This is a memo to anyone curious about why so much American music coverage is fawning, vacuous drivel and about what journalists who don’t get with the program can experience.
To illustrate, let me run you through what happened after an article I wrote about Melanie Martinez went online in July. Feel free to read the story for yourself but, in brief, it was about the chain of events that happened after Martinez’ PR agency approached SPIN about putting her on the cover but SPIN didn’t, instead assigning me to write a regular feature on the pop star (whom I liked). Team Martinez subsequently withdrew cooperation, now wanting—and expecting—no article, but when I carried on with my reporting regardless they were at first taken aback but then got sleazy, slandering me to SPIN management and then, when that didn’t work, even offering SPIN money to kill the story.
The belief that it’s wrong for journalists to write without permission might not be a surprise to find in the Pentagon, organized crime, and authoritarian politics, but it was sad encountering this attitude in the pop music world of L.A.’s supposedly progressive entertainment industry. Free speech—yay! So long as it’s reading from the approved script.
Anyway, the story first comes out in SPIN’s summer print issue—without the world ending. Readers read it, the feedback and discussion are lively but civil, and we all get on with our lives. Melanie was touring, the agency was agencying, and I was working on new stories, parenting, and walking our little dog.
But then, on July 13th, the story is posted online.
And, as if someone has opened the gate to a rabies yard, here come the crazed hordes.
Peep this (and this was posted multiple times):
And how about this?
Melanie’s beautiful fanbase pushes on to suggest auto-un-aliving. Here’s just one such sentiment:
Teamwork is called for.
“Bitch” gets frequent flyer points.
The bald angle really gets worked.
Maybe I’m meant to be shamed or embarrassed or some such, but you know what? I can’t even see my own head. My eyes look out. Don’t spend much time gazing in mirrors.
Some commenters point out that if you actually read the whole article I don’t say anything bad about Martinez, instead praising her music and performance, but those people tend to get corrected—sometimes by rabid fans pulling today’s apparent trump card:
Zionist? Like what?
I find more Martinez fanatics making this odd assertion.
Israel? Zionism? Like what? I honestly have no idea what they are talking about.
Until I find a truly bizarre post which has lifted a snapshot of my wife and me taken more than 20 years ago with Filipino Marines at a captured Abu Sayyaf base on the island of Jolo in the Sulu Archipelago of the southern Philippines while we were reporting on the complexities of the insurgencies in that region. The Martinezian reposting of our photo is captioned: “no surprise you support Israel.”
Excuse me while I search for the right emoji for this total nutcasery.
I give up.
Anyway, that seems to have been enough to derail some who might otherwise have simply read and absorbed the Martinez article.
Bonkers. Other posts even say I’m in the IDF. How many personality disorders would you have to cram in a meth pipe to come up with this shit?
As I write about in the story, my daughter as a young teen was a Melanie Martinez fan, and it is through her that I grew to appreciate Martinez’s thing.
And it was because I appreciate her thing that I talked my editor into covering Martinez at all. Originally he didn’t think she warranted space in SPIN. Were his instincts right? They certainly proved on the money if avoiding onslaughts of abuse and hate were top priority.
But why should music journalism pretend that we’re in some fantasy world—the bullshitiverse that marketers and PR agents want to entice journalists into helping conjure up for readers and viewers?
So do it. Tell me to commit suicide, and that you’re going to rape my mother, that SPIN has to fire me, and that I better be fucking careful when I leave the house. Oh, did I mention that one of Martinez’s zealots doxxed me? Yessir.
Say whatever batshit crazy crap you want about me. Because I believe in the First Amendment.
But if you want to bring it, know that I’m also into the Second.
