The Friday Informer: Exit Strategy
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The nation’s critics have been lamenting the slow bleed out of the music industry for some time now, but last week it really felt like someone in upper management had finally gotten around to reading those self-penned obituaries, and that it had given them cost-cutting ideas. This is a fatally flawed strategy, as far as I am concerned, because the industry is doing the funniest things these days, and such tragic tales are what sell papers. At least Pierre is back on the raft.
Other ideas for critical alternatives to print may be found, it has been suggested, on—gasp!—the internet. To be clear, we’re talking about real journalists and not those trendy bloggers who go the distance with passion and knowledge…for 27 hours…straight…and take their own photographs…for free.
Now, critics go to more concerts than your average human and sometimes they find themselves transformed into something of a Jane Goodall of the concert hall, observing the behavior patterns of the native audience. They might applaud the gathered masses for their patient endurance of performances that leave professional concertgoers eyeing the exits. Sometimes they’re admittedly surprised by the crowd’s sophistication. And sometimes, they just feel like shaking someone.
While we’ve been afraid to take our eyes off our favorite critics for fear they might disappear altogether, some other long-given-up-for-dead materials have resurfaced. Still no word on Morty’s 8-tracks, but this was the important part.
And no matter how dark things get, new music is apparently quite safe in Cuba (bottom of post).