Recently, Medianama’s Nikhil Pahwa tweeted,
some asshole from a startup called offering money to cover them. really pissed off.
? Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin) June 24, 2013
I had something similar, but without the money part!
I got the soundtrack of a new film (as email attachment, all 6 songs – standard practice, actually, so won’t complain about the mode) from the composer and he had requested me to listen and review it on Milliblog.
I heard it and wrote about it after 2+ weeks. I found it to be a very average soundtrack and mentioned that too (no names/language please!) in my review.
Then, something interesting happened. The composer called me on Facebook chat and said, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t like the soundtrack!‘.
I was being diplomatic and said that I found it mildly interesting, and nothing more.
That didn’t go down well with him. He said, ‘But I had sent it to a few more bloggers and 2 of them wrote very positively about it! Why didn’t you like it?‘
That’s an odd question to answer. I briefly touched upon how the trouble with opinions is that everybody has them… but that didn’t cut it either.
He persisted: ‘If 2 other bloggers liked it enough to write good things about it, how come you didn’t like it? Who asked you to write negatively about it?‘
Hmmm… I did not like the direction of this chat and told him politely that I’d like to ideally pass that question and move on.
Then he goes: ‘Man, you are arrogant! The soundtrack was sent to many bloggers and we thought you are a sensible music lover. But you are so unlike the other 2 bloggers who helped by spreading the word and helping the music industry in general. I really don’t know why you are working against the welfare of the music industry!‘
Me: *complete silence* Couldn’t think of anything to say, really.
He: ‘Will remember to never send anything to you in the future‘
Me: *silence*
He: ‘You know, another blogger not only wrote good things about the album but also tagged me in the review tweet and I retweeted him to help his blog get more hits‘
Me: *quick check on the composer’s Twitter following to see what traffic spike I missed*. (Not much, but that’s totally beside the point since I *never* tag anybody related to *any* album on my reviews. Or even discuss a review with anybody associated with the album in public lest I give a perception that my opinions can be manipulated. They should not and have not been, is my strong belief.)
He: ‘Heard your music blog went down due to some data issue. Wish you had not been able to recover the data…‘
Me: *silence* (inside my head: wow, that’s a new level of anger!)
He: ‘You give the blogger community a bad name…‘
Me: (That’s it, really) Thanks for the feedback, but I really don’t have much to add here, so please do excuse me *logged off*.
I have been alleged to be anti-Himesh (I’d like to believe I’m not, but it’s my word against another person’s, so can’t prove these things), musically inept (this is true and I’ve always accepted that I lack training of any sort in music)… but this rant is completely new for me! I feel this is more about how content creators (like this chap) and brands engage with bloggers and less about music review in general. The kind of assumptions and expectations that they sometimes work with seems quite bizarre!