First, Powers' "Pop music critics embrace the mainstream," which ran on Sunday alongside Scott Timberg's feature on the American arts' continuing high-low collapse. Powers, as ever, has the overview:

This atmosphere of openness is mostly fantastic, but characteristically, pop critics have found a way to turn it confrontational. Prefer Ray LaMontagne to Toby Keith? You're an NPR-listening square! Irritated by T-Pain? You're a Luddite! Sick of Fergie? You're sexist! And just as many critics take the opposite stance, with equal righteous vigor.

In the past, our debates were sort of like sumo-style tummy bashes — a young Turk would stand up to the old guard and good-naturedly push his opponent out of the ring. Now, it's more like the scrum in rugby. Everybody pushes against everybody else, and we move forward in a huge blob of vehement opinion and mutual judgment.

Powers' talk about covering American Idol prompted Wade Tatangelo of Tampa's Creative Loafing to point out the monetary aspects of such coverage:

Ann Powers wrote a fine essay . . . But she failed to mention that a potential reason daily music critics like the St. Petersburg Times' Sean Daly are covering cheap reality TV like American Idol (Powers does, too, but more likely by choice, see below) is because they are no longer in a position to tell populist/desperate editors "no." Arts critics are being laid off at even a faster clip than reporters. In fact, there's not a single music critic job opening at a daily newspaper in the entire nation. I know critics rank right alongside lawyers in the receiving of sympathy department, but it's grim folks.

Carl Wilson of the Toronto Globe and Mail and the blog Zoilus weighed in on both Powers' piece and Tatangelo's reply:

There's something to [Tatangelo's point] - I remarked in my book that unlike, say, an academic specialist, a working critic has to address a broad audience, and one who wrote only about the ultra-weird and never about the popular eventually would be out of a job. In the book I add "(rightly)", but it's debatable.

Certainly I know people who've been required professionally to review shows they wouldn't have volunteered to watch. Tatangelo says that a couple of years ago he quit a job rather than cover Idol—and that he's not sure he would feel emboldened to make a similar move today.

But wait, imagine a film critic who proudly resigns his job rather than write about a popular movie or genre of movies—say, movies based on comic books. Would we think that guy was a hero, or kind of an asshole? Wouldn't we point to great film critics who have written favorably or unfavorably about blockbuster popcorn flicks and found insightful aesthetic and social analyses there? If you're being told what to say by your editors, that is cause to make a stand; if you're being asked to cover a major phenomenon in your field, that's the job, bucko. Granted, in the more flush past of newspapering, you'd probably have been able to slough off lower-status assignments to the junior critic, and today there usually is no junior critic. And nothing against Tatangelo making life choices that make him happier. But there's a boon to critics being pushed out of their aesthetic habits to observe what's happening out in what remains of the mainstream - it gives us the function of conducting that cross-conversation about common cultural objects that those lamenters of the semi-mythical, semi-extinct monoculture say they miss.

Still, the most salient point of all may be from Marc Hogan's Tumblr, in which the freelancer (best known for his contributions to Pitchfork) spells it out even more plainly:

As anyone who knows anyone who has blogged about "American Idol" knows, you get more clicks blogging about "American Idol" than blogging about Steinski, Harvey Milk, or Fleet Foxes. So it's not as if the turning tide toward "poptimism" among critics who want to be paid for our work is entirely un-self-interested.

Pop music critics embrace the mainstream [LAT]
Debating Ann Powers, poptimism and American Idol [Creative Loafing Tampa]
Forced to Write About American Idol? Call Our Help Line Now [Zoilus]
"As anyone who's read . . . " [Offnotesnotes]

Among other things, the March 17 article and related Times publications reported that newly discovered information supported Shakur's claims that associates of music executive Sean "Diddy" Combs orchestrated an attack in which Shakur was injured at the Quad Recording Studios in New York on Nov. 30, 1994.



The information, which came from the purported FBI reports and other sources, said that James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, a talent manager; Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant, a figure on the New York hip-hop scene; and James Sabatino, purportedly one of Combs' associates, arranged the assault on Shakur because they were angry that he had rejected overtures to sign with Combs' Bad Boy Records.



The Times now believes that Sabatino fabricated the FBI reports and concocted his role in the assault as well as his supposed relationships with Combs, Rosemond and Agnant.



Consequently, The Times specifically retracts all statements in the article, and in its related publications, that state or suggest in any way that Rosemond, Agnant and Sabatino orchestrated or played any role in the assault on Shakur or that they lured him into an ambush at the Quad studios.



To the extent these publications could be interpreted as creating the impression that Combs was involved in arranging the attack, The Times wishes to correct that misimpression, which was neither stated in the article nor intended.



The Times also reported that Sabatino told Combs in advance that Shakur was going to be attacked. The Times now believes that Sabatino had no involvement in the attack and that he never spoke to Combs about it. Any statements or implications suggesting that Combs was given advance knowledge of the assault on Shakur, or played any role in it, are specifically retracted.



In addition, The Times was mistaken in reporting that Rosemond has served prison time for drug dealing and was convicted in 1996 of drug offenses. The Times specifically retracts those statements.

While there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, one hopes that this is the last time the Times or Phillips will claim to have the answers.

The Times retracts Tupac Shakur story [LA Times]

The exposure has turned the Jonas Brothers into a national media sensation. Last week, the brothers made appearances on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," "Jimmy Kimmel Live," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards and on a taping of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Some people might think that the Jonas Brothers should be in school getting their education instead of plowing through a nefariously synergistic media campaign, but that argument will soon be dispelled by Kevin Jonas's forthcoming book All I Really Need to Know I learned on 'Dancing With the Stars'.

"This is a moment where the platforms of the television group combine to launch a potentially valuable new franchise, " said Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group.

"Platforms of the television group?" "Potentially valuable new franchise?" Network executives aren't even trying to not sound like cyborgs anymore, apparently.

Although Disney's tightly orchestrated media exposure of the Jonas Brothers is different from how boy bands were made in decades past, when such acts were the creations of independent music producers, the perils to young performers remain the same, Smay said.

"What usually happens is that they get ripped off, kind of dumped when they're no longer young and pretty. The Bay City Rollers' story was worse than Motley Crue," Smay said. "It's really difficult to survive that. Because there's so much money involved, people don't have the interest of the kids in front of them."

But the managers surrounding the group say the best protection for young artists is a solid family. In the case of the Jonas Brothers, they tour on a family bus that is limited to precisely that: family. Their father, Kevin Jonas, is a pastor who serves as the group's co-manager and grounding influence.

Right, because pastor dads/managers never fail to keep the path righteous.

Steve Greenberg unearthed Nick's eponymous CD in 2005, among a pile of recordings from artists Columbia Records wanted to drop. Greenberg, then the label's president, said Nick's voice stopped him cold and reminded him of a previous discovery: the pop/rock group Hanson, whose debut album sold 12 million copies globally.

"This was the best voice I've heard since Taylor Hanson," said Greenberg, now head of S-Curve Records, a New York music company. "You don't just let guys like this go."

That's right, you don't just let them go. You sink your claws in and exploit them until they're empty, maladjusted shells of humans, and then you dig around in another CD pile to find new victims from which to suck the lifeblood. Haven't we been through this cycle at least ten or fifteen times already?

The group's forthcoming album has even more potential, Disney Music Group Chairman Bob Cavallo said.

"I'm hearing the Beatles," Cavallo said, singling out one new song, "Love Bug." "It's really good, as is the arrangement. 'Love Bug' is like Paul McCartney wrote a song that's going to be a monster hit with adults and children."

Bob Cavallo, please kindly never open your mouth ever again. I'm no Beatles fanatic, but I don't think any half-sane being could let that quote stand. So let me inform Mr. Cavallo of what he's actually hearing. It's not the next Beatles, it's Hanson harmonies over Sum 41 riffs.

Nothing more, nothing less. It's quite good for what it is, but I fail to understand how Paul McCartney enters into it.

"We think the sky's the limit with the band," said Jason Garner, chief executive of North American Music for concert promoter Live Nation, who said that the group sold out the Gibson Amphitheatre in a record two minutes.

This fall, the band will appear in a Disney Channel TV series, J.O.N.A.S., playing rock stars who are undercover spies.

"It feels like some giant wave forming out on the ocean," said Gary Marsh, entertainment president at Disney Channel Worldwide. "You don't know how big it's going to be until it hits."

Until it hits and swallows the Jonas Brothers whole, sweeping them out into the vast abyss where all boy bands go to die. I hate to cast such a negative tone here, but it's hard not to after reading an article so chock full of smarmy industry talk. There's always a lot of talk about the misogynistic schoolgirl-fetish aspect of the music business, but nobody seems to cry foul as cute teen boys are being run through brutal boy band cycle. If only the Jonas brothers really could go to the year 3000.

Then maybe they'd Google themselves and figure out a way to avert the inevitable financial crisis and/or drug problem and/or gay sex scandal.

Disney machine working for Jonas Brothers [L.A. Times]

Newspapers, as you may have heard, are in deep doo-doo. While the Times still is a profitable business, our revenue was down 10% in the second quarter while our cash flow was down, as our publisher put it the other day, a "whopping 27%, making it one of the worst quarters ever experienced." Times are so hard at the Times that the publisher has proposed putting ads on the front page to generate new revenue.

So far we've made little headway developing imaginative strategies to bring back lost readers — or compete for younger readers who get their information from the Internet. The record business has been just as slow to provide fans online with new, convenient ways to hear music — the only visionary idea, Steve Jobs' iTunes store, came from outside the business. Unless you are a mainstream pop artist, it's hard to see how the old-fashioned record company model benefits your career anymore. If you're a respected older performer — known in industry parlance as a heritage artist — your biggest challenge is finding a way to get your music heard.

Hmm, sounds promising so far! And the stats cited contain nothing we haven't heard before.

Here's how it might work. The Times would start a free-music series, offering music (either on a CD or via downloads) from respected artists willing to think outside the box — meaning anyone from Elvis Costello, Beck and Ryan Addams to Ry Cooder, Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams. Instead of paying the artist a fat fee, we'd recruit advertising sponsors who'd be delighted to be associated with classy artists and the imprint of the Times.

If you haven't noticed, music has a powerful mojo for advertisers. TV commercials have used pop songs to sell product for years. Lexus currently has a series of TV ads featuring Costello and John Legend seated in a Lexus, simply talking about their favorite music (Elvis sings the praises of Beethoven). But what they're really selling is coolness by association. The same association could apply to us via a giveaway series. It would encourage readers to see the paper in a new light, as not just a news-gathering organization but a cultural engine. If we surrounded the music with news, reviews and features from our staff, it could also expose new visitors to our formidable music critics and reporters.

Could this really work? For a reality check, I called Jim Guerinot, an industry free-thinker who manages Nine Inch Nails, Gwen Stefani and Social Distortion. "Are you kidding — that's a great idea," he says. "There are tons of these Hall-of-Fame quality heritage artists who don't sell records anymore. It would be a real coup for them to reach their target demo through the newspaper and have the cachet of being an artist of the week or month."

Having the Times showcase new music would do more than attract advertising — it would help transform the image of the paper. "It could redefine the paper by making it a destination site for music fans," says Guerinot. "On the net, the big challenge is always about providing a filter for people. It would make the Times, with its critical voice, into a gatekeeper. People are looking for someone to show them the way — why shouldn't it be the L.A. Times?"

Okay, more good points! Nice to see, also, that Nine Inch Nails' manager would be on board—after all, his client isn't too big of a fan of the current system. (And he actually embraces the idea of a "critical voice"! Be still my heart.)

There's more outlining of the plan—why it might attract advertising, or new readers—in the rest of the column, as well as some of the possible drawbacks: Retail balking, etc. Here's the column's closing paragraph:

Giving music away doesn't mean it has lost its value, just that its value is no longer moored to the price of a CD. Like it or not, the CD is dying, as is the culture of newsprint. People want their music — and their news — in new ways. It's time we embraced change instead of always worrying if some brash new idea — like giving away music — would tarnish our sober minded image. When businesses are faced with radical change, they are usually forced to ask — is it a threat or an opportunity? Guess which choice is the right annswer.

But for Tribune, the Times' parent company, the "right answer" may not be so obvious—after all, the editorial higher-ups are the same folks who unleashed the lobotomized Red Eye, a delightful paper in Chicago that brings together the archaicness of newsprint with the brain-deadedness of omg.yahoo.com. Why entice your readers in a new way when you can condescend to them with whittled-to-the-bone wire copy?

Goldstein's killed column [LA Observed]
Patrick Goldstein: The Big Picture [LA Times]