He’s wrong. Here’s why.
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Good to see him looking after his money then
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My rates for comms consultancy aren’t very expensive if he wants someone to sense check his posts before they go out into the world
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It’s because he’s not done a record that’s any good so doesn’t get why he gets bad reviews other than to blame others
Edit: or he’s telling on himself
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He got some 10/10s for his most recent album
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that was a good mail out sean, quite enjoyed it.
also that halsey stuff is shite.
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Thanks for reading. Wrote it in a heat rage yesterday. Toned it down a bit this morning… not a lot.
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I mean, PR costs money, and there’s too many releases for reviewers to listen to absolutely everything, so I’m sure some journalists rely on trusted PR people to tip them off about the really good stuff. But that’s markedly different from what he’s suggesting.
But I think this argument misses his point a bit, which is basically the music industry is a very different place from twenty years ago, when there was a lot more music journalists so lots more things got reviewed, and when there wasn’t social media that had been infiltrated by bots, when there wasn’t AI generating slop that passes as music, and while he’s a bit off the mark on the review bit, his point that if your streaming numbers aren’t any good and you aren’t being reviewed you might still be doing OK is a fair one IMO
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Anyway, James Blake anecdote - he played at the Big Chill Festival about fifteen years ago, one year when I was shooting it, and my now wife was down the front because she was a fan. A teenager next to her turned around and asked if she was James Blake’s mum - I think that was the very first time she felt “old” (and there’s no way it would be physically possible for her to be old enough to be James Blake’s mum)
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I don’t disagree but he’s making the same point that many other artists are making far more eloquently about the state of things (thought SZA’s comments at the weekend about AI really distilled it for a mass audience)
I once read that there are about 7000 PRs worldwide (not sure if that was all music and culture, like someone doing PR for a venue but also acting as the promoter and bar manager) but only about 70 full time music critics.
The PR machine is a lot smaller now and a lot of PR people also manage social media channels and websites for artists. And I’m sure there are examples of crap blogs that will happily take cash for posts, just like there are SEO clickfarms who will do the same for anything. But those are not trusted editorial platforms, which are dwindling and need your support, not this bollocks from Blake.
I liked that “You’re Beautiful” one he did.
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Tsk, that was James Brown
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Yep - his point reads as a thinly veiled “why aren’t people paying attention to MEEEEE”, and he’s firing off against what he thinks is responsible for that, and rightly people have pulled him up on that.
There are people out there who realise that there’s a whole ecosystem that needs to work together - musicians, labels, venues and press - and it makes a real difference when they get it
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Papa got my sister and my brother a brand new bag
And i don’t blame him
I don’t blame him
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James Blake is a fucking idiot and is fucking shit live.
This Post Paid For By PROF$.
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James Blake continues to make me feel annoyed that I really liked his last album.
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Get his ass
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Don’t mind his stuff.
Good music to have a wank to.
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I think he’s right, there’s this dogshit kpop album that got fair reviews from places like pitchfork but then absolute glaze from a few others who are known to do that kind of thing and it smells like 
Trouble with those crap blogs is that they have a lot more say in what younger generations listen to than your pitchforks or stereogums or lineofbestfits. It’s shit, but it’s how things are these days.
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