Red Bull Music Academy's Best Music Journalism of 2014

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http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/best-music-journalism-2014

Poll Results

OptionVotes
John Jeremiah Sullivan, “The Ballad of Geeshie & Elvie” (New York Times Magazine) 8
Jordan Sargent, “Drake Is the Taylor Swift of Rap” (Gawker) 2
Saul Austerlitz, “The Pernicious Rise of Poptimism” (New York Times) 2
“Who Will Survive in America: A Kanye Roundtable” (Rookie) 2
Masha Gessen, “Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot” (NPR Music) 1
Max Pearl, “Work It” (The New Inquiry) 1
Bill Werde, “On Angela Cheng, Lady Gaga and the Culpability of the Media” (Media.Music.Business.Life) 1
Herbie Hancock, “The Norton Lectures at the Mahindra Humanities Center” (Harvard/YouTube) 1
Kris Ex, “A Phony Article Epitomizes Hip-Hop’s Struggling Underclass” (NPR Music) 1
Phil Hebblethwaite, “Is Record Store Day In Crisis?” (The Quietus) 0
Michael Dunaway, “James Brown: An Oral History From His Bandmates” (Paste) 0
Dianna Kenny, “The 27 Club is a myth: 56 is the bum note for musicians” (The Conversation) 0
Barney Hoskyns, “Johnny Cash on the Gospel” (Tape on Tape) 0
Mat Honan, “On Death and iPods: A Requiem” (Wired) 0
“Sample the Funk- 10 Legendary Samples and the Stories Behind Them” (FACT) 0
Michael Hall, “The Greatest Music Producer You Never Heard Of Is…” (Texas Monthly) 0
Tony Manfred, “CBS took the Rihanna intro off Thursday night football. CBS lets Chris Brown perform at the Grammys ever 0
Amanda Petrusich, “On His Way Down: Williamsburg and the Birth of Record Collecting” (Brooklyn Magazine) 0
Scott Wilson “Why Black Metal Will Save You At the End of the World” (Dazed) 0
Seth Troxler, “Dance Festivals are The Best and Worst Places in The World” (Thump/Vice) 0
Derek Thompson, “The Shazam Effect” (The Atlantic) 0
Snoopman/Unknown “Lorde’s Suppressed Grammy Award acceptance speech (Full Transcript)” (Snoopman News) 0
Joan E. Solsman, “Attention, artists: Streaming music is the inescapable future. Embrace it” (CNET) 0
Mona Lalwani, “Go For the Music, Stay For the Holograms” (Medium) 0
Greg Sandow, “Sandwiched In” (Sandow/ArtJournal blog) 0
Natalie Robehmed, “The Lyrical Portfolios Of Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists” (Forbes) 0
Valerie Plesch, “The Solace of Sound” (Roads and Kingdoms) 0
Caitlin Dewey, “The inside story of a reputation-ruining, idol-killing Internet hoax” (Washington Post) 0
Lance Davis, “I Stand for Language, I Speak for Truth, I Shout for History” (Adios Lounge) 0
Grayson Haver Currin, “Why the Summer Music Festival Bubble is About to Burst” (Wondering Sound) 0
Pitchfork’s The Pitch 0
Seth Troxler: “Dance Festivals are The Best and Worst Places in The World” (Thump) 0
Iona Moldoveanu, “What Was It Like Being a DJ in Communist Romania?” (Vice) 0
Annie Paul, “Parsing Vybz Kartel’s Sentence” (Active Voice) 0
Jeffrey Renard Allen, Song of the Shank 0
Naomi Zeichner, “How Young Thug Got Trapped By A $15,000 Advance From A Major Label” (BuzzFeed) 0
Nick Paumgarten, “Berlin Nights” (The New Yorker) 0
Luis Manuel Garcia, “An Alternate History of Sexuality in Club Culture” (Resident Advisor) 0
Slow To Speak, “The Month in House & Techno” column (FACT) 0
Adam Harper, “The Online Underground: A New Kind of Punk?” (Resident Advisor) 0
Medium’s Cuepoint 0
Max Blau, “Jason Molina’s Long Dark Blues” (Chicago Reader) 0
“Dawn of Def Jam: Rick Rubin Returns to His NYU Dorm Room” (Rolling Stone) 0
Jon Caramanica, “Viscerally Facing Up to Ferguson” (New York Times) 0
Jia Tolentino, “A Chat with Dionne Osborne, the Vocal Coach Who Changed Drake’s Style” (Jezebel) 0
Louis Caldarola, “Nothing Here Now But the Recordings: A conversation with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge” 0
Derek Thompson, “The Shazam Effect” (The Atlantic) 0
Joe Muggs, “Return to the Chill-Out Room: When Did Ambient Music Last Have It so Good?” (FACT) 0
Amanda Petrusich, “Kind of Blue: Hunting for the Source of the World’s Most Beguiling Folk Music” (New York Times Magaz 0
Michael Hall, “The Greatest Music Producer You’ve Never Heard of Is …” (Texas Monthly) 0


shmup....smug....shmub....shmug.... (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:54 (ten years ago)

where's drew's baker's dozen

rae sredrum (imago), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:55 (ten years ago)

hahaha there's an article called The Pernicious Rise Of Poptimism :D

rae sredrum (imago), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:56 (ten years ago)

“The Lyrical Portfolios Of Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists” (Forbes)

XD

rae sredrum (imago), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:57 (ten years ago)

Energy drink music journalism

puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:58 (ten years ago)

The entire Pitch is nominated? That's worthless.

campreverb, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:10 (ten years ago)

Raccoon Tanuki, “The Pernicious Rise of Poptimism” (New York Times)

Moka, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:13 (ten years ago)

where is 'no'

maura, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 03:46 (ten years ago)

sorry, actually did mean to include that option

shmup....smug....shmub....shmug.... (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 03:47 (ten years ago)

John Jeremiah Sullivan, “The Ballad of Geeshie & Elvie” (New York Times Magazine)

This got alot of criticism for Sullivan's reporting methods

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 16:03 (ten years ago)

http://gawker.com/drake-is-the-taylor-swift-of-rap-1654633879

ilxor

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 16:54 (ten years ago)

omg that horrendous poptimism article was included O_o

i voted for bill werde's article on angela cheng etc, that was such a bizarre incident. who knew that ridiculous stan culture clickbait written by obvious catfish could actually make an impact on the wider media.

dyl, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 17:20 (ten years ago)

John Jeremiah Sullivan, “The Ballad of Geeshie & Elvie” (New York Times Magazine)

This got alot of criticism for Sullivan's reporting methods

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, January 14, 2015 8:03 AM Bookmark

Oh yeah? Say more. Geeshie and Elvie is my vote at any rate.

The Reverend, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 22:32 (ten years ago)

well, he kind of steals research from mack mccormick -- sullivan responded to criticisms here: http://observer.com/2014/05/john-jeremiah-sullivan-responds-to-nyt-controversy-regarding-robert-mccormick/
dunno about ethics, but yeah, that was the best thing i read last year.

tylerw, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 22:36 (ten years ago)

A tweet made this list? Come on.

Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 22:51 (ten years ago)

x-post--from one of the articles Sullivan was responding to:

Alex Heard, Outside magazine’s editorial director, echoed that sentiment. “In his blues story, John Jeremiah Sullivan pretty blithely justifies stealing research material from Robert McCormick, via Caitlin …” he wrote, referring to the student who provided Mr. Sullivan with the transcript, which she found and photographed in Mr. McCormick’s home while working as a research assistant.

http://observer.com/2014/04/the-story-behind-john-jeremiah-sullivans-times-cover-story/#ixzz3OqFqfxA5

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 23:35 (ten years ago)

this list sucks i'm depressed

celfie tucker 48 (s.clover), Thursday, 15 January 2015 00:08 (ten years ago)

Oh I don't think it sucks. There are some great pieces in there-duplicates too for some reason. I love music criticism.
I'm torn between the Sullivan and the Petrusich pieces. The summer music festival and Conor Oborest stories were great too. The CNET piece is conflicted, at best, and I feel like I saw a better article on data science this year than the Shazam piece. Maybe some of the odyshape peeps are here and recall.

campreverb, Thursday, 15 January 2015 02:23 (ten years ago)

I need to read a few more of those. Never read the Petrusich one, as I read a long exhaustive piece by author//writer Eddie Dean years back on 78 collectors. But maybe she adds more.

curmudgeon, Thursday, 15 January 2015 05:04 (ten years ago)

voted for the Rookie piece on kanye b/c it's by my housemate lol

bae sremmurd (monotony), Thursday, 15 January 2015 05:22 (ten years ago)

blech music journalism

That Sullivan Geeshie/Elvie article has actual research and reporting, although a large chunk of the story is in the let-me-report-the-story-of-my-reporting mode supplemented by background info probably culled from google. I mostly agree with McCormick's characterization of chasing this particular story as fetishization. You've got this guy with a massive body of research about a complex group of people living in a fairly large geographical area across a significant, under-documented time period, and yet when some of this research is effectively stolen, Sullivan and Love turn it into a story whose most memorable parts, beyond "this is the long and tortuous story of me and my research partner-in-crime working on a story," all highlight a titillating stereotype, that of the boozing, sometimes violent, lesbian blues singer in the manner of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Sullivan and Love seem unsure of how to follow the story when Elvie doesn't conform to a familiar stereotype.

Amanda Petrusich has really milked this 78-collectors-are-weird story, in anticipation of her book, I guess. "78 collectors have a reputation for being unkempt, effeminate, semi-autistic losers incapable of forming social bonds outside of their obsessive circles. Well let me tell you: it's all true. Now I'm gonna go scuba dive this muddy lake."

bamcquern, Thursday, 15 January 2015 06:25 (ten years ago)

lol gawker

hunangarage, Thursday, 15 January 2015 06:28 (ten years ago)

IMO & no disrespect to Jordan whose piece was funny, but I would have liked to have seen brainwasher's booty eating piece there instead

deej loaf (D-40), Thursday, 15 January 2015 10:39 (ten years ago)

i mean if it had to be an either-or

deej loaf (D-40), Thursday, 15 January 2015 10:40 (ten years ago)

The Petrusich piece on Greek folk music is pretty amazing if you haven't checked it out.

campreverb, Thursday, 15 January 2015 14:33 (ten years ago)

two weeks pass...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Friday, 30 January 2015 00:01 (ten years ago)

The entire Pitch is nominated? That's worthless.

― campreverb, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 8:10

^^

curmudgeon, Friday, 30 January 2015 16:39 (ten years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

System, Saturday, 31 January 2015 00:01 (ten years ago)

Saul Austerlitz, “The Pernicious Rise of Poptimism” (New York Times) 2

>:|

dyl, Saturday, 31 January 2015 04:53 (ten years ago)


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