The entire poptimist thing was essentially that companies, once they got subsumed into Conde Nast, they had to sort of provide results in the form of clicks and engagement. They built an entire ideology that rolled art and identity into one to cover for the fact that they needed to just tell people what Beyonce was doing all the time.

It's like a survival mechanism. If Beyonce gets the most clicks, then we ideologically need to feel that this is the most compelling music in the world. She's actually the best, right?

And I'm not saying that pop music doesn't have artistic merit or anything, but it's just the idea that they were like all of the sort of counter-cultural, crazy creative energy is actually coming from the least counter-cultural space of all. It's wild that they sold everybody on that.

It's a real shame because like, I don't know, I feel like we could have had this potential to have a place that supported like really weird music. I remember when they had their vertical Altered Zones where they would cover even like more kind of out there music than they were covering on the website. Then sound like, what was that, like 2014 this Poptimism thing happened where it's like, here's why Taylor Swift is actually great. And then it was kind of like encouraging the sellout in a way where everyone thought, oh, well then, you know, this is what's next, no matter what kind of music you make, if you make something even remotely pop, then under the guise of Poptimism, you could be next, you know?

I think we sacrificed a lot of actually interesting music. Myself included like I fell into the pressure of this time where it's like, I could have gone a different route and made weirder music. But at that time, it was all about this like, no, pop is actually a really beautiful medium, which I still believe, you know, but I think that they took it.

It took it to the extent where it's like, no matter what anyone did, if it didn't have this like poptimists lean, it wasn't really part of their thing that they were working, you know? And so it wasn't as interesting. I feel like it was sort of on a delay where pop music took another six to eight years to really live up to that challenge. I feel like Renaissance was the Beyonce album that should have been talked about the way they talked about Lemonade.

They were in the same thing with Taylor Swift, like, they popped that a little bit too early and the music they were talking about was just very bland. Then everything that came after it that took it really seriously, you know, some like like hyper pop sort of was a sort of continuation of that. And some of that is like legitimately subversive and weird. But by that point, everything was so flattened that it just didn't matter. Like, in terms of platform.

They kind of built this thing to cover for a giant sellout. It didn't even seem like they were consciously aware of that. I think it's just convenient to create a worldview that justifies the thing you have to do to get clicked.

It gets you yelled at the least. That's exactly it.

• Zola Jesus and some others

But…that still don’t change what bruh said lol.

“It’s vibes” to a genre that originally started as a way for ppl to voice and speak out on some real s*** was the worst thing to happen to this genre

I said it in one thread (and ima keep preaching dat s***) but it’s not a coincidence that this has all correlated with niggas just not…reading anymore. The industry itself aint just crashing, the society is.

The crisis Quinton speaks of has built up through multiple factors, one of the biggest arguably being technology and social media, which is reaching younger and younger children.

Common Sense Media reported in 2015 that most children had a phone by the age of 14. In 2022, Stanford Medicine found that the average age had reached 11, a critical point where the love of reading is either nourished or dissipates.

(thehill.com/homenews/education/4093843-reading-for-fun-plunges-to-crisis-level-for-us-students/amp )

You need a phone to survive at all

Advanced phones as WE know em only been around since the 2000s dawg lol. It’s not true.

everything commodified subscirbe to everything consume and find your next fix

I stand in the corner and boot up

KTT still is the wave

Yep and physical media is speculative bubble for the old stuff and decorative for the new stuff. Times change. Physical media was necessary when it was necessary. Now it's a treat. You want me to mourn the big bin of DVDs at Walmart?

I'll mourn the boutique movie labels like Criterion and Arrow and Vinegar Syndrome and such. They actually do matter in preserving obscure film in high quality. Guess where that s*** goes after they recoup costs? Hard drives.

music industry crashing != music disappearing

i think art is slowly being reframed away from being a commodity and back to being art.

i see nothing but facts

Print journalists trash now they depend on a spicy headlines to sell their bullshit. Stop crying they’re irrelevant. The industry dead and meaningless in 2024

You had good points up till your physical media point don’t think you iPad kids realize the extent and importance of owning physical media. At any moment all of these digital services could disappear and completely wipe stuff off of the internet with no physical backing. This isn’t just about music and films either, this a historical situation that people are actively trying to figure out how to archive.

Physical media is still important/valuable when it comes to books, games, and movies.

Physical music just isn’t valuable in the same way. CD’s and Vinyls are just merch atp.

i personally disagree, i have a cd player and still use it mostly for older stuff i find at thrift stores but its still fun

ofc its not my primary method of listening to music but i sill think it has fr has some value

CDs maybe, there’s still a large audience that enjoys playing music on a record player especially if u have a great set up

nah vinyl sounds amazing if you have a decent setup

We were just celebrating Tyler selling the most vinyls.

A lot of s*** exclusive to streaming doesn't get a physical release. You know where it is? Online. You know how most people consume media? Online. If you want to hoard, get a hard drive. Setup a NAS. I barely even rewatch movies lol.

CDs? Vinyl? You gonna walk around with a CD player too? Cars aren't even going to have CD players.

You've got your little apple crates at home in your doomsday bunker full of Kanye and Gambino vinyl. Those are posters with frisbees in them. You aren't an archivist. You're Ash Ketchum on Discogs

If we keep it a bean
The decent setup is what sounds good

Vinyl doesn't sound better than CDs/lossless digital

little jacob!

Word-of-mouth is a form of viral marketing technically

who said the first line itt

Until Spotify decides to YEET your fav artist catolog in a swiftie

There are crucial and legendary mixtapes that an entire generation might never hear (in its original state) due to sample clearances making them have to b******ize the damn product before it hits streaming or just not being able to make streaming at all.

All of those Jurassic World movies broke a billion. Oppenheimer didn't.

Batman made Nolan's career.

@Sir_Swagalot @Misfit @sizz

I feel what yall are saying. Not saying CDs and Vinyl have no value whatsoever, just saying it’s not really the primary consumption of music.

Listening on Vinyl/CD is like a novelty/change of pace type thing for most listeners.

Whereas with there’s still more value to be gained by consuming through the original method