If video killed the radio star, what’s killing music journalism? Journalism has been going through it since the internet – plain and simple, digital advertisements don’t pay as much as print – but when Condé Nast announced it was folding Pitchfork into men’s magazine GQ, music press in particular was put on notice.
Pitchfork grew into a leading music news site over its near-30 years as a publication, covering artists, bands, scenes and ideas, “that no other publication does,” according to award-winning music journalist Annie Zaleski.
“This actually marks my 25th year in music journalism this year. And it’s obviously, it’s like night and day,” said Zaleski, who has written for major publications and authored biographies on Lady Gaga and Pink, to name a couple.
Streaming changed the power of music criticism
Back in the day, the power of a positive writeup in Rolling Stone or Pitchfork could drive music lovers to their nearest record store. Now everything lives in the palm of your hand and algorithms, not critics, can feed you music you may like.
As Amos Barshad wrote about Pitchfork in a 2018 Slate article, “The internet democratized access to music. We didn’t really need gatekeepers anymore; for a whole generation, reading about what something sounded like, when you could listen to it for free yourself, felt increasingly like an insane thing to do.”
But as jobs for music journalists dwindle, music libraries are only growing, thanks to virtually anyone being able to upload music these days.
“It has just gotten so difficult to sort of follow what’s going on and making sure something doesn’t fall through the cracks,” Zaleski said. “Who’s actually curating the stuff to tell you what’s coming out in a given week? You know, there are some really, really great playlists on streaming services, but magazines and newspapers used to do that, where are those?”
Evidently, they’re folding. While Pitchfork’s closure is not unique – Zaleski referred to it as a microcosm of what’s happening in media – there is more to music journalism’s struggle than general press decline.
Social media’s musician-to-fan pipeline
Music journalists now face competition from their own subjects, thanks to social media. No longer do musicians need that coveted cover and feature article to reach new and existing fans.
“I think that musicians very early on realized that that connection, that fan-to-fan connection, is their best way to kind of make sure that they can still stay connected to audiences,” Zaleski said.
From TikTok and Instagram to online communities, musicians are harnessing the power of social media to help fans stay connected with their work. But direct access via social media is not a substitute for music journalism, Zaleski said.
“You can read a piece and it’ll kind of reflect what’s going on in history at the time, what’s going on in culture,” she said. “You might get new insights into an artist that you didn’t recognize before, especially if people are really good interviewers, they tease things out from artists that you might not know.”
As for music criticism, while streaming allows anyone to listen to anything with the tap of a finger, Zaleski says exceptional criticism can help you hear records differently.
“It can be influential and just give you new insights into something that you thought you knew, and that’s important,” she said. “It might not necessarily sometimes feel groundbreaking, but maybe you’re gonna find a record that saves your life.”
A select few music enthusiasts have built lucrative online platforms sharing personal critiques, while newsletters, community hubs and startups are filling voids left by legacy media.
“People are still music fans and people still hunger for new music and hunger for new bands,” Zaleski said. “And I think everyone is trying to figure out the best place to do that.”
