Heart on a Stick
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seen/heard ° stream album ° buy
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seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
The Best Thing About Idolator: It Inadvertently Reminded Me a New Veruca Salt CD is Out. And No, that’s Not a Very Good Thing at All.
posted 09/15/2006
Everyone knows the mostest important thing about music blogging (Full Disclosure 1: On occasion, I blog about music.) is to be first! About everything! So let me be the first! second! oh, fuck it... just another one to excoriate Gawker Media’s new music blog Idolator.
In the works since the Internet was just a gleam in some glassblower’s eye (well, at least since May last December), ‘lator finally opened for business, yesterday. And... it’s a bunch of aggressively-worded, poorly-researched, fourth-hand ideas and (gasp)a couple YouTube links.
By God it is a music blog! We needed another one of those.
[Full Disclosure 2: Back in May, when I found out Alex Balk (ex-TMFTML, now co-editing Gawker) was working on this new GM music blog, I asked him (don’t know him, but we’ve e-mailed, before) to toss my name into the hat. Nothing came of it. Even if my name was passed along, I’m sure something – my inability to post more than twice/week, my insufferable chunks of prose, my stubborn gag reflex – removed it from eligibility.]
Because of its connections – its powerful big sisters sent their readers there, every Shitty Little Music Blog will jump on the topic du jour, as will any online media outlets desperate or lame enough to think this launch constitutes “news” – Idolator will immediately have a downloadership larger than 95% of the SLMBs it seeks to... to what, exactly?
Idolator posted a “manifesto” (and e-mailed out an abbreviated, slightly reworked version with a link to the original) about as purposeful and lucid as Valerie Solanas’. We’ll get to some of the wrongheaded particulars of the post later. In essence, the editors bemoan bloggers’ enthusiasm and blame it for consolidating cycles of hype/backlash. “We’re as obsessed with the music world as we are with the machinations behind it, and we’ll cover the people who are manufacturing the latest band buzz, whether it’s an old-guard standby (Rolling Stone), an absurdly powerful new-media turk (Pitchfork), or an agenda-pimping blogger (take your pick).”
I know what you’re thinking: Finally, someone who’ll take on Pitchfork. But there’s more, from the Cake-and-Oh-Look-More-Cake Dept.:
Of course, being music lovers ourselves, we also want to steer you in the direction of a good song or artist, which we'll do every day. We aim to be discerning, but not snobby. And every time we introduce you to a new artist, we promise to wait at least three months before starting our own backlash against them.
So Idolator – the Baby Huey of music blogs – looks to both police and supplant its internet cohorts.
The policing, quite frankly, is overdue. As the music industry works harder to infiltrate “new media” outlets, everything that made people turn away from MSM sources is being replicated on a more intimate, less transparent scale. How many full-bodied endorsements are barely reworded PR e-mails? Why are publicists called “friends” without being acknowledged as publicists? Who’s paying for trips to Norway?
A big, bloggy disgrace dropped into Idol hands at noon, today, as a bunch of “influential MP3 bloggers” (3hive, Coolfer, Music (for Robots), My Old Kentucky Swag, Scenestars, Stereogum, and Tiny Mix Tapes) stumbled over each other in an effort to reinvent themselves as next-gen junket whores. Microsoft flew them all to Seattle (Disclosures 3 & 4: I drove through Seattle, once, and I run the Teacher/Student version of MS Office and Windows XP (Disclosure 4a: Am neither a teacher, nor a student)) and enlisted them as part of a public awareness campaign to promote its new portable MP3 player – because nothing emphasizes the portability of a gadget more than having to transport a dozen disheveled twentysomethings across the fucking country to see one. I think it’s called a “Roomba.” I don’t really care. The coverage basically boiled down to: I like the brown one/I don’t like the brown one. So: It’s available in brown. (Disclosure 5: I only skimmed the coverage to see who did (Coolfer, M4R) and who didn’t (3hive, MOKB, Gum) disclose the payment of the trip. Scenestars and TMT have yet to post.). But no matter how you feel about brown, Roomba awareness is at an all-time high thanks to MSN’s willingness to host a bunch of amateurs who’ve never taken an Ethics in Journalism class (while the pros in the next room had the more difficult task of forgetting everything they’d learned in theirs), and these bloggers’ willingness to roll over for glorified drink tickets.
(Granted, most people won’t give a fuck. That goes for the lot of this. Integrity is going the way of the burning flag. But the people most likely to care are the ones who turned to music blogs in the first place; they’ll be the first to go elsewhere, plugging their ears so’s not to hear the certain soul-suck that turns once-promising upstarts into the ultra-average Access Hollywood correspondent.)
So how did Idolator cover Roombagate? Like any ad-supported business venture would: It used the opportunity to link TEN TIMES OVER to Gawker Media’s gadget blog Gizmodo (Disclosure 6: Not a big Tolkein fan.). Idolator plumbed the Roomba story for three entries. The first snarkily mentions bloggers’ “marketing talents” in its title; the entry itself relies heavily on Stereogum’s and MOKB’s product analysis. Idol only offers opinions on the Roomba product. Second entry is a tossed-off attempt at PC vs. Mac humor. The last entry contains catch-up links to Gizmodo, Coolfer, and M4R with one-line summaries.
Apparently there were no relevant videos on YouTube.
So much for those parts of the manifesto that deal with being “obsessed” with the “machinations” behind the music world and the covering of “agenda-pimping blogger(s).” Worse, the coverage is dulllllllll. Especially compared with this:
Gerard vs. Bear: Here is $5. Touch Gerard’s Balls. Fantastic. And probably the best-written entry posted on any music blog within the past month.
You’ll never find anything that funny – or true – on Idolator, because Idolator is not looking to disturb any established “elite” blogs. Before its launch, Gawker Media reached out to at least a couple big bloggers – Stereogum mentioned his experience here – in what one can only imagine (Disclosure x: I’m totally imagining, here.) was an effort to mollify fears. “No, we’re not going to charbroil you and suck the meat from your little bloggy bones,” action hero Lockheed Stackmetal says. “We’re all in this together. The internet is expanding. There’s room for all of us. Let me buy you a couple drinks.” I imagine.
On the other hand, I can’t really see this guy...
...the current editor of Idolator, bullying around any of the teensyweensy blogs for their poor taste/writing/whatever. It would be unseemly. (Except for me. They can now pick on me, obviously.)
So what’s left? Other than (yawn) whining about Pitchfork (to whom they’ve already linked for info), there will be – as there have been already – lame, generalized complaints about “the blogs.”
Hopefully those lame, generalized complaints will hold up better than this excerpt from their manifesto:
Take the most recent victim of Internet buzz, a 20-year-old gypsy-folk wunderkind named Zach Condon, a.k.a. Beirut. After his perfectly pleasant debut album earned a rave Pitchfork review, it flew through the blogosphere, and Condon was overwhelmed with next-big-thing kudos, even breaking through the mainstream press with a New York Magazine profile. Soon enough, he was playing in front of a packed crowd at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool. And you know what? He was just okay--nowhere as transcendent as people were expecting, and not a disaster, either. But his so-so performance garnered tsk-tsking from bloggers in the audience, who were beginning to wonder if he was worthy of all this attention--despite the fact that many of them had been hyping him to begin with.
OMG, the blogs are coming to rape our daughters and burn our churches!
Cleverly, the Idol writers refused to actually link to any of their examples – not even the New York profile they mention; if they had, you’d be able to see just how much info they’d incorrectly reprocessed. E-to-the-G: Beirut hit blogs before Pitchfork; had the writer bothered to do even to the smallest amount of Googlework, they’d see the very first line from Pfork’s first posted review of Beirut begins “Bloggers are falling over themselves...” The “rave” review of the album (“Beirut’s received quite a bit of pre-release buzz. He deserves some of it.” Rave!) wasn’t enough to earn a “Best New Music” nod. There’s no mention of Beirut’s first sold-out Knitting Factory show (featured prominently in the New York piece), considered an unqualified disaster by both the band and its fans. The quality of his Pool performance was – surprise – a matter of opinion; I’m not sure anyone used a word as pathetic as “transcendent” to describe it (in its first day, Idolator’s already used both the T-word and “delightful”), but there were both positive and negative reviews... I recall mostly fresh perspectives or reaffirmations of previously held opinions of the band. Idolator would be doing its readers a service to link to these “many” tsk-tsking bloggers who’d busily hyped the act, earlier. Just so it doesn’t look like they’re basing their manifesto around a bunch of concocted crap. (My own review has links to over twenty others, if they want a place to start. Also, here’s a link to Gizmodo.)
And that’s almost everything wrong with that paragraph. I think. Beyond its ending in a preposition. (Can’t wait to see how they fact-check their potentially slanderous (and, naturally, unoriginal (scroll down)) Hey, Asshole feature.)
The biggest problem with their well-crafted manifesto isn’t factual, it’s conceptual. Because Idolator’s actually afraid to define itself before it finds out what works, it has decided it will be everything. Including the one thing no Gawker offshoot should ever be: Sincere.
“Snarksnarksnark – but no, really, you should listen to these African-American women and their record, Idolator’s Desperate Stab at Legitimacy. It’s really good! We won’t link to any place you can buy it, or their label, or anything that would help the band we’re ‘breaking.’ Oh, and here’s another discerning selection, with a faulty myspace link and no mention of their upcoming local appearance. Because this is just a job, and we’re off the clock, now. Toodles!”
The editors’ discerning – but NOT SNOBBY! – minds will suggest a good song or artist EVERY DAY. The pressure of posting shiny! new! discoveries every single day never, ever contributes towards undue attention. And since they’re paid to find new tracks for you every day, then sandwich them between photos of preteens in see-thru wifebeaters and paid-for record label logos, you know they really care. Um, about music.
Like all blogs with ads, Idolator has to be seen as a business, its features as business decisions. No respectable music journalist who privately blogs (nope, nope, nope...) – not even disgraced ones – would bury their passion under billboards. Business ventures are fine; it can be a blast watching Stereogum mirror the Technorati search rankings in its post topics. But I’m not going to give two shits about what’s said there. There are as many bizarre reasons for posts as there are bloggers, but at least the people chasing hit counts for validation or vanity aren’t defacing their pages with huge blocks that say “DON’T TRUST ME.” It’s love or money. Hobbyists aren’t about recouping their costs.
This is where this new blog finally, and irreparably, becomes part of the problem it pretends to want to solve. “The blogosphere was going to serve as the great equalizer,” their manifesto whines (before complaining about homogenization -- a pretty awesome equalizer in its own right -- and conveniently ignoring music pages that blog outside the mainstream (it's easier to attack "the blogs" when they're all neatly generalized together)). Well, first, Idolator’s not looking to level any playing fields. You can’t even comment on the site without an exclusive invitation (Disclosure x+: I have been invited, and have yet to accept.). How punk is that?
Those Idolator adulates – zine-staplers and college radio DJs and crazy, nerdy, first-wave bloggers – pursued personal passions devoid of the promise of profit. Single-mindedness ain’t good business sense; its target demo’s awfully small.
Nick Denton’s piece of product arrives with the urgency of an afterthought (It’s what? The 15th? 16th? title released under the Gawker Media banner?). Its mission statement is confused because the primary purpose runs contrary to its stated ideals: Idolator must make money. And to do that it will have to kowtow and suckup to myspacers who have no idea what a “Midlake” is (and take care not to upset those who do). It will have to court the people it should be criticizing. It will have to toss out lots of milquetoast mp3s to suck in the freeloaders who do nothing but download files and run up hit counts. It will have to suck like it says the internet sucks, now. Which makes Idolator just another shitty music blog.
*
I didn’t even have time to go into all the other wrong things they did, yesterday. Ah, well. It’s Friday. Apropos of nothing...
Enjoy your weekends.
*
I've just been alerted by the Blogmaster McGeneral that I'm all out of parentheses. And it's only September. Fuck!
YES? YOU THERE IN THE BACK? (24)
2. Queen of Sheba left...
09/15/2006 2:48 pm :: http://queenofnotes.blogspot.com
I'm gonna start looking for somebody who actually likes Idolator. How long
you think that'll take?
3. J____ left...
09/15/2006 3:24 pm :: http://heartonastick.blog-city.com/
Just look for the people cashing the checks, QoS.
4. Steven Scott left...
09/15/2006 4:18 pm
This is truly disgusting.
5. enjoying MY weekend left...
09/15/2006 4:47 pm
Steven Scott,
You sure get offended easily. Do your parents let you play around on the
internet alone?
6. PRfect left...
09/15/2006 4:59 pm
The image rules, first of all.
7. Steven Scott left...
09/15/2006 5:15 pm
I'm actually not offended easily.
8. LaceyJane left...
09/15/2006 5:27 pm
Since I can't comment on Gawker (I'm not allowed) I will comment here. My
comment is actually a message for Gawker.
9. Ernie left...
09/15/2006 5:42 pm
If using parentheses gave you AIDS, you’d be sub-Saharan Africa. Also,
white on dark blue? My eyes are burning. Is this a geocities site from
1997? Fuck.
10. Whine Much? left...
09/15/2006 6:49 pm
Ahhhh, somebody didn't get that high-paying music-blogging gig they wanted?
And thank God! If I had to wade through one more run-on sentence followed
by a comma splice followed by a wordy hyperbole, my brain would have
exploded.
12. mjrc left...
09/15/2006 7:58 pm :: http://lostinyourinbox.blog-city.com
ah, i love it when you're all fired up about something. makes up for that
lack of daily posting! (ernie's comment about the parentheses is pretty
funny, don't you think?)
13. Rmd left...
09/16/2006 6:48 am
How dare you use that image to promote yourself?
Take it down now and hope there is no after-life.
14. gotdetroit? left...
09/16/2006 8:33 am :: http://webvomit.gotdetroit.com
I stopped reading.
15. Matt left...
09/17/2006 10:32 am
Yeah...your shitty music taste is actually trumped by your horrible
writing. I know for a fact that I'm going to HATE idolator, but I'd rather
read that rag then have to watch as a downtrodden hipster prances around
self-promotion.
16. copy editor #4557 left...
09/18/2006 7:26 am
"Whine Much?" - So this White person? Why is his name on the cover of
"Elements of Style"?
17. mike left...
09/18/2006 8:32 am
dude. stop your bithcin, do something remarkable, get advertisers, MAKE
CONENCTIONS TO WINE/DINE you and stop blogging about your own self
importrance to society.
18. mike left...
09/18/2006 8:34 am
...and another thing...free cds are just part of the exchange in the
industry. don't scoff at no receiving any paid trips if you immediately
burn the bridge before it is built.
19. Enjoyed My Weekend left...
09/18/2006 9:37 am :: http://noyetidance.blogspot.com
Heartonastick: downtrodden hipster prancing around self-promotion?
20. Laurie left...
09/18/2006 9:55 am
The picture that you used for this post is extremely dis-tasteful. The
footage from which this pic was pulled is a symbol of the attrocities of
war in Vietnam. It truely disgusts me to find it used in this totally
trivial context.
21. Brewhaha left...
09/18/2006 1:06 pm
You know what's worse than musicians? People who write about them. (Well,
actually, I like Lester Bangs, but only because he's dead.)
22. jim left...
09/18/2006 1:53 pm
i don't know that stereogum didn't mention the airfare for Microsoft's Zune
junket- "The Microsofties invited Stereogum (along with all your other
favorite MP3 bloggers and old-school media) to Seattle to meet with Zune's
lead marketers and developers, to play with one for a few minutes, and to
be among the first to report. How could we resist? We love air travel!"
23. J____ left...
09/18/2006 6:05 pm :: http://heartonastick.blog-city.com/
Jim, you could read it that way... or not. I could invite Stereogum's face
to meet my fist, but I'm certainly not going to provide subway fare.
Conflicts of interest are either stated clearly or covered up.
24. Chris left...
11/19/2006 5:36 pm :: http://www.culturebully.com
"because nothing emphasizes the portability of a gadget more than having to
transport a dozen disheveled twentysomethings across the fucking country to
see one"...made me smile, thanks