#cokemachineglow

[cokemachineglow]

Irreverent, cultishly adored, and dearly missed, the music writers at cokemachineglow produced some of the greatest, weirdest, funniest, sharpest...

Not yet but soon-ish (next year!) a real thing you can hold: Writing Around Music 2005-2015, a collection of writing from cokemachineglow edited by, and featuring a new essay from, longtime CMG editor Clayton Purdom.

[iamjoemeyer]

#cokemachineglow (at The Westin Convention Center Pittsburgh)

[gutter-trash]

❤️ been searching for this for three years 🙌🏻 thank you #forgord #cokemachineglow

[itsthelinernotes]

Gord Downie - Coke Machine Glow Ok, so first this isn't a record, second this is another Tragically Hip related post. This is a book of poems from Gord Downie released in conjunction with his debut solo album by the same name. I always thought the book was only available with the CD but today I stumbled on it at a book store. I haven't read it yet but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm also hoping with the recent round of Hip reissues that maybe this album will also be pressed to vinyl eventually. Probably my favourite of Gord's solo work. . . . . . #GordDownie #CokeMachineGlow #records #Thelinernotes #albumart

[tashtoo]

#poetry #atwork compliments of #gordondownie and that #CokeMachineGlow #gorddowniescanada #thetragicallyhip (at The Flyer Alliance)

[themusicwordprocessor-blog]

Thoughts from the Archive: The Whiteness of Indie and the Incentives of Music Publications

So, there are only two articles on this site currently. It has been over six months since the creation of this site. Clearly, there is a problem.

There’s no big story here, other than that life is complicated, and writers like Nathan and I can’t always write as much as we want, even if we are deeply interested in a particular subject. That being said, I still like our (admittedly little) mission here at the Music Word Processor, and as such I’ll start posting more regularly here. To kick off this season of actually publishing articles on MWP, I’d like to share an article I wrote some time ago.

I originally published the piece below on my personal Tumblr, after having a reblog of an article by Oregonian critic David Greenwald called “On Pitchfork, Race and Indie Rock” come up on my dashboard. Since the topics I explore in this article fall under the purview of MWP, I thought it’d be good to share this article on MWP. Posting this archival piece also reminds me that I need to go ahead and finish the Kanye/Radiohead piece I’ve been thinking up for the bulk of 2016, which I will do soon -- be on the lookout! And thanks, as always, for reading. 

-Brice Ezell

Greenwald’s piece is really excellent. He’s one of my favorite writers at the moment – and he lives in Oregon, which makes him doubly cool. I miss Portland.

Almost as fascinating as his article is the direct response from P4K people on Twitter. Most notably, Craig Jenkins (one of P4K’s best writers) and Jessica Hopper (an excellent critic and editor recently hired by the publication) got in a debate with a few other music writers on Twitter that I follow. You can read the extent of the conversation here.

Aside from the fact that there’s a general resistance from the P4K camp to what are completely reasonable criticisms (i.e. not irrational P4K hating, which is a thing), what struck me about that interchange was a weird sense of obligations coming from Hopper and Jenkins’ arguments. Jenkins, bothered that the rebuttals to the original Pitchfork piece were “laser focused” on P4K, and not on the lack of diversity in other music sites, said, “here is what i’m saying in short: talk shit when your shop is in order. i can see where ours is improving.” Hopper later echoed this sentiment, saying to Corey Beasley (a PopMatters colleague of mine, who also writes for Cokemachineglow and the Village Voice) and Adam Downer (also Cokemachineglow), “…then think about what you guys can do to be part of the solution. Because you can be.”

On the one hand, Hopper and Jenkins are correct: all music writers should care about equal representation in the criticism world. Since we live in societies with systemic prejudices of all sorts, unless you’re doing something about it, you’re simply going with the flow.

However, the implication of Hopper and Jenkins’ point, specifically in relation to this issue, is disingenuous. Take P4K and one of the aforementioned publications, Cokemachineglow, as a comparative example. P4K is a multi-million dollar company with major advertisers. It runs two large profitable festivals per year (one in Chicago, the other in Paris), and has what is probably the biggest influence of any online publication. The magazine also publishes five new reviews five days a week, in addition to whatever features, song premieres, and the Pitch blogs they might have scheduled. P4K pays its writers and editors.

Cokemachineglow is, by Beasley’s description, “a Canadian-based website with a small (if loyal) readership” that doesn’t “have many new applicants.” (Author's note: At the end of 2015, CMG closed up shop.) CMG does not pay its writers, as they run no advertisements. From my reading of the site over the years (it’s a good ‘un), they don’t have a specific scheduling order for writing; that is to say, they don’t have an expectation for X number of pieces per day. They write and publish what they want.

So P4K and CMG have one thing in common: they both publish music reviews and features. Beyond that, however, to imply that both are on equal footing with respects to their ability to leverage change in the music writing community is insane. That’d be akin to likening a small startup company to the Koch brothers.

In his comments, Jenkins is right: P4K is doing work to improve on the issue of underrepresentation. I noticed a particular uptick in this direction when P4K brought Hopper on board. However, this doesn’t respond to much of what Greenwald was saying in his article, namely that it’s not just the writers themselves but also the music covered by P4K, in addition to how the music of black performers is covered. P4K’s own Sasha Geffen (also of Consequence of Sound) created a Google doc (viewable here) that bears much of Greenwald’s argument out in evidence.

This is an issue that has been with P4K (and, yes, all music publications) for quite a long time, and it’s still being resolved. Just recently, P4K had this lineup on the front page of its Pitch blog (this was taken by Greenwald himself):

Those two headlines couldn’t be in greater tension with each other. While Kanye West has made a great deal of music I’ve admired (I could talk about 808s and Heartbreak for hours – and I know, I know, everyone thinks it’s his worst), I’m also deeply critical of many of his lyrics, which are regularly degrading towards women. To be fair, I’ve seen many P4K writers make statements about the problems with Kanye’s lyrics on Twitter and other social media, so it’s not as if it’s unqualified praise. Nonetheless, P4K itself continues to valorize Kanye with joke-y pieces like the one above, not to mention the regular stream of Best New Music Designations and endless parade of news articles detailing his every move. It’s hard not to read their coverage of him as hero worship.

Like P4K, all of the major outlets for music coverage online have a representation problem. Hopper and Jenkins are right to point that out, and their reminder is an important one. But to suggest that the obligations for little sites like P4K and CMG are identical is both a false conflation and a clear case of class blindness, something that reared its head in the P4K world earlier this year with a pretty abhorrent comment made by writer Ian Cohen in a record review.

P4K has the social and fiscal capital to actually mobilize change in a meaningful sense. Although, as Jenkins notes, the publication is improving, there are still editorial and coverage practices, the ones identified by Greenwald and others, that show that it’s still holding itself back in many ways. P4K has an advantage that only the tiniest sector of the music writing world gets: it has money. In a capitalist world, money is what gets shit done.

Sites like CMG lack that capital, which means that although they do have an obligation to be inclusive, they can only go so far given their dearth of funds. In the aforementioned Twitter exchange, Hopper asked Beasley, “Like, what would it take for your site to be regularly publishing young female writers of color?”, Beasley’s response is telling: “i mean, i can say without any cheekiness that it would take those writers applying to the site.” As someone who has only ever written for non-paying sites, I know what Beasley’s talking about. When you don’t have regular revenue, or are squeaking by with the most meager of remnant ad money, you make do with what you can. A consequence of this is that you attract a much smaller base of writers, which has historically been white dudes who can take the time to write for no pay.

That’s the deeply sad class reality of the situation, one I and I know all the writers I’ve previously mentioned would like to see rectified. But while all music pubs should be united in amplifying the voices of the marginalized and underrepresented, to pretend that all publications are equal players in this game is to throw out the primary underlying structure of society that fuels the fires of inequality: class. For a place like P4K to expect little sites like CMG to bring an equal number of troops to the battle on inequality is to ignore the fact that they have the largest reserves of anybody.

[sashapolverelli]

On independent music, content monetization, and the end of CMG

This year has certainly been a strange one for independent music. After the launch of its Beats-reboot music streaming platform, Apple got serious flack from independent label managers for its flagrant decision to not pay artists streaming fees during three-month complimentary trial periods. And as it’s all too often been the case, it came down to Taylor Swift – along with the threat that she’d take her business (and eager-to-stream fans) elsewhere – before Apple reversed course. Leaving aside my own suspicions that the entire episode was a pre-planned PR plot meant to benefit both Taylor’s and Apple’s bottom lines (especially in light of the recently announced Apple-only TayTay concert stream), this absolutely doesn’t bode well for the average, under-funded label’s ability to negotiate with the tech powers-at-be that now dominate the music industry.

this is fucked up. it’s unbelievable that as a label I am expected to just go along with whatever apple wants. pic.twitter.com/D0zrvATYLz

— dj deer whispers (@krisdfa)

June 10, 2015

SoundCloud is undergoing its own virtual “war on samples” as it attempts to monetize. After limiting its third-party APIs to 15,000 listens per day, the Swedish streaming platform has continued its quest for sustained profitability by now going after its own artistic community. Since last summer, there have been repeated complaints from producers and hip-hop artists who’ve had their SoundCloud clips taken down. The culprit? Unauthorized sampling. Besides the fact that nowadays every third person is a self-acclaimed “mashup DJ” who relies exclusively on samples, this short-sighted business decision – no doubt spurred by the major labels that SoundCloud’s leadership prays will keep the company afloat – is completely antithetical to SoundCloud’s inaugural mission: to open music distribution channel for emerging artists. Now, those very same artists are having countless hours of hard work – and, at times, entire profiles – removed with vague copyright infringement explanations. As SoundCloud probably knows better than anyone else, remixes are one of the major ways artists get expanded exposure. After all, I’m much more likely to get into yet another vaporwave artist after hearing his slowed-down spin of a Future track. 

The realm of music criticism also hasn’t been exempt from monetization-focused anxiety. It will be a while before I forget the hour that Twitter lost its mind after Conde Nast announced its Pitchfork buyout, along with its inarticulate boast that the media giant was ultimately adding “a very passionate audience of Millennial males into our roster” (cringe). Taken alongside the fact that Pitchfork’s female writers – particularly Meagan Garvey, Jenn Pelly, and Lindsay Zolaaz – have been kicking it out of the park lately with their ~hot takes~ on our problematic Drake obsession and the commodification of the “pretty sad girl” a la Lana Del Rey, it’s particularly disheartening to realize that music criticism is still considered an elitist boy’s club and its audiences are monetized as such.

While Pitchfork has opted for acquisition to avoid being vanquished by numbers-driven content in the Vox-Buzzfeed-Vice mediasphere, smaller independently-operated websites who have continued to cater to their niche audiences have struggled for ad dollars. As Newsweek recently explained:

“Web traffic and Facebook shares are unforgiving (and increasingly inevitable) metrics for success. [Smaller websites] seldom catered to that model, never scraping the bottom of the celebrity-Instagram-caption barrel or reducing pop culture to the shallowest, identity-based sloganeering. It hewed to a publishing model that almost feels quaintly naïve in late 2015: publishing smart writing on culture without also publishing hoaxy, viral-friendly gruel to subsidize it.”

When smaller websites opt to remain true to their voices instead of chasing the latest regurgitated headline, that lack of shareability translates to limited ad dollars and makes these content hubs impossible to sustain. This relentless pursuit of clicks and the diluted media environment it engenders even impacts websites that have opted out of the ad revenue model altogether. 

Just last week, Cokemachineglow announced it was bowing out after 13 (!) years as a premiere voice in snarky, well-written music criticism. The “new media” space was obviously different in 2002. That year, I was a 14 year-old quasi-nerd who’d recently purchased Full Collapse. If Tumblr had existed, I would’ve certainly reblogged too many Blood Brothers concert pictures (thank God it didn’t). That was also the year I first discovered Pitchfork. Despite a P4k writer’s all-too apt-assertion that he wasn’t “fourteen enough to enjoy” Thursday’s album (guilty as charged), I was enthralled with this unapologetic voice. That no-bullshit approach to criticism – the utter elitism coupled with English major prose and a refined knowledge of a music artist’s predecessors along with the genre’s emerging trends – grabbed me at my core. 

I eagerly searched for other similarly blunt music assessments that paid no mind to the advertising budgets that kept their writing platforms afloat. These early aughts searches eventually brought me to Cokemachineglow, a website that totally eschewed advertising to allow its writers the complete creative freedom to, let’s say, eviscerate a heavily-hyped Kanye West album or turn a Rae Sremmurd review into an interconnected series of short stories that culminates in an MTV-sponsored teen orgy. When I wrote for my college paper’s music section, CMG was held up as the pinnacle artistic goal: creative-focused arts writing that combined a dose of self-aware know-it-all with an IDGAF attitude. It’s sad that there’s now one fewer publication that embodies that mantra. In due time, all that will be left are Justin Bieber-to-Mac Demarco synergy pieces and 8.5+ star reviews for any albums on underwriting music labels.

Support each other and become better art-lovers together. Don’t let R Kelly win. Tell James Murphy a song called “Drunk Girls” is gross.

— Cokemachineglow (@cmgzine)

December 23, 2015

I leave you with some words from CMG’s goodbye post. 

“Things have changed. For us, and for music criticism, for the internet, for the Glow mansion (new sconces!). CMG has always existed as a labor of love, which is a euphemism for “we’ve never made any money from doing this.” As someone who discovered the Glow in its nascent years, read it faithfully forever after, had posters of Dom on his dorm room walls, applied to write here for years and finally made it onto the staff late in the site’s history, I look at that history—of staying ruthlessly independent and flat broke—as one of our crowning achievements. In the end, we’ve always done this on our terms. We’ve answered to no one but God (Carey Mercer) and Mark (who built the site, and who tells us that, no, we don’t have the technology to publish a Yeezus review that’s just a finger flicking Kanye’s earlobe forever, into eternity).

And that’s why, with heavy hearts, we’ve collectively decided our 2015 year-end coverage will be the last writing published on Cokemachineglow. It’s time. We’re going out with dignity, however impossible that seems for a website with me, Corey, on staff. We want to thank you, more than we know how to do, for reading over the years, for commenting, for emailing, for being there. The Glow has always been the ultimate writer’s space—something Scott has fostered, and something our independence has allowed to flourish. But that means the Glow has always been a readers’ space, too. No ads are driving traffic here, we’re not name-checked on any Netflix original series, Wikipedia won’t even let us confirm our very existence. You come here because you find something of value in our strange, sometimes self-indulgent, always open-hearted scribblings.

Thank you.”

[vermontdischarge]

Beach Slang: The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us | Records | Cokemachineglow

Kurt Cobain, Joey Ramone, and that kid from Almost Famous walk into a bar. Now, lock the door.

Wrote about the new Beach Slang record, which is not great, for Cokemachineglow.