Surfing Music
by Ben Lambert, Culture Editor on March 17, 2008 in Culture
The Citizen’s music guru on three places where you can broaden your listening without ever leaving home…or the library.
Pitchforkmedia.com: Notorious for a tortured prose style, overbearing elitism and devotion to obscurity over quality, Pitchfork Media has become such a target for criticism that any day now it will probably turn the corner and become cool again. The site publishes three or more reviews a day, plus countless columns, interviews and features. Reviews tend to cover a mix of gangsta rap (which Pitchfork has a soft spot for), indie rock and unclassifiable oddities that you probably won’t be able to buy anywhere. While you don’t want to be that guy who depends on Pitchfork to shape his musical taste (and if you are that guy, please, quit it with the tight jeans all the time), their willful eccentricity makes them a great place to troll for new and overlooked music.
Slate.com: Slate’s Musicbox feature is one of the internet’s treasures. The column is published intermittently and covers a dizzying array of topics, from a new interpretation of Bach’s Goldberg variations to the ultimate fate of notorious recluse Jeff Mangum, founder of Neutral Milk Hotel. It’s notable for the uniformly excellent quality of the writing, and for the inclusion of plenty of hyperlinks to clips of the music under discussion. Make this part of your regular reading and musical education.
Theonion.com: Ironically enough, The Onion’s music review section resembles not its namesake, but the rather less pungent dish steak and potatoes. I can’t believe I just wrote that. Check in here for a no-frills assessment of the kind of music your cool-but-not-too-cool college-aged brother listens to. The writing is refreshingly direct, and the reviews are short and punchy. Plus the handy letter grading system forces reviewers to avoid taking refuge in ambiguity, unlike those book reviewers who say things like “a great work of limited scope” or “a book whose moral vision is at times compromised by the ferocity of its critique.” I hate that.
Check out Ben’s music blog at www.harvardcitizen.com/category/blog.
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