An item in yesterday’s Page Six identified Ne-Yo as “rapper Ne-Yo,” even though he’s, you know, a singer. And this wasn’t the first time the Rupert Murdoch-bankrolled tabloid has committed this factual error to print, nor was it the first time that it’s misidentified an African-American performer as a rapper. Rich Juzwiak at FourFour uses this moment to conduct a thorough investigation that comes to a somewhat depressing conclusion: “every single male R&B singer of the past 10 years (and quite a few females) has been labeled a ‘rapper,’ by sources that are more or less trusted.” Maybe we should start making copyeditors listen to music, instead of looking at pictures, as they check identifying details about the subjects of the stories they edit? [Page Six via fourfour] MORE »
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yay, journalism!
Dear “New York Post”: Maybe You Should Listen To That Ne-Yo Album, You Might Like It (And Do Your Job Better)
yay, journalism!
What Does Susan Boyle’s Amazon Record Really Mean?
This morning a press release went out touting Amazon presales for Britain’s Got Talent-propelled belter Susan Boyle’s debut album; “Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream is Amazon.com Music’s Largest CD Pre-Order,” the headline touted, and once again, many a media outlet eagerly reported this bit of non-news. While the appetite for Boyle’s sorta-brassy voice and up-from-under backstory among the segment of people who still buy CDs—your Streisand fans, your Bubléholics—is probably undeniable, the lack of numbers in the press release is enough to make me get all existential. You know—what does it all mean, man? After the jump, a little bit of number-crunching with the press release’s top 10. MORE »
yay, journalism!
The Impulse Behind All Those Indie-Tastic “New York Times Magazine” Profiles Revealed
As a New York Times weekend subscriber who happens to think that there’s more to music out there than those artists who reside at the intersection of “tasteful” and “indie,” I’ve often been disgruntled with the Sunday Magazine’s choices for music-related features, which for the most part seem to crib their ideas from Pitchfork’s Best New Music listings. (Daniel Radosh’s insanely in-depth piece on The Beatles: Rock Band was well worth the read, but the feature well has also seen articles on Andrew Bird, Stuart Murdoch, and Neko Case this year—all fine artists, but definitely pitched to a similar target demo, or, hell, a single side of a mixtape.) Well, a Q & A session on the Times site with Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati went partway toward solving the mystery of why—and surprise, surprise: It has something to do with Marzorati’s own, sordid music-writing past! MORE »
who studies the studies
Ways to know the computer industry is really straining to find reasons for stodgy old music executives to embrace the digital era: A Microsoft and Intel-funded study provides the pretty non-shocking news that music downloads are “greener” than their compact-disc counterparts, thanks to binary files not needing much at all in the way of physical components (not to mention, no plastic wrap). Ways to know journalism is probably just as doomed: A ton of media outlets ran with this particular non-story. Oh, woe. [The Register] MORE »
yay, journalism!
CNN Apparently Doesn’t Find Madonna All That Sympathetic Of A Figure
Of all the pictures on all the photo wires out there, CNN picks the one image of Madonna where she’s flipping the double-barreled bird in order to illustrate its story about a stage for her show in Marseille, France, collapsing as it was being built earlier today, killing one. I know it’s a recent shot, but really? Someone down in Atlanta must hold some grudge! (Click MORE for a larger version of the image.) MORE »
yay, journalism!
North Carolina News Team Makes An Incredible Discovery: Customers Inside Record Stores, Paying For Music
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: That blurry screen grab at left is a shot of people inside a record store, courtesy of the intrepid journalists at Winston-Salem, N.C.’s WXII. They visited local used-culture emporium Edward McKay’s and found something shocking: People inside the store, exchanging actual money for music! The startling footage after the jump. MORE »
BREAKING: The rich kids, they like to make the rock music. Why is this worthy of New York Times column inches? Because some of the parents of said “indie” kids are celebrities, duh. [yay, journalism!
An AP attempt to ride Google traffic story on how to watch big-voiced matron Susan Boyle’s performance on the Britain’s Got Talent finale has as its final suggestion that you hop a last-minute flight to London–and hey, “last minute round-trip flights from New York to London were starting upwards of $1,000 as of Thursday night”–in order to catch the show on telly. Oh c’mon, guys! YouTube searches aren’t that hard to navigate. [AP / Pic via eBay, which I guess needed something to fill the Adam Lambert merch void] MORE »
yay, journalism!
The Future Of Music Criticism Sure Does Look Adorable
From one of the many blogs now replacing paid writers at the recently downsized Seattle Post-Intelligencer site, a post called “Music Critic Cats”: “The snoozing cats wanted nothing to do with the mega song contest from Moscow – until the contestants from Azerbaijan hit the stage to sing ‘Always.’ The cats purred like crazy during the performance of AySel and Arash.” God, I hope this woman is planning to do extensive American Idol coverage tomorrow… [Cat Lady] MORE »
