Rather than doing a full wrap up of each day – here are a few quick highlights.
Panel – ‘Does Music Criticism Matter” – Esteemed music critics from Resident Advisor, Mixmag, Pitchfork and URB discussed the world of music journalism in the 21st century. Bemoaning the “economy of the click,” the importance of search engine optimized headlines and short 500 word pieces replacing long form magazine journalism and how the online audience dictates what is covered (due to the exact statistics,) the panelists also focused on positive such as the relevance of printed magazines is still in evidence. In the magazine world, the reader is more likely to experience music they don’t already know about because they have actively purchased the magazine as opposed to online where people tend to read about music they already have heard. On similarities between DJing and writing, Joshua Glazer (URB) shared the sentiment of “I like it, I want to share it” on his motivation for both. While most agreed that they choose not to write negative reviews preferring to write about what they like, Nick DeCosemo (MixMag) shared the obvious point that “negative reviews are more fun to read.” Probably the best quote came from Joshua about the difficulty of reviewing events and having to remember that “the worst party I ever went to is the best night of someone else’s life.”