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If You Watch Only One Delightfully Profane Twitter-Conference Rant About the Death of Music Criticism Today, Let It Be Christopher R. Weingarten's

By Rob Harvilla in Critical Wonkery, Featured, Harvilla, Twitter, friends

Wednesday, Jun. 17 2009 @ 11:30AM

This is incredible. So here we have beloved friend-of-SOTC Christopher R. Weingarten, he of the "reviewing 1,000 records on Twitter in 2009" phenomenon/craze 1000 Times Yes, giving a speech at the 140 Characters Conference, which totally exists, and is in fact raging on even as you read this. Also raging on: Mr. Weingarten, whose brief remarks on the future of music criticism (it has none) are vivid, sardonic, and incredibly profane, to the crowd's unending delight. Indicative phrases: "gilded geekazoid," "falling down a shit spiral," "people have awful taste," and "Fleet Foxes fuckin' sucks." During that last bit Chris ascends to Bill Hicks/gospel-preacher heights of divine fervor. Love the hat, too.

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7 comment(s) / Post a Comment

Heather West says:

"Crowd sourcing killed punk rock." He couldn't have said it better. He is amazing.

Posted On: Wednesday, Jun. 17 2009 @ 12:42PM

kilgour says:

Fleet Foxes DO suck... I liked them back when they were MMJ.

well done

Posted On: Thursday, Jun. 25 2009 @ 9:49AM

Flashmen says:

Great great great talk. Reminds me of the Name + URL association in comments of blogs (like this post for example) - When have you read someone's comment and clicked their name to find out more about them instead of spewing out a ramble-filled angsty out of context response?!

Posted On: Wednesday, Jul. 8 2009 @ 5:56PM

mick says:

Hey guess what music critics cant play music , cant write music , are not generally holders of music degrees so who cares a f@#$ what they think. Would you let an unqualified person comment on how an electrician or plumber or carpenter does a job. Music critics eek a living out of giving us their opinion ...who cares ...It is all opinion ..there is no scale for music ..it is up to the listener. Musicians should give them critiques about their writing or the way they live their self centred lifes. Guess what I can write 140 to 300 word critics in about 10 minutes ...can these fucks learn to play 5 instruments in 10 minutes ...no!!!! my trade took me 30 years to learn and I am still learning. They are pathetic leeches who think they have golden ears

Posted On: Sunday, Jul. 12 2009 @ 7:00AM

Chris says:

I completely disagree Mick, these guys DO have stock in my book because they review so much music so often. They have years of experience with so much more music (generally speaking) than the average person that they can give opinions with more weight to them than say, a high school freshman on Youtube. We need people to look to for what is good music; we've proven we can't do it ourselves. This decade had ended up hating itself such that it has flung itself back to eighties techno-pop garbage, and it is absolutely disgusting. We've shown what happens when we look for good stuff ourselves- we end up waist deep in eighties pop culture. I can't think of a worse place to end up.

Posted On: Wednesday, Jul. 15 2009 @ 3:44PM

mick says:

Chris, do you need someone to tell you what is good? Can you not decide for yourself? I totally disagree with your reasoning although I do respect your right to voice your opinion but I am sorry my friend , when it comes to music I will let my ears and mind decide what I like . I will not be dictated to like a lemming or sheep as to what is good and bad . I have spent my life learning and mastering music and work in the industry. I dont mind if someone tells me they dont like something but if they tell it is just no good then that is an entirely different matter. You sound like an intelligent thoughtful person , I am sure you dont need someone to tell you what to like or what is good ....find it yourself. To say they have so much experience with music is a crock ..not only do musicians spend thier lives listening to music they have to also learn to play music. With one smart ars critique from them they can affect someones life without so much as a second thought . I for one am glad quick witted talkers like this guy are out of a job . If he knows so much about good and bad then he should produce an album . I will glady critique it .

Posted On: Thursday, Jul. 16 2009 @ 4:05AM

B says:

Wow, I wanted to like what this guy was saying but I must say he sounds like one more sour irrelevant jerk who's trying to justify his existence. Music is my passion and I pick up records all the time. I'm always looking for new music and trying to expand my musical disposition. What he is complaining about is losing power. He's trying to make a point that the channel's have gotten too wide. I think it is a very exciting time, where old models have failed. The old way was more of a groupthink. A few critics recommended a few records and therefore had power and influence over a large group of people. The record industry is hurting because of their arrogance of pushing whatever they wanted to push and the general public ate it up. They blame downloads. I blame them for catering to 12 year old girls. I love the idea that anyone can make a record, and anyone can make a decent living compelling to different demographics. The time has past for this musical holier than thou critic dictatorship, and I welcome a million more critics to invade this jerk's personal space.

Posted On: Friday, Aug. 28 2009 @ 6:33PM