![]() ![]() I also started tilting my own listening to new releases-which soon became a regular habit, one I still pursue in the current day. To compensate, I hired writers who had the pulse of the current scene. ![]() Giving half of the coverage to old music seemed a bit much, or so I fretted. Half of the articles would emphasize new music, and the other half would look at old music.īut if you had hooked me up to a polygraph machine back then, I’d have admitted that I might be tilting too much in the direction of the tradition. On the other hand, I’m concerned (perhaps to an obsessive degree) with nurturing a healthy music ecosystem for the current day, and tomorrow.Īfter long deliberation, I decided I would divide the coverage 50/50. I was best known as a jazz historian back then, and people expected me to celebrate the heritage of the music. I wrestled with this question for a long, long time. Should I focus on the hot new albums coming out this month? Or should I showcase the legends of the past? You could have in-depth arts coverage in every major US city for less than the cost of a sneaker endorsement from a third-tier NBA star or the salary of the University of Alabama’s football coach. My first decision, even before I started hiring writers, was how to balance the coverage between old and new music. Some 15 years ago, I took charge of a new website called -situated on that very choice URL ( now, alas, a dead site ). But here’s the most ironic fact of all-the actual cover stories haven’t changed. ![]() ![]() Go back and look at old issues of Rolling Stone or Downbeat or some other music magazine-there were years in which every cover story was about a living person and usually someone young with something new to say. You might conclude that we have now arrived at the end of history, with all greatness residing in the past. Those pitches get pitched right back in your face. If I pitch an article like that, the whole editorial team starts salivating-you can even feel the moisture over Zoom-in sharp contrast to any proposed article on a young, unproven musician. You can’t click on Rolling Stone ’s homepage or Twitter feed without finding some massive list article-touting the “100 Best Songs of 1982” or “The 100 Greatest Country Albums of All Time.” You will find similar retro celebrations at almost every other music media website with a large crossover readership.Įditors love lists nowadays, especially of all-time greats. (I’m skeptical of that claim, but I hear it all the time.) Yet when I visit the websites, I see the same backward glance. Maybe print media is nostalgic by definition-if, as we’re repeatedly told, young people don’t read things on paper. Publishers are shrewd people, and they don’t put these words in large font unless the audience responds to them. I can’t make out the titles in their entirety, but I see the words Retro, Vintage, and Classic. That’s an impressive roster of artists (well, most of them), but they don’t really need the publicity nowadays-they were legends before many of us were born.Įven the magazine names reveal a tilt toward nostalgia. Lavish attention is devoted here to artists who built their audience in the last century-Miles Davis, David Bowie, Buddy Holly, Blondie, Led Zeppelin, Björk, Motorhead, The Cure, etc. But at second glance, I started to notice the cover stories. ![]()
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