Why The Music Critics Keep Writing ....
Plus: I got a new job!
Hi friends!
Long time no chat.
Part of the reason why is I’ve been hard at work reporting a story for the kind folks at Study Hall. The story is a semi-spin off of my astonishingly well read Jake Shane/Stan media essay, this time focused on The State of Music Criticism.
Like many, I was quite dismayed by Rolling Stone’s 5-star review of Life Of a Showgirl , which, to me, felt like it was fan service for Swifties. I was holding onto that feeling as I was sifting through the trove of recent essays, such as Kelefa Sanneh’s piece for The New Yorker, about how music criticism had “gone soft.”
I concurred with that piece to an extent, but I also felt like Sanneh was a bit tapped out of the reality for us lucky (or unlucky) few who are working in a famished music media. For us overworked media professionals, the question of softness if a bit small potatoes when compared to the more existential threats of a crumbling industry, AI apocalypse and the specter of stan harassment.
So I chatted about all of this with a crew of critics, including the wonderful Grace Robbins-Sommerville (Our Band Could Be Your Wife), Matt Mitchell (the editor of Paste), and the always discussed Shaad D’Souza. Oh, and Zachary Hourihane, AKA The Swiftologist (if you’re chronically online and a pop fan, you understand the magnitude of this get!).
I am sharing a preview of the piece below. To read the rest, you can do so on Study Hall’s website here (it will ask you to put in your email, but then you can be sent other great articles and get tapped into Study Hall’s trove of freelance and media opportunities).
Thank you to the fabulous Daniel Spielberger (read his Substack, Daniel Docs!!!!) for commissioning me and for the helpful edits. And thank you to Eloise Goldsmith for the editorial guidance!
OH BUT FIRST ONE BIG LIFE UPDATE…..
Some of you may know that I’ve been a Contributing Writer for PAPER Magazine for the past 2-ish years.
As of this past week, I am now the Associate Editor of The FADER!!!
I am so excited for this new chapter. I’ll still be sharing my musings here, but for anyone looking to keep up with my work at The FADER (essays, interviews, etc), please follow The FADER’s social channels (IG, X, TikTok) and my personal socials (IG, x) where I’ll also be sharing my stories.
I have a lot to reflect on from these past two years of “working in media,” so maybe I’ll do that here soon (does anyone care? maybe…)
ANYWAYS THANK YOU <3 AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS ESSAY, MWAH
Why The Music Critics Keep Writing ...
It was easy to interpret that garish green affront as a harbinger of doom.
Rolling Stone, once the magazine of record in music, had launched a “homepage takeover,” complete with a matcha-moss colorway, to celebrate the release of Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl.” My first impulse was to deem it payola, but a more likely explanation is that Rolling Stone is trying, like any outlet, to survive in a time of crashing traffic by tapping into Swiftie enthusiasm to generate clicks. The bargain appeared to be that this rabid stan energy would be so lucrative that it would help fund the rest of the magazine, which, one would hope, is primarily composed of deeply considered music reporting and criticism.
That cope withered under the reality of what was published that day: an unsettlingly laudatory, PR-ified five-star review of “The Life of a Showgirl,” which begins with a list of Swift’s accomplishments that would work well in a pitch deck assembled by her team. Swift, critic Maya Georgi opined, has “stood atop the pop world glittering in a sequined midnight-blue bodysuit,” “mesmerized stadiums,” and most crucially: “locked it down with a cowboy like her in football star Travis Kelce.” (Georgi’s effusive review felt perniciously similar to another genre of stan media I’ve written about).
Thankfully, Rolling Stone’s overbearing positivity was an aberration. “Showgirl” became a moment for the critical class at other publications to flex, with some even using Rolling Stone’s hagiography as a foil.
In her review, Pitchfork’s Anna Gaca wrote, “it is simply untrue to claim, as Rolling Stone did on Friday, that ‘Showgirl’ represents ‘new, exciting sonic turns,’” before pivoting to a deserved whack at “Wood,” a potential career worst for Swift: “Granted, there’s never been another Taylor Swift song that sounds so much like the Jackson 5’s ‘I Want You Back’ … with the spiritual energy of bachelorette-party penis décor.” Ellen Johnson appraised the new album’s ailments for Paste, and didn’t mince words: “The subject matter isn’t [Swift’s] stumbling block. ‘Lyrical hallucination’ might be a more apt diagnosis.”