Would music posts be welcome on FanFare?

October 13, 2023 9:48 AM

I have never understood why a subsite for discussing "TV, movies, podcasts, and books" is not also for discussing music. But, at a scan, that subsite is truly never used for music. Could it be? As in, is that currently allowed and, if not, would such a change be welcome in this community?

I know that music comes to the Blue frequently. But "PJ Harvey has released an excellent b-sides and rarities compilation, fellow enthusiasts please discuss," or "the new Noname album manages to synthesize 30 years of alt-rap history into something coherent and original and refreshing, let's talk about it" are the sort of things that I wish there was a place for in some corner of this site, but they are certainly not at the level of a "best of the web" post on the blue.

I guess what I'm saying is that in order to post something worthwhile on the blue about, say, the recent remaster/reissue of the Replacements' "Tim," I'd feel the need to collate and synthesize a Rhino weblink with an interview or newspaper article that probably doesn't actually exist, and then maybe a few links to prominent reviews, while I actually believe reviews are not a great way to learn about or relate to music to begin with. Really wish I could just go to FanFare with that, and wondering if others agree and/or whether it would be at all appropriate.

posted by kensington314 to MetaFilter-Related at 9:48 AM (27 comments total)

This seems like a perfectly good use of Fanfare to me!
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:00 AM on October 13, 2023 [16 favorites]

Music doesn't tend to have a storyline, so it's harder to talk about in this way... video games would fit well into fanfare, though.
posted by one for the books at 10:24 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I would love to see it. Some of my favorite Asks are along the lines of "I like Band XYZ - what else would I like?" and it would be great for a space to geek out about good tunes.

I mean, I'm GONNA want to talk about the new Metric album when it arrives in the mail Monday.
posted by Twicketface at 11:02 AM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

Would love this!!!

MetaFilter introduced me to Frank Turner, and I would love to get more such revelations.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:15 AM on October 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

I would be much more likely to use Fanfare if people were posting new music reviews and discussing new albums (including reissues).
posted by gentlyepigrams at 11:43 AM on October 13, 2023 [10 favorites]

To add music or any other media, first we would need to separate each with a different tab. The current format stifles discussion because posts spend too little time on the first page.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 11:46 AM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

I love this idea. Also video games!
posted by fairlynearlyready at 4:45 PM on October 13, 2023 [6 favorites]

I was just thinking about this today. A new album probably doesn't deserve a FPP on the Blue but a FanFare post, why not?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:27 PM on October 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yes. Want music and video games as well.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:43 PM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

Love to see this come up. I’ve asked a few times, maybe this can finally happen.
posted by jzb at 6:57 PM on October 13, 2023

FanFare already inexplicably has an "other media" section, which I didn't realize...why that instead of music or video games, I don't know...
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:41 PM on October 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

How many people have responded....

I eleventh this suggestion! I've always wondered why this isn't on FanFare, tbh.
posted by ashbury at 7:42 PM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

This recent FPP pretty much shoves aside dismissals of music on MeFi, and demonstrates that could belong anywhere on the site (so why not FanFare?!): https://www.metafilter.com/201021/You-Got-to-Hold-On
posted by wenestvedt at 6:43 AM on October 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think this is a good idea.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:14 AM on October 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

I was just on here the other day looking for an answer to this question. It was discussed in 2019 and 2020. I think this would be a great idea. Especially if you listen to things like 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. It may not work for every album/song, but there are thousands that likely have a story to tell. Throw in opera, broadway, and classical music and all the iterations/recordings therein, and you've got quite a lot of content.
posted by johnxlibris at 8:38 AM on October 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Music, video games, and web series (eg Dimension 20) would be great!
posted by creatrixtiara at 6:53 PM on October 14, 2023

I like this idea!
posted by ellieBOA at 2:22 AM on October 15, 2023

Why is there a separate Music tab but not one for writing or films or art made by Metafites?
posted by Ideefixe at 3:59 PM on October 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

If asked where that kind of thing would be found, I'd assume it would be under the Music tab. I understand the current functional difference between FanFare (talking about stuff) and Music (music made by MeFites), but I guess I'm the odd one out in that I'd expect "music fanfare" to be under the Music tab. Maybe because, as one for the books says, music doesn't have a discussable storyline. (So, I dunno, maybe it's even more purely 'fanfare'...?)

In any case, the site hierarchy doesn't reflect some current common use cases, so I think it could go under either and be fine.
- Under FanFare it would be another category in the right hand Categories box.
- Under Music it could be included in Talk, or could have its own new tab, e.g. 'MusicFan' at the same level as Songs, Talk, Charts Challenges

The Categories box in FanFare could still use some updates. IMO it should be: TV, Movies, Books, [Music?], Podcasts, Video Games. Get rid of Other Media, Special Events, and Coming Soon. They're confusing and underused. Force posts into either one of the categories, or into FanFare Talk.
posted by cocoagirl at 5:41 AM on October 16, 2023

Special Events is used infrequently but not never, things like football like the World Cup, and Eurovision.
posted by ellieBOA at 6:34 AM on October 16, 2023

IIRC, Music predated Fanfare by several years, which is maybe why it seems oddly placed now.

While I like the idea of being able to discuss a single album without the expectations of a fully developed FPP, I also worry about the volume (thousands of new albums are released each week, with a practically limitless amount from the past) The average Fanfare post gets about 1-2 comments. Would this just create a whole lot of zero comment posts filling up the timeline?
posted by gwint at 6:53 AM on October 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

So it seems like several people who've commented broadly like this idea, though I appreciate and share gwint's concern that it would just make a big old undifferentiated haystack of non-engagement, due to site design.

But like, let's say that someone, maybe even the OP, i.e. me, wanted to start doing this now and again -- what should I do? Go to "other media" on FanFare where it will get buried? That seems like the solution until some future point where a "Music" link gets added, yeah?

Also I'm curious about the thread here citing music as not having a storyline. I guess I had never thought about this . . . is a story necessary to fanning out on something? Would posts about something that has no plot wreck the experience of FanFare for people?
posted by kensington314 at 10:39 AM on October 16, 2023

kensington314, I think it's two things about plotlessness. One is the essential question of how much discussion a specific song would generate. And two is that because the default on FF is to recent posts, it's likely that posts about songs -- posts that probably won't generate much unfolding or ongoing or speculative discussion -- would push posts off of the FF page that do generate that.

Defaulting the FF landing page to be recent comments instead of recent posts could address this, but I'm sensing there are a lot of ponies open for FF right now.
posted by cocoagirl at 10:57 AM on October 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

ellieBOA, I think those examples prove my point. The World Cup and Eurovision could both be handled the same way a multipart tv show is, by either a post for each match/act, or by a post for the whole event. Added to that, six of the last 10 posts under Special Events have no links about where to view or listen. They seem like dead end posts.
posted by cocoagirl at 2:14 PM on October 16, 2023

True, the lack of links is often as it is location dependent.
posted by ellieBOA at 11:31 PM on October 16, 2023

My understanding is that Special Events was created for watch-along type experiences for big things that were happening at the time, like, people who were literally watching Eurovision as it aired live so they could be all 'bam, did you see that? it was amazing?' about some onstage costume change or something. It's now being used for smaller watchalongs where people are still watching things together just using Discord or something. So they aren't meant to have a shelf-life where people are likely to show up after the fact and join the conversation unlike some of the other elements of FanFare where you should be able to jump into a discussion once you've watched the thing and still make contributions to it.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:09 AM on October 17, 2023

Why is there a separate Music tab but not one for writing or films or art made by Metafites?

My sense is that Music was created to serve up embedded tracks you could play directly from the Music front page, at a time other similar platforms were proliferating (bandcamp, soundcloud).

Then Projects is there for all the other endeavors.

But I suppose Music could be overhauled to be Media, and support embedding PDFs and YT/Vimeo/etc. With it filterable by type.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:00 AM on October 18, 2023