Songs Without Words
Close-Listening: Diving Deep into a Song’s Lyrics
Misheard lyrics can be a golden moment of serendipity. Often, these mistaken lyrics, or mondegreens, are just words that slip past our attention. Despite their falsehood, these alternative listenings of a song can open up compelling new interpretations and personal connections to the music.
The Record Review Logs On: YouTubers as Music Critics
When you think of the most important players in the music industry, pop stars, managers in suits, and record labels might come to mind. Yet today, one of the most powerful figures in music may well be a bespectacled man ranting into a microphone about albums from the comfort of his bedroom studio. With over 2.83 million subscribers, Anthony Fantono’s YouTube channel The Needle Drop has brought the record review to the main stage of social media and popular culture. Fantano’s success has pioneered a growing genre of content creators on video sharing and streaming services who seek to transpose music journalism to new media platforms and wider audiences. These video reviews share their print predecessors’ earnest zeal for sharing music, but they more fully embrace the subjectivity and the personal quirks that shape our music-listening experiences.
Pitchfork’s Recipe for the Record Review
On Jan. 17, the media company Condé Nast disclosed its plans to merge online music magazine Pitchfork into its men’s lifestyle magazine, GQ. Staff writer layoffs accompanied this announcement, and followers of the music journalism world expressed their dismay at the loss of a distinctive voice in the field.