do "tastemakers" still matter?

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/custom/aetoday/bal-ae.tastemakers20aug20,0,4099256.story?coll=bal-aetoday-headlines

diskuss

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 28 August 2006 10:25 (nineteen years ago)

"here comes the old boss, same as the new boss" -- in the era of widespread dowloading, sharing playlists, online access to a world of info yadaa etc, fewer people rely on self styled "tastemakers" or "gatekeepers" etc for music tips. or maybe the playing field has been leveled and EVERYBODY's a tastemaker or critic these days. I'd imagine that Nic Harcourt or music idioters @ R)ll1ng $t)ne still imagine they can "make or break" careers but we know better...

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 28 August 2006 10:32 (nineteen years ago)

also did anybody read the article about Pitchfork in this month's Wired ? written by an ex-Spin editor and more than a bit hagiographical (sic) it did acknowledge the uselessness of that magazine in the current climate, i.e. "alternative" to what?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 28 August 2006 10:35 (nineteen years ago)

wired article here http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/pitchfork.html

― zappi (joni), Monday, 28 August 2006 10:41 (nineteen years ago)

i showed the wired article to a friend and he thought the photo of broken social scene was the pitchforks staff! ha.

― mts (theoreticalgirl), Monday, 28 August 2006 11:40 (nineteen years ago)

Godspeed You Subeditors

The piece Mark linked is about what I would figure -- an attempt to put names/faces/personalities in play rather than trying to consider an evolving process in detail. There are tastemakers for those who concede the choice of decision to them, essentially.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 August 2006 13:19 (nineteen years ago)

I suspect fewer and fewer people concede that choice. which isn't to say they don't read or listen but it strikes me as absurd to say that Harcourt had a big hand in the success of Moby or Norah Jones, names which as it happens are already fading from consciousness.

not trying to butter up Ned or other writers here, but I'd guess that online review outlets like AMG or teh Fork wield more direct influence on consumers these days than magazines ever did.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 28 August 2006 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

Wider market-as-such, at least.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 August 2006 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

oh, Rashodpaws

thanks for linking it, though, my Sun subscription ran out last week

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Monday, 28 August 2006 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

Norah Jones is fading from consciousness? Wait till I tell my mother.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 28 August 2006 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

I can't even get through the Sun article. That guy is their primary pop music critic? Yikes...

― Nigel (Nigel), Tuesday, 29 August 2006 20:42 (nineteen years ago)

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