OK, I'm going to milk this Ann Powers/American Idol debate for all I can, and then maybe even some more. Quick recap: It started with my July 27 post "Debating Ann Powers, poptimism and American Idol." The Toronto Globe and Mail's music critic commented, prompting "Response to American Idol post."
My pal at the St. Petersburg Times' couldn't resist the bait and that led to "Sean Daly writing about me writing about him." The latest reason for me to continue writing about myself comes courtesy of Idolator:
Powers' talk about covering American Idol prompted Wade Tatangelo of Tampa's Creative Loafing to point out the monetary aspects of such coverage:
Ann Powers wrote a fine essay . . . But she failed to mention that a potential reason daily music critics like the St. Petersburg Times' Sean Daly are covering cheap reality TV like American Idol (Powers does, too, but more likely by choice, see below) is because they are no longer in a position to tell populist/desperate editors "no." Arts critics are being laid off at even a faster clip than reporters. In fact, there's not a single music critic job opening at a daily newspaper in the entire nation. I know critics rank right alongside lawyers in the receiving of sympathy department, but it's grim folks.
Carl Wilson of the Toronto Globe and Mail and the blog Zoilus weighed in on both Powers' piece and Tatangelo's reply:
Idolator concludes its post with a comment with which I'm totally in agreement:
Still, the most salient point of all may be from Marc Hogan's Tumblr, in which the freelancer (best known for his contributions to Pitchfork) spells it out even more plainly:
As anyone who knows anyone who has blogged about "American Idol" knows, you get more clicks blogging about "American Idol" than blogging about Steinski, Harvey Milk, or Fleet Foxes. So it's not as if the turning tide toward "poptimism" among critics who want to be paid for our work is entirely un-self-interested.
Here's the entire Idolator post.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2008.