For The Record- 20. January. 2024

But I know that I'm ok 'cause you're here with me today

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Welcome to another edition of For The Record, a good old-fashioned link drop and benefit for paid supporters of On Repeat.

As a reminder, On Repeat is 100% reader-funded. And as always, there are 7-day trials for anyone looking to test the waters.

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This week, we’ve got news on Jack Antonoff, Bruce Springsteen, and No Doubt.

All that and a LOT more, including Jason Isbell on acting, the Ariana Grande Theory of Politics, and how to build a vintage audio system from an unlikely source.

Let’s get to it!

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The news came yesterday (Wednesday) that another music publication was falling. This time, Pitchfork is being folded into GQ magazine by parent company Condé Nast. Right on cue was this pat statement from Chief Content Officer Anna Wintour:

“Today we are evolving our Pitchfork team structure by bringing the team into the GQ organization. This decision was made after a careful evaluation of Pitchfork’s performance and what we believe is the best path forward for the brand so that our coverage of music can continue to thrive within the company,” wrote Anna Wintour, Condé Nast’s chief content officer, in the staff memo. 

Missing in all that gauzy jargon is the fact that a whole bunch of writers (again) just lost their jobs in an already unstable environment. When journalism is reduced to “content,” it becomes easier to see it as a commodity and devalue it. Something to be optimized and scaled. It’s a repeating cycle we’ve seen time and again over the last several years as the old media tried to navigate the shifting sands of consumer taste. Most of them never get past the first hurdle, treating music journalism like something to churn out nonstop, as if words and criticism are widgets on an assembly line.