Wie Musikkritik ihren Vorteil verlor: Musikschreiber waren einst dafür bekannt, viel schädlicher zu sein als der durchschnittliche Hörer. Was ist passiert?

The internet and MAGA completely obliterated any sense of legitimate gate keeping.

It’s also hard when 99.99% commercial music is being produced at a competent/expert level.

Thus, most critique is going to be subjective. And I think that most sites/personalities have worked out their audiences and niches.

Today we can just listen to all the new music ourselves. Critics used to be the gatekeepers and that turned them into assholes.

I actually think it’s a good thing that music critics are taken less seriously now than in previous years. It’s easier than ever to listen to music. Music critics don’t really help people make purchasing decisions the way that film or game critics do. People nowadays only follow music critics like Fantano because they enjoy his content

Music is a lot less centralized, in the age of streaming aside from very few big names people tend to stay in their niche and listen to what they like

Music journalists in general are no longer needed. I say this as a former music journalist (freelance and very mid-market).

Why should a publicist set up their A-list music stars with interviews with journalists when they can control the message themselves these days? It used to be that the journos helped break a star’s new image, new album, new direction, etc. with the public.

We are not needed to do this any longer when the publicist can build their star’s social media presence with the same content – but with 100% control over the message.

Not to mention that services like Napster in the early 00s kicked the ever-loving shit out of the industry. The labels didn’t adjust to change. Revenue dried up in a hurry, and people suffered.

I remember whole floors of people in LA being laid off quite viciously as a result. Nothing like setting up an interview with a publicist at Hollywood Records on a Monday, only to find out later that week that she had been let go. Who do I call now? My deadline is next week. No one seems to know…

What I’m saying is that when the industry contracted, a lot of non-musicians and service to the industry people were obliterated. The industry never recovered from this. As a result, less opportunity.

Critics were always a special kind of pain in the ass. But the really good ones who helped shape the culture were either dead or retired by the mid-90s, and with their extinction, media started consolidating and commercializing even more than they had in the 80s and 90s.

Couple all of that with the notion that everyone and their little brother wanted to be a music journalist or critic.

Before Napster, opportunities were already fiercely competitive. They were either vastly underpaid or not paid at all.

As a result of these myriad factors, some great voices likely gave up and got real jobs, while those who had big money could take the unpaid internships at Blender Magazine and the like and live comfortably in NYC because someone else was paying for their ride.

I might be bitch ranting now, but I know of a couple writers who „made it“ because mom and dad helped pay their way. Hahaha. Whatever, I guess.

I still have the memories, I had some great conversations with some of my favorite artists, and I realize now that I got out at the right time.