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barthel:

This is the piece I’ve been working on the last couple weeks. It’s assessing the state of the loudness war in 2011 and concludes that artists are starting to push back. I got to interview two of my favorite mastering engineers (I know!) as well as Derek from Sleigh Bells, who talks a little about the direction of the new album, if that’s the kind of thing you’re interested in.

rawkblog:

A seemingly thorough overview with a handful of good points, but it slightly embellishes Pitchfork’s influence (and completely misses the symbiotic relationship with blogs and competitors like Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and the Fader) and bristles with an ugly veneer of snobbery that’s as bad as the groundless elitism it claims the site’s guilty of. 

The cultural capital section particularly misses the point: it’s fans who are guilty of chasing that particular paper, not the bands, who (pre-Hipster Runoff, at least?) presumably have just been trying to make cool songs as their credibility waxes and wanes around them. 

It also ponders why Pitchfork hasn’t produced a quote-unquote great critical voice in the last 15 years—but who has? This is a product of our infinitely stratified era, not Pitchfork’s writers. Throughout, it complains that Pitchfork fails to examine music in broader contexts and then fails to examine Pitchfork in a broader context.

But I could write a whole book on the subject, so I’ll save more of this for that.