Letters from Rosie, 7

Hello Jerry,

The world of blogging is.... real money.

BuzzMedia has added today 6 major music blogs. PureVolume, PopMatters, Gorilla vs. Bear, The Hype Machine, Concrete Loop and RCRD LBL join Stereogum, Buzznet, Idolator and Absolute Punk in the web entertainment publisher’s music portfolio.

Not too happy about this, ET. I stopped reading Idolator after Maura Johnston left. I really loved Idolator. Loved Jess Harvell. I haven't been on Idolator nearly two years now I think. But these things happen. Of the new aquisitions, RCRD LBL and Gorilla vs Bear I would read regularly. Can someone explain the reason why it's a smart move for these independent blogs to sell themselves to BuzzMedia? Apart from the getting loads of money bit. All I know is that after Buzznet took over Idolator, they got rid of the red heart artwork and the writing quality plummeted overnight. Which seemed totally contradictory to me, cos the whole point of that blog was that is was in-depth and really well written and still pop. I particularly remember that piece about the 'Tusk Era of music', which was an angle on the furore caused by Kelly Clarkson's flop record 'My December'?

Never more will a guitar act with members younger than 30 find itself in a $30,000-a-day studio with Desmond Child and the London Philharmonic. Even if that scenario doesn’t sound too desirable to you, in a genre ossifying itself out of options, it’s understandable that critics of all inclinations might lament its passing.

And they linked out to loads of other great sites like Stylus (also dead now). And they blogged about Chris Ott being GerardvsBear. Ha ha, listen to me, sounds like I'm trying to posit some 'Golden age of blogging' idea.

For someone who lives in Belfast, the GerardvsBear reveal was ridiculously obscure - god bless the internet - a treasure trove of insider perspectives on the New York indie scene! But hipster satire has evolved even further now....

So now I'm reading.... Hipster Runoff. It's really funny, but it's utter nonsense. He keeps talking about bands as 'buzzbands', gaining 'relevance' by generating bloggable memes, which is basically any interesting shit that an artist does, from some weird cultural response to a song lyric or some fight a band member had with some other buzz-band member. But then it's supposed to be a given that the guy loves Animal Collective, because they are the ultimate alternative hipster band. Pitchfork obviously helped cultivate this status, but none of it's real, which undermines Pitchfork, but which also undermines fan-dom unfortunately. The blogger most probably isn't that into Animal Collective at all.

The irony is AC are totally boring and don't generate any memes most of the time from what I can tell. Like an old-school tabloid newspaper reporter, the blogger reaches for a story - 'In-Fighting', 'Anxieties About The Upcoming Panda Bear Solo Album'. But AC are old dudes who just want to be at home with their wives. I have a dumb-ass theory that this is a meme - cos affluent hipster types tend to be strangely secretly sympathetic to traditional and conservative values - maybe because these are the values that were successfully used by their parents when raising said affluent hipster kids.

I think deep down a lot of alternative lifestyle hipsters feel that although they are exploiting the privilege of being able to dick around and do things like be in an indie band or write a blog or something similarly self indulgent for all of their twenties, deep down, they do have this desire to some day stop all that shit and just get married and be humble and raise kids and just be a 'good person'. Which is why they got affection for the James Murphys and Animal Collectives... these guys sing about this reverse-aspirational philosophy.... to actually aspire to be meek and self-effacing.

Hipsters wanna hear about how awesome and kind and wonderful the AC lads are, because we need someone to admire. But can you be inside it all and above it all at the same time? Anyway, the whole point is to create a 'strong personal brand'. Wearing cool clothes and talking cool shit and making cool references and above all - being authentic = strong personal brand = happiness? This 'branding' word won't go away.

Read more here.

I think it's harmless enough, but it makes me think - are there any honest-to-god music fans left? Were there ever any? I know I always say it, but I look to Tobi, the Kill Rock Stars crew... a good few years ago now I interviewed Erase Errata for a local magazine in Belfast and I was asking them about Pitchfork controlling American underground music and Clear Channel owning all the venues and if it was a bad time or a good time for US indie music, and they had never heard of Pitchfork...

Do you ever read any of these other blogs yrself? I know that rant about HypeMachine pierced yr consciousness - have you taken a walk around that guy's scene? He really seems immersed in a whole world there. I suppose these blogs are only one very small fragment of the massive carpet that furnishes the internet all flush and tacky. But there is some power there, BuzzMedia seem to think so.

Dum-dum-dum. I've got 'My Cherie Amour' going round in my head. I think it's cos when I wrote that bit about 'real music fans' it made me think of that kid in Almost Famous, and what an innocent unaffected music fan he was and then this wistful feeling took me over and Stevie started. He's on the soundtrack of that movie I think. Hahaha, I'm hopeless, Everett.

love, hugs, sweeties, always

xx

rosie