Last Rock Critic to Music Bloggers: They took our jobs!

This March I sat in a SXSW panel with Rolling Stone/Spin writer railing the social Web for “running me out of a job.” He was mad about bloggers not writing negative reviews. He was upset about this new attention to immediacy and the thirst for “new content now” and how it hurts long-form journalism. Frankly, he complained and moaned for the entire panel.

Eventually I found myself shouting from the crowd, “So Chris, what’s your solution to this? Do you think it’s going to stop?” The audience laughed, and he resumed complaining — no answer given.

Later that day, at my own panel, I referenced his points and provided counterpoints multiple times. It wasn’t until halfway through the panel – and after I’d made those counterpoints — that Chris came in late and listened quietly, then left before I could introduce myself when the panel concluded.

Just like forgetting to read Rolling Stone and Spin, I forgot to remember Chris for the last two months.

But a friend just sent me this video of him ranting about exactly the same subject earlier this week. (Note: NSFW, as it’s full of expletives. Sorry it auto-plays).

In just over 10 minutes, Chris tears down Hype Machine for aggregating music (arguably one of the best ways to discover new music out there right now) and tears down bloggers for choosing to only review good music (in a world where everyone thinks they’re Susan Boyle [but they're not], how can this be a bad thing?).

And even more telling, he acts highly exasperated that concert goers are TwitPic’ing and liveblogging concerts before he can get back to his office, write a review, run it by an editor, coordinate photos from a photographer, send to a printer, let the ink dry and mail to a subscriber so his readers can read a review. Huh?

The solutions he offers? Oh, he didn’t offer any. Again.

Stupid bloggers.