Revenge of the Earnest: Fighting Snark and Sarcasm in Indie Music Journalism

Some time last week, Chaz Bundwick-- the South Carolinian behind Toro Y Moi-- released a Toro Y Moi remix of Odd Future member, and the recently Racecar Brown reviewed Tyler, the Creator's song "French." That probably shouldn't have been a big deal, but then Chris Weingarten, the man behind 1000 Times Yes who famously reviewed 1000 albums in single Twitter posts, took Bundwick to task, accusing him of bandwagoning.

Chris Cantalini, purveyor of indie blog Gorilla vs. Bear shot back, starting a war of the 140-character tweets that the Daily Swarm covered here. It's interesting, to be sure, but not precisely the point I'm getting to, merely the catalyst behind it.

I get to the point after the jump.

I will NOT write an essay about Arcade Fire winning Album of the Year.

The title of this, that's what I said to myself Sunday night after seeing Twitter explode (both positively and negatively) regarding Arcade Fire winning the Grammy for Album of the Year for their 2010 record The Suburbs.

It's going to be too overdone. There will be nothing left to say. All of my music critic friends are already making snarky jokes about it. Those were the justifications I whispered to myself.

See, on Sunday night, I live tweeted the Grammys without actually watching the Grammys. Part of this was because I like live-tweeting, part of it was because I don't like watching the Grammys, and part of it was a sort of social experiment, devised to see how much of the pomp and circumstance can come through in a parade of like-minded people speaking in 140 characters about the same event.

Hit the break for more.

Monologues and Dialogs in Shakespeare and Facebook

There are times I think I like reading Shakespeare more than I like seeing it performed. Part of that is language, of course. Fired at you by modern performers, all quick-witted like they actually know what they're saying, it's easy to get lost in the archaic language. The man's references and double entendres were intelligent, but without the benefit of having his version of English being as clear to me as my own, I won't notice them unless I have the time to read the words on my own. Some of Shakespeare's best double entendres actually need research, such as the title of one play, "Much Ado About Nothing," that seems innocuous until you realize that "Nothing" was a Elizabethan slang term for sex.

The Long-Term Effects of Social Networking's Ubiquity

I like talking to people I disagree with.

Really, I do.

If you pay attention to my Shameless Self-Promotion series, you know that I do some writing as a critic, and I think part of my attraction to dissenting opinion is rooted in that critical mindset. If I can find another person who can give me a reasoned argument to a side of an argument I happen to disagree with, I find that not only impressive but respectable. Even though I have an opposing mindset to this person, the spirit behind our mindsets is the same. We've both come to our ideas from a place of intense thought, one that's carefully weighed the arguments for both sides.