junkmedia.org (or stylusmagazine.com) vs. pitchforkmedia.com is there a winner?

I've only been to Junkmedia a couple of times, and it was a few years ago, I think because they had an interview with Sam Prekop or something. I don't remember being terribly impressed, but I guess I'll check it out again.

I admit my perspective may be skewed from this board.

Cokemachineglow
http://www.cokemachineglow.com/

Indieworkshop.com
http://indieworkshop.com/news/

Prefix magazine
http://www.prefixmag.com/

30music.com
http://www.30music.com/

e.g they broke the news of the upcoming Books album first.

what about nude as the news. i used to love it. it's updated not too frequently. i still like the clear layout.

there is also delusions of adequacy. very indiecentric. don't know too many artists. which doesn't mean anything as i am not too much thrilled by any of the new bands of the last couple of years.

tiny mixtapes is another indie news/reviews site. i like that you get all reviews of a band on one page.

I like Dusted. I'll admit I've never read Junkmedia. Does everyone in the country need to write about these same bands? If people start new webzines, they should go to the far corners of the earth, not cover Animal Collective and the Arcade Fire. Someone should start a webzine that only covers swamp music, and just write about that like they've got five hours to live. Then the next guy who wants a zine should do, I dunno, alp horns. Anything but this indie coverage of bands that only sell < 50k records in the first place.

i'd forgotten about dusted and had accidentally deleted the bookmark a while ago... so glad to be reminded of it.

Dusted I hugely admire but dammit they need a search function! I always feel bad that I don't check them more when I've had a look.

From Prefix today

V/A: DFA - Compilation No. 2
Compilation No. 2
label: DFA
rating: 4.0

by John MacDonald

Alright, let me just get this out of the way: I don’t like dance music -- not at all. My tolerance for BPMs and glow sticks extends no further than the circumstance of a pill of ecstasy. Boards of Canada and Manitoba get props, but my sympathy ends there [etcetera]

I'd actually written them off long before after their review of 'Berlinette', but reading it again it's not quite as wretched as I thought before... it still reads like the underinformed opinion of someone whose knowledge of 'dance' starts with 'Fat of the land' and ends with The Crystal Method though. Can't see a good reason to go back yet. Fuck 'em.

I haven't really given Junkmedia much attention really. I tend to measure the worth of a site by the amount of reviews of stuff I've heard of/stuff I don't know. That one looks ok, I don't remember it being that way last time I passed.

Brainwashed seems even more Wire than The Wire! It's definitely in my bookmarks but it's not a daily read. Much admired though.

e.g

Almost Cool
http://www.almostcool.org/mr/mrindex.html
updated each Friday

Funprox
http://www.funprox.com/index.asp

Leonard's Lair
http://www.leonardslair.co.uk/
Updated Friday evening [UK] time

Opus
http://www.opuszine.com/

However I *adore* it when said publications rip into well-deserving-of-scorn British hypes. Living in the land of such Gods as Kasabian it's somewhat reassuring that all is not lost.

British music journalisim is still largely fucked and way in thrall to the great old NME/MM axis of yore unfortunately. I'll read the BBC web reviews but that's about it really for the UK.

Just to be clear, I haven't really checked out Junkmedia, so please don't take what I said as a diss on any one webzine.

I think the webzines are competitive with some of the print magazines. Print mags, like alt-weeklies, can fall into boring patterns. And I still don't get why Pitchfork is obnoxious when, say, everything I've read in Blender is titties and binge drinking.

I need to start reading Stylus more. I've enjoyed what I've read so far. Maybe I should even try to write for them...

As for PFM, it's the same deal as everyone else has mentioned.

when i am a rich and fabulous brazillionaire i will start my own magazine.

ps...dusted search function and redesign coming in a month or so...

"Does everyone in the country need to write about these same bands?"

Now, I know from what else he said Chris doesn't mean it this way, but when I read I think, "So if someone else reviews a record first then I'm just shit out of luck? Huh?" Next thing you know the, say, Can albums get reissued and none of us say anything because so much has already been said.

Like I said, I know that's not where Chris was going with the idea, but it's something to think about. Someone else (that I'm too lazy to look up) posted something to the effect that really, since they all review the same _basic_ stuff what you need to do is pick one you like and rely mostly on it, which makes sense to me.

Oh, and when trying to talk about why a website/magazine/whatever is reviewing/not reviewing something and so on and so forth, never forget the more prosaic issues at hand; is anyone willing to review it? Does anyone have a copy (digital or otherwise)? Does it ever get done? Etc, etc.

Personally, my relationship with Pitchfork as a reader was very similar (albeit more recent) than mine with NME online; first I read it avidly (all these great bands I've never heard of!), then I read it grudgingly (eh, nobody else writes about this stuff (which _always_ means you're just not reading widely enough)), and then finally I just went cold turkey (jesus, my once-reliable source just gave hyperbolic props to another band I don't like. Shit.). We'll always have the Wrens, though.

How many times this year did you read that story about how Brian Eno invented ambient music because he was stuck in a hospital bed and his buddies forgot to turn the radio up? My count is like twenty.

I don't want some panel of judges to assign reviews to the whole country, but it makes you appreciate new perspectives when you can find them - and most publications feel they have to publish a "definitive"/standalone review that is forced to cover certain bases. (I'm guilty of playing into this too.)

Oh and maybe I'm sorry for that smug/belittling comment. My misreading is legendary.

It'd be great if some other enterprising person decided to try something like this. (Aside: I miss the FT FGs.)

Ott (so many Chrises, we use last names): Well, when I think of Spiritualized I think fondly of the fact that I bought Ladies And Gentlemen... sound unheard because of the review I found a NME.com (I'm terrified to go back and re-read it, in case it's horrible!). And whenever I pop in the Meadowlands or Secaucus, I'll remember that before pfork I hadn't heard of them; mind you, I didn't "believe the hype" and order it off of Amazon until Unterberger's Stylus review went up. But they were the closest thing I could think of to an analogy off the top of my head.

Dahlen: The problem of covering the very basics is always going to be with us, I fear, and I'm broadly sympathetic to what you're wishing for; I just wanted to point out the flipside. Personally as far as reviewing weird shit I try to get Todd to send me whatever hasn't gotten taken from the promo pile every so often, but then there's the problem of how exactly do I review (for example) Argentinian ska (Matt Cibula rules this thread) when I've never heard it before this album? Not insurmountable, certainly, but a problem.

As a pop writer, I don't particularly find Pitchfork's attempt to cover chart pop particularly convincing, largely because I don't quite think the PF audience is ready for the same level of incorporation (assimilation) as Stylus is. I appreciate the effort that's clearly been made to widen the horizons of the typical PF reader, but in the kind of geminal state of the project, there's this sort of defensive distance in a lot of the writing on WAtW, and it seems to be a bit behind the times a lot of the time.

That is to say, "Yes, I would love to participate again, and perhaps even on a semi-regular basis, you betcha."

Please don't democratise me, I'm scared.

a wise sage man

Junkmedia I'm liking alot right now but I write for them so go figure.

And pfork is pretty much a necessary evil. I can't stand the tone and posturing, but there are a few bits of good writing here and there and it covers bands that I care about. I'm not sure the redesign was worth the time/money they put into it.

Stylus has a greater variety of content outside straight reviews, I read it every once in a while, but the reviews themselves aren't a great deal better than PFork's.

But I'm not a big follower of music crit anyway, so it could be that I'm just missing the boat. For the most part, I find individual pieces on music have less readable content than pieces on film or literature. Too often they read like someone was just trying to fill space and couldn't find a whole lot to say about an album.

I may be be dating myself here, but I think that there is a DIY belief system at work at Splendid that values, in sort of the way K Records did as a label, the fact that anyone who feels the creative urge can make and record music. Splendid validates that by writing about anything and everything that arrives through the mail slot, diarrhea on a disc or masterpiece. I find that charming, and also refreshing in that it levels the playing field a bit and removes the stink of marketing and promotion and commerce from the music writing process a little bit.

On the other hand, I agree with the widely expressed view that there is no filter at work at Splendid for readers, and therefore you can spend a lot of time reading about stuff you might not like or that just might not be any good. But there is also nothing forcing you to read it, either, and Splendid readers know what they are getting into in that regard. But I think the site really offers something for people who feel like coverage at more popular web zines is too focused/similar to each other.

Bah, enough of this -- I don't mean to be such a cheerleader. Just idealistic, I guess.

We certainly get our share of rubbish, as much from full-sized labels as home taper types, but finding one amazing record you'd never have discovered otherwise justifies a week of spinning through dross, as far as I'm concerned. YMMV.

I'm not as voracious a reader of all the online mags as I once was, but I quickly grew tired of Pitchfork's tendency towards negative reviews that were only negative because it was a chance to be 'entertaining' - that shit's fine in a capsule single review about someone who doesn't care anymore (see: Limp Bizkit) but trashing a whole album just because you can make some funny calls (see: Jet, who I don't like, but who can be discussed much more astutely)? That's just... lazy.

What I like about Stylus (and sure, I'm biased) is that there's no house opinion, there's a great range of styles and tones, plus I think the writers are genuinely critical in that they'll give the records a good and proper listen and, if it is shit, at least give valid reasons why.

I write for a gaming magazine (The Escapist) that publishes its issues on one site and then hosts a blog at a separate domain. You've got a place to rant and rave, but the publication stays intact and keeps its dignity, as it were. I like that approach. It's great to have a place to argue about the work, but the work should still be the work, it shouldn't just be a launching pad.