The Slow, Agonizing Death of National Alt-Weekly CD Reviews

All of a sudden, all I write are "local" CD reviews. Nationally, it's all about features and preview blurbs, cuz there's no room for a Jay-Z or RHCP CD review or whatever.

Has this happened to you, writers?

also, talk about shrinking review sections in magazines.

no, wait, there's one or two outlets of mine that still run national cd reviews, but those are handled by staffers, not freelancers.

the reviews that do still exist are like 75 words anyway

whiney g weingartens twitter is the future

I fear you are right.

MIGHT Magazine's "35 record review quips" feature was waaaay ahead of its time

The Slow, Agonizing Death of National Alt-Weeklies

honestly it's always seemed kind of weird to me to read reviews of "big" bands in alt weeklies. i get enough of that online, i'd rather read about local/regional stuff.

Yeah, I write for five different alt-weeklies, and I can't remember the last time I wrote a CD review. It's all features and show previews. If someone's got a new album, I get to "review" it in the context of a feature.

I'm still doing some CD reviews -- in fact I was specifically asked to do so! So I guess there's a bit of room depending. Mungolian Jet Set will run next week, new David Sylvian next month.

ned, i will send you a t-shirt that reads "I AM THE EXCEPTION"

It's a vision.

i still write occasional reviews for my old alt-weekly, maybe every 3 or 4 months. they let me write about almost anything i want to, but i also haven't sent them an invoice in like 2 years. (i'd bill for anything more significant than a 250-word review, but it's nice to have an outlet and i don't mind donating copy to a place i still care about.)

but to answer the question directly, they run national/international cd reviews pretty much every week i think.

Looking at the Chicago Reader's archives, it looks like the extent of non-local CD reviews they've published this year amounts to three columns of "short takes" (two by Peter Margasak, one by Jessica Hopper) and one long reviews (Noah Berlatsky on Antony & the Johnsons).

But then I can't remember them ever having regular album reviews. At least as long as I've been reading the paper (10 years or so), it seems like CD reviews get published only if one of their contributors pitches the idea. The headline on Hopper's column, for instance, is "Last Week on the Internet:
A bucket dipped into the torrent brings up Bat for Lashes, Micachu, Moderat, and more," as though she just downloaded a bunch of stuff and asked the paper if she could review it for them.

I guess I feel like show previews end up reading a lot like album reviews most of the time, anyway, with maybe an additional sentence at the end if the band is especially known for their live performance.

The Slow, Agonizing Death of National Alt-Weekly CD Reviews

The Slow, Agonizing Death of National Alt-Weekly CD Reviews

The Slow, Agonizing Death of National Alt-Weekly CD Reviews

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LMFAO @ sl0cki

max OTM

new thread idea: how long until all CD reviews are just acronym-heavy twitters

Soulja Boy "Souljaboytellum.com": LOL,IMO WTF

Heh, from a column that just got linked to on ILE Twitter thread: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/janet-street-porter/editoratlarge-twitter-ye-not-for-it-will-not-change-the-world-1772833.html

If I want to know whether a show is worth going to at the Edinburgh Festival, or if Bonnie Prince Billy's latest album is worth buying, I certainly don't want a 140-character Twitter; I want an intelligent review written in real sentences, not some bastard lingo that's the ugly love-child of texting and abbreviations.

damn whiney got aired out by jane austen

Looking at the Chicago Reader's archives, it looks like the extent of non-local CD reviews they've published this year amounts to three columns of "short takes" (two by Peter Margasak, one by Jessica Hopper) and one long reviews (Noah Berlatsky on Antony & the Johnsons).

But then I can't remember them ever having regular album reviews. At least as long as I've been reading the paper (10 years or so), it seems like CD reviews get published only if one of their contributors pitches the idea. The headline on Hopper's column, for instance, is "Last Week on the Internet:
A bucket dipped into the torrent brings up Bat for Lashes, Micachu, Moderat, and more," as though she just downloaded a bunch of stuff and asked the paper if she could review it for them.

I guess I feel like show previews end up reading a lot like album reviews most of the time, anyway, with maybe an additional sentence at the end if the band is especially known for their live performance.

― jaymc, Friday, August 14, 2009 5:12 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this might be true but there have been weeks in a row where like 95% of the show alerts/previews/blurbs have been for out-of-town bands. i have thought of tallying up this info over a month or two and then sending them a letter about it but don't want to come off as bitter (since i'm in a local band). but i just feel like jordan, it doesn't seem necessary, i can read about these national bands from like a million other sources, the info i need from them is about the awesome local bands that aren't getting any other press ... i feel like the reader used to be a lot better about this.

Creative Loafing Inc, New Times, and other pubs--budget cuts, freelancing or blogging for free

Chicago Reader possibly getting new owner

is that like google reader for ppl who live in chicago?

wow david shapiro, you should get a job writing monologues for jimmy fallon

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/10/14/san_francisco_bay_guardian_shuts_down_the_decline_and_fall_of_a_great_alt.html

providence phoenix shut down last week too

when i pick up the chicago reader these days i'm embarrassed by how feeble the print edition is, but i'd be very sad if they went under.

and yeah music reviews just don't happen in the print edition; not sure if they happen online either. margasak had (has?) a blog thing where he talks about new music, but it never makes it to the print edition.

http://www.wbir.com/story/news/local/2014/10/15/knoxvilles-metro-pulse-newspaper-shutting-down/17308573/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/10/14/san_francisco_bay_guardian_shuts_down_the_decline_and_fall_of_a_great_alt.html

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, October 14, 2014 8:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

providence phoenix shut down last week too

― maura, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 7:09 AM (8 hours ago)

Damn, two that were close to my heart.

i'm not that familiar w/ the Knoxville one, but Providence and SFBG are such significant losses

more to come, i wonder? i've read a couple articles over the past few years that predicted a period of widespread bloodshed to come. wonder if we're getting there :(

i wonder how the chicago reader is doing

right now chicago has (at least) two arts weeklies

http://www.phillyvoice.com/rip-philadelphia-city-paper-1981-2015/

http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/philadelphia_city_paper_closed_archives.php

Thanks for posting those. Contracts with alt-weeklies incl. fairly rapid reversion of all rights to the author, in my experience---which doesn't incl. Philly City Paper, but makes me wonder if Broad Street Media really could make "intellectual property rights" stick, if faced with a suit, by the writers union, for instance. Anybody remember Contentville? They had "backdoor rights," technically, but disappeared pretty quickly.