Perhaps the traditional print media feels a bit threatened by the new bloggers on the block?

for the record, i used the article as a point a discussion. i was interested in the idea of the article, less interested in the specific people mentioned...my references to people having the misfortune of being a**holes in no way directly reflects my opinion of the writers who happen to mentioned in the article, as i do not know them and i am not super-familar with any of their work.

disclaimers rock!

:p

"I don't know them, and am not super-familiar with their work, but they're assholes and no one understands what they're writing about."

Shouldn't you be sandwiched between Jack White and Julian Casablancas right about now?

I'm a full-time music journalist, which means I actually do it for a living.

While I would agree that Pitchfork is nigh-unreadable at times (not to mention juvenile and self-reverential), I find Sasha Frere-Jones' writing to be clear, well-thought out and interesting.

Remember: music writing is an art in and of itself, and should be judged on its own merits. A good ballet review is a good ballet review. A good dining review, likewise. It all depends on the quality of the writing, and the insights of the writer.

-Casey

I think the real subject of the Observer article (which proudly wields the non-word “Bloglish”) is music writing in general: Who cares if blogs are unreadable? Who are bloggers writing to but themselves?

SFJ's allowed to let his hair down when away from the New Yorker. The Voice guys are a slightly different matter as they appear to be paid bloggers. But then the Voice has been the standard-bearer of music-critic-incomprehensibility for some time, now.

Music writing is always going to be slightly odd to read. Dancing-About-Architecture blahblahblah. Unless they’re willing to relegate themselves to the empty hype of cheerleaderdom, letting loose with little more than "Omigawd (X band) is totally AWESOME!" the best critics will be continue to struggle (and often fail) to express their enthusiasm or disdain in multi-hyphenates and onomatopoetry.

I should note here that this is simply a comment on a blog, and is therefore allowed to make 25% less sense than any actual blog content.

I ran out of adjectives two months ago, and have resorted to using interjections to describe music. I give props to blogs that create their own obscure terminology, have inventive way of spelling, and cut corners on grammar.

I'd post in the heiroglyphs I created in third grade if anyone could read it.

How often the NY Times reported the same bombings in the Middle East. Aren't they just copy-and-pasting from articles 10-20 years ago? Maybe if they use words like "Bombify" or "Terrorimania" it'd be fresh.