Posted this comment over at rockcritics.com:
Xgau likes to imply ideas rather than spell them out, which I find frustrating. When he says "the atomization of taste known as the long tail may have a cutoff" I think he means a cutoff in time (it's the atomization not the tail that's being cut off), and what he means by cutting off the atomization is that the trend towards more things in the tail and fewer things in the nontail will slacken and eventually reverse. What it is that's being atomized isn't as clear: year-end lists? poll results? critical taste? consumer taste? And — though he doesn't state this at all — I'm pretty sure that one of the things on his mind is that there needs to be enough concentrated critical support for talented but commercially borderline artists so that at least some of these artists will earn a living and a few will get significant attention. Something like that. And this means that the critical "consensus"* has to include support for artists who aren't getting enough consumer support. And also on his mind might be that consumer support for musical artists can't be totally atomized or no one would earn a living at music.
But I don't see where he's really laying out the issues, at least not the way I would, which is:
(1) Of all the people with musical talent and potential musical talent, almost all the money and attention go to a very tiny tiny tiny few. I don't have a number, but I doubt that 1% or even .01% expresses how tiny it is. Most everyone else is subsistence or earning a living through something else. And therefore lots of people don't even get to develop their talent.
(2) This isn't going to change hugely (here's my piece on cumulative advantage), but I'd think the task is to get more people out of the "tail"** and into subsistence and more people out of subsistence into the middle. And the way to do this isn't by getting critics to get less diverse in their musical interests but by getting the country in general to start diminishing economic inequality rather than what the country is doing now, which is to increase it. With more disposable income in the lower reaches, this gives the commercially marginal a chance to get middling and a chance for some of the noncommercial musicians and would-be musicians to become at least marginal.
( Taste not atomizing, Robert Christgau & Frank Kogan unite in vagueness, 'consensus' means what? )
Xgau likes to imply ideas rather than spell them out, which I find frustrating. When he says "the atomization of taste known as the long tail may have a cutoff" I think he means a cutoff in time (it's the atomization not the tail that's being cut off), and what he means by cutting off the atomization is that the trend towards more things in the tail and fewer things in the nontail will slacken and eventually reverse. What it is that's being atomized isn't as clear: year-end lists? poll results? critical taste? consumer taste? And — though he doesn't state this at all — I'm pretty sure that one of the things on his mind is that there needs to be enough concentrated critical support for talented but commercially borderline artists so that at least some of these artists will earn a living and a few will get significant attention. Something like that. And this means that the critical "consensus"* has to include support for artists who aren't getting enough consumer support. And also on his mind might be that consumer support for musical artists can't be totally atomized or no one would earn a living at music.
But I don't see where he's really laying out the issues, at least not the way I would, which is:
(1) Of all the people with musical talent and potential musical talent, almost all the money and attention go to a very tiny tiny tiny few. I don't have a number, but I doubt that 1% or even .01% expresses how tiny it is. Most everyone else is subsistence or earning a living through something else. And therefore lots of people don't even get to develop their talent.
(2) This isn't going to change hugely (here's my piece on cumulative advantage), but I'd think the task is to get more people out of the "tail"** and into subsistence and more people out of subsistence into the middle. And the way to do this isn't by getting critics to get less diverse in their musical interests but by getting the country in general to start diminishing economic inequality rather than what the country is doing now, which is to increase it. With more disposable income in the lower reaches, this gives the commercially marginal a chance to get middling and a chance for some of the noncommercial musicians and would-be musicians to become at least marginal.