Idolator

Every week in the "Shhhh-it!" AnonIMous Super-Secret Music-Biz Interview Series (S-I!AS-SM-BIS for, uh, short) we interview a grizzled music industry veteran via the topsy-turvy world of instant messaging. This week brings an interview with TheThingThatShouldNotBe, an editor at a metal magazine and a longtime aficionado of the genre. TheThingThatShouldNotBe has a lot to say about the state of metal today and is fairly sanguine about the prospects for metal print magazines in this deleterious time for the music industry. He poses a theory as to why metal fans are so devoted, chastises Idolator for its lack of metal coverage, and takes on the lack of metal on year-end lists, particularly that of Pitchfork:

TheThingThatShouldNotBe: i mean, pitchfork reviewed a fistful of metal releases throughout the year, some quite favorably, but when it came time to make up their top 50 list, not one metal title was on there
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: same with the onion av club list - not one metal title
StumpyPete1975: I think it's the problem with consensus
StumpyPete1975: there is that one metal guy on staff
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: it bugs me because they're not claiming to be parochial indie-only sites, they're claiming to be covering the best of current music
StumpyPete1975: yep
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: and yet, when the year ends, their true colors are revealed
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: i mean, i don't have to pretend to like bon iver or whoeverthefuck, you know?
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: when i make a list of the best albums of the year, it's gonna be the best METAL albums of the year, and everyone reading it knows that going in
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: but pitchfork wants to expand their stylistic purview - until they don't
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: and it winds up being disrespectful
TheThingThatShouldNotBe: and an inaccurate portrayal of culture as it exists on the ground

Metal machine music after the jump!

This is what you've all been waiting for, right?

THE GOOD: Nos. 50-41 would have made an awesome alternate-universe top 10, what with Marnie Stern, Ponytail, High Places, and Beach House all being within. Alas.
THE BAD: I will not quibble with the No. 1 choice and the reasons for its placement being wholly attributed to its comforting throwback nature ("The threads of Brian Wilson's intricate coastal pop, Appalachian folk, modern indie rock, Grateful Dead jams, and other influences are masterfully synthesized in the band's harmonies and simply orchestrated but constantly shifting instrumental arrangements"... "pastoral tendencies"); instead, I will just chalk its absurdly high placement up to "yet another reason why this year needs to be put out to pasture ASAP."
THE WHAAA? Those who "follow" Pitchfork as a hobby probably won't be surprised by any of the picks for the top 10—the fake 'Fork top 10 posted by the NME earlier this week, which was reportedly based off the site's highest-numbered reviews of the year, had a remarkable overlap with the real one. It even got No Age's No. 3 ranking right! (The only album from the proposed top 10 that didn't make the real one: Fucked Up's The Chemistry Of Common Life, which came in at No. 17.)

Pitchfork's big pile of lists continues to grow with today's unveiling of how its readers poll turned out. While there was some grumbling about the site limiting the number of options for each category (largely to Pitchforky type acts and albums, understandably), in the end, things likely would have come out the same way. The biggish indie-type albums in a year without a agreed-upon album of the year—TV On The Radio, Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver, Deerhunter—rose to the top. I imagine the lists assembled by the staff will be a little more surprising in their diversity, but all in all, the results of this poll may top the 2008 list of Year-End Lists Least Likely To Expose You To Anything You Haven't Already Heard Or Chosen To Ignore.

THE GOOD: Hmmm, each of the 150 albums chosen by the 'fork received at least one first-place vote. Yay for diversity?
THE BAD: Nine Inch Nails' The Slip at No. 18 is hardly a crisis of any sort, or even anything to get worked up over, but it may very well be evidence that Trent's fanbase engaged in a bit of Terry Steinbach-level ballot stuffing.
THE WHAAA? In the current overheated age, is the idea of an "underrated" album even possible? I feel like I heard plenty hyping nearly all the albums that made that list's top ten, especially the efforts put forth by Wolf Parade and Of Montreal. I guess there might be a woefully under-promoted and examined disc out there, but it's definitely not going to be one on a list decided by the power of democracy.

Every week in the "Shhhh-it!" AnonIMous Super-Secret Music-Biz Interview Series (S-I!AS-SM-BIS for, uh, short) we interview a grizzled music industry veteran via the controlled chaos of instant messaging. This week we bring you Sledge, the editor and proprietor of a long-running music Webzine. Online music zines, particularly the ones that have been around a while, sit in a precarious position, balanced between the huge sites like Pitchfork and the teeming blog masses. Some big ones, like Stylus and Splendid, have gone belly-up in the past few years. We asked Sledge—who was very affable—about the pressure to get "bloggier" or more like Pitchfork, whether digital servicing of media works for them, problems with publicists, and suggestions for writing an effective press release:

StumpyPete1975: what suggestions would you offer to bands or publicists doing promoting to you?
Sledge: well, one suggestion is: if you're writing a press release, don't make it a full-length review.
Sledge: simple and straightforward is the best.
StumpyPete1975: like a few grafs?
StumpyPete1975: what should it contain?
Sledge: in my mind, just the pertinent info regarding a release. not how the album should make us feel
Sledge: it just seems disingenuous that the publicist can LOVE every band they're promoting

More insights after the jump!