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MTV News' James Montgomery describes how soul-sucking and Google history-killing the life of a music journalist can be in 2008, the year that Miley Cyrus bra shots, High School Musical nude pictures, and Ashlee Simpson pregnancy rumors line the expressway that leads to the promised land of "music-related click action." (There's also a bonus cameo by me, although I am fully clothed and not in flagrante whatever.) To cheer yourself up after reading this, please avail yourself of these pictures of a pug dressed up like Teen Wolf. They worked for me! [MTV / Photo: AP]


4:00 PM on Wed Apr 23 2008
By Maura Johnston
322 views
8 comments

Comments

  • 'Industry analysts' would be amazed to find how popular these 'stories' are, especially when coupled with a slideshow feature.

    The state of music criticism today makes me wonder if people really cared about the 7,000 word features at any point in time. People haven't changed that much, have they?

  • Mentioning 'boolean logic' = YOU'RE ALL LIBRARY USERS NOW.

  • Lovin' that pug! I had no idea Miley had been showin' some skin, but then again, she's got a big book to write and people will only read for so much before they demand sordid details.

    Speaking of which, when do we get out Idolator nip slips?

  • Mah comments... they gettin' et!

  • I missed the part where he said was quitting his soul sucking job.

  • Yeah - it must suck to get paid to cover music for a job. Wonder if the post office is hiring.

  • Read it again. It's not saying that the job sucks overall. It's saying that the increasing trend of music-related celebrities being bigger clickbait than, say, actual writing about music that the writer is personally invested in or even slightly interested in is somewhat chagrining for people who actually care about music. Which I'm going to guess both of you do.

    Or, as I was gonna say to blackmailismylife, it's all about metrics. They're weeding out non-listicle, non-celebrity writing because people can now just consume the media they want to, and shut themselves off from what they don't, in an easier way than ever before; they don't have to eat the vegetables of perspectives outside of theirs, or even flip past said vegetables on the way to the gossip pages.

  • I read it again, and "The whole thing makes me feel like a gigantic, leering creep, but what am I supposed to do? It's clear which way the machine is headed, and I'm just another cog in it - a really ashamed, pretty sad cog." sounds like maybe he shouldn't do it then. In know I would be looking for different employment if my job made me feel like that.

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