Gossip is the new pornography

I’m sure I’m not the only pop music lover that has had this conversation described below, from Sasha Frere-Jones’ great article on Lady Gaga in the latest issue of The New Yorker:

Dedicated fans of popular music have a certain conversation at least once a year. Call it The Question of Endurance. You and your friends are talking about music, and the conversation turns to a popular band. You express support. A friend voices her opinion, maybe as favorable as yours, but appends a qualifier: “I like them, but will they be around in ten years?” You may feel compelled to defend whomever it is you’re talking about, covering the present moment and the future with your positive take. After trying this approach, though, you realize that pop music has no Constitution and doesn’t operate like a de-facto Supreme Court: precedent is not always established, and isn’t even necessary. Pop rarely accretes in a tidy, serial manner—it zigs, zags, eats itself, and falls over its shoelaces.

Via Idolator, Pheonix New Times music editor Martin Cizmar:

The [Pazz & Jop] poll was founded by former Voice music editor Robert Christgau, who is the worst music critic ever, in my humble opinion. I almost didn’t want to vote just to avoid furthering, in any way, his legacy of shitty writing.

Robert Christgau in Slate at the end of 2008:

When I was doing Pazz & Jop, more than 1,500 albums a year made some crappy critic’s top 10 or other. I dip into something like 2,500 albums a year, and the 300-plus I write about pass through my earholes in their entirety three, five, 10 times—good or recalcitrant ones even more.

Cizmar on his work ethicfavorite records of 2008:

Albums I didn’t even listen to:

Bob Dylan, Tell Tale Signs:The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
Coldplay, Viva la Vida
John Mellencamp, Life, Death, Love and Freedom
Foals, Antidotes
Portishead, Third
Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark