I was writing a coupla weeks ago about how the major tabloids had stopped covering the local music scene within anything remotely close to thoroughness. Missing the WBLS Free Fest is one, missing Valerie Simpsons return to the stage following the passing of her husband Nick Ashford is something else again.
You would think between four tabs, two weekly arts mag, a what's on guide and an institutionalized culture mag devoted to the region, everything would be covered and well at that. But you would be wrong. Unlike ten years ago, big concerts, big bands, get ignored on a consistent basis.
However, relegated Madonna to the website, as New York Post did with Madonna last week, is chilling. I thought Hardeep Phull's review was awful but that's a matter of taste. I didn't think it was poorly written, merely completely wrong. But to send it, tails between its legs, to the website is bizarre. When did fashion take the place of pop music at NYP? Why have they stopped seriously covering music. All you have is that bare minimum Tuesday round up of new releases, everything is purely random and with no thought forming behind it. There is no serious attempt to cover pop music as newsworthy item, as a living breathing entity to be seen within its own dichotomy (or do I mean paradigm?).
Look at the Post's real estate and business sections: they work like an ongoing argument between editorial and readers on the nature of both. Business is especially a world unto itself with heroes and zeroes and money bringing out new heroes and zeroes every week. Music works as a part of a larger framework with no inner life and with even its biggest stars relegated to the sidelines.
That's what has happened, music has stopped mattering to the world at large…