Questions That I Am Asking Myself In 2022
Questions that I am asking myself at the beginning of this year…
Why does Consequence of Sound or NME have to report everything that Ted Nugent says? Why do they think he is still relevant? Do we care if he is furious that Joan Jett was included in a 12-yeat-old list ranking the 100 greatest guitarists? Do we care if he protests the induction of Grandmaster Flash and Madonna in the Rock & Roll of Fame? We should not care for half a second about what this guy hurls, but he nevertheless manages to get full articles in major news outlets. Could he be a good old clickbait?
Why does Pitchfork think it’s necessary to rescore albums they have already scored and reviewed? Their notation system is already ridiculous enough but they are now ready to admit they were wrong on many occasions. They recently regraded 19 albums, and some took a significant upgrade (Rilo Kiley’s “Take-Offs and Landings” went from 4 to 8, and Liz Phair’s self-titled album went from 0 to 6!) whereas others received a significant devaluation (Grimes’s Miss Anthropocene went from 8.2 to 6.9). Isn’t it a confession that the art of music reviewing is very shady, to say the least? Why do they still keep these insane decimal numbers?
Why does Phoebe Bridgers get so many articles? Variety, Vulture, Boston Globe, NY Times. Esquire, Chicago Maroon, Billboard, Stereogum, NPR, Time Magazine, Pitchfork, Chicago SunTimes, Spin, La Times, Uproxx, Bloomberg, Hypebeast, Grunge, Rolling Stone, W Magazine, NME, New Yorker… and I am only citing the most famous ones, have all written articles about her this year. This girl received tons of press, she toured but didn’t even release an album in 2021. She only has to sneeze, and Pitchfork will write something, she is probably the most covered artist in these past 2 years. Come on, there are tons of talented people who never get any press.
Why do so many rappers die so young? This year we lost DMX (50), Biz Markie (57), Young Dolph (36), Slim 400 (33), Drakeo the Ruler (28) to only name the most famous ones, and many have died of violent deaths (Young Dolph, Slim 400, Drakeo the Ruler). This is nothing new and there’re no reasons this will change any time soon. This is a sad symptom of many deep problems, but nobody seems to want to talk about it.
Why do I keep finding out indie musicians who are anti-vaxx? Or at least musicians who express some deep disagreement with the vaccination policy (Joseph Arthur and Kholars just to name a few). Doesn’t this go against their own interest? Touring is a big part of any musician’s life, and it contributes to a lot of their revenues. They should understand that only vaccination will make touring possible again. The most puzzling part is that I am not talking about country musicians/Trump supporters, but indie musicians who are suddenly pretending to be science experts whereas they obviously understand very little about mRNA vaccines. Their language is simply irresponsible, reactionary, and goes against their own interest. But they are convinced they are the free-thinkers, so there’s no hope.
These are some of the questions that I am asking myself at the beginning of this year. But, of course, I partly know the answers.
