Music blogger tells us why music blogs now suck
A few weeks ago I made a sneer against Stereogum at a bar. It was quickly followed by a full force assault against all things ‘gum and its readers by the people I was with that not too long ago would have been reserved only for Pitchfork.The kinds of things were we saying showed that we not only all read it, but read it daily - but didn’t really enjoy doing so. Stereogum has clearly changed over the years; it’s ‘corporate’ buyout, its redesign, its loss of bylines (my biggest pet peeve). This week Idolator’s Mike Barth blames it all on the scourge of the internet, commenters.
As the audience for music blogs has expanded, the wordcounts of posts have shrunk, and the commenters have gotten meaner and greedier. Instead of the kind of thoughtful and occasionally heated discussion that was once the norm, we are now treated as heretics if we fail to bestow upon our readers the free music they feel they deserve. Forget good writing—music blogs have chased the lowest common denominator so aggressively that anything longer than a blurb merits a “tl;dr.” Maybe the indie rockers read so much in college that they they’re tired of it.I don’t remember a time when blog comments every offered anything to the conversation, but over the years I have seen them get even worse. The job used to make me read and approve every racist, sexist, and uninformed comment that people would make, I’m glad those days are over. Those were possibly the worst hours of my entire life. Commenters aren’t just ruining music blogs, they are ruining the entire internet, but um… feel free to leave one…
