is the intersection of poptimism, capitalism (Pitchfork is owned by Conde Nast who, as cosmopolitan-bourgeoise tastemakers, also own GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New Yorker etc.) and liberal virtue signalling (which poptimism in one respect is, reiterated in terms of music culture) a good or bad thing for music?
also beyonce bnm thread
9.0
that art kinda sucks
I'm predicting Fantano gives it an 8
Sometimes it feels like the only sources of music criticism anyone pays any attention to are Fantano and Pitchfork which is inherently bad but the Renaissance review is spot on. Nearly perfect album
The only critic I trust is Scaruffi
>fell for the scaruffi meme
being a black billionaire is still being a billionaire that should be taxed out of existence. beyonce's empire grows necessarily in proportion to black impoverishment
they’re afraid to give beyonce any lower of a review than that. All professional criticism has become totally compromised by politics and money
It was always bad for culture because they are basically cheering for the winners who have a vast corporate machine behind them while ignoring the underground which is vital to creativity
im tired of talking about poptamism though
if you like pop i just ignore you now
This. Poptimists are part of cultural decay.
pitchfork's review goes into how beyonce's new album is like an archival of dance genres, particularly queer and black, which seems pretty kaleidoscopic to its credit (although this again backed by the fact she has an endless arsenal of resources rather than *necessarily* being an encyclopedia of music history herself). so it's like not only do these winners exploit the losers (proletariat) in terms of their material labor, but also for their culture
But when Beyonce does it it’s YAS KWEEN clap emoji because a few years ago she decided she was going to start pretending like she understands the struggles of common black woman
money ultimately plays a role in all of this
it's just the same crap we've been fed for like 25 years.
I think music criticism is inherently bad and wholly unnecessary in our current era of music consumption. If I knew anyone in real life who cited music reviews in any way, I'd keep my distance. The playing field is level and any jackass on Twitter can make an album happen if they try hard enough. The only people I know who are obsessed with music critic culture are people on the internet.
>if you like pop i just ignore you now
Based!
We need to starve the pop machine of its clout. We need to not even know the names of these people
To be fair the underground sucks now too
literally impossible. adorno in an essay from 80 years ago wrote how, on one level, the culture industry operates: repetition repetition repetition. this goes for both how songs are produced and how artists are "plugged" or promoted. the ecosystem of pop is an inexhaustive network that will never allow escape. when you're in public places you WILL hear it, and by virtue of its repetition you (or at least average people) inflate its value. otherwise why would it be showing up so much, right? the internet and social media only exacerbate this because now individual laypersons themselves are the mouthpieces and reproducers of this system, apart from taste-maker music critics and publications
>taking adorno seriously
most of what he said about popular music is still applicable. you can't be critical of pop without recourse to ideas he already went over
>taking adorno seriously
pop and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race