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To be more sympathetic, perhaps this is more representative of 2020's music critics' demographic shifts, evaluation of pop music history, and changes in the way
by InitialLastName 6y ago
To be more sympathetic, perhaps this is more representative of 2020's music critics' demographic shifts, evaluation of pop music history, and changes in the way music is presented to listeners?
Keep in mind that voters are likely to overweight the music they were exposed to as teenagers and young adults (and the influences of that music), and that in the last 40 years pop music has become much less racially segregated than it was in the 30s-70s.
In the time since the 2003 edition, there's been a full generation of turnover; the largely white, rock-oriented baby boomers who ran and were the target audience of Rolling Stone from its founding have largely retired, to be replaced by millennials who, whether or not they are more diverse, had more exposure as teenagers to music by black people that was once relegated to the R&B charts.
To use the albums you listed (which, conveniently, came out within 5 years of each other), of course a reduction in rock's mindshare among critics is going to hurt Sgt Pepper the most. Looking at the Hot 100 today [0] (9-26-2020), and ignoring the electronic music whose forebears haven't had long enough to filter into cultural influence, I see a lot of confessional singer-songwriters and a lot of R&B.
TL;DR: Baby Boomers have lost influence at Rolling Stone in the last 20 years, so the rankings have shifted to meet the tastes and influences of a generation of music critics that were exposed to a lot more music by black people as teenagers.
[0] https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100
- musicale 6y ago> a generation of music critics that were exposed to a lot more music by black people as teenagers. unlike those who grew up with blues, jazz, r&b, rock (and roll), gospel, doo-wop, calypso, soul, motown, reggae, disco, rap, club/dance, techno, pop, hip hop, etc.
- InitialLastName 6y agoI'm not saying those genres didn't exist, I'm saying that when the baby boomers were growing up, music was MUCH more segregated than it is now. White people in white areas were marketed music for white people, and v.v. for black people. For a long time, much of the business of Nashville was recording two versions of every song, one by a black person for a black audience, one by a white person. Hell, both Elvis and the British invasion were underlined by white people covering classic blues songs (and selling it to white audiences who didn't know they were covers).
- 082349872349872 6y agoOne of my tinfoil conspiracy theories is that an unstated reason for the PMRC during the 1980s was not necessarily the "filthiness" of domestic music, but also that disco, never having died with the same finality in europe it that had domestically, had non-segregated audiences, and by the eurodance period, even featured integrated acts. The Revolution (Prince) is an obvious counterexample, but they're post-Boomer (assuming 13 is the age for setting musical taste :-) Charley Pride is a (the?) counterexample for Nashville. Edit: a, not the. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Country_Music_Hall_of_Fame_inductees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Country_Music_Hall_of_... (but DeFord Bailey was pre-Boomer)
- katzgrau 6y ago> TL;DR: Baby Boomers have lost influence at Rolling Stone in the last 20 years I was actually wondering if younger people even gave a shit about Rolling Stone anymore
- briankelly 6y agoAt least a generation and half would say no.
- tatersolid 6y agoMy teenagers assumed it was a Rolling Stones fan magazine when I asked them about it. The drop of 80s/90s rock luminaries is astonishing (U2, Nirvana, Pearl Jam) in the 2020 list.
- coldtea 6y ago>TL;DR: Baby Boomers have lost influence at Rolling Stone in the last 20 years I can bet its readership is mostly boomers and the immediately next generation -- few born after 1980 would give a rat's arse about RS, so we're talking 40+. Heck, Pitchform itself is mostly for the 30+ crowd nowadays...