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Music

Sasha Frere-Jones in the shallow end

New Yorker pop critic Sasha Frere-Jones‘ appearance at the Al Green Theatre on Saturday night as part of the Critical Mass component of Hot Docs was, like his column, a user-friendly experience.

Speaking in front of an audience packed with local rock literati, the critic mostly resisted the urge to make any grand proclamations about the future of music journalism, instead using the opportunity to add some verbal nuance to his written works – which he claims are often misinterpreted – and share a few behind-the-scenes glimpses into one of the world’s most famous general interest magazines.

Frere-Jones fielded a variety of questions from both the audience and interlocutor Eric Friesen dealing with reduced audio quality to the absence of a “Canadian sound.” Unfortunately, though, he stayed mostly in the shallow end.

Much of this had to do with softball audience questions mostly focusing on his favourite musicians and critics (more an excuse for namedropping than analysis), but it also owed much to the rapid-fire Q&A format.

The critic did, however, share some intriguing details about the New Yorker’s journalistic process. Frere-Jones also admits he’s had to rethink his critical function writing for such a wide and varied readership.

Where a political writer might be able to use the name Barack Obama without having to explain himself, Frere-Jones is forced to clarify every name that he drops (evidently, one of his 19 editors had never heard of Beyonce). As a result, he makes sure his stories don’t devolve into a string of references in order to remain accessible to as broad an audience as possible.

Frere-Jones is careful to only write about music that’s widely available, forcing him to avoid the bargain-bin rarities and focus on the big picture. With only 15 to 20 columns a year, he’s also exempt from the “journalistic rush to go first”, which, he says, often sacrifices deep thinking.

That’s not to say he doesn’t see value in other approaches.

Laughing off an inquiry about whether or not the Internet was ruining music criticism (“I don’t understand why people have such a sense of entitlement about content that’s available to them for free,” he remarked), Frere-Jones praised the flexibility and immediacy of the medium and claimed that although there’s a tonne of garbage, there’s also a wealth of top-notch criticism to be found online.

Frere-Jones’ insights were certainly fascinating, but it would have been nice if he could have delved a bit further into some of his discussion topics just like he does in print.[rssbreak]

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