NY Times = Cause?

The waves of criticism of the New York Times' article on the Toronto music scene started a few days ago when the full article (by Alissa Quart) was posted on Stillepost. I would have posted about it earlier, but truthfully, it's taken me a while to read the whole thing.

Much of the criticism is about how it's a Broken Social Scene article, not a Toronto scene article and that I agree with. I really like BSS, but I think they're a tiny bit over-hyped. Also Kevin Drew creeps me out. But from a writer's perspective, I can understand why Quart wrote the way she did. It's logical, from a structural standpoint, to write the article around BSS because all the members are scattered thought the scene so transitions from one band to another are easy. This isn't so much an excuse as an explanation based on my own assumptions. Unfortunately, music fans who keep track of such articles are also tired of this approach. We've seen it before and it's stale, much like the content of the piece. I mean, I haven't lived in Toronto for more than six months and I'm not cool enough to drop the names of my friends who run Record Label X, but even I was bored by article (which is why it took me so long to get through it). So OK, it's nothing ground-breaking for anyone who has seen a few concerts in Toronto and reads blogs. But that's the thing, it wasn't meant for us. But a journalist can never please everyone, especially not music fans so I don't envy Quart's job. OK maybe a little bit. Regardless, I dig the photography, but damn, the Toronto music scene sure is white.

Comments

[rachael]

thanks for the link to the article. without knowing the toronto scene in great detail, they might as well have made it a bss piece instead.

and there are so many bands profiled on the wavelength website, but they hardly included any past the better known toronto acts.

because my knowledge is sketchy, i take that toronto is fairly multicultural, and this extends to people who are musicians? but what is represented by the nyt is overly white? rather than, damn, it really is very white. pulling teeth, but i'm trying to figure out what you mean :)

[Andrea Chiu]

Rachel, I'm not really sure what I meant. I think I was just looking at the picture of BSS and thought, wow, all of 'em are so white. But yes, Toronto is multicultural and the is plenty of colour in our music scene, but I think because NYT focused on BSS (and the members' bands), that is less evident.

[nik]

i've always said that BSS is overrated. serious. i'm so sick of reading about em.