Music criticism will continue in one format or another as long as music is performed live or is on recordings. I studied with Max Graf, the famous Viennese music critic. His son was Herbert Graf, the chief stage director of opera at the "Met" in the 1930s to 1950s. One of Max's books "Two Hundred Year of Viennese Musical Criticism" advised that reviewers be cognizant of composition structure and techniques of singing and instrument playing, better still, to have a conservatory education. Kudos to those who have had a professional career in what they are reviewing.
Kenneth Bennett Lane, Wagnerian heldentenor, composer: "Shakespeare" & "The Political Shakespeare" and director, the Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute, where actors are trained in the Shakespeare roles and big-voiced singers are coached in the Wagner opera roles. Website: www.Wagneropera.com, where at "Recorded Selections" one may download 37 complete selections "Carnegie Hall LIVE" from my 4 solo concerts in the Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall.

San Francisco Classical Voice (SFCV.org) is a wonderful new venue for musical criticism AND for information on performances. Staffed by FORMER news and magazine critics, it is well written and lively. It's an all-in-one site for classical music in the SF Bay Area, and is an answer to the shortage of print coverage. I only wish we had an SFCV for NYC or any other metropolitan area. Think about it! It CAN BE DONE!

Nothing to worry about here. Blogs haven't killed journalism... don't forget our short attention spans. People got tired of blogs just last year and now tweet. Guess what? That 15 minutes is almost over. People that are looking for critiques will always be looking for legit critiques.

I wonder what Ann's stance will be when the LA Times folds and she's ALSO out of a job.

Christgau's "Consumer Guide" is now on MSN.com, by the way...

Give me a break. Twitter reviews? Could you imagine Virgil Thomson or Harold Shonberg of the NY Times or George Bernard Shaw saying anything serious about music in 140 words?

Nothing to worry about here. Blogs haven't killed journalism... don't forget our short attention spans. People got tired of blogs just last year and now tweet. Guess what? That 15 minutes is almost over. People that are looking for critiques will always be looking for legit critiques.

Jim is right — music *criticism* might be thriving but music *journalism* is dying. It's extremely difficult to make a living by writing about music now. Things might "fall into place" as Ann says, but it's going to take a while — and in the meantime, a lot of people are going to quit and find new lines of work. It's going to be a big, sad bloodbath. In fact, it already is. If you're a music writer or editor on staff somewhere, do not quit your day job.

At least as classical music criticism goes, it's thriving in one corner of publishing: magazines. There's a new pub called "Listen" that launched last year, and others like the BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone are still alive and well. It's not all doom and gloom.

i completely see the point of the first comment. i do however think that we must guard against the notion that only the originating culture has of necessity the best or only analytical interpretation of its music or culture in general. ethnocentric overreach [with the best of intentions,and often because it has the burden of correcting historical oversight,in addition to giving a aesthetic acessment] can create its own distortions.

Well, when it comes to critiques and assessment of music from Africa, it's in an awful state. It stems from white supremacy. Yes, we come back to that. If Martians come to earth and play their music, some mediocre but privileged white male would think himself expert in the genre after a few listens. As we recently heard on WNYC, consciously or unconsciously, bigoted notions enter into the conversation, such as debasing people's language by calling them dialects. Also, the continued overuse of insulting and asinine comparisons such as Mariam Hassan is the Justin Timberlake of Africa. I recently saw a review in the Guardian newspaper in the UK wherein the "world music expert" bemoaned the lack of English translation to lyrics in the CD he was reviewing. Now, can you imagine a review of a CD in Rolling Stone without examination of poetry of the lyrics and other devices of good song-writing if any? And yet still, we see a resistance and reluctance to give these tasks over to people from the culture who would be in a position to be more comprehensive, accurate and knowledgeable in reviews. If only whites could let go of ego to turn this ugly page. I, for one, don't see the hope.