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 [...]

First, Tom Ewing’s in-progress formulation on how we understand and use music genres, followed by a minor corollary from yours truly:
Imagine you find a record you like in a genre you don’t usually listen to very deeply. Here are two broad ways you might talk about it publically:
“I don’t listen to much [genre] but I [...]

Tom Ewing on “a couple of regrettable tendencies in Pitchforkwatching,” or “conspiracy theories from people who think they’ve ‘cracked the code’”:
1. The ever-creeping-upwards margin of what seems to constitute a “bad Pitchfork score”. Bloggers are twisting their knickers over a 7.6??? (Ed. note: This link is from me, not Tom)
2. The use of figures to [...]

Earlier today, Tom Ewing (this guy) used the word “performative” in a blog post to describe a particular form of online mediation.  The specifics of Tom’s vague use of the word weren’t as important as the fact that someone used the word in a blog post.  In my particular realms of academia, performative is a [...]