Today, a proposal for a SXSW 2011 panel went up and caused quite a stir on the music blogger circuit.
The kids who invested hours downloading discographies and reading band bios have emerged from their parents’ “computer rooms” to become bonafide tastemakers. Armed with diverse external hard drives and an Internet savvy built on constantly prowling for more, these home office dwellers are inspiring droves of people to seek out new music. Seeing as Nickelback was last decade’s “most successful band,” and Rolling Stone Magazine extensively covers the Twilight movies, this army of blogging youths is vastly considered to be a blessing.
So far so good, right? Well, not if you’re Christopher Weingarten– the Rolling Stone/Village Voice/etc. contributor who inspired the panel in the first place, aptly named Curatorial Culture: The Case Against Christopher Weingarten. Ouch. You probably know Chris better as self-proclaimed “Last Rock Critic Standing” and the man behind 1000TimesYes, or for his absolute hatred of people like, well, probably me.
The thing is, a lot of times, we find ourselves agreeing with what Weingarten has to say. I mean, the guy is full of music opinion, awesome one-liners, but also what I sense to be a frustration with not being able to keep up– and I know the feeling. But according to the man behind the possible panel, Sawyer Jacobs, the Head of, um, Friendship at Underwater Peoples (for those of you who aren’t sure what that means, it’s just another way to say marketing if you’re a laid back kind of record label), the Curatorial Culture isn’t meant as an attack but as a conversation about a difference of opinion. “While it’s title may suggest combativeness, it is in fact a thesis infused with positivism,” Jacobs insists, “I fervently believe that personalized curating is the future of cultural criticism.”
(more…)
