When you realize that the NYT article was all about generating clicks, then the positions of the critics makes sense. The best thing to do is not give these idiots oxygen.
I do agree to some extent that the way the NYT presented the article and list was designed to generate engagement. But after watching their defense video, and based on reading some of their writings on music and other topics, I think these people are actually as smug and utterly convinced of their own "expertise" as they appear.
I can almost hear the conversation when they hired these so-called critics... "we don't really have a budget for this... just give us an hour of 'edgy'."
That's where I'm struggling. I imagine the NYT is pretty happy that their music criticism section is garnering any attention at all, be it good or bad. They're probably all half-heartedly high-fiving each other over this, happy to have generated clicks, but internally embarrassed to have been exposed as little more than condescending, Ivy-league snobs who are more focused on appearing hip (both to the youths and to the diversity overlords) than actually appreciating music.
Ted, your analysis is correct but i would suggest you amend your conclusion "Trust is the most scarce thing in the media landscape right now. "
It is not trust that is lacking: Rick Beato, you, and many others receive that trust in spades. Instead, like all institutions, it is trustworthiness that is scarce. Until those running institutions (including but not limited to the media landscape) place the mission and reputation of the institution above themselves, this will continue to be an existential problem for institutions of all sorts.
I cancelled my subscription to the NYT when they fired their last jazz critic and stopped coverage of the jazz scene in the city and surrounding boroughs.
NYC and its jazz scene are still one of the most important hubs for creative music anywhere in the world. Not covering creative improvised music, composition, arranging, and visionary musical thinking in the place that was home base for the evolution of said things was enough for me.
Indicative of the elite Left, of which the NYT is their mouthpiece. Voting is too important to be left to the hoi poloi. Corrective measures, applied in an opaque way, are necessary to align voting to pre-defined outcomes.
Truth be told, this isn't an issue that maps onto partisan groups. Bad survey methodology is bad regardless of one's partisanship. Might I agree with some of the insider/critics on some political matters? Yes, but this was still a poor method to get a top 30 songwriter list. Much as I like to bash NYT for being spineless centrists, that's mostly in the editorial department, and their music criticism I can't hang on red-and-blue politics
Edit: of course, turns out this "Bill Lacey" guy is a far-reactionary nutcase.
I find your comment, Ben, to be a lot more tribal that Bill's.
Bill is being transparent. You, though, have a POV you're obscuring. Which is one of the things people can't stand about the critics in this NYT listicle.
I'm not obscuring anything. You want my perspective on this? I largely agree with Gioia and Beato. Now, I haven't put together my own list (and I'm not all that into top X lists), but I'm ok with people having their preferences, except that NYT put out this list that was supposed to be "definitive" but with bad methodology. That's it. What more do you want me to say?
I hate to agree with this, but this comment reflects the leadership of the Democratic Party as well, and their attempt to control their most progressive members (AOC, for example). They are too beholden to their donors and spend too much time listening to their paid pollsters and consultants, who continually tell them what they want to hear.
I'll say what I said in the comments on Rick's video: I knew their takes would be garbage when I heard one of the "critics" say "white male" with derision dripping from his voice. These are people who judge everything by irrelevant criteria.
David -- unfortunately I have to completely agree with you. WTF with the overwrought phenotype fetish, Jesus, it's so not helping when it infects every space for superficial reasons. Well, at least, he showed his cards with that one comment, for better or worse...!
Yep. Depends on how many paid subscribers think the NYT is their paper of record. That's a subset of the published number. But as you say ... still ...
People value authenticity and they are not getting it from corporate legacy institutions like the New York Times and that is why people flock to YouTubers like Rick Beato. They are authentic and people can sense that.
I don’t think one must be a musician to be a music critic. That would lead to its own form of smugness and high-falutin’ arrogance. However, I do think humility is essential.
I remember when I was 20, that’s what I lacked, particularly when it came to musical taste – my own and others. (I’m now 67). Thankfully, this was long before the internet could record my every arrogant proclamation.
I wrote my senior history thesis on the be-bop revolution in jazz in the 1940s. But I remember that I wrote two jazz reviews for my college paper, then stopped when I realized I understood neither the music nor the musicians sufficiently. Made me feel that music critics might better actually be storytellers, of the lives of musicians they cover. (I recommend AB Spellman’s “Four Lives”, in that regard)
The problem w the NYT critic in question is that he seems to still speak with the unshakably ardent conviction of a 20-year-old, though he’s now 50 and life should have taught him better. That he thought Young Thug should be on his paper’s “30 Greatest” list, well …
Strangely, decades later, the music I thought was great at 20, I still think is great. The music I thought was awful, I continue to abhor. (Though I do now appreciate the Grateful Dead, I cannot say I’m a fan of Billy Joel’s).
I’ve absorbed new genres, and I don’t hold to the idea that all music is good, but some is better than others. I have strongly held opinions. I guess I just don’t go around lecturing people on them any more.
And I’m grateful not to be invited unwittingly into circular firing squads like this NYT music-critic video podcast.
Thanks for this great comment Sam. I agree with all you said. I have a music degree and have my own ideas about who is great...but (see my comment here about this) I've always understood that music is many different things to different people. I *want* to believe that there is a way to pin all music somewhere on some universal quality scale...but at age 63, I've realized that this is hopeless because it can't be proven, and music means so many different things to us.
(Musician with a Juilliard degree here) I've always said that how you might even begin to attempt to rank musicians/songwriters/songs *starts* with one crucial thing: what you *believe* the purpose of music is (because nobody can know) . And music has many purposes for many people:
- it's having fun
- it's dancing
- it's emotion
- it's innovation
- it's introspection
- it's social commentary
- it's revolution
- it's technical mastery
- it's memories
- it's about storytelling
- it's craft
- it's culture- or context-specific
- it's universal
- it's live performance
- it's studio mastery
(etc.)
No songwriter, no music can "win" in all these purposes. Most can't "win" in more than 1-2 of them. So if you're going to critique (or rank) music, you damn well better start by defining the *purposes* of music you believe are most important—or that you're establishing as the primary criteria for your critique or ranking. If you don't, your critique/ranking is worthless.
Ugh. I have been a subscriber to The NY Times for years. But this list was appalling. My. God. They were blasted in The NY Times comments section by readers too. I enjoyed the clips from Rick Beato. He tells it like it is. Those ”music critics” from the NY Times are a bunch of pompous fools. Ivory tower type folks who think they are so smart to think that they could ever compete with someone like Billy Joel. It’s laughable. They looked so ignorant. They tried to be a “Big Shot” lol. Didn’t work out so well for them. Billy Joel tried to warn them with his awesome songwriting.
I don't think it is fair to refer to the nyt as the paper of record. It is an agenda driven newspaper trying to stay relevant. The cohort that thinks the paper is still relevant is disappearing daily. May it die a painful death & never return. In terms of media, GO SUBSTACK!!! 🤘😎🤘
Like most big media these days, the NYTimes is also scared sh*tless of Donald Trump. Their both-sidesism (or at least neglectful) coverage of his administration has been intolerable. (Also true of NPR.)
It was fun to hear Beato beat down these people with the big fancy degrees, though! Looks like all that education has done for them was help them get a job at a culturally bankrupt institute like NYT.
I think this is a good lesson on what a news outlet like the NYT now is. When people refer to it as "the paper of record" it applies to the news division, where the Times has invested in the largest and most comprehensive array of trained journalists, based in the widest array of locations globally. (No matter what you think of any editorial spin, or of the opinion editorialists on staff.) It does *not* apply to non-news elements of the paper. Those elements, some good, some bad, are features that provide reading entertainment for readers with a variety of interests, attracting print or online subscribers and generating revenues that support the news division.
So the idiotic and self-parodic pseudo-critics that Rick Beato skewers have nothing to do with the Times as a "newspaper," and they illustrate that any authority the Times may possess by virtue of its reporting range and quality should never, ever be ascribed to other elements of the publication.
That said, despite Ted's explicit description of the panel in the Times video, I was completely unprepared for the behavior of Jon Caramonica: the snark and theatrical laughter dismissing the Berklee College of Music, and the arrogance of throwing the comment in the air to the self-satisfied approval of the others around the table. Ugh! The Times owes it readers an focused apology for such a display of smug disrespect. I was sorry to see Rick Beato, who needs no defense, drawn into self-justification in response, but I understood he was provoked by Caramonica's dismissal of conservatory-trained expertise, expertise which Beato ordinarily wears lightly.
The editorial management of the Times clearly needs to reexamine the practices that allowed this self-discrediting video to be posted, and equally its quality control processes for assessing the validity of its entire range of entertainment "products."
Thanks to Ted for amplifying Rick Beato's response!
Many years ago a critic referred to The Times' arts coverage as "the culture gulch." For a brief while, 1975-80 more or less, it had excellent cultural reporting. Not any longer.
Beato’s beat down was way more interesting then the NY Times video
NYT should be so fortunate to have a fraction of the viewers and expertise that Rick represents.
When you realize that the NYT article was all about generating clicks, then the positions of the critics makes sense. The best thing to do is not give these idiots oxygen.
I do agree to some extent that the way the NYT presented the article and list was designed to generate engagement. But after watching their defense video, and based on reading some of their writings on music and other topics, I think these people are actually as smug and utterly convinced of their own "expertise" as they appear.
I can almost hear the conversation when they hired these so-called critics... "we don't really have a budget for this... just give us an hour of 'edgy'."
Amen
That's where I'm struggling. I imagine the NYT is pretty happy that their music criticism section is garnering any attention at all, be it good or bad. They're probably all half-heartedly high-fiving each other over this, happy to have generated clicks, but internally embarrassed to have been exposed as little more than condescending, Ivy-league snobs who are more focused on appearing hip (both to the youths and to the diversity overlords) than actually appreciating music.
Ted, your analysis is correct but i would suggest you amend your conclusion "Trust is the most scarce thing in the media landscape right now. "
It is not trust that is lacking: Rick Beato, you, and many others receive that trust in spades. Instead, like all institutions, it is trustworthiness that is scarce. Until those running institutions (including but not limited to the media landscape) place the mission and reputation of the institution above themselves, this will continue to be an existential problem for institutions of all sorts.
David, very well said. You nailed it.
I cancelled my subscription to the NYT when they fired their last jazz critic and stopped coverage of the jazz scene in the city and surrounding boroughs.
NYC and its jazz scene are still one of the most important hubs for creative music anywhere in the world. Not covering creative improvised music, composition, arranging, and visionary musical thinking in the place that was home base for the evolution of said things was enough for me.
Indicative of the elite Left, of which the NYT is their mouthpiece. Voting is too important to be left to the hoi poloi. Corrective measures, applied in an opaque way, are necessary to align voting to pre-defined outcomes.
Truth be told, this isn't an issue that maps onto partisan groups. Bad survey methodology is bad regardless of one's partisanship. Might I agree with some of the insider/critics on some political matters? Yes, but this was still a poor method to get a top 30 songwriter list. Much as I like to bash NYT for being spineless centrists, that's mostly in the editorial department, and their music criticism I can't hang on red-and-blue politics
Edit: of course, turns out this "Bill Lacey" guy is a far-reactionary nutcase.
you can tell from his comment.
I find your comment, Ben, to be a lot more tribal that Bill's.
Bill is being transparent. You, though, have a POV you're obscuring. Which is one of the things people can't stand about the critics in this NYT listicle.
I'm not obscuring anything. You want my perspective on this? I largely agree with Gioia and Beato. Now, I haven't put together my own list (and I'm not all that into top X lists), but I'm ok with people having their preferences, except that NYT put out this list that was supposed to be "definitive" but with bad methodology. That's it. What more do you want me to say?
I hate to agree with this, but this comment reflects the leadership of the Democratic Party as well, and their attempt to control their most progressive members (AOC, for example). They are too beholden to their donors and spend too much time listening to their paid pollsters and consultants, who continually tell them what they want to hear.
Regardless of Bill Lacey's politics, I think this comment is right on. Of course, it applies to the elite Right in spades.
I'll say what I said in the comments on Rick's video: I knew their takes would be garbage when I heard one of the "critics" say "white male" with derision dripping from his voice. These are people who judge everything by irrelevant criteria.
Pretty funny since, with regards to the only women on the panel, they were basically all "white men".
David -- unfortunately I have to completely agree with you. WTF with the overwrought phenotype fetish, Jesus, it's so not helping when it infects every space for superficial reasons. Well, at least, he showed his cards with that one comment, for better or worse...!
At one point Morris refers to the reaction of "the Negroes in the room." I have no words.
The NYT is the paper of record for about 1% of the U.S. population ...
Popular with bird cages and littler boxes everywhere.
More like 3.8% but still
Yep. Depends on how many paid subscribers think the NYT is their paper of record. That's a subset of the published number. But as you say ... still ...
People value authenticity and they are not getting it from corporate legacy institutions like the New York Times and that is why people flock to YouTubers like Rick Beato. They are authentic and people can sense that.
I don’t think one must be a musician to be a music critic. That would lead to its own form of smugness and high-falutin’ arrogance. However, I do think humility is essential.
I remember when I was 20, that’s what I lacked, particularly when it came to musical taste – my own and others. (I’m now 67). Thankfully, this was long before the internet could record my every arrogant proclamation.
I wrote my senior history thesis on the be-bop revolution in jazz in the 1940s. But I remember that I wrote two jazz reviews for my college paper, then stopped when I realized I understood neither the music nor the musicians sufficiently. Made me feel that music critics might better actually be storytellers, of the lives of musicians they cover. (I recommend AB Spellman’s “Four Lives”, in that regard)
The problem w the NYT critic in question is that he seems to still speak with the unshakably ardent conviction of a 20-year-old, though he’s now 50 and life should have taught him better. That he thought Young Thug should be on his paper’s “30 Greatest” list, well …
Strangely, decades later, the music I thought was great at 20, I still think is great. The music I thought was awful, I continue to abhor. (Though I do now appreciate the Grateful Dead, I cannot say I’m a fan of Billy Joel’s).
I’ve absorbed new genres, and I don’t hold to the idea that all music is good, but some is better than others. I have strongly held opinions. I guess I just don’t go around lecturing people on them any more.
And I’m grateful not to be invited unwittingly into circular firing squads like this NYT music-critic video podcast.
Thanks for this great comment Sam. I agree with all you said. I have a music degree and have my own ideas about who is great...but (see my comment here about this) I've always understood that music is many different things to different people. I *want* to believe that there is a way to pin all music somewhere on some universal quality scale...but at age 63, I've realized that this is hopeless because it can't be proven, and music means so many different things to us.
(Musician with a Juilliard degree here) I've always said that how you might even begin to attempt to rank musicians/songwriters/songs *starts* with one crucial thing: what you *believe* the purpose of music is (because nobody can know) . And music has many purposes for many people:
- it's having fun
- it's dancing
- it's emotion
- it's innovation
- it's introspection
- it's social commentary
- it's revolution
- it's technical mastery
- it's memories
- it's about storytelling
- it's craft
- it's culture- or context-specific
- it's universal
- it's live performance
- it's studio mastery
(etc.)
No songwriter, no music can "win" in all these purposes. Most can't "win" in more than 1-2 of them. So if you're going to critique (or rank) music, you damn well better start by defining the *purposes* of music you believe are most important—or that you're establishing as the primary criteria for your critique or ranking. If you don't, your critique/ranking is worthless.
Ugh. I have been a subscriber to The NY Times for years. But this list was appalling. My. God. They were blasted in The NY Times comments section by readers too. I enjoyed the clips from Rick Beato. He tells it like it is. Those ”music critics” from the NY Times are a bunch of pompous fools. Ivory tower type folks who think they are so smart to think that they could ever compete with someone like Billy Joel. It’s laughable. They looked so ignorant. They tried to be a “Big Shot” lol. Didn’t work out so well for them. Billy Joel tried to warn them with his awesome songwriting.
Tom Wolfe tackled art snobbery in critics quite well in "The Painted Word." Same dynamic at work here.
I don't think it is fair to refer to the nyt as the paper of record. It is an agenda driven newspaper trying to stay relevant. The cohort that thinks the paper is still relevant is disappearing daily. May it die a painful death & never return. In terms of media, GO SUBSTACK!!! 🤘😎🤘
Like most big media these days, the NYTimes is also scared sh*tless of Donald Trump. Their both-sidesism (or at least neglectful) coverage of his administration has been intolerable. (Also true of NPR.)
It was fun to hear Beato beat down these people with the big fancy degrees, though! Looks like all that education has done for them was help them get a job at a culturally bankrupt institute like NYT.
I think this is a good lesson on what a news outlet like the NYT now is. When people refer to it as "the paper of record" it applies to the news division, where the Times has invested in the largest and most comprehensive array of trained journalists, based in the widest array of locations globally. (No matter what you think of any editorial spin, or of the opinion editorialists on staff.) It does *not* apply to non-news elements of the paper. Those elements, some good, some bad, are features that provide reading entertainment for readers with a variety of interests, attracting print or online subscribers and generating revenues that support the news division.
So the idiotic and self-parodic pseudo-critics that Rick Beato skewers have nothing to do with the Times as a "newspaper," and they illustrate that any authority the Times may possess by virtue of its reporting range and quality should never, ever be ascribed to other elements of the publication.
That said, despite Ted's explicit description of the panel in the Times video, I was completely unprepared for the behavior of Jon Caramonica: the snark and theatrical laughter dismissing the Berklee College of Music, and the arrogance of throwing the comment in the air to the self-satisfied approval of the others around the table. Ugh! The Times owes it readers an focused apology for such a display of smug disrespect. I was sorry to see Rick Beato, who needs no defense, drawn into self-justification in response, but I understood he was provoked by Caramonica's dismissal of conservatory-trained expertise, expertise which Beato ordinarily wears lightly.
The editorial management of the Times clearly needs to reexamine the practices that allowed this self-discrediting video to be posted, and equally its quality control processes for assessing the validity of its entire range of entertainment "products."
Thanks to Ted for amplifying Rick Beato's response!
Many years ago a critic referred to The Times' arts coverage as "the culture gulch." For a brief while, 1975-80 more or less, it had excellent cultural reporting. Not any longer.
I think the Times got what they really wanted: publicity.