 |
| Steve Steward's band, Oil Boom, coincidentally makes the 2017 Album of the Year list. |
Just when people were starting to forget about the stigma of crass and carelessness that has plagued the Fort Worth Weekly for years now, the local publication rocked the sore wounds back open again with its latest article on the top 10 local albums of the year. The article, which featured only two acts that we can genuinely agree with (Bulls and Juma Spears), goes on to list eight more albums, and two more semi-local albums, four of which feature contributors to the Fort Worth Weekly.
First up, at number 9, is The Spiral Sound, which admittedly only formerly featured FWW contributor Patrick Higgins in an early rendition of the band. That number 9 slot also came with a small write-up, written by another Weekly contributor, Steve Steward. At number 8, comes the Dreamy Life compilation album, which arguably takes an unfair spot being a album consisting of more than one band, such as, you know, Bulls, Siberian Traps, Mean Motor Scooter, Sur Duda, Juma Spears- all of who already have spots in the top 10 list. The compilation features the band War Party, which is Cameron Smith's band, yet another Fort Worth Weekly contributor. The eyeroll continues, as Cameron Smith album takes the number 2 spot, with his album Paper Knife. The small write-up that comes with that slot, even goes so far as to mention that he is in fact a contributor, as if we really needed that rubbed in our face. The article goes on to include what seems to be a nice space for some runner-ups, with a "Semi-Local" category, but conveniently places contributor Steve Steward's band, Oil Boom, at the number one spot, trading off write-up spots with Patrick Higgins. Not to mention, the category awkwardly stops at number 2, as if they don't want you to venture off too far from their own bands.
 |
| "The most impressive thing about the 2017 album list is the bands that didn’t make the cut." |
For us, the icing on the cake after all of this is the audacity of the intro paragraph, mentioning that the two main contributors initially had a much longer list, and "argued, threatened, sobbed, and listened," before getting down to deciding that their own bands deserved the top spots. We understand that there's going to be some amount of bias in every music blog, but with so many bands and artists in Fort Worth deserving attention, it's a slap in the face to them to have to see another year without a mention, only to assume they're going to see a repeat of the same thing we've just witnessed, next year. Hopefully, in the near future we'll see a drastic change regarding this issue, but we aren't holding our breath.
While I don’t think your point of view is entirely without merit, as I can certainly see how these coincidences may appear to one who wasn’t involved in the decision making process, your take away lacks important context that there is unfortunately no way for you or anyone else to have had, and without that context the “conflict of interest” appears far more nefarious than reality. I’ll do my best to explain.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, Cameron Smith is completely innocent of any involvement whatsoever with this piece. He is only an occasional contributor to the magazine, and even then not normally as a contributor to the music section. His album, which if you’ve heard, you’d undoubtedly agree, is amazing and deserving of its placement in this list (which is completely based on nothing but the purely subjective opinion of the music section’s three writers). To include Cameron in the ire aimed at the piece, and the Weekly in general, is unfair to him, both as a person, and as an artist.
Secondly as far as Spiral Sound is concerned, it’s a project I have not had involvement in in over 6 years, and not one of my personal nominations to be submitted, nor one of my final votes.
Lastly, and this is the one I suppose you have the most legitimate issue with, is Oil Boom. Imagine if the other two records above where somehow not on the list. Does this album’s (unranked) inclusion then seem as unfair? Oil Boom and Calhoun’s separate inclusion was due to their strong Fort Worth connection, although they now both claim Dallas as home, which precludes them from being ranked in a Fort Worth based “local” albums list. I feel that if there was only the one note of a contributor’s music project you migh not have even made notice. But admittedly with the other two (that based on the above, you should concede are innocent coincidences) Again, Terribility is an amazing record and would have rightly been mentioned had Steve no involvement in the band. Does a great album deserve to be shunned and not be celebrated merely because of one membe’s association? Maybe so? But I don’t personally think so. In the interest of transparency, we made it known our staff’s (even loose) associations to the works included. Had we some ulterior motive, it would have been far easier to omit the information, and almost no one would be any the wiser. But we were compelled by our integrity to include it. We are a music section and our goal is to, as best we can, cover the local music scene. If you have issue with our choices, that’s fair, again it’s completely subjective. And I’ll concede that the series of coincidences all together paint a bleaker picture than reality.
In the interest of your own journalistic integrity, I sincerely hope you can publish this response with your article and both of our readers can make up their own minds.