er, so far no one has commented on anything i've written for the wire so this isn't me being touchy or unable to accept criticism, but can people please stop accusing writers of lazy journalism and lack of research, just because they don't agree with what a given critic has said. for a writer, that's pretty insulting and damning condemnation for a start.
Well first of all, I too write regularly on music (among other things) and am acutely aware of what is insulting or not, journalistic standards, and any number of other issues relevant to music writing -- and this is precisely why i think Fisher is a deeply flawed music writer.
I think that the Wire does a great job at what it does, I regularly buy it, and I am perfectly able to separate my own tastes and preferences from the goals of this particular music magazine: to complain about a magazine not covering one's own personal preferences would be pedantic in the extreme, that's certainly not why I revived this thread. I like the Wire, and, being a literate reader of the internet for a few years, I'm also perfectly well aware of the number of Dissensians who started writing for the Wire, and when, and I think it's great.
My complaints about Mark Fisher's writing are very much specific to
his writing on music, which i find objectionable on many levels, and if you would me to articulate them in detail, the question becomes: how much time do you have?
The foremost problem is the pervasive and mind-numbingly snide, smug tone by which everything is discussed in an emotive, oh-let-me-unmask-the-motives-of-X-musician-aren't-i-clever-for-having-seen-through-the-hypocrisy tone. A tone of bitterness and superiority is evident over and over, and he very rarely engages in any kind of discussion of
actual music.
And it's this subordination of music that's so troubling, ultimately music becomes a secondary vehicle, something he uses but doesn't really have an interest in discussing, in order to make his interminable complaints about the world around him in the UK. He's not a music writer at all, in my opinion, not even close, he's just using music to whack half-grasped theoretical ideas against a world where so many people have conspired against him to produce 'designer' culture or whatever.
You want examples, okay. Anyone who takes seriously, much less
writes in public (!) about, the tired old notion of "The End of History" in the incredibly simplistic way that he does, is completely out of touch with changes occurring in the DNA of music technology, modes of production and reception, the proliferation of independent communities of creativity, not to mention the absolutely tidal changes occuring at a global level in terms of capital, production, technology, realignment of identities and modes of presenting them, and any host of other phenomena. There's no way one person could possibly track it all, much less give it a panoptic account, yet this guy glibly fastens on to the easiest cliches to hand ('music is stagnant,' 'capitalism has turned everything into a version of the same', 'it's the 'end' of history,' etc etc etc).
The world is changing at an incredible rate and there are many positive things happening, but also a vast surplus of evil, accumulation of power, and abuse. My point is that one must engage these changes by doing one's best to get the details as right as possible to begin with (whether it's writing on pop music, or critical theory, or contemporary politics, or whatever), and by paying attention to all the little potential resistance-worlds fulminating under the surface, NOT by turning into a bitter old cliche-peddling brand name .
I can't believe that other music writers don't feel the same way, or speak up about it.
Sorry if it offends anyone but I found a lot of what was in there really vile self obsessed tripe.
