2010 in Music Journalism – Addenda

PopMatters was nice enough to post my 2010 sum-up of music journalism yesterday. A couple of addenda notes to add:

– As another writer pointed out, Nitsuh Abebe’s move from Pitchfork to New York magazine also meant that he went from part-time status with no benefits to having them in a full-time job (he was a freelancer for PF).

– As I noted in the comments, the ad take for Rolling Stone in 2010 actually improved by year’s end (thanks to another writer for pointing that out).

– I didn’t include the listing of favorite and least favorite articles this time. As I mentioned last year, I’ve been doing for it for several years and got tired of doing it. I liked sharing info about great articles and praising the amazing writers who did them but the workload was too much. Like I said before, I might go back to it at some point but I doubt that’s going to be happening this year.

– In a related note, I was kind of sad to see that there weren’t other writers who took up the charge to issue their own list of favorite music writing for 2011. I hope I’m wrong about this (and PLEASE tell me if I am!) and also hope that someone else can take up the slack some time soon.

– Someone commented via e-mail that the anonymous tweeter who became Village Voice’s rock crit of the year wasn’t that impressive: “was disappointed to see that when I looked at the tweets, it was just the same tired old Rolling Stone approved opinions and prejudices presented in a more abbreviated, Wittgenstein-ish fashion.” I’d just say that my interest was more in the fact that someone like that would get so much attention as a suddenly-prominent rock critic though I liked the Tweeter’s work more than the commentator.

– I should have added one thing that I usually tack on at the end of my year-end sum-up’s. If you see a good article, please contact the writer and editor and let them know that. I guarantee you that they rarely get any feedback for the hard work that they do and that your kind words will nourish them and inspire them, the same way that they’ve done for you. It might even help to compensate for the long hours and lousy pay that they have to endure.