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bribkin wrote:they have 27 male music writers and 6 female ones

Thought that was fairly standard in the music press. Probably cause loads of those writing for them are old NME/MM hacks from back in the day, before female writers became more prevalent. Makes sense that they'd employ those with more experience.

Women aren't generally as sadly obsessive about music as blokes, which might also explain it.

Shonky wrote:

bribkin wrote:they have 27 male music writers and 6 female ones

Women aren't generally as sadly obsessive about music as blokes, which might also explain it.

nah i totally dont believe that
check the plan b mag staff box. and how many women there are who write about/are or have been involved in the grass roots/'urban' side of things. hattie collins, chantelle fiddy, georgie c, hyperfrank, elle j small, sarah bentley, sophie heawood.... sorry but it's sheer laziness and i point it out cuz i think it's indicative of their coverage as a whole. i'd have pointed out the lack of black writers as well if i could tell by the bylines who was what colour but i wouldn't be scared to hazard a guess that it's pretty similarly asymmetrical.

i actually think as a whole the guardian's music coverage is pretty good, it does the job it needs to: but there's still an obvious bias against grass roots urban stuff, so that ppl have to bust their asses trying to justify why it should be in there, whereas white boy guitar stuff that's less threatening to their comprehension does alright. and then when people like petridis write about MIA they start gabbling this really patronising crap about how politically revolutionary it is when if they'd heard the real stuff that is going on they'd know it's just a shite trendy rip off of real dancehall. etc.

hence the snobbish statement about air.

as to the decision about common tho - well they do say they wanna chose the least obvious choice when it comes to artist based decisions, and electric circus is pretty interesting. and that's stickign their necks out a bit as well because even common has kind of disowned that album.

but that takes us back to the burial because of all the dubstep stuff it's far far far the most obvious choice. which would be exemplar of what i'm talking about.

pinch or kode 9 or skream should have been in there. although i see there is a means to write to them and say so...

ta
x

I agree with what you are saying about the lack of female writers at The Guardian.

However, with regards to it being pretentious, snobbish and bandwagon jumping, surely this is because it knows its readers?

You average Guardian reader doesn't really care about finding out about the 'real' stuff that's going on. Or, if they do, the don't buy The Guardian to find out about it. They know where else to go.

Your average Guardian reader may buy the MIA album BECAUSE it is an unthreatening and safe rehashing of 'real' stuff. And what's wrong with that? MIA, as with most other pop, has her place. Usually in Guardian readers' CD collection.

I think it is a little unfair to criticise The Guardian for pandering to its market. Sure, it would be great if their music coverage acknowledges the less obvious choices, but this is an unrealistic expectation for a national newspaper.

I dont know - i mean, that's a convenient argument for them isn't it? does the news section pander to its market?

I guess maybe it does lol but there's also a serious agenda behind it right? and they're saying there's a serious agenda to this 1000 albums shiz, so ...

If all newspapers were just pandering to their market then the world would be a very dismal place. maybe that's why it is lol.

I dunno I just always saw the Guardian as a bit more than a PR document! Or is all criticism/representation becoming lost in the drive to appease markets?

that would explain a lot lol

bribkin wrote:If all newspapers were just pandering to their market then the world would be a very dismal place. maybe that's why it is lol.

Yes, I think that this is true to quite a large extent.

However, I think The Guardian does manage to tread the line between PR document and integrity quite well. It is not owned by anyone which helps (although this fact is trumpeted loudly on its advertising - therefore attracting people it is marketed at lol).

The fact is, we do live in that sort of world (dismal or not) - which is why 'the underground' is so important. It is one of the few 'places' where you can operate without your guard up 100% of the time. I think that's why people get so passionate and protective over it.

Anyway. That's a bit off topic. Sorry.

bribkin wrote:but that takes us back to the burial because of all the dubstep stuff it's far far far the most obvious choice. which would be exemplar of what i'm talking about.

pinch or kode 9 or skream should have been in there. although i see there is a means to write to them and say so...

The Guardian is in no way an underground publication though is it? The Kode album might well be seen as a bit avant-garde to put in a "must-have" collection, and to be honest, the reception to Skream's album was pretty patchy even within some of the dubstep scene. I'd probably rate Remarc's "Sound Murderer" compilation above Goldie's "Timeless" but I'd probably think of the latter as a better introduction to jungle to a complete outsider.

I know plenty of people that like Burial but wouldn't enjoy most other dubstep, so it seems to make sense to me.

yeh but then why choose 'electric circus' and not 'like water for chocolate'
!??!?!

bribkin wrote:yeh but then why choose 'electric circus' and not 'like water for chocolate'
!??!?!

It is quite a wierd list to be honest, edm is well-underrepresented, there's no Blur, one Beatles album (music journo heresy surely), Betty Boo's in there. Very strange indeed.

Fuck it though, we know what our favourites would be so fuck em eh

bribkin wrote:there's still an obvious bias against grass roots urban stuff, so that ppl have to bust their asses trying to justify why it should be in there

hello

fwiw the burial interview was something i pitched to them, not the other way around.. i had nothing to do with this supplement tho cos i'm not a regular writer.

i don't usually need a special reason to ignore these pointless 'best of' lists, but i notice cannibal ox's 'the cold vein' is not in there. the entire thing is therefore completely redundant.

i would like to think of the guardian as more than a pr document. the reality is the paper treads a fine line though, teetering on the edge most of the time. they certainly pay more attention to pr than they ought to.

big up dan yeah i figured that!

(shame ur not a girl tho )

Shonky wrote: The Guardian is in no way an underground publication though is it? The Kode album might well be seen as a bit avant-garde to put in a "must-have" collection, and to be honest, the reception to Skream's album was pretty patchy even within some of the dubstep scene.

Also, neither of them begin with 'A', 'B' or 'C'...

It is quite a wierd list to be honest, edm is well-underrepresented,

There aren't really that many great dance albums, though, are there? I mean, even as someone who loves the stuff, I'd say it's more about the 12's than the albums. If it was a list of great singles there's a lot more that I'd expect to see. I guess this is kind of part of the way that the mainstream press / mainstream music press is still failing to get its collective head around dance music after twenty years of not-trying, though - there's still a tendancy to think of albums and tours as being the totality of relevant things that happen...

there's no Blur, one Beatles album (music journo heresy surely),

That was a specific thing, though - they limited it to one album per artist so they didn't just end up listing Dylan albums or something.

Betty Boo's in there.

Yeah, that one is odd.

Btw, for a bit of counterbalance, check Woebot's top 100 records of all time.

Evening. I edit Guardian Film&Music, and the 1000 Albums supplements. I won't pretend to be a dubstep expert, but I do know about the Guardian.
You're right: we don't do enough about dubstep or other underground non-guitar music. The main reason for that is the shortage of writers who can actually write for the Guardian. I'm not saying they're not good enough, but many underground writers find it difficult to adapt to the stylistic demands of a general audience broadsheet paper, just as I'd find it difficult to write for Plan B, or a specialist title. They are different disciplines. Second, I admit I know very little about it, so I find commissioning on dubstep quite hard - tell me who it is worth my while listening to: should I try that Box of Dub comp as an intro?
The more serious point, for me, are the criticisms of the gender bias of our writing team. The supplements exaggerate the divide - most of those people are not regular writers. In F&M, of the pop regulars (you'd expect to see them every other issue, at least), we have Laura Barton, Maddy Costa, Leonie Cooper, Jude Rogers, Caroline Sullivan, Betty Clarke, Alexis Petridis, Dorian Lynskey, John Harris, Dave Simpson, Chris Salmon, Alex Macpherson - it's an even split. Sophie Heawood used to write for us but went to the Times. We don't have any black regular writers, though, which is a problem we're aware of - and we have tried to address, but without ever finding a satisfactory solution.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know why some of the things you might be unhappy about happen.
Thanks for the constructive thread - interesting reading.

well that shows you care (and i doubt a PR put you onto it lol).



i hereby retract my comments on the gender divide. the colour thing is harder. i dont think there any black writers at plan b either ; )

Shonky wrote:
It is quite a wierd list to be honest, edm is well-underrepresented, there's no Blur, one Beatles album (music journo heresy surely), Betty Boo's in there. Very strange indeed.

Blur are in there - 'Parklife'. In the actual supplement it gets the centre spread...

And Betty Boo pretty much minted the female pop schematic that came to dominate the following decade.

lily allen - alright still? piss off!

Adhok wrote:Blur are in there - 'Parklife'. In the actual supplement it gets the centre spread...

And Betty Boo pretty much minted the female pop schematic that came to dominate the following decade.

Blur's not in the online version though but fair enough. I do remember playing a house party years back and my mate had doing the do in there so I thought I'd put it on. A lot of people didn't notice till the chorus came in and then full-on house snob mode kicked in and people suddenly stopped dancing at the same time I started laughing at them.

It's a shame pop isn't generally as fun as the Boosta made it.

bribkin wrote:yeh but then why choose 'electric circus' and not 'like water for chocolate'
!??!?!

Cos like water for chocolate is flippin shite. Well it's not THAT bad but it spends too much time wandering off and patting itself on the back for its sense of 'musicality'. It meanders rather than flowing straight. '6th Sense' extends far beyond the level of a lot of other tracks on there and I think there's a reason for that.


Nice one to Guardian bod for taking the time to defend himself.

bribkin wrote:well that shows you care (and i doubt a PR put you onto it lol).



i hereby retract my comments on the gender divide. the colour thing is harder. i dont think there any black writers at plan b either ; )

that is interesting. isn't it true mel that you have to really argue your corner to get 'underground' non-guitar stuff in plan b, just as people do for the guardian?

i think the real problem here is a lack of infrastructural support (PR, advertising, etc) for underground scenes. martin clark and i went to this music biz round table discussion recently (with plastic and geeneus too) about how underground music does or doesn't cross over.. i'll try and scan it in if i can get to a scanner..

the guardian seem interesdted in pushing dubstep forward, alot of people are pushing it forward, which is very very good lol