meta.musicwhore.org
Vanity searches and referral logs sometimes uncover wonderful feedback about this site.
Over at the Japanese Music Room boards for the like-named Soulseek community, I’ve heard tell of difficulties with site navigation. I have to say as a user, I miss some of the functionality of the old site. As a content provider, I’m all too happy to have drastically reduced my work load.
One thing I don’t really advertise is that the old site is actually updated with new reviews. When I post a new review, I’ll link from the archive site to this one. That way, folks who find stuff there can wander their way over here. If you’d rather find content by band name, you can still visit the old site to find reviews published here. Right now only reviews and release news items are linked from the archive. Other content might be added if it seems right to do so.
I really should explain the category names, which I will probably do here in the distant future (i.e. after I get back from vacation.)
Over at the Purple Sky boards, I ran across this terrific description of the site:
I got into a lot of my favorite artists through Musicwhore.org, ’cause at least when Greg’s being elitist, he’s self-aware and self-deprecating about it.
*sniff, sniff* You get it. You really, really get it.
Finally, here’s a weird bit of meta that’s the funniest thing to happen all week. Robert Gable of aworks called out the item I posted about sheet music from Kronos Quartet. In addition to catching a very embarrassing typo, he cited my opinion about Kronos’ new cellist, Jeffrey Ziegler. On Friday, NewMusicBox followed suite, concentrating not on the news of Kronos sheet music but … of what I think of Mr. Ziegler.
So, who’s hot or not in new music?
I gotta say, NewMusicBox’s suggestion is a nice one. Too bad the Times has sequestered Mr. Huang Ruo’s moody stare to its for-pay archives. Ned Rorem still cuts a striking figure. And a coworker from my record store days said Maya Beiser was hot when I played her World to Come album on the store system.
NewMusicBox says the "who’s the cutest?" game is twee, but I don’t know — I’ve seen enough news reports showing how pretty sells, and I’ve certainly made some dubious music choices driven by hormones. Helloooo, Nick Lachey! New music artists shouldn’t be above leveraging their degree of sexy — if they have it — to get people to listen.
In a way, Lachey exemplifies this trade-off between image and credibility. You can either be pretty and sing crap, or be smart and look … unremarkable. As if it’s really unfair to be both hot and smart. Huh, now that I type that, it is. Regardless, I don’t think looks and talent should be mutually exclusive, and would it be so bad when they aren’t?