From a Harper’s Magazine, early/mid ’70s, that I found in my office the other day.  Anyone else never hear of these? (EDIT: OH GOOD SWEET LORD THEY ARE IN THE 80S TOO)

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The two biggies have recently sent out their CFPs.  One (EMP) is much more tailored to my interests than the other (IASPM), which means I’ve got a better chance at going to LA than Cincinnati.  So.  If you’re interested, though: EMP is much easier to get into (I’m told) than IASPM, which typically wants academics [...]

Re: that last mega-post, there are plenty of people doing similar sorts of work out there.  If you don’t read Tom, and you were at all interested in what I wrote in that earlier post, start!  Tom’s point here, about pop music, is anthropologically valid!  It’s also called “capitalism.”
Put crudely, you succeed in pop music [...]

In blog years, I’ve been away for long enough to put out a reunion album.  If only I had more to show for it.
Not that I haven’t been “being productive.”  The opposite, actually.  It’s just that said productivity hasn’t manifested itself publicly.  Yet.  Along with taking trips out of town for various reasons (the Pitchfork [...]

Back soon, until then:
…(in 1905) the humor magazine Puck satirized this rapid turnover in a series of ‘diary entries,’ written from the point of view of a popular song, recounting its creation, its plugging, its meteoric rise, and its precipitous descent into neglect–all in the span of five weeks.
David Suisman, “Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution [...]

CNN’s Rick Sanchez, desperately trying to make some we were there first drama out of a sadly necessary BP CEO PR appearance. Or: trying to wring tabloid revenue out of a yet-undefined, heavily-scripted corporate necessity.  Svanberg, if it’s not obvious from watching this staged newspool footage, is saying “get him out of there” to that [...]

If, like me, you spent much of your childhood glued to WWF broadcasts on television–or (also like me) if you spend much of your adulthood geeking out at well-crafted, incisive articles about the careful organization and marketing of commercial entertainment, then Deadspin’s “Dead Wrestler of the Week” feature is right up your alley.  It’s the [...]

Maureen Tkacik, in the latest CJR, explaining the basic economic truths underscoring the decline and fall of print journalism.  I label a lot of the posts on this blog “selling culture,” and one of these days I’ll write a post explaining exactly what I mean by that.  In the meantime, Tkacik does a good job [...]

“Today the bankroll required for at least token establishment as a tape ‘manufacturer’ is even smaller, and the repertoire possibilities even wider.  And entrepreneurs, undaunted by the still limited number of suitable tape recorders in American homes…are jumping in wholesale.”
…
“Conspicuous by their absence, however, are the major record companies, of which only RCA Victor has [...]