The All-New STYLUS.

And thanks!

I also didn't realize how young [Todd Burns] the chief is !

I also have writer's block. I'm having trouble getting a moment to knock my Richard X thoughts into any sort of coherant form, but with any luck it should be more or less sorted by this afternoon.

The very thought of Dave Q writing for Stylus fills me with joy.

Cozen, I would love that (plus anythign else you want to do).

Tom, it's not back-handed at all (I don't know what you look like!).

Dave Q's had one article published with us, ahs another in the works (ie; waiting for me to edit and format it), and a review coming soon.

Dom, write me more stuff, you're brilliant.

Swygart, same for you.

Matt DC, I await your Richard X review with baited breath and sweaty palms.

DR C, I'm ready any time you are.

Credit for the new look is mainly due to Kenan, Todd, and the man from Moveable Type whom we love with all our hearts (and who's been sat up till all hours with Todd reloading stuff into new matrices and tables and stuff for the last week).

It's looking fucking splendid, and will be even better when I email Todd a picture of me looking windswept on Dartmoor.

Sorry Nick, something WILL come your way soon. I have had v.little time.

Burns/Nick: Tell Gavin to write as much as possible!

it rhymed. cut me a break.

I am using IE 5 and the album reviews on the left do not have enough space between artist, title, etc. I will IM Todd about when I get back from work.

Nice job, Todd.

matthew weiner posts here as naiveteenidol.

It was partly me, yes, though I'm not going to take too much credit since I didn't do all that I said I would. I picked the colors, designed the logo and header and picked the fonts, laid out the individual pages, and wrote some of the code. I had nothing to do with the front page, but whoever did did an excellent job, apart from some stylesheet problems that are easily fixed (i.e. -- the text spacing and padding is all screwy).

It does look much better. Yay Todd!

I didn't realize Pitchfork had the patent on HTML.

the new design is amazing and the writing is just getting better and better-- every feature is slam dunk it seems. it makes me wish i hadn't lost the small shred of writing spark i used to have. i wish i could contribute more than i have been this summer.

todd (along with nick and keenan, natch) is the hardest working man on the internet, and it's finally paying off big time. bravo.

I'm sorry you didn't like the Mercury piece, Marcello. I wasn't sure how it would turn out and it was done very quickly, more as an irreverent aside than anything else. Initially it was going to be a Pop Playground but ended up too long. Comparing it to "a BNP FAP in Welling" is a bit harsh though, I think.

Dom: There ’s that Brummie guy with the stupid name!

Dom: Kenko Soweto?

Swygart: Soweto Kinch.

Dom: That ’s the bugger.

Dom: What musical genre is he again?

Swygart: It ’s hip-hop. It ’s jazz. It ’s craziness.

Our two correspondents think it funny to laugh at black people's names and black music. Yes, all these jungle bunnies are crazy, aren't they?

Dom: I think Dizzee Rascal ’s fans put me off really.

Swygart: Dizzee is also going down the chart fairly slowly too, only dropped nine places this week.

Dom: They ’re all white guys with deliberately messy hair and stupid tee-shirts and dads who play golf.

Swygart: Well, the ones who write about him are, anyway.

Er, that includes me, and also by extension yourselves. So insult your colleagues into the bargain.

I took Stylus off my CoM links because of this article, and also K-Punk for similar sexist rubbish. Zero tolerance.

Just out of interest, why is it okay to overlook such attitudes in pop music you like (ie CoM's Dizzee review) and not in tossed-off pieces of glib web-writing? Why is Church of Me recommending Boy In Da Corner despite your argument that it also contains what you upthread call "sexist rubbish"? Why apply zero-tolerance to one field and not another?

I'm not being facetious, I'm interested in your reasoning for this.

(Hey, you can have that one for free Marcello)

1st point of issue - Soweto Kinch.

1) Dom couldn't remember his name. That is all.

2) I said what I said NOT because it's hip-hop and jazz, but because people are saying it's great because it's a fusion of hip-hop and jazz, like when people say Faithless are really clever and innovative because they have live instruments, or Jason Downs thought he was really clever because he was a country musician who had a rapper on his records, or The Red Hot Chilli Peppers think they're really clever because they fuse funk and rock and rap and, fuck it, I dunno, throat singing, because they're so fucking immensely fucking talented. Common thread between the three - they're shite, jsut like the Stereophonics, just like Starsailor, trading off their supposed 'talent' rather than the music they actually come out with. Maybe Mr Kinch bucks this trend, I have no idea. I may even listen to some of his music one day.

The Dizzee Rascal comments that I made, I do apologise for. Not racist, just rather flippant and ill-informed. Thing is, upon reading them again, they're eerily reminiscent of comments So Solid Crew made about him in their NME interview, about how he's not street because he hasn't gone top 10, and has probably never even seen a gun, comments that nearly propelled me to buy the album solely because they were that ignorant and ill-informed. Of course, though, I didn't, and I bought the Wildhearts and Mower instead. I also went public school, am a virgin, and am currently drinking a bottle of Fanta and eating a Mars Bar thus increasing the grip of the evil corporations on the world or whatever the fuck else you wanna fucking have a go at me about. I didn't go on the anti-war marches, there's one.

Truth be told, I can't fucking stand situations like this. This is why you're waiting on four album reviews from me, because I hate confrontation, I hate discussion, I hate upsetting people, and all the fucking time I'm pussyfooting around trying to avoid bullshit like this by not saying anything, which is probably why half the fucking top 40 review is filled with pictures, and the other half is basically me going 'Erm...' Alright? I can't fucking write about music, I can't fucking write about anything without sounding like a bloody simpleton, an arrogant prick, or just a fucking moron generally. And that ISN'T whinging, I am NOT having a go at you, I don't fucking know what I am doing, I'm meant to be writing some letter to uni about how exactly I want to go back there because otherwise I'm fucking stuck where I am right bloody now, but no, I'm writing this stream-of-consciousness bile-fuelled fuckerbucker 500 cack because I cannot handle anything.

Dom, you just missed Raul Malo on Des & Mel.

You see, that's the important thing here.

Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry sorry.

This, I think, is roughly what you're equating me with. Which I'm not very happy about.

If you're not even capable of undertaking that elementary level of homework, you should not be writing about music.

And no, maybe we shouldn't be.

(Xpost)

A) I wasn't a huge fan of that piece, largely b/c I thought the IM-ish thing was just sort of sloppy and hard to read. Nick and I tried to pull off a piece like this earlier and, well, it never ran. For good reason.

B) I think there's a difference between "racism" and "racial insensitivity". One is pretty much evil -- the other merely stupid. This seemed to clearly be flirting the latter -- a tossed-off, somewhat poorly thought-out attempt at glibness.

I would hope, Marcello, you wouldn't write off Stylus based on one isolated instance of something of this nature.

Someone on another board (ok, h1p1n1on) says this, which may or may not be an attempt at a hoax, but I'm just copying since I don't know:

One of my friends works at a promotions company and got an email back from them saying:

"Hi there PR person/band person:

Stylus Magazine will no longer be actively published starting on
October 31, 2007. We may or may not be stopping publishing reviews
long before that, so please DO NOT send any discs to us."

?

http://www.uwsp.edu/news/photos/MOURNING.gif

dom this isnt the thread to brag about girls you fucked

Originally I was going to post this picture:

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/461/mourning.jpg

some behind-the-scenes magic right there

hey, ethan, two out of three ain't bad, especially the one at the back. you could argue on balance that it's a haul to be proud of!

if it's true, then someone's got to keep Single Jukebox alive. It's my favorite feature, with some of the stalwarts of NYLPM.

yeah, i'd be bummed if that got the ax too, for obvious reasons.

What???

I don't know! That's why I posted it.

Well the Stypod went away a few weeks ago and Beatz By the Pound (my definite favorite part of the site) has certainly slowed in the past few weeks. Surely someone here can confirm.

:-( :-( :-(

stylus has a weekly feature about beats by the pound?!

you missed last week's column about Charge It 2 Da Game?

yeah i gotta say the debate between mo b. dick & nick southall about radiohead's best album was kinda predictable tho

???

haha i could actually imagine an audiophile discussion between klc and southall, he seems like the kind of dude who would give a shit about that sort of thing

time for KLC poll

... so it's not true then? Or aren't we supposed to know about it yet?

so this was on HIPINION was it

I'm still writing.

ok, fair point, the two of you.

I didn't know about Hipinion til today...JESUS CHRIST! IT'S TERRRRRRIBLE.

i need an ALL NEW STYLUS for one of my turntables

any news?

Probably a hoax, never heard a thing about this since.

I don't think it's telling tales out of school if I say so, but it turns out it's true, Stylus is kaput.

Really?

so I hear! I haven't been a regular contributor or in the loop for like a year, though. sorry to anyone if it's supposed to be under wraps at the moment but if people are already speculating then it's not really much a secret.

Uh.

ach, just saw the end of that email that said it wasn't supposed to be known yet. mods, feel free to delete, i guess.

WAU.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScgERsqzUhQ

Terrible if true. Stylus is a really good online magazine.

agreed

I'm still writing for them, so.

stylus has a weekly feature about beats by the pound?!

-- and what, Friday, 31 August 2007 16:21 (1 month ago) Link

you missed last week's column about Charge It 2 Da Game?

-- Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 31 August 2007 16:29 (1 month ago) Link

yeah i gotta say the debate between mo b. dick & nick southall about radiohead's best album was kinda predictable tho

-- and what, Friday, 31 August 2007 16:42 (1 month ago) Link

wish this was real

mo b. dick southall

Dick Mouthy hehe

Sick Mouthy rools.

POST THE EMAIL

I'd like this better if it were just a way of firing Alex in Baltimore (not that I have anything against him, really).

"Uh, yeah, we're not publishing anything else, so we don't need you to write anymore. Also, uh, don't look at the website, because after we fold the domain will be used to serve viruses and childporn into your your computer."

lol. well like i said, i stopped writing reviews for them last year, have only been doing some stuff for the Jukebox blog recently, which was what I got an email in reference to. i already feel like enough of a dick for saying anything, though, so yeah, definitely not posting any emails.

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/119582/2/istockphoto_119582_grieving_2.jpg

WHAT.

RIP big men

The decline for Stylus (more leik styleless) started when they didn't get back to Esteban Buttez about that writing gig.

^^^ truth

idk if anyone else has noticed, but lots of stylus stalwarts have been throwing it down for pfork lately.

oh noes. What will happen to the jukebox? No wonder it hasn't been updated all week. What a shame it had to end with a celebration of the longevity of Radio 1's mediocrity as well.

I'm still writing. Literally. I've got three Word docs open.

whats the reasoning behind this

yeah. why oh why?

yeah this really sucks

http://www.rialtotheatre.com/images/content/mystery.gif

idk if anyone else has noticed, but lots of stylus stalwarts have been throwing it down for pfork lately.

http://www.drownedinsound.com/user/view/46684

idk if anyone else has noticed, but lots of stylus stalwarts have been throwing it down for pfork lately.

By "lots" do you mean Mike Powell? Because Liz Colville has been writing for both sites for a while now, and I think Roque Strew only wrote for Stylus for about two weeks before heading over to Pitchfork, and that was at least a year ago.

Andrew Gaerig, Josh Love and Ian Cohen all write for 'fork as well.

Hmmm, OK, didn't notice them on the masthead.

By the way, just in case - I do apologise for repeating this rumour if it is either wrong or supposed to be secret until some later date. I hope this hasn't caused any problems anywhere, hadn't thought about that when I asked if anyone knew anything on August 31st. I did say that it could be a hoax and as far as I know it might still be, but you know, to whom it may concern: sorry. :-/

http://www.observer.com/2007/stylus-magazine-respected-online-music-publication-will-fold-after-halloween

Stylus Magazine, Respected Online Music Publication, Will Fold After Halloween
by Leon Neyfakh

Published: October 26, 2007

Tags: Media, Pitchfork Media, Stylus Magazine

StylusMagazine.com, a portal for fans of experimental and independent music, will cease publication at the end of the month after almost five years. While never quite as widely read or immediately influential as Pitchforkmedia.com, Stylus built a name for itself among music specialists interested in rigorous, and often personal, criticism of little known artists, as well as Top 40 singles. (In recent years the site also expanded its coverage to include film.) In an e-mail, Stylus editor Todd Burns—who was good enough to publish a few of this reporter's music reviews many years ago—said there was no immediate impetus behind his decision to the end the site.

"I just got off the subway one day and said, 'I don't want to do this anymore,'" he said.

Scott Plagenhoef, who was a top editor writer at Stylus before becoming the managing editor of Pitchfork, said the site would be dearly missed.

"Todd has done an exemplary job of providing an outlet for content that is writer-friendly and allows them to stretch out and explore ideas," Mr. Plagenhoef said.

"One disappointing thing about it is that there aren't very many music magazines anymore," he said. "Even online, since having a blog has simply been a matter of hosting a song and then saying, 'hey, here it is.' That's been pretty much the end of the conversation in a lot of places about music."

Mr. Plagenhoef said he has been talking to Mr. Burns about Stylus writers who might now find a home at Pitchfork. "We've consulted with Todd and talked about certain writers who are a good fit, and we're in the process of possibly bringing on board a few people," he said.

Mr. Plagenhoef said Pitchfork has already hired Mike Powell, who wrote regularly about music for Stylus and served as an associate editor.

Stylus will publish its last reviews this week, and close out on Halloween with a "Greatest Hits"-style retrospective.

r.i.p.

I'm really sorry to read this. This line is especially true:

One disappointing thing about it is that there aren't very many music magazines anymore," he said. "Even online, since having a blog has simply been a matter of hosting a song and then saying, 'hey, here it is.' That's been pretty much the end of the conversation in a lot of places about music.

Good filters are as sorely needed now as ever, and Stylus was one of the best. I'm very sorry to see it go.

What I don't understand is, if he's simply not interested in running the site anymore, why not try to find somebody who is?

The all-new Stylus, run by the Reverend!

Haha, no thanks.

This news is heartbreaking. :(

Haha, no thanks.

Why not? Storm the Bastille.

r.i.p. anticipating hit job reviews by dom of hyped nme bands.

but for real, i'm sad about this. in some respects, stylus, esp. w/r/t the features, had some of the best, or at least the most original, music writing around, print or online. will be missed, but it's cool that dudes are migrating over to pfork, at least.

Todd Burns doesn't care about indie people!!

That's a bummer. Stylus was my favorite of all of 'em. They had the most consistent writers. I hope they keep an archive online for a while.

yeah this is bad. pitchfork, while you're at it feel free to steal stylus' design template. every bit of it. please. alfred soto where else do you write?

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/images/journal-logos/rsm/jms.gif

There really is no other site out there that had as much good pop criticism in one place . . . I mean, Pitchfork is great, but they have one feature a day, and a lot of the time it's a Guest List or an interview or something. I'm going to miss waking up and opening up my RSS reader and having all those great essays and other features sitting right there.

Also, whatever you do, Nick Southall please keep writing. Your shit is half the reason Stylus is/was great.

yeah him too def. does he post here?

Yeah he does.

Nick Southall = Scik Mouthy

Aw i'm gonna miss the singles jukebox the most. I always thought Stylus wrote about pop and dance better than they ever did about indie.

And, of course, Scraping the Barrel < / selfish self-interest >

lol if only for the rare chance of encountering an extremely grumpy Ned.

xp naturally! must say i prefer your reviews 'in stereo' :). i bet you talk faster than you type so it's not an inapt comparison.

I will miss the extraordinarily vague musings of Martin Skidmore.

stylus rip

srsly will miss

hugs to scik mouthy

I ran into Todd on the subway once, hopefully that wasn't the same day he said "fuck it."

I haven't read it as much lately (oooh did I hate the grading system), and if Todd has stuff he'd rather do I respect that, but this still kinda bums me out. RIP!

I have a very fond memory of doing drunken karaoke with a bunch of Stylus gents two years agoish. Good times!

That's a bummer. Stylus was my favorite of all of 'em. They had the most consistent writers. I hope they keep an archive online for a while.

-- Fastnbulbous, Saturday, 27 October 2007 04:06 (3 hours ago) Link

yeah, anyone have any idea if there are plans to at least make sure the domain and archive stay up for the foreseeable future? i'd hate for all that stuff to disappear (at least party selfishly, for my own reviews).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/IMG_8031.jpg

I hear Nick Southall will be soon writing for "Cat Fanciers & Headphone Nerds Weekly" so it isn't a total loss.

It's on the frontpage of the site now, so I'll stop ignoring it. Yes, we're closing. Yes, Todd's had enough. No, I don't blame him.

:-(

(I hope this rumor wasn't the way you found out)

No; Todd told us a while ago. We're not Tottenham.

Phew. Your "I'm still writing" got me worried that they hadn't told you yet.

Haha, no; it's my "I'm not lying but I'm not telling you the whole story either" get out clause. I am still writing; I've got a bundle of things to finish for the last few days of the site.

Shit, I've been reading almost from the beginning, after doing a random search for Autechre reviews, as was my wont back in the day, and coming across this. rip.

I still don't get why somebody else couldn't take it over. It seems weird that one guy deciding one afternoon that he just couldn't be bothered with this would just fold the whole thing up.

Thanks for the kind words. Nick couldn't have said it better. For my part, I still got a bunch of copy to edit as well as a couple of things to write for the site, so I'm too busy to think of impending doom. I've been writing for other publications for a long time now, so if anyone wants to know where to find me please drop me a line.

The old Stylus UK Singles Jukebox was my first music journalism gig, so I have a lot to thank it for. Great site, very sorry to see it go... but I can quite imagine why Todd decided he had enough. You can't do something that staggeringly work-intensive and minimally profitable for ever and ever, can you?

It's very shitty. I always really enjoyed this great magazine. Some really good reviews and interesting articles. Good its ending on a high though: I think the recent piece on lovely music ltd. might be one of my favourite pieces of music writing ever. Best of luck to all of the great writers there, particularly those that post here.

I say with no hesitation that it was my favorite music publication, online or print, for the last five years. It was an honor writing there and it will be sorely missed.

this sucks.

Yonks ago they asked me to write about my favourite record. (Two and a half guesses which one I wanted to write about.) I never did. Well, I started but then I realized I was just a crappy writer and that my writings wouldn't be good enough for'em. What a great site. :-(

I really loved the "On Second Thought" column.

With a million blogs talking endlessly about every new release these days, it was really nice for a change to have someone looking critically at older albums that everyone either takes for granted or has forgotten about (which is also the appeal of ILM for me I suppose).

yeah, that aspect will really be missed.

The thing I will miss most is the effort taken to highlight things outside of the general "indie rock and things that people who like indie rock like" discourse. I don't see any similar sites out there with country columns or latin music reviewers

I still don't get why somebody else couldn't take it over. It seems weird that one guy deciding one afternoon that he just couldn't be bothered with this would just fold the whole thing up.

I'd like to hear about it too- not necessarily because it's wrong, there are several good reasons why this might happen. But I'm intrigued.

btw I didn't read Stylus (hardly read or even do any music writing these days) but am sorry to see it go from what I gather here. The Ashley piece is sweet.

With a million blogs talking endlessly about every new release these days, it was really nice for a change to have someone looking critically at older albums that everyone either takes for granted or has forgotten about

Yeah, ulitmately those essays are the ones I'll most miss writing.

I still don't get why somebody else couldn't take it over. It seems weird that one guy deciding one afternoon that he just couldn't be bothered with this would just fold the whole thing up.

^echoed

I've been far too flippant so far so to speak seriously -- I'd contributed pieces here and there almost on a whim to Stylus but it was here on ILM where the whole concept of Scraping the Barrel (initially called Shoveling the Shit, but you can't have everything) came up in an exchange between Todd, a couple of other Stylus bods and myself when lots of bad promo crud was talked about and I said if they wanted to send it to me to write about I'd happily rant. Simple as that and it was a great result on a variety of levels -- I got to step out of the far more restrained pose I necessarily have on the AMG, I did discover some stuff I actually quite enjoyed and heard enough of other idiocy not merely to give grist to the writing mill but to help further clarify whatever my random aesthetic is. What you dislike is as important as what you like, after all.

Also, it prompted some of the only hate mail for my reviewing I've ever received (all of it incredibly defensive and amusing), while, of all people, Momus was once irritated by my use of hyperbole when I was trashing something. Can't go wrong there.

So to conclude -- thanks to Todd for taking that random chance. It worked very well!

(My own two favorite pieces in general were on Bark Psychosis's Hex and rockism.)

I have no idea what Todd's decision-making process was, but I don't really like this criticism about deciding to shut it down instead of, say, handing the whole thing over to somebody else. If you create and slave over something for years and then decide to stop, maybe you have a successor in mind and want it to live on as an institution beyond your involvement, maybe not, but I think either position is fair for someone in his position to make. Maybe Stylus is shutting down because the business model was untenable, or because it was hard to keep unpaid writers motivated and efficient (I for one loved writing reviews for Stylus and think I did some of my best work there, and stopped doing it not because I had a problem with not getting paid, but because I couldn't keep up with them on top of the writing I do get paid for). If someone else wants to carry the torch, maybe they should start their own band, so to speak, and come up with a new system that won't be as prone to the problems that (I'm guessing) helped lead to the end of Stylus.

Oh, I wasn't criticizing, just not understanding.

Maybe I'm jumping the gun in revealing this (and as such, I'll reveal as little as possible), but an ILX regular is working on putting together a website that could perhaps fill this new void.

I'd hardly say that NedsNudes.com is going to fill the same niche as Stylus.

the problems that (I'm guessing) helped lead to the end of Stylus.

It makes me even more sad to read this. I assumed that Stylus wasn't folding because of any problems it experienced, but rather because its founder and editor-in-chief decided to move on.

Naw, not that one, I meant danperrysDPzone.com

Now you've spilled the beans on both sites, ya shameless punk!

wow this is terrible. stylus really brought actual intelligent, insightful, thought-provoking music discussion. they did a great job. any word on where dom palladino will be trashing pop songs in the most amusing ways possible?

*yet another link to the DiS Scouting For Girls review*

as someone who has to try to keep a website afloat with unpaid writers and not a ton of advertising, i can totally understand why todd would get tired of running in place, in a business sense. i can't possibly imagine he would make enough $ to keep doing it as anything less than a labor of love. any stylus writer into electronic music is definitely invited to write for groovesmag.com if pitchfork hasn't already stolen their hearts and time.

that Lovely Music piece is superb.

I'm a newcomer to this entire world. I've barely posted here much and I only wrote for Stylus from May until the end. But I have Todd's back forever for taking a chance on this no-name university grad with no experience and kicking off my crit career. Between May and now, Alfred can vouch, my skills have improved threefold in that environment (I'm not saying they're very good, but they did improve. When I got the fateful email, I was really angry and felt betrayed at first, that I finally snag a moment and it folds up on me, but yeah, there's no point in pretending a successive manager of Stylus wouldn't be just unfairly compared to the old regime constantly, that it could ever be the same experience. It just wouldn't be fair. I'm just glad to have slipped in to be a part of it at all, and I met dozens of talented, frustratingly intelligent people in the process.

)

You can't say enough good things about Todd Burns and the job he does
leading Stylus. The amount of work he puts into the site is tremendous, and I don't think Stylus would ever be the same without his vision.

For anyone interested: the Beatz by the Pound wing of Stylus that I run will be continuing on (even if it has been mostly dormant the past month).

That's great news Michael. I'm a big fan.

godspeed, mf

Like KOTJ, I just started writing for Stylus this summer...I'm extremely grateful to Todd for giving me the opportunity to work for such an amazing publication, even though my writing wasn't (and still isn't) anywhere near as good as other Stylus contibutors'. I'm not sure if I'm any better, but regardless, Todd's advice was always OTM. I owe him.

I'm just glad to have slipped in to be a part of it at all

^Yes

Maybe if this new site run by some ILM dude doesn't want the same fate as Stylus, he should get the music journalist juggernaut known as Esteban Buttez on board.

(Hint: drop me an e-mail and I'll get him some Jack Daniels to wake him up from his coma)

I will miss Stylus but not clicking on a feature to find out it's Nick Southall crapping on about studio technique/headphones/that sound in Spirit of Eden he heard which kinda sounds like Mark Hollis calling the local pizza joint for a large Hawaiian.

Ban you. There was no need for that kind of infantile trolling.

This is why they invented the phrase, "nigga plz".

Oh! Apologies.

I'm going to miss the Soulseeking column. I think it's really important to have people writing critically about more than just "the music." Sometimes it's really refreshing to read people writing about subjects like music overconsumption and other stuff that doesn't directly relate to any one artist or album but is of interest to any serious music fan. There's not enough of that kind of writing out there, it seems.

I've said this elsewhere, but yeah, what i'll miss most about Stylus is its commitment to doubt, that every canonized treasure or forgotten misunderstood cult item deserves a rebuttal or an appeal. Up can be down, and the skepticism actually makes to it print. The site wasn't a collection of staff-wide endorsements. I'm gonna miss it.

Switched 'it' and 'to' there for some reason. Damnz interweb.

Maybe we all could post some of our favorite Stylus pieces to celebrate all the great writing the magazine has added to the world? There's so much great great stuff in the archives there that deserves revisiting.

Soulseeking by Nick Southall
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/soulseeking.htm

Consummation of consumption by Marcello Carlin
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/soulseeking/consummation-of-consumption.htm

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviewcomment.php?ID=2759

'great' example of the fallout of the crappest writer they ever hired. Hits generating provocation disguised as reviewing.

^^^this

i think he's talking about dabug?

dabug-chaser

i just want to thank todd for taking a chance on a naive kid chasing a crazy dream. i don't know who that kid was, and all of his writing was shite, but kudos to you, my hero.

Little-known fact: I once wrote a review of an obscure album for Stylus, six months after it came out, and sent it to Nick. The very next day, a review of that album appeared on the site, written by a regular. I maintain mine was better. Nick's main problem seemed to be my use of the word 'ejaculated' in the first sentence.

littlest known fact.

Now all my reviews are directed towards unsuspecting distribution companies. H4rt Media? Hurt Media more like...

Pitchfork is still around. What's the big deal?

As I said in the C/D: Tiny Mix Tapes thread:

In my opinion: Pitchfork is excellent for its reviews, interviews, and occasionally its features. AMG is a great reference tool. And ILM is the best place I've found on the internet for discussion. But none of these places really have the breadth of critical pieces that Stylus has/had. Here, you can get a lot of different opinions, which is essential, but there aren't pieces here from one person's point of view that explore a particular angle on something in depth as often as not. I think all of these sites are useful for different reasons, and Stylus's closing will leave a hole in online music discourse.

Basically, less long form music writing; sadness abounds.

Pitchfork is still around. What's the big deal?

lol

I'm going to miss Stylus' unabashed love of pop. I still remember Pitchfork reviewed Kylie's Fever because it was April Fool's, whereas I would eagerly look forward to reading stylus every week for swygwart's roundup of the UK top 40. I think most people on the teenpop thread have at one time or another written for stylus. The Reverend mentioned that they've got latin music reviews - a recent development, but generally Stylus is unmatched for its cross-atlantic perspective.

Pitchfork reviewed Kylie's Fever because it was April Fool's

Are you serious? Ugh.

that dominique leon is such an elitist bitch:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/19918-fever

pop more leik pap amirite guyz

I've said this elsewhere, but yeah, what i'll miss most about Stylus is its commitment to doubt, that every canonized treasure or forgotten misunderstood cult item deserves a rebuttal or an appeal. Up can be down, and the skepticism actually makes to it print. The site wasn't a collection of staff-wide endorsements. I'm gonna miss it.

-- kiss out the jams, Sunday, 28 October 2007 16:37 (4 hours ago) Link

BIG HOOS

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1566

Thanks, Swygart, if you're reading this, for introducing me to one of my favorite songs ever in hilarious and accurate fashion. (Oh, and for running the Jukebox, too.)

Rev, I don't even know if that's a boo or a yay

=yay

hmm...i thought everyone had the same opinion as i do and that we all agreed that stylus was crap. i guess i was wrong. it was so bland. did anything that ever appeared on there ever stir anything in anyone? not really.

it was so bland. did anything that ever appeared on there ever stir anything in anyone? not really.

I can't imagine anyone thinking this. Consider the "Seconds," "Playing God," and "Staff Top 10" features.

He must've not read many Stylus pieces.

Another kudos for the long extended pieces by some of my favorite ILX peeps. And some of the shorter stuff by my other favorite ILX peeps. RIP.

kiss, that's a BIG yay.

Oh, I forgot about Dom.

hmm...i thought everyone had the same opinion as i do
hmm...i thought everyone had the same opinion as i do
hmm...i thought everyone had the same opinion as i do

i kind of wish Stylus had polls.

Holy shit. It just occurred to me that without Stylus, I wouldn't have found ILX, at least not when I did. And even if I had, I might not have stuck around if not for recognizing several posters as Stylus contributers.

There's a lot of love in here.

Stylus RIP. Todd is seriously the best guy ever, running a site tirelessly, using a rotating carousel of writers [was Stylus the Montreal Expos of the music crit world?] to create a great outlet for longform music crit and also a great playground for all sorts of new music writers.

Working for and with Todd on Stylus was an opportunity for which I'm forever grateful. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have ended up where I am today, not only for his generosity but for introducing me to a community of writers that could be critical without being mired in rockist/popist nonsense [at a time when that was all the rage.]

Thanks Todd and all the best with your future endeavors.

[BTW, Todd is still doing great stuff at eMusic's 17dots blog. Highly recommended. It's like reading Stereogum, except enjoyable and interesting.]

And so the farewells begin.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/the-bluffers-guide-to-stylus.htm

1hey this is a real drag. thanks todd and nick and will and everyone else. good stuff - i stopped reading p4k long ago, i guess i may have to go back :(

# no Says:
February 6th, 2006 at 5:19 am

Fergal is like Dom except he’s actually funny and I don’t want to punch him in the gut.

RIP

Stylus' best ever opening paragraph:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/the-am/the-am.htm

If nothing else I liked when Stylus provided a nice counterbalance to some of Pitchfork's more wonky reviews. In general, Stylus seemed to be a bit more levelheaded when it came to buzz bands.

seriously well done to all involved in the site.
i love(d) stylus.

I just read again the piece on Steely Dan's 'Gaucho'. Amazing stuff. My work week is about to get a little more boring.

You can use my Libertines review I sent to you (if you still have it) if you're running out of stuff by the end of the week, Stylus!

Please tell me that I can still read William B Swygart's writing somewhere else now.

I glanced at Stylus every so often and if a random google for a band turned up a Stylus review I'd choose that above most other sites, but I didn't keep up with it regularly because I thought of it as somewhat dry and serious, hushed reverence over old albums mixed with noncommittally half-positive chinstroking over new releases, but looking through the pieces linked here that doesn't seem to be true at all (yeah, it does seem kind of ridiculous now I've written it out that I could think that of anything with WBS, Dom and Dave Q onboard). Sorry, Stylus guys! I'd better get going through the archives.

Dave Q's Muse review is the finest troll in the history of Internet music reviewing.

And the comments on that!

also I missed Dom P's "review" of The View the first time around. 'tis beautiful.

^^^also this. I was being force-fed The View by my radio station committee at the time, and Dom pretty much articulated what I felt.

Todd Hutlock, today, and very very very OTM about the value of Stylus:

The Stylus model was always better for the writers than it was for the readers, and that’s REALLY saying something given how great some of the writing was. But I’ll be damned if there will ever be another place that is just gonna let me write however much I want on whatever the hell I want to write about, as long as its about some music of interest to someone out there. We broke the mold, my friend, and no one else is crazy and/or stupid enough to try to glue it back together.

hey, they let me write about Olsen & Johnson.

The warmth here is encouraging and, honestly, surprising. I'm convinced our commenters were the most grotesque group of gnomes in God's great earth.

That's only because Pitchfork never had a comments box.

OTM ^

Well, it pains me to admit it, but we’ve had plenty of favorite commenters on the site. Zarklephaser, Grand Banks, Florenz6, meatbreak, raskolnikov, et al.: we salute you!

WTF I WAS CALLED OUT AS A FAVORITE STYLUS COMMENTER??!?!!!

(totally unexpected, thanks to whomever suggested that!)

Hahaha, that was all Todd's doing, singling you and the others out. I don't think anything has had as much sustained, impassioned, profane and repeated discussion in our virtual office over the years as the comments boxes. God bless our readers. And hello, Zarklephaser.

Hello, Zarks!

I've known about this for a couple months now, but I'm still bummed about it, especially after reading this thread.

This is going to sound like another "kid with a dream" cliche, but so be it: Todd e-mailed me in early 2005 after reading something on my blog and asked if I wanted to join the staff. As someone who'd been casually writing about music for a couple years but had aspirations toward something more, I was thrilled and honored at the opportunity. I was a staff writer for about a year and a half, at which point I was let go because I wasn't writing enough. Which was totally fair, since I've never been a prolific writer. But another part of the reason I had trouble pitching articles was that I was intimidated by the level of talent and passion among the other writers on the site. I always felt a little out of my league. I continued writing singles reviews, right up until two weeks ago, because I didn't feel similarly burdened by the task of making snap judgments about T-Pain singles.

But I have a lot of happy memories of being a Stylus staffer. I think I wrote some pretty good articles, things I undoubtedly wouldn't have had the motivation to write on my own were it not for the site. The karaoke night in New York that Miccio alluded to earlier was a blast. In fact, everyone I've met through the site has been top-notch, and the staff message board was a wonderful, intelligent community (esp. when ILM started to go down the drain). And while the last article I wrote for Stylus was published over six months ago, it sucks to think that if I was suddenly inspired again to write 800 words on some long-forgotten pop song, I would no longer have a venue for it.

So long, Stylus. You'll be missed.

todd burns is a good guy and the site provided a lot of opportunities for a lot of people

it will be missed

Thanks for the thread summary, deej.

are u zinging me on stylus memorial thread?
poor form

oh u mad cuz i'm stylus on you

it will be missed
My college roommate pointed out that whenever somebody famous passed this life, the NY Post would inevitably publish at least one letter to the editor that ended with that phrase, whatever their previous take on said personage. So when Leonid Brezhnev died, under the heading "Bye Bye Brez," there was a letter to the effect that "even though he was the head of an Evil Empire, blah blah, he was a dominating figure on the world stage for decades, blah blah. He will be missed."

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t052/T052188A.jpg

We won't have Stylus to kick around anymore?

So THAT's why Todd Burns told me two weeks ago they weren't looking for any new contributors.

Not because I'm rubbish, after all.

"If people this bad start sending us reviews because they think they'd fit in, I'd rather quit." :-)

i will miss the left hand path metal column. invisible oranges may be of interest to metalists out there.

RIP Stylus Memorial Thread 10/29/07
RIP Stylus Memorial Zing Thread ??/??/??

"I'm convinced our commenters were the most grotesque group of gnomes in God's great earth."

Maybe if you weren't such a raging homophobe...

That's it, Stan. I killed Stylus.

Sorry everyone.

i will miss the left hand path metal column. invisible oranges may be of interest to metalists out there.

Yeah, I'll be following Cosmo's writing. He really gave us a break by reviewing two of our albums earlier this year for Stylus, which was (and is) a really big deal for us, and I exchanged a few emails on industry/publishing stuff. Neither was very metal, and one was folk, but he really took the time to get into them. Total bro. All the best for his future (and everyone else!).

ugh. back to surfing the blogs then.

Hi Nick, Alfred, nice to meet you. I'm on ILM under this name (obviously). Following both yr blogs, etc.

And to Nick especially -- I know you've taken a lot of shit in Stylus comments over the years, but I really really *really* like your writing. Influenced me a lot over the years. And great tastes too, man, keep waving that Mark Hollis flag, Lord knows I love him too.

will feel empty @ end of the year time. stylus always had the best lists (and i don't mean taste wise, but maybe that, too).

Stylus is doing year-end lists this week.

i assumed that might happen.

Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Dom is still a dick though...right?

Some things never change.

An iconoclast like Dom may not win any popularity contests, but that's not writing is about.

err not WHAT writing is about

Dom is my favourite Stylus writer, btw. My girlfriend's brother saw him once at a train station in Bristol and rang me to say "I've just seen that scarf-wearing internet cock friend of yours; I recognised him from Myspace. He's a cock". I was touched.

Favourite Stylus writer <i>besides myself</i>, of course.

Fuck an html tag.

The two Todds made me cry over my toast this morning.

Fuck man. We're over, bar the screaming.

lol "cock friend"

I feel simultaneously like we failed pathetically and also suceeded magnificently. Does that make sense? Happysad. But mainly sad. Pretty fucking gutted, actually.

A phoenix shall rise...?

So are all the best writers off to Pitchfork?

From the article in the New York Observer:

Scott Plagenhoef, who was a top editor writer at Stylus before becoming the managing editor of Pitchfork, said the site would be dearly missed. . . .

Mr. Plagenhoef said he has been talking to Mr. Burns about Stylus writers who might now find a home at Pitchfork. "We've consulted with Todd and talked about certain writers who are a good fit, and we're in the process of possibly bringing on board a few people," he said.

So, to answer your question: probably.

Well, for one Pitchfork pays, and secondly, there are a LOT of great writers on the staff, past or present, no real bests, which is what I really liked about Stylus.(I mean, obvi, there were bad writers too, but I thought the general quality was unusually high).

And jaymc, if you are who I think you are, I thought your writing on the site was consistent and engaging, and I was kinda bummed we didn't get to meet in Chicago this past summer. Maybe next time.

Also, I thought Anthony's writing for the site was really, really great. He was one of the first writers I REALLY liked before I came to Stylus, and I haven't really been hearing his name mentioned. So, props Anthony.

Thanks, Tal. My memory is kinda fuzzy -- were you in Chicago when Alfred was around?

I shared a woozy cab ride with Tal. We discussed -- what, exactly?

My impending mid-twenties crisis and crippling self-esteem. This time around we'll discuss Tusk in something other than late-night drunken rambling.

Let me be clear: I hope I made things worse.

Ah. I'm guessing you showed up after I left to catch Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

(Who were kind of disappointing, but I probably would've passed out if I'd had another drink.)

The other Styluser you met, jaymc, was Gaerig.

Yes, I know.

You know you did Al.

Does this mean the ones Pitchfork don't scavenge will turn to blogging? Can we be spared this?

A lot of us write for other publications already.

I'm pretty sure that other people have outlets besides Stylus that they can fall back on, and plenty of the writers are talented enough to jump on elsewhere.

for example?

be good to hear where they'll pop up so appreciators can follow...

If anyone is interested, you can find my works in The R0ck, R0ck Bridge H1gh School's award-winning newspaper.

What publications are all the Stylus contributors going to be writing for now?

Oh, there's this one place.

A lot of us write for other publications already.

Alfred, Nick: Aside from your respective blogs, where else does your writing appear?

(I know Ned is at AMG and his blog)

Dammit, the singles jukebox used to be the first thing I read in the mornings. Will be missed :(

I loved this interview with Yamantanka Eye.

THIS SUCKS.

Daniel, email me and we'll talk.

Also, whatever you do, Nick Southall please keep writing. Your shit is half the reason Stylus is/was great.

RIP

Yeah, <3 Nick.

Give us more love, people. We deserve it. LOL @ our haikus.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/pop_playground/the-final-ever-stylus-annual-haiku-marathon.htm

Maybe I deserved to be included in that "favorite teenpop poster" poll after all, since my final piece for Stylus (on the Jukebox) is about Lindsay Lohan.

These final features are just making me miss Stylus more. :(

But they are great.

I have no idea where I'll write about music next, but I do know no matter what I do I'll never have an opportunity as good as Stylus was. This is a widely-shared sentiment among Stylus staff, but there was/is simply nowhere else that gives you the freedom to write that Stylus did, and I probably would have been content writing there forever. I guess four years will have to be enough. Todd Burns is a hell of a guy, and honestly as much as I, too, had the "why not just hand off EiC to someone else?" reaction too for a second, I can't imagine the site without him.

And Alfred's right, we hated our readers commenters. Ha ha.

It's actually kind of bizarre to find out that so many people liked us, but better late than never.

this is why comments boxes on sites like that can be do misleading. there were pieces on stylus i thought of commenting on, and occasionally i did, but too many of the other commenters were complete dicks, so i couldn't be bothered, and i imagine others felt the same way (and I mean, they weren't even dicks in an entertaining way--there was just a lot of childish nonsense, from what i recall).

"can be so misleading," I mean.

I never commented because I figured guys like Morbius and Naive Teen Idol needed no encouragement.

I don't know if I phrased that exactly right.

Well, I'll be: Ian's posting on ILM. Hi!

If Miller turns up Ladbrokes owe me £10k.

Daniel, email me and we'll talk.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn

Email sent. Thanks.

I chatted with Derek last night. Told him about this thread. Don't think he'll be swinging by to check in.

The provinces aren't shedding many tears:
http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/465777.html

Presumably Stylus failed as a website by not making "Obligatory Breakdown Song" album of the year

Presumably Stylus failed as a website by not making "Obligatory Breakdown Song" album of the year

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 11:42 AM

This is probably true.

woah, I totally forgot about Swyggart's UK Top 40 column back in the day. totally deserves a shoutout.

As someone who is in no way associated with Stylus, or the film section thereof, I would like to add that Stylus also had an excellent film section.

-From someone who is definitely not a film writer on Stylus.

Ahem.

Patrick, there's been some talk about the Top 10 Films of the Millennium here.

the comments section was a bad idea imo

How the hell...?

David Poland, Catch Me If You Can: the pieces weren't that hard to put together.

the comments section was a bad idea imo

-- omar little, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:36 (5 minutes ago) Link

Nah, most of us were pretty self-loathing

Wow.

P Mac stunned like a muh

Well, I thought the comments section was pretty great, but then I would, wouldn't I (I posted as grandbanks). Stylus really was great. Tried not to be a dick too often, but this isn't about me. Thanks for all of the hard work, and for keeping those comments sections rolling. Made for a lot of shit, but every once in a while really fucking worked. The site (and writing) was definitely better than the comments.

I couldn't keep up: were you the same as pabanks?

Nope, just grandbanks, though people got my name wrong a bunch.

Loved you guys! Sad to see it end.

oh god it's fucking alext being his usual pass-agg snarksome self on that poptimist thread. fuck that.

Stylus was one of my favorite magazines. While its passing saddens me, my immediate feeling is one of gratitude. More than any other magazine, Stylus was an indispensable companion of acumen and wit in a world where the chaff was increasingly mistaken for the wheat. My favorite contributors were Thomas Inskeep, Mallory O’Donnell and, of course, the Singles Jukebox cabal (easily the best singles reviewers around). Every happiness to you all!

Yeah, I really wish the Singles Jukebox could live on somewhere else.

Me too, but I think WBS had burnt out on it just as much as Todd had with the main site. Not only was he in charge of finding and uploading 20 songs a week, he was then saddled with the unenviable task of begging people to submit blurbs about them. Bear in mind, I greatly preferred the 2007 system where we weren't assigned songs and could write about whatever we liked, but that left Will pulling teeth when nobody could be bothered to say anything about Daughtry.

Makes sense, but I'm really going to miss that the most I think. It was great for me to keep on newer singles from older albums I might have ignored.

Will definitely miss reading the singles jukebox, but I have to admit, I found it really difficult to write for (I signed up in the summer and came through with maybe 4-5 reviews). The turnaround time was just too quick. If you didn't claim your songs early on by sending in your review, you wouldn't make it in. I can see the advantage of this from a publication's perspective and from a reader's perspective, but trying to shape snap judgments into some kind of coherent review I was comfortable with was incredibly difficult. I'm fussy and slow at this stuff, so maybe it's just me, but I reached a point fairly early into the process where I thought, no way can I keep up with this. I don't know how some of the regulars did it--unemployment?

Still, I'd be happier if it was still around. In terms of my new song playlists, I bet half of my titles were discovered thru the jukebox. I don't know where I'm gonna pick up on some of this stuff.

I had some trouble with that, too, Scott. Mostly what I'd do was download everything that hadn't gone up yet on Sunday, listen to them on the way to work on Monday morning, and send a batch or two during the rest of the week (usually no more than 6 songs total). Sometimes I'd get off that schedule, though, and end up not being able to submit anything at all that week. And Mondays were usually shot for me, too, since I didn't have enough time to listen over the weekend.

It became easier when Will started creating a publication schedule, so I knew that if I wanted to review a particular song I had to have it in by a particular day. Before that, you're right, a song would often go up before you knew it.

Esteban Buttez offered to write for the Singles Jukebox and got turned down!!

SO MUCH FOR THAT THEORY!!

Shut the fuck up already.

i thought he had his own board where he could be unfunny?

I wasn't aware of this and I'm sad to hear the news. Stylus was a welcome reminder that people are still capable of caring for and writing about music without regard for its potential appeal, and/or the writers' misplaced sense of involvement therein. It is a beautiful thing to consider for how long Todd and his compatriots maintained such fanatical altruism; even more so if you understand how little they benefited, and how much they sacrificed.

I lost a lung while reviewing a Fat Joe album. So much sacrifice.

Burns owes me about $16,780, which I expect to reclaim in two days in the form of Jaegermeister shots.

Alex, you're confused - I was talking about the people that ran the site, not the thundering nobodies from which they accepted copy.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a64/bartleyride/9ea8cc38.gif

Alfred, isn't Jager a bit crass for you?

I've written for other sites, so I can't exactly say I have no dog in this fight, but at least mine are currently muzzled, and -- here it comes -- I will really, genuinely miss Stylus and its often insightful and generally talented writers.

Thank you Liz C. for reviewing my band.

<3

Couldn't you guys write goodbye articles that suck instead of all these great ones? *sigh*

And that's it; no more updates, ever.

Maybe tomorrow Todd'll be all like "it was just a Halloween horror prank, lol!" :-(((

Shut the fuck up already.

WELCOME TO REAL LIFE, SON

I just checked the site and saw something about Ned Raggett and a Xanadu piece.

what baffles me is why if all the writers are all like 'no one else does what the site did, it filled a gap, no one else will let us write whatever we wanted' etc they don't club together and start a new site?

Isn't there like 40 or so of you?

like a phoenix from the ashes...it might've been harder work but c'mon...do you love what you do or not?

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000000ZGO.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

wbs did a great job keeping the jukebox on top and relevant i have to say.

Goddamn, those essays today really killed me.

Yeah, good stuff all around.

would have liked to see blurbs for all albums/singles but i'm just being selfish. anyway, i'm in the (fairy large 'round here, it seems) boat of people who can thank todd for my first writing gig. he's a cool dude and put up with a lot of my bullshit. RIP.

Makes me want to book a last-minute flight to NYC, to be honest.

I just checked the site and saw something about Ned Raggett and a Xanadu piece.

Uh?

Alfred off-handedly mentions Ned in his year-end essay; I don't know about Xanadu.

mike powell's essay is A++++. good thing he's been writing for the voice and such.

Powell: all-round best writer Stylus ever had.

Makes me want to book a last-minute flight to NYC, to be honest.

DO IT.

dom otm.

xp I never knew it was happening until Ian mentioned it last week!

Anyway, I won't go. I just moved into a new place and have spent too much money lately on movers and furniture and such, but I'll dearly wish I was there.

so is the site going to stay up for awhile?

It'll be up for a long while, which saved me gi-normous printing expenses.

I just checked the site and saw something about Ned Raggett and a Xanadu piece.

Uh?
Someone said something about it being a joke and I thought about the time Freaky Trigger went down.

It'll be up for a long while, which saved me gi-normous printing expenses.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 2:48 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

does that mean that there are intentions to keep the domain and server up for the foreseeable future and preserve the archive? or is there a good chance that the archive will up and disappear a year or two down the line?

Burns said it'll be up for at least a year.

I just read again the piece on Steely Dan's 'Gaucho'. Amazing stuff. My work week is about to get a little more boring.

I re-read that, too, and yeah, it's good, but with one strange thing: what makes him think that "Babylon Sisters" has anything to do with an interracial relationship? He just took the lyric about "jungle music" and took it to mean that the appreciator of said music had to be black? There's nothing in the song to suggest that. And the gaucho of the title track is not automatically of any specific ethnicity just because gaucho is a Spanish word. Weird assumptions, those.

But assumptions make rockcrit fun.

Burns said it'll be up for at least a year.

Needs a backup after that. someplace!

Hopefully some ILX obsessive has it all stored next to his lunaci picture collection.

we got rid of that harvell guy, so it should be fine now. ;)
-- todd burns (toddburns), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 17:08 (4 years ago) Link

^^^the real reason we went under

It was actually because people into finding out about music got sick of Dom's sub-student (and I mean even below the scarf wearing ponces who mistook sacrasm and watery venom) button pushing waffle.

^^real talk

You were the one who hired me to write at the Guardian, man.
xp

I remember Dom was a normal guy who posted here and then suddenly everyone started ripping on him one day?

Dom was never a normal guy. He was a little needler from day one. The guy reeks of attention seeking like a tramp's un-febreezed mac.

wow, writer in 'attention-seeker' claim. shit is getting deep.

"Dom was never a normal guy. He was a little needler from day one. The guy reeks of attention seeking like a tramp's un-febreezed mac."

http://rayliotta.net/screencapimages/goodfellas.jpg

One day you'll unfabreezed to your own fucking funeral

Some guys seek attention by crafting a great review, some don't.

I'm tempted to email Drownedinsound and ask them why they've picked up music reviewing's version of crabs.

:-O

http://goodfellas.martin-scorsese.net/images/goodfellas_painting.jpg

I 'hired' Dom for Stylus insomuch as it was me who approached him and got him to write for us years ago, and if I was starting a new music site or magazine tomorrow with a proper budget and backing I'd hire him again. You know why? Cos he's a fucking good, funny, insightful, impassioned writer. And because he knows my address and threatened my kitten if I said otherwise.

Thinking about it, it was also me who emailed Swygart one day and said "do you fancy coming and doing your Top 40 rundown at Stylus instead of just posting it on ILM?". Strike that, poptimists.

never looked at this site. wonder what was on it.

It's still there.

and if I was starting a new music site or magazine tomorrow with a proper budget and backing I'd hire him again

Thank the lord for small mercies.

<i>I'm tempted to email Drownedinsound and ask them why they've picked up music reviewing's version of crabs.</i>

Do it! We must know what they say!

Fucking bbcode bollocks.

rip, stylus. stereogum's run a feature about the 007 50. here it is
http://www.stereogum.com/archives/stylus-says-goodbye-but-not-before-giving-us-the-f.html#more
in case anyone cares who hasn't seen it yet

guess i'll never know what was on stylus website

for all i know 'whatyouthink13' has very legit reasons to hate dom but all those posts just remind me of camronumad.gif

for all i know 'whatyouthink13' has very legit reasons to hate dom

-- deej, Friday, 2 November 2007 17:44 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Sod off Passatino, I've been so poor that I haven't been able to afford stamps and bread, and this was after university;when growing up there were times when my parents couldn't afford to buy me new shoes when my old ones were outgrown. I'm not getting drawn into some poverty dick-waving contest here. It doesn't really mean a great deal - it;s about attitudes not class or poverty. Most 'chavs' are better off than I am - no designer clothing in my house or Max Power endorsed transport.

-- Mippy (Mippy), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 09:53 (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

jokes

boring class warfare posts count as jokes in the uk?

jokes

boring class warfare posts count as jokes in the uk?

-- deej, Friday, 2 November 2007 17:48 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ROBIN CARMODY was born in South London before Starbucks came, and when McDonald's hadn't long arrived. Arthur Daley still ruled the back streets, and most of So Solid Crew hadn't been born yet. He lived his formative years in Kent, where he read well and socialised badly. He then moved to South Dorset where, as one of his creative mentors had done somewhere else in England in the 1960s, he built up his frustration as a radical-leftie teenager living in what was then the most marginal Tory seat in the country, even as the Labour landslide swept through the land.

for all i know 'whatyouthink13' has very legit reasons to hate dom but all those posts just remind me of camronumad.gif

haw

I hate him cos he's a idiot. I'm not the only one.

http://nevsedoma.com.ua/uploads/posts/1156664005_number.jpg

I don't believe you, etc

whatyouthink13 = tori amos

RIP Stylus. I have been reading probably since the day it started. I think Todd may have e-mailed me about it, asking me to check it out when it launched. Also, didn't it have another name for like a month? Something like O.H.J., "O____ Home Journal"? Did I hallucinate that? In any event, I will miss it.

I R sad, I was gettin all set to send in a copy of our new LP for review :(

I will miss it.

Ditto. It was particularly sad to see the final page this morning. Something about the finality of it, I think.

Oligarchist Home Journal was the name waaaaay back in the day before Stylus. I don't think that stuff is even in the archives, it was basically just fucking around.

Stylus is such a great fucking name for a music publication.

I R sad, I was gettin all set to send in a copy of our new LP for review :(

WHO IS UR BAND

Society of Rockets (most of us were in the Shimmer Kids Underpop Association)

We're sorry, access to http://www.o-h-j.com has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.

That Stereogum comments section is saddening as fuck: a bunch of idiots grousing about how there isn't enough indie in the Stylus albums of the year list.

Finally, some sanity:

doesn't it bum any of you guys out to realize that you and every other commenter have the exact same taste in music?? "indie" obviously is not short for "individual" or "independent"

this comment thread depresses me to no end.

And the punchline at the end:

justice is the wrapping around the real gift in dance music this year - - SMD

What bothers me more than people complaining about the lack of indie is people expecting it to be there and claiming that Stylus dropped the ball or whatever. I mean, it's one thing to wish that the list was more in tune with your own tastes and another to act as if Stylus hasn't always been a site that looked beyond the usual indie parameters. Whenever contemporary country shows up on a Stylus list, blog commenters are all, "WTF, they're obviously pretending to like that shit" instead of realizing that the site's year-end lists are merely a reflection of their writing staff, two of whom happen to be Josh Love and Thomas Inskeep (not to mention I know that Alfred loves the Miranda Lambert record, and Todd Burns had a Julie Roberts song in his top five a couple years ago).

We have pop songs and country albums in our end-ofs EVERY FUCKING YEAR and EVERY FUCKING YEAR indie kids bitch about teir not being enough Squirrel Nutkin Gang indie records in there. Unbelieveable.

The problem: reading the comments on Stereogum in the first place. I really don't understand why anyone would read that blog.

indie kids have entitlement issues

I liked that Dom Passantino guy, he was all: "British class system, lol".

I just realized I used the present tense in that paragraph: "hasn't always," "happen to be." ;_;

Almost all comments sections are miserable affairs, especially at a place like Stereogum. The fallouts from lists being particularly idiotic, in general. Amazing to me that the fucking Interpol album on Stylus got more comments than the demise of the site. Pretty much says it all right there.

More people liked a band than a site that reviewed music?! The nerve.

So which site is now number two to PFM?

There isn't one. I'd argue Stylus left a gap in that spot. Of this type of publication, only third-tier ones remain as far as I can tell (in my opinion too, of course).

It's a good list. Lots of albums I like didn't make it, but (a) who cares? and (b) there are lots of very good albums on the list, many of which deserve the extra attention that might come from being on year-end lists, e.g., A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Tinariwen, Studio and Strategy.

Of this type of publication, only third-tier ones remain as far as I can tell (in my opinion too, of course).

You don't think Popmatters is up there? I'm not a big fan of its reviews, but it's features section has some interesting stuff in it.

PopMatters is bigger and more unwieldy and, as a result, probably more varied in quality than Stylus was (the former's sheer size precludes a lot of editing, so they rely a lot more on their writers getting it right first time). I liked Stylus and will miss it. I ought to add that I've written for PopMatters but would have been happy to have written for Stylus too. Todd Burns always seems like a decent person, as is Sarah Zupko.

You don't think Popmatters is up there? I'm not a big fan of its reviews, but it's features section has some interesting stuff in it.

PopMatters *does* have excellent music features from time to time, but in my opinion it doesn't consistently publishes work as varied and incisive as Stylus did.

*publish

It;s a real shame the Stylus writers didn't get together and form another site. A real opportunity wasted.

Obsessions are defined by:

Recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress.

The thoughts, impulses, or images are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems.

The person attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, impulses, or images, or to neutralize them with some other thought or action.

The person recognizes that the obsessional thoughts, impulses, or images are a product of his or her own mind, and are not based in reality.

The tendency to haggle over small details that the viewer is unable to fix or change in any way. This begins a mental pre-occupation with that which is inevitable.

Stop talking about me.

'Cause he speaks of the Popmatters of love.

Sorry, I got nothing left but RJG-stylee non sequiturs.

To be RJG-like, that would have had to have been lower-case and one syllable.

true

wow, what a list chock full of crap. groupthink is always great.

Stylus kapt ermee

I've always wondered this and I might as well ask now: Why does ILX have a Dutch board? What is the logic behind that?

Why not?

~~if u ain't dutch, u ain't much~~

Hm. I thought they had all deserted ILX for greener pastures.

Why not have a tagalog board, then?

Because no one started one?

How ironic it is that on the very day I complete Jeff Nuttall's "Art and the Degradation of Awareness", a furious, inspiring and comprehensive assault upon postmodernism (among other things) that may well influence the way I think about certain art-forms, I also finally acquire the tenth and final album on Nick's "top ten postrock record" Stylus list.

not very ironic.

Just getting the conversation started with some crass sports-commentator fallacy!

http://www.nobodysmiling.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/nas-hip-hop-dead.jpg

not very ironic.

-- max, Friday, December 21, 2007 7:33 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

"He's scored against his former club...on his birthday!"

wtf

No, I think I get it.

Like when they say, "the crowd are literally glued to their seats!"

How ironic it is that on the very day I complete Jeff Nuttall's "Art and the Degradation of Awareness", a furious, inspiring and comprehensive assault upon postmodernism (among other things) that may well influence the way I think about certain art-forms, I also finally acquire the tenth and final album on Nick's "top ten postrock record" Stylus list.

-- Just got offed, Friday, 21 December 2007 19:33

sort of interesting in reading this? what's his beef with postmodernism?
there's good and bad postmodernism, right? i think the whole idea of modernism as some sort of golden age is a bit shaky anyway...

there's good and bad postmodernism, right?

it's all relative lol amirite

nuttall's beef is that there IS good art and bad art, and postmodernism is simply a means of valuing power ahead of actual artistic worth. that's a simplification, of course; he lays into all sorts of cultural failings.

i don't think he minds so much if the postmodernism is at least funny.

lol actual artistic worth

Music with real artistic worth weighs more.

I miss Stylus.

AND BUMP

http://whatwasitanyway.blogspot.com/

postmodernism is simply a means of valuing power ahead of actual artistic worth.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I think what you mean has something to do with the idea of being able to designate something as art as opposed to "creating" an original work. It is important first of all to remember that in this respect post-modernism was always playing with the rules devised in Modernist rhetoric whereby Modernism used the power inherent in placing itself in art historical continuity. Post-modernism, far from being a jokey ironic wink as I think it is often interpreted, sought to destabilise these power structures which had canonised Modernism during its own lifetime through critiques of mythologies of creation. Thus feminist art, queer, and many other forms and schools which defetishized certain notions of art/the artist were allowed to emerge.

I know that was gibberish by the way, so you don't need to tell me.

Jus' sayin' is all.

Loveless debunkery shocker.

I wrote that when still in the immediate thrall of Nuttall. I'm now reading David Harvey's "The Condition Of Postmodernity" which will give me a more even-handed, balanced view of postmodernism. The schizophrenia (loose terminology) of art, the variety of worlds and definitions, the ability to ceaselessly reinterpret...none of this relies upon or indeed feeds into a fixed methodology of valuing and appreciating art, and indeed powers subjectivity, at the cost of common language. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although as Nuttall states, this subjectivity and chameleon-esque ability for an image to be reinterpreted as a work of genius became incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands, and led in many cases to a lazy, shallow under-appreciation of genuine artistic talent.

It's all a bit in the past, now we just have really bad graphic design instead of art.

It'd be fine if it was good design, but it's not.

It's just that postmodern is one of those words that is mainly used by people who have no idea whatsoever what it means, so I get a bit defensive sometimes. When it comes to visual art, it helps to think of postmodernism, pretty much as a reaction to Clement Greenberg.

Well, after reading Nuttall, I half-knew what it was. This led to a slightly unfair use of the word, as seen above. Hopefully the more of the Harvey I read, the more secure I'll become in my definition.

Didn't someone describe it as 'an incredulity towards narrative' or something?

Loveless debunkery shocker.

-- James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, January 4, 2008 4:17 PM

If it's too easy for you, we've got a defense of R.E.M.'s Around the Sun in the works...

an incredulity towards narrative'

not sure i know that quote, but I would say it had an incredulity towards the linear progressions of traditional art history and Greenbergs attempt to flatten them further. Postmodernism takes on a more poststructuralist model of exploding history and seeing it in its atomised form. Its important to see that with every great art movement and great artist book, that there was a whole world, ideas lost, ideas embraced artists who gained success, became obscured, and that it didn't just follow a preordained line of reasoning as traditional criticism would have us believe.

Didn't someone describe it as 'an incredulity towards narrative' or something?

"Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it. To the obsolescence of the metanarrative apparatus of legitimation corresponds, most notably, the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of the university institution which in the past relied on it. The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements--narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on [...] Where, after the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?"

Lyotard.

Postmodernism takes on a more poststructuralist model of exploding history and seeing it in its atomised form.

ah, so you're doing the "seeing", but the evil narrative guys are doing the "constructing".

the ironing here is that it's an uber-simple flattened narrative that sees greenberg as anything other than a d-bag to be ignored. aren't you ceding a whole lot more than you need to here, letting him get under your skin?

xpost That's a really great quote, i've never read any lyotard and I'm thinking that's a big mistake.

No, because he said a lot of things of worth, and at least he represents a stop sign, a harbinger of where things were possibly going

Also his understanding of what he wrote about were amazing, its just that he turned his taste into value judgements and mixed them up with real theoretical investigation making his oeuvre a pretty tangled mess and marring his genius with his folly essentially

God, I sound really retarded in this thread.

No, because he said a lot of things of worth, and at least he represents a stop sign, a harbinger of where things were possibly going

-- I know, right?, Friday, January 4, 2008 9:35 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

sounds teleological to me amirite.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by that but I would be interested in you clarifying please.

wait i get it

yeah.

Because I think his ideas highlighted the problems people had with modernism, the myth of the artist, the ideal of formal perfection, the grand yawning self important.

Am I just yammering on for the sake of it now? I think everyone else is pretty bored of me.

if everything is "atomized" why read or waste time arguing with ghosts? ghosts who got it wrong. especially if there was "a whole world, ideas lost, ideas embraced, artists [and art critics] who gained success, became obscured"?

i think ya boy clem formalized a ridic version of modernism that sells well to tourists 20-30 years after it was interesting anyway -- modernism wasn't a coherent self-conscious movement like that anyway blah blah. and again if it's all atomized and whatnot why do we even care?

because saying someone got it wrong goes against the grain of postmodernism, and you're right, cg did invent his version of modernism and made it cohere, but he did show up ideas of pure form for what they were. It was because his writing was so realised that it forced a realisation of what those modes of thinking could lead to

And anyway, postmodernism is coughing up its death rattle so its difficult to know what is going to happen next.

love the new look, nick, keep up the good work.

This discussion ought to do wonders for my 1979-present day paper.

History as a series of 'unrelated present moments', discuss. Also, was Andy Warhol as big a charlatan as he seems?

It's funny how one of the fallouts of postmodernism is that it actually fractured the art world geographically, now there seems to be no centre for "scenes" in the same way there once was at least in theory.

The most exciting artists I can think of are based all around the world and not New York or London or Paris.

Also, Warhol is incredible.

History as a series of 'unrelated present moments', discuss.

rong

wouldn't touch warhol=charlatan discussion with yours. it'll get into OH BUT THAT'S THE POINT-ness. of course he's a dick.

real pop-art gs are the english dudes.

History as a series of 'unrelated present moments', discuss.

srsly if it's all construction -- why choose this construction? to what end? serves conservative political projects on the whole.

Postmodernism hates fixity of genre, doesn't it? I feel that this is where it and I may find some common ground.

That thing about history was merely something raised by a philosopher guy in this book I'm reading. I don't agree with it either. And yeah, "we are living in the now" = reason why capitalist society will lead earth to shit circa 2050.

xpost read the archeology of history by foucault, seriously it is beautiful

Warhol undermined ideas of the artist as a mythical creative force and embodied foucault's idea of the author as an intersecting point for ideas and not the genesis of them. Read his essay "what is an author?"

Well, one thing becoming clear (partially from the dreaded and RONG deconstructionists) is that postmodernism regards the creative act as a weaving-together of already-established threads, each of which has a radically different meaning from the author's intention, and thus does the reading of the text, the understanding of these threads, constitute its creation. Bit weird if you ask me but hey-ho.

real pop-art gs are the english dudes.

RONG!

I'll go with you on Hockney but who else? Blake pf!

btw foucault's "Discipline and Punish" is on the reading-pile, fun fun.

serves conservative political projects on the whole.

You are not just slipping that in there without also explaining it ie admitting that it is basically a subliminal message

xpost, I'd like to read that, but it's so far off

I mean, I have to read way more Benjamin first.

Well, I'm gonna plunge in headlong at some point, I'll let you know (probably here) what I make of it.

The good thing about foucault is, he's just an unbelievable writer, and you just want to read every sentece twice. So elegant.

It takes way longer to read that way though!

It sits there forebodingly, thick, dark, and with big capital-letter font. Shudder.

Great thread

you wanna contribute or are you all "LOL ponces"

Just leave it Louis!

For now!

poor stylus

I really liked stylus I read it all the time. My favourite piece ever though was one of the last pieces ever written. It was about Lovely Music Ltd.

xpost read the archeology of history by foucault, seriously it is beautiful

"beautiful" not always "truthful", bro.

Warhol undermined ideas of the artist as a mythical creative force and embodied foucault's idea of the author as an intersecting point for ideas and not the genesis of them. Read his essay "what is an author?"

-- I know, right?, Friday, January 4, 2008 9:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

lol no. i wonder if that even *is* foucault's idea -- i'm familiar with the essay -- it seems fairly, well, basic. and also cover for the fact that warhol was a big ol' thief really, though the idea obviously had a lot going for it. of course it applies to foucault too i guess so it isn't "his" idea lol but shit i guess he got paid for it.

"ideas of the artist as a mythical creative force" is typical po-mo straw-manism isn't it? show me where this idea appears. older i get the more convincing i find it anyway since the best stuff really does seem to be more than bricolage -- there is something going on beyond piecing together. that or the piecing together is finely done, it doesn't really matter. i guess with second-raters like warhol it works...

We've come a long way from Stylus!

I miss Stylus. What's that new post-Stylus project again?

It's a blog that's a bit like that thing in the Guardian last year everyone laughed at.

You know, when they had Julian Cope or whoever handwringing and going 'but the Arcade Fire aren't that good!'

"ideas of the artist as a mythical creative force" is typical po-mo straw-manism isn't it? show me where this idea appears. older i get the more convincing i find it anyway since the best stuff really does seem to be more than bricolage -- there is something going on beyond piecing together. that or the piecing together is finely done, it doesn't really matter. i guess with second-raters like warhol it works...

Strawman my arse, look at Abstract expressionism and almost every scrap of rhetoric that went with it. Look at Barnett Newman in particular and Robert Motherwell.

Beauty = Truth (apt since we're talking about aesthetics)

So much art just looks like what art is supposed to look like and that's what bothers me.

hey guys, I have a question.
I'm interested in reading stuff that argues along the lines of structuralism/post-struc and semiotic problems with those as well as "what came before" or whatever you would call it, regarding the inadequacy of language to describe the sign-user in a meaningful, consistent fashion and whether this is a consequence of language's limited usefulness (instructive, descriptive tool, strictly for passing knowledge about the world) or a consequence of the self being strictly defined by circumstances in a given situation (circumstances that language CAN describe) so is the concept of self useful at all, and if we say it isn't, how do we act, and so forth

because I'm normally not interested but Walker Percy made me think maybe I should read some more about it

visual arts were better when they were comic books approved by the church

(ok not really)

btw,

Maybe I'm jumping the gun in revealing this (and as such, I'll reveal as little as possible), but an ILX regular is working on putting together a website that could perhaps fill this new void.

-- The Reverend, Saturday, October 27, 2007 3:05 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

I'd hardly say that NedsNudes.com is going to fill the same niche as Stylus.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Saturday, October 27, 2007 3:08 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

NedsNudes.com

Walker Percy? Were you reading Signposts In A Strange Land, Tombot?

not gotten to that one yet. I was just finishing up lost in the cosmos and I'm thinking of thanatos or his semiotics one next

i think u shd read wittgenstein tombot. he cuts to the chase.

Beauty = Truth (apt since we're talking about aesthetics)

lol no

Strawman my arse, look at Abstract expressionism and almost every scrap of rhetoric that went with it. Look at Barnett Newman in particular and Robert Motherwell.

yeah i guess with some american boosters of abstract expressionism you get that kind of mystical/mythical artist b.s. -- just as you do with reviews of 'there will be blood', i guess. but that is all just boosterism -- i don't think, say, lawrence alloway's writing on abstract expressionism was like that -- and i don't see the virtue in treating it as a monolithic expression of... everything that predates linguisic structuralism.

Hmmm. Not sure about the Xmas pomo discussion revive.

Starting (and writing shit for) Rocktimists got me feeling a bit nostalgic.

I think we really managed something special with Stylus. With what's going on at DiS maybe we just got out in time, too. I don't know.

I don't really feel like I'm capable of writing for anywhere else. I know I've done a few things for DiS but that's just going through the motions, really. It's not scary enough to mean anything much to me. Though doubtless it means a fuck of a lot to the people now frightened about the state of play.

But anyway, Stylus, many months on, RIP.

is it a given that the domain/server for the Stylus archives are going to be kept up for the forseeable future? ever since the end I've been so paranoid that I need to archie my stuff or make sure it's saved offline and just haven't gotten around to it yet.

I print up hard copies of everything I wrote for web-only publications. Good habit.

will the site archive stay online indefinitely (sorry this may have been confirmed upthread)?

It was confirmed that it'd stay up for a year or so; I'll speak to Todd.

I think we really managed something special with Stylus.

Yeah, you did. I miss reading it (the reviews, the features, the longer critical pieces; all of it). R.I.P.

thirded. this site was #1. RIP.

i can't believe you hacks are STILL selfpromoting this thing

^^^ Funny. But I still miss Stylus. They reviewed country, goddammit!

Haven't found a music site I've enjoyed as much since. I know they were pretty much gone quite some time before it ended, but I also loved the daily podcasts.

Somebody should put together a Playing God blog. That version of Up is a revelation.

i really liked doing the singles jukebox and still go back to read some of my old blurbs. there isn't really anything like it any more, a pity

sorry, what's all this plz?

anyone want to link to some classics? i never read that much at the time (but the stuff that i did was good).

let go

I'm incapable of self-promotion.

I, on the other hand...

“I'll Be Around” – The Spinners
B-side of "How Could I Let You Get Away"

hadn't read the b-side rundown. shame on M. Gill for not even mentioning the GREAT A-side in passing, (although the side order is kind of wtf, I've never even heard "How Could I.." on the radio ever)

haha, took me a few paragraphs to realize you didn't write that stereolab review you linked to, ned.

Alright, fuck it.

did anybody save those old stycasts??? i dont have any idea what happened to mine

All you really need is the last Passantino/O'Reilly joint podcast. That's still on the site.

I've said it before, and probably on this thread, but that piece on Lovely Music Lt. was probably my favourite piece of music writing. Largely because it is such a perfect example of the tone of the piece falling so elegantly into step with the music being written about. The writing is so gentle and moves so deftly between personal reminisces, snippets of interviews and musical descriptions in a way that feels like one of Robert Ashley's operas, small and perfectly formed yet expansive, personal, strange yet familiar and intimate.

here it is by the way

Such a perfect tribute to an amazing label.

haha, took me a few paragraphs to realize you didn't write that stereolab review you linked to, ned.

Respect.

no doubt! it was only when you referred to him in the third person that i caught on.

nothing to be proud in there, soto.

That's still on the site.

where?

Thanks, Moka.

is it a given that the domain/server for the Stylus archives are going to be kept up for the forseeable future? ever since the end I've been so paranoid that I need to archie my stuff or make sure it's saved offline and just haven't gotten around to it yet.

― some dude, Tuesday, August 19, 2008 4:50 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha: I finally started archiving my old reviews over the weekend, and then on Sunday night before I was even halfway done suddenly StylusMagazine.com went down. is that it? if so, I guess that's what I get for procrastinating.

faced

I kind of doubt it, since that domain is still used for other purposes, even though the front end of the site is no longer updated.

"other purposes"? be more specific, or at least less ominous, please.

jaymc has a satellite tracking system running off the back end. he knows where you are.

Other purposes = the staff message board is still active.

Hyperactive.

One might say that.

oh, ok. i got locked out of the board a few months before the site stopped publishing when i decided i'd rather do singles blurbs for free but not album reviews, so maybe you can pose the question for me of what the future of the archive is or if the current outage is just a blip.

As far as I know, it's just a blip. But nobody's told me anything.

And for what it's worth, I haven't archived any of my stuff, either, although if the site does go down I could probably dig through my e-mail to find the pre-edited versions.

I was updating my CV this weekend when this shit happened.

yeah same here re: drafts saved in e-mail, not a huge deal, i was just curious.

Dang, I miss Stylus.

Working again.

RIP :-(

i know it has been gone but now it's really GONE.

fuck. I had just bookmarked on Monday a couple of great articles to read again and I got seriously depressed to see this. Any way to save the old archives? I don't know, traslade all the files over to the internet archive? The wayback machine?

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Oh I just noticed that stylus does in fact have an archive page, everything is not lost:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.stylusmagazine.com

I'm sure it'll be back again.

This fucking blows.

So it's back, but no search function?

I'm really enjoying joining up on th' new singles jukebox; i'm being forced to listen and write critically again!

^ also to write "th'" again