Spotlight
The Flatliners: An Interview About Fake Leaks, National Pride, And Fitting In With Everyone
Most of the people I know who write about culture, be it music, video games, art, and movies are just like anyone else. Sure there are some bloggers and writers who are lucky enough to be compensated for their time and effort; but they’re more often than not the exception rather than the rule. Even on some of the more successful sites the people who make money are the owners while the content providers — the people hired to do the actual writing while owners focus on marketing — are commonly unpaid volunteers.
People who love writing and talking about the things that inspire them, are stoked when writing about that passion translates into any kind of payment — even if that payment is just in the form of promotional materials. Most of us don’t do this for money. In the nearly five years I’ve written for a relatively well known “scene” site, I’ve never made a dollar; if anything, I’ve lost money mailing heavy packages to make sure other writers I worked with had things to listen to and write about.
At this point I’m sure it looks like I’m about to unload. Squeeze both triggers and let the world know I’m sick of it. And I am frustrated, but not in the way I would have expected had I written this five years ago. What I’m sick of isn’t losing money. It isn’t even something mentioned yet. It’s a perception and tone that I see in the content of reviews and interviews that’s fueled by the comments of readers. What I’m sick of is the idea that we, the great unwashed masses of reviewers pouring out our ideas for your approval or consideration, are some kind of Illuminati.
For those who don’t recognize the term, the Illuminati is/was a supposed cabal of powerful people who used their connections to control the world. You’ve heard of them in jokes about the New World Order or the crazy mutterings of a relative who thinks a group of Jewish Bankers run the world from an underground bunker; maybe an episode of the X-Files or, more likely if you enjoyed your Friday nights out in high school or college, the Simpsons. It probably seems like a reach to consider the power of a culture blogger anything like the world choking grasp of one of the world’s oldest super villains, but after the way I’ve interacted with some readers I can’t help but make the connection.
For example a few years ago a man named Travis Morrison released a record called Travistan. The record was Morrison’s first solo album and his first release since disbanding his beloved underground post-punk unit The Dismemberment Plan. As a Dismemberment super fan the record initially disappointed me because it wasn’t an obvious continuation of his old band. However my disappointment was short lived, and after listening to the album a couple times I started to notice its charms, partly due to revisiting his old band and realizing Travistan actually sounded a lot like the band I was mad no longer existed.
The “goofy” lyrics were never goofier than anything found on a Plan record where Morrison sang about magical party invites or pouring champagne over his head during a lonely New Year’s. What I saw as a sudden abundance of keyboards over funky soul drumming was just an evolution of ideas the artist had explored at one point or another over every other album I owned by him, only this time on the same tracks. Travistan wasn’t the album of Travis Morrison’s career but it was a strong solo release that required the listener provide it some time to grow on them. The press disagreed.
In particular Pitchfork disagreed, though if you’d like to get specific one of their reviewers disagreed. The reviewer who handled the album wrote a now legendary savaging of Travistan, awarding it a 0.0. If you’d like to read it you can right here. My views on the review, and more importantly Pitchfork allowing it to be published without so much as a second take on it from another writer, are simple. There are bands that have no musical value for me that I can at least see why other people would enjoy. Creed, Nickleback, Paul Wall, or the Ying Yang Twins (7.9 and 7.4 scoring acts over at Pitchfork) all fall into those categories for me, but unless one of those artists killed and skinned my cat I’d be hard pressed to have the guts to say they’ve got no musical value at all; at least not anymore.
This isn’t a rant against Pitchfork, or even the person who wrote the offending review, so much as a rant against what happened when the review was published. I personally heard at least forty people mention that review when explaining why they wouldn’t even listen to, let alone, buy Travistan. They knew how they felt about it, because no one would publish a review with a score of 0.0 if it wasn’t deserved. In this case it wasn’t. In any way, shape, or form.
I’ve written reviews before that made me feel like kind of a dick before. I’ve even written reviews for album’s I gave zero’s to before. None of those had the effect of the Pitchfork review in question, hobbling the album coming out the gate and becoming an albatross around an artist’s career, but I’ve been guilty before. The reaction of the indie music populous to this review bothered me when it happened. A trusted source said something, and the listeners accepted it blindly. That’s a terrifying amount of power.
Surely at some point I’m going to write another negative review, though I haven’t written one since last August. Here is my commitment: if something gets a negative review here we’re going to do our darnedest to have someone else review it as well to get another perspective on the release, be it a record, book, movie, or painting. We’re not some kind of Illuminati. We’re just people giving a perspective, one that I hope to someday build a readership large enough for that the readers will openly challenge us when we get it wrong.
Growing up I idolized the writers who got me into bands like the Smoking Popes or Jesus Lizard, but for the life of me I can’t remember a single negative review any of them ever wrote. The Travistan one stands out because it’s become a piece of indie rock history, but it’s a rarity. Take what we, and any, reviewer says with a grain of salt. Never miss out on a Travistan because someone in a position of power says it has no value. We promise to do our best to make sure that when one of us says something is worthless we’ll do what we can to have someone else take a second look.
We’re just a bunch of dorks with too many records, books, DVD’s, posters, toys, and stickers. We’ve got no bunker or Batcave. Just a desire to write and tell you what we think is newsworthy. If you can relate please stick around.
