Who's Sick of Music Critics Lamenting the Death of Music Criticism?

By Lilledeshan Bose Thu., Apr. 22 2010 at 2:55 PM

Categories: before it gets old, crowdsourced, curmudgeonliness, say what?, today in music news

Last year, the self-proclaimed "last rock critic standing" Chris Weingarten (blogger, rock critic, Spin, Rolling Stone and Village Voice contributor) talked about the death of music criticism at the 140 Characters Conference. (Watch it here.)

In that diatribe, Weingarten lamented that he was going to be out of a job because magazines were hiring 19-year-olds for free concert tickets and pats on the head instead of paying critics with taste. So, yeah, maybe I feel a little endangered--and that's why I think his rant is so funny. Music writers and editors became regurgitators of what the blogs were saying? True dat. Internet connections are so fast people can just listen to albums and judge it for themselves? True dat. The Hype Machine panders to the lowest common denominator? True, dat.

A few days ago, he did a sequel. (He still has a job, BTW.) It's the same old shtick, but better, because there's way more profanity.

The best part? Our sister paper condensed Weingarten's newest video and took out all the words that are normally safe to print. Here's the Village Voice's Sound of the City abridged version.

Oh, and to answer my question above? I love music critics who can remember when their opinion was better than everyone else's. But I'm not one of them.

Instead, I accepted the music editor position here at OC Weekly because I love music and I love the age we live in. I love everything you can find on the Internet (except Farmville! Ew) and everything that makes music easily accessible today. Instant downloads? Drool. Everyone tweeting about the show they all witnessed at the same time? Heart palpitations. Bringing all the music I love with me no matter where I go in my 120-gig iPod? It's like my soul gained instant entry to heaven.

So yeah, I'm Lilledeshan Bose and I'm the new OC Weekly music editor. Maybe I'll see you at a show one of these days--I'll be the dork tweeting about the show as it happens because I want everyone else to know what they're missing.