Confiscate their laptops: the worst writing of the year.
August Brown: “In Defense of Bad Singing”
(LA Times, December 15, 2008)
Trying to make a bomb of a performance into a moment of triumph (Kanye West’s Saturday Night Live appearance), Brown plays the race card and forgets a little thing called context: indie rock singers aren’t supposed to be on pitch, but an R&B singer, like Kanye is aspiring to be, ideally should be on point with their voice. As Huey Lewis and Dave Edmunds once noted, something bad is just bad.
David Hadju: “I Me Mine”
(New Republic, June 25, 2008)
If you crave arrogance and a touch of ignorance, this is where you can get a heaping serving of both. Supposedly, both Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead’s free download experiments mean little or nothing, and the people who’ve remixed their tracks are all uncreative idiots. Unlike the author, who’s merely a snobby contrarian. Yawn.
Jude Rogers: “Shock Value”
(Guardian, May 30, 2008)
So, basically because fans of My Chemical Romance are holding a peaceful protest about a song that allegedly caused a suicide, we can now declare rock dead and totally lacking in any rebel spirit. If this was 1971, that might be kind of an edgy proposition. If it was 1976, it would be kind of a stale statement already. But, um, this is over 30 years later, and is the kind of fluff that you see high school kids complain about all the time. The Guardian should really know better than to print this kind of crap.
Scott Plagenhoef: “Black Kids review”
(Pitchfork, July 22, 2008)
If the review wasn’t embarrassing enough for them, how about the hubris behind it? Who are they apologizing to? To the readers, for having hyped up the band? To the band, for being turned into the next big thing? Should we just take Pitchfork‘s word that it’s their fault, and thus it was their mighty writ that started this whole thing? Even worse, it was preceded by a different byline with a 0.0 rating, which Plagenhoef claimed in an Idolator comments section was just a big mistake, and which he and Pitchfork decided not to explain on their own site. Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, the whole thing still stinks of shinola. Next time they might want to actually write a real review, even if the doggies are so cute.
Unknown Writer: “Popular Music Often Exposes Children to Positive Portrayals of Drug and Alcohol Use, Pitt School of Medicine Study Finds”
(webwire.com, February 5, 2008)
NEWSFLASH: Swarmy researchers produce the 748th study this year that shows that popular music is poisoning teenage America, turning them into godless terrorists who are a threat to our country and national security. Which is all good and well, but the only thing that’s worse are the dozens of news agencies who actually consider each of these reports to actually be print-worthy. Is it any wonder that the news business is going down the toilet?
Steven Wells: “Black Crowes’ five star embarrassment”
(Guardian, February 28, 2008)
It’s gotta be a contrarian joke, right? Sticking up for a writer and magazine that doesn’t bother to listen to an album they review, even though Richard Meltzer did it many times long ago (though he admitted it up front)? And sure enough, plenty of the comments to the article blast Wells for being such a goddamn jerk. If he played his readers for cheap emotionalism, though, shame on him. If he actually thinks that Maxim‘s crime was non-existent, then he should trade in his laptop for a toilet brush. A runner-up would be Wells’s savage RIP to Harp, No Depression and Resonance, which stinks of sour grapes, disclosure and all, and that connection definitely ain’t coincidental (my own disclosure is that I’ve written for Harp and No Depression, and admired both publications before I did so). And the less said about his anti-vinyl screed the better. In fairness, Wells’s “Music Hacks Attack” (Guardian, January 8, 2008) is a good chronicle of musicians trying to get back at scribes. He might want to watch his back about the Black Crowes though.
Comments
Throwing daggers at other sites, including arguable competitors like Pitchfork, in this ceremonious fashion is a waste of column inches; this is especially true when it is considered that much of the worst writing I saw in 2008 came from PopMatters. I like your site and understand that on a site that regularly solicits contributions from its readers the quality may vary. Your “Bottom of the Barrel” column suggests that PopMatters is above the fray, and no objective reader could agree.
Comment by Tommy Atkins — January 8, 2009 @ 11:22 am
Jason Gross picked these entries on his own, not the entire PM staff.
Also, no PM articles were included in any category (including the best writing sections) since we are publishing the article.
Comment by SysAdmin — January 8, 2009 @ 11:44 am
I think the Pitchfork review is really much ado about very little. I took it as a joke, albeit a pompous and unfunny one (though the pugs are pretty adorable). I don’t see why you’d rush to defend Pitchfork though Tommy (and of course do the 21st century form of an argument in irrelevantly slamming the source of the critique) as it was the only piece from Pitchfork mentioned in this section, and it wasn’t even a piece of writing. As a stunt, the Black Kids review completely lacks integrity, but I don’t know that it was ever meant to.
As a Philadelphia who had the unfortunate disposition of catching Steven Wells’s wretched column in the Philadelphia Weekly for a year or so until he left (or was fired..hopefully). Kudos for pointing out what a waste of space he is. How he ever got to write for the Guardian is beyond me.
Comment by Timothy Gabriele from Philadelphia — January 8, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
SysAdmin: I understand that the article is an editorial by Mr. Gross and not a consensus of the PopMatters staff. This does not change anything I said in my first comment. Also, I did not suggest that PopMatters writing was considered when writing this or any of your “Best Of” columns about 2008. The disclaimers you send to me should have appeared in Mr. Gross’s article rather than presented to me reactively (and, arguably, condescendingly).
Comment by Tommy Atkins — January 8, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
Timothy Gabriele: I did not “defend” Pitchfork and as such, most certainly did not “rush” to do so. I mentioned them as an example of a PopMatters competitor. Furthermore, your unnecessary explanation that the Pitchfork piece was not a piece of writing has nothing to do with anything I’ve written here, and your parenthetical statement makes no sense (or, at best, is out of context). Considering that its audiences clearly include inattentive, discursive, detail-lacking readers and commenters like yourself, the shoddier journalism of PopMatters, Pitchfork, or any other site may pass as sophisticated.
Comment by Tommy Atkins — January 8, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
I feel like I’ve been savaged by a dead sheep.
Comment by Steven Wells from Philadelphia — January 9, 2009 @ 10:37 am
Personally, I think it’s immensely laughable that the hack formerly known as Seething Wells should use a concern for Pop Music in his defense of Maxim. Anyone who read his kneejerk devil’s advocate swill in the NME, or more recently his bete noire HARP, can see for themselves that he could give a toss about Pop Music, or much music at all really.
Wells’ recollections of rock press past, included in his vainglorious watering of newly interred rock mag’s graves, are also more than slightly rose colored.
‘Bands that spoke homophobic, racist or sexist shit were slaughtered mercilessly…’ I was WONDERING why Guns N Roses and the Beastie Boys sold so few records and concert tickets!
Comment by ML Heath from San Francisco — January 11, 2009 @ 3:53 pm