This is what I was saying above: everything in music criticism and music culture has changed, except music poptimist perceptions of music criticism and music culture. That is what refuses to mutate. And I think it’s ugly and toxic and has left us in this bizarre place where people who write about music for large audiences think their sacred duty is to affirm the legitimacy of what the audience already likes, instead of championing something entirely new and totally different. But then, that’s what happens when you tell a lot of mostly white and mostly male taste makers that a particular set of tastes is inherently sexist and racist — they sprint in the opposite direction as fast as they can. Because aging white men are almost as afraid of being called racist and sexist as they are of being old.
Freddie deBoer, “A Few Indisputable Points About Poptimism and Then I Give Up”, Freddie deBoer, 2024-07-22.
