who want to know what “the kids” who will be taking their jobs and houses are up to. On the other hand, they’re generally vacuous glosses on subjects that are way too surface-gleaning to even be called “superficial.” Greg Sandoval at CNet took the world of “music blogging” under his trend-story wing this morning, and if nothing else it’s a primer in how not to tackle this admittedly knotty, yet way too often completely misunderstood subject. Five anti-lessons after the jump.
Now that Pitchfork’s video-heavy Pitchfork.tv and Stereogum’s “Television With Even Less Pity Than Television Without Pity” spinoff Videogum have safely launched, we can all see the folly of all the pre-launch “OMG direct competitors?!?” More »
Dear Stereogum, if you promise to never, ever write about hip-hop ever again (ever!)–especially with all the overwrought Wire references, factual errors about samples, misspellings (unless that errant “e” tacked onto Flavaor Flav is some Quayle-era gag I don’t get), fat jokes, and ironic “z’s”… More »
Stereogum released the results of its reader-voted “2007 Gummy Awards” today, and once again the winners in “Ms. Indie Rock” prove that when it comes to wank-mining material, your average indie-rocking male is looking for (gasp!) a skinny white girl with a shaggy haircut. Emphasis on the “skinny.” And did we mention the “white”? Aside from a few notable tokens exceptions, there are enough pointy elbows and too-sad-to-leave-the-house complexions here to fill up a year’s worth of American Apparel advertisements. Way to reject mainstream standards of beauty, dudes! The guy hotties list also features many downy, bony gents, yet somehow offers a slightly wider range of body types than the chick list’s parade of waifs. The full lists are after the jump, but first our thoughts on the least sexy year-end round-up of 2007.
THE GOOD: Not even going there.
THE BAD: Sure, you could pen a 10,000-word rant on how this list of female fantasy objects reflects indie rock’s insular ideals even when it comes to sex, but we’ll just say that sexism, stereotyping, and body image issues will no longer be a concern in indie culture when a lady who looks like Dan Deacon makes it into the Top 20.
THE WHAAAA? R&B queen Sharon Jones deserves to be on this list if anyone does, but aside from wrecking the curve in terms of both age and ethnicity, who in their right mind would class Ms. Jones as an “indie rock” hottie? (Also whoever voted for Natalie Portman needs their life changed with a boot in the ass.)
The owners of indiecentric blog Stereogum–founder Scott Lapatine, ex-AOL head Bob Pittman, and former MTV digital guru Jason Hirschhorn–have flipped their equity stakes in the site to the music-centric social-networking service Buzznet; in exchange, the three men will get an ownership stake in… More »
Head honcho Ryan Schreiber returns to Pitchfork reviewing duties to pen a 1,390-word love letter to Grizzly Bear’s EP that’s sealed with a kiss–in the form of a “Best New Music” commendation, natch–but sadly, even though he writes that he’s not afraid of “looking like Grizzly Bear Fan #1” in his… More »
Many moons ago (i.e. in March), former Idolator Brian Raftery launched a broadside at the snooty/reactionary response Stereogum had to the idea of the 33 1/3 series of books publishing Carl Wilson’s critical journey into the heart (will go on) of darkness that is Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love. The irony, as a few readers noted in the comments section, was that the book was hardly an ass-licking paean to a terrible album, written for a series that should have been focusing its energies on, I dunno, Wowee Zowee.
Whenever Stereogum posts a rap news item or a new hip-hop track/video, the indie-reactionary ire in the comments section always teeters between hilarious and just plain enervating, making our own commenters’ occasional “oh noes, not more rap music!” kvetching seem downright reasonable. But this most recent selection of comments from SG’s simple, non-threatening “hey, Kanye beat Fifty” update reads more like the kind of invective you’d trawl for on a conversative news blog on one of those days when you just need to be reminded of how charming America can be:
Today we have recieved multiple emails from watchful street teamers tipsters alerting us to a friggin’ link Stereogum posted on friggin’ Monday to a pretty embarrassing interview in Ignore Magazine with Baltimore electroni-cat Dan Deacon that features hiiiii-larious inquiries like “How do you… More »
Popular music-review Web site plants big wet one on popular indie-rock blog. It’s like watching the high school quarterback and head cheerleader get together, except about 5000% nerdier! More »
