I know that New York Times bashing is en vogue but I’ve never wanted to be part of that crowd.
It’s not the paper’s Lefty slant that’s got me upset, it’s the fact that they strive to lead on anything obscure, but will let the basics fall by.
Check out this story on the CMJ (College Media Journal) convention.
The author pounds away at the keyboard in an effort to craft the setting of bands on the cusp of breaking … some trying too hard (“At the CMJ showcases, some bands were still aiming for careers in current mass-market rock. They were the ones slavishly imitating Fall Out Boy’s punk-pop hooks and making music-video rock-star faces.”) and some just playing.
Why not SHOW us the scene. Take a freakin’ camera in there and talk to these bands, show them backstage, show them on the stage, show them doing anything and everything they do. Obviously there are copyright concerns with uploading mp3 files, but couldn’t the nytimes.com stafff simply offer us links to these bands so we could hear them for ourselves?
Instead, the only link in the story is to MySpace … WOW … MySpace … good thing they told us how to get there!
Editor’s note: I apologize for linking to Fall Out Boy’s website!!! Also, didn’t link to MySpace out of protest.
