Correction from today's NYT of a review by A music review on Thursday about a concert at the Nokia Theater on Tuesday night by the singer Adam Lambert referred incorrectly to kissing between Mr. Lambert and his bass player, Tommy Joe Ratliff. During the song “Fever,” they licked each other’s lips; Mr. Ratliff did not merely give Mr. Lambert a quick peck on the shoulder. (He did that later in the show.)
6 comments:
oh the trials and tribulations of being the paper of record...
He doesn't look 60+.
Let X be the number of people who are both interested enough in Adam Lambert to read about him and also pick up the New York Times (or go to the New York Times online) to read about the concert.
Let Y be Jon Pareles' salary.
Let Z be the salaries of all the other staff who did all the things that were needed to move the story from Pareles' terminal to the site or the printed page.
What does (Y+Z)/X equal?
Why is the Times writing about Lambert in the first place? I understand all about topics of interest and the rest of it, but Lambert is mainly a topic of interest to people who already like Lambert (it's kind of like being famous for being famous). I can read about Lambert in a hundred places.
The Times is losing reader interest with all this pandering because it is turning the Times into McPaper. Why couldn't Pareles take his years of skill and experience and give some musician or group their chance with some exposure, instead of simply providing one more item for Adam Lambert's publicist (an LLC?) to stick in a file folder?
Adam Lambert is an up and coming pop musician, young and successful by contemporary mainstream understanding. Why should a reader read about this anywhere else but here? If he isn't written about the lesser exposed talent will not, that is the law of the jungle. But, if the article written by the critic dissected deeper aspects of the music business, in addition to the formulaic male-on-male fixational device, then the article would inform beyond its age.
Okay, c'mon, no age-related bashing implying that an old dude can't be "with it" as a critic. Pareles gives new groups a chance all the time. Check out his SXSW coverage.
Not to pick on the nytpicker, but why did you mention Pareles' age? Is the implication that geezers shouldn't write about such trivial pop-ish matters? Why not?
Now as to whether the NYT should give much space to trvial pop matters in general, well, it's not what I want to read, but clearly some people do. Personally, Adam Lambert stories annoy me a lot less than trend articles in the Style section. (Or pompous Richard Posner essays, but I'm drifting here.)
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