We can’t help but enjoy what we do here at Ears To The House. Not least because we don’t take some people in the dance music world as seriously as they take themselves – but also because they make our job ridiculously easy. If they didn’t behave the way they did, we couldn’t write about it.

Now, some of the people we write about don’t especially like it – such as Juan Atkins, who threatened to sue us several months ago after we began asking questions over his history in techno. Bold claims such as being the inventor of a whole genre of music require scrutiny – yet Atkins chose to reply by threatening legitimate journalism.

Another person who doesn’t like us very much is dance music press doyenne Annabel Ross. Two years ago, back in the one-man band days, she chose to attack our founder and editor over his coverage of Resident Advisor since Whitney Wei took over – branding him a “misogynist”.

This, however, did not stop Ears To The House from being at the forefront of the defence when Ross was attacked online by Carl Craig and Alexander Omar Smith. The team at the time hesitated to get involved, but it was the editor whom she previously smeared that pushed forward with the defence. But why?

Sitting at his desk, drinking coffee and sifting through potential ideas for articles, he said “Because it was the right thing to do. Ross and I are unlikely to ever be friends, but we do both believe in journalism. The attacks against her were sinister and clearly an attempt to intimidate. It was disgusting, and Ears To The House will always defend legitimate journalism, no matter who’s doing it.”.

Whilst we will always defend good journalism, we will always decry bad journalism – and Annabel Ross showed little journalism in her piece for Mixmag on Movement Detroit. Hence why we criticised her for this – so has she responded with any kind of defence?

Far from it. We noticed over the weekend that we’re no longer able to view Ross’s content on Twitter or Instagram via the official Ears To The House accounts – a bizarre and ultimately pointless strategy. As we’ve pointed out before, Ears To The House is a team operation nowadays – and blocking our main account isn’t going to stop us from seeing what anyone posts.

So what’s behind her decision? A dance music press source who knows her personally isn’t certain, but said that “Annabel is a nice person, but she has no tolerance for criticism. I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s always had skin thinner than toilet paper.”.

It’s always nice to know when we’ve got under someone’s skin – rest assured it certainly won’t prevent us from giving Ross any necessary scrutiny in the future…