"That's me told then"
May 2, 2018 11:30 AM Subscribe
What was it like when a review could end a career?
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Flaming Lips - Zaireeka
Liz Phair - Liz Phair
Louis XIV - The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
The Airborne Toxic Event - The Airborne Toxic Event
Jet - Shine On
Morrison - Travistan
Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers
Collateral Damage: Britt Brown on negative reviews
WHERE ARE THE NEGATIVE MUSIC REVIEWS? | HOW THE LACK OF NEGATIVITY IS KILLING JOURNALISM
10 Classic Albums Rolling Stone Originally Panned
Who Needs Negative Music Reviews? You Do!
Is the Album Review Dead?
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Flaming Lips - Zaireeka
Liz Phair - Liz Phair
Louis XIV - The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
The Airborne Toxic Event - The Airborne Toxic Event
Jet - Shine On
Morrison - Travistan
Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers
Collateral Damage: Britt Brown on negative reviews
WHERE ARE THE NEGATIVE MUSIC REVIEWS? | HOW THE LACK OF NEGATIVITY IS KILLING JOURNALISM
10 Classic Albums Rolling Stone Originally Panned
Who Needs Negative Music Reviews? You Do!
Is the Album Review Dead?
I don't think people know how to write negative reviews anymore. I've had a brief sideline as a music critic, writing for a friend's website and on a podcast, and put up a couple negative reviews in the process.
The difficulty is criticizing the work, not the artist. (And I freely admit that's something I didn't always do, as per my review of No Talking, Just Head.) In a world where the value of a piece of content is measured by clicks and ad views, the negative review is a dish best served with a heavy dose of snark. The best/worst of those early Pitchfork 0.0s are the apex of the form: a humorous piece that's designed to get you shocked and sharing it with your friends.
Something I've also come around to is the understanding that an album/artist/song can be good, but not for me. There's plenty of music out there that people love, including people I admire and respect the opinions of, that leave me cold. It's just not for me. I can acknowledge the craft and the skill, that the artist isn't just churning out product for a paycheck, but it fails to resonate with me. If you're reviewing music and have yet to internalize this, then you're up a creek.
posted by SansPoint at 11:55 AM on May 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
The difficulty is criticizing the work, not the artist. (And I freely admit that's something I didn't always do, as per my review of No Talking, Just Head.) In a world where the value of a piece of content is measured by clicks and ad views, the negative review is a dish best served with a heavy dose of snark. The best/worst of those early Pitchfork 0.0s are the apex of the form: a humorous piece that's designed to get you shocked and sharing it with your friends.
Something I've also come around to is the understanding that an album/artist/song can be good, but not for me. There's plenty of music out there that people love, including people I admire and respect the opinions of, that leave me cold. It's just not for me. I can acknowledge the craft and the skill, that the artist isn't just churning out product for a paycheck, but it fails to resonate with me. If you're reviewing music and have yet to internalize this, then you're up a creek.
posted by SansPoint at 11:55 AM on May 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
Man, I don't know much about Travis Morrison but this article made me feel for him. Wikipedia suggests that he has been singing in his church choir, which seems like it would be excellent therapy for the music industry.
posted by selfnoise at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Negative reviews are for famous and/or hypey shit. 99% of the time if you don't like the album, it's better not to review it and move on to something you can say something nice about.
posted by rhizome at 11:59 AM on May 2, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 11:59 AM on May 2, 2018 [16 favorites]
My sister bought the souvenir program when we saw Metallica play the Rose Bowl with Guns 'n' Roses. This was in the long, long ago, obviously. The before times. Metallica included a two-page spread of quotes from bad reviews and trash that other bands had talked about them. No commentary on any of it, just the things that were said. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:59 AM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:59 AM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
Oh man, gonna take some time to go through these, but yeah, I was (and to some extent, still am) _pissed_ that Pitchfork had so severely fucked with Travis Morrison as to knock him into "retirement." They put Dismemberment Plan's "Emergency & I" near the top of their Best of the '90s end-of-decade list (just behind "The Bends!"), they hated his first solo album, and then just took a massive poop on him for little reason. "Travistan" is fine.
I ALMOST wrote for Pitchfork in the early aughts. Ryan whatshisname, the editor, put out a call on the site that they were looking for writers to send in sample reviews. I knew his tastes and submitted a glowing (well-deserved) review of The Wrens' "Meadowlands" (still a stone classic). He accepted it and asked me to choose from a few albums from a list of recent releases to write next.
Now, this was like '02 or '03 and streaming music was still very primitive. I was living in the middle of nowhere in Milledgeville, GA and so had to made trips to the nearest decent record stores over an hour away in Athens to buy this stuff. To my recollection, I wrote reviews of a Mirah album and one about Year of the Rabbit.
None of them ever ran. A few weeks in, Ryan sends me an email telling me that the writing was fine, but I was rating things too high and he didn't have the time anymore to work one-on-one with reviewers and that he'd have to cut me loose.
It took me years to be able to read Pitchfork again. I was pretty sore about that. Not that I thought I was going to be a great music critic, but man. That just felt pretty cold. I was in my early 20s and still pretty sensitive about that kind of criticism from an entity that I looked up to.
posted by Maaik at 12:00 PM on May 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
I ALMOST wrote for Pitchfork in the early aughts. Ryan whatshisname, the editor, put out a call on the site that they were looking for writers to send in sample reviews. I knew his tastes and submitted a glowing (well-deserved) review of The Wrens' "Meadowlands" (still a stone classic). He accepted it and asked me to choose from a few albums from a list of recent releases to write next.
Now, this was like '02 or '03 and streaming music was still very primitive. I was living in the middle of nowhere in Milledgeville, GA and so had to made trips to the nearest decent record stores over an hour away in Athens to buy this stuff. To my recollection, I wrote reviews of a Mirah album and one about Year of the Rabbit.
None of them ever ran. A few weeks in, Ryan sends me an email telling me that the writing was fine, but I was rating things too high and he didn't have the time anymore to work one-on-one with reviewers and that he'd have to cut me loose.
It took me years to be able to read Pitchfork again. I was pretty sore about that. Not that I thought I was going to be a great music critic, but man. That just felt pretty cold. I was in my early 20s and still pretty sensitive about that kind of criticism from an entity that I looked up to.
posted by Maaik at 12:00 PM on May 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
Wow, what a shit review for Partie Traumatic. It doesn't totally live up to the expectations set by "I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You," but it didn't deserve a flip dismissal.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 12:02 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 12:02 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
And I mean, Travis Morrison's fine. He got the D Plan back together for a few reunion tours (their Sunday show at the 9:30 Club in January of 2011 was amaziiiiiiing) and they did one more record which was alright.
posted by Maaik at 12:02 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Maaik at 12:02 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I actually remember reading that Zaireeka review, when I was a pot-smoking college hippy. It seemed telling to me that the writer never considered finding three friends who also had CD players, possibly because he did not have 3 friends.
I won't say "That was when I realized that media criticism is all relative - there is no arbiter of taste, we all bring our own life to everything we consume," but (a) I was way too brain fried to actually think that, and (b) I still get irrationally angry that the AV Club published this C-review of The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You THEN had the audacity to put it on their year end best of list. And it's been 5 years!
On preview: Yes, Pitchfork was definitely one of the original forms of internet clickbait.
posted by muddgirl at 12:04 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
I won't say "That was when I realized that media criticism is all relative - there is no arbiter of taste, we all bring our own life to everything we consume," but (a) I was way too brain fried to actually think that, and (b) I still get irrationally angry that the AV Club published this C-review of The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You THEN had the audacity to put it on their year end best of list. And it's been 5 years!
On preview: Yes, Pitchfork was definitely one of the original forms of internet clickbait.
posted by muddgirl at 12:04 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Travis Morrison, quoted in the Slate article:
Now hipsters listen to Carly Rae Jepsen
I feel called out
posted by Maaik at 12:12 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
Now hipsters listen to Carly Rae Jepsen
I feel called out
posted by Maaik at 12:12 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
Jet is a terrible band, though.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 12:12 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 12:12 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Maaik: "Call Me Maybe" is terrible (save for the mashup with "Head Like a Hole"), but E-Mo-Tion is way too good.
posted by SansPoint at 12:14 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by SansPoint at 12:14 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Reviewing, especially at the time of publication, is such an iffy proposition. These stories remind me of the experience of a friend of mine, Eli Clare. He published a book in 1999, Exile & Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, through a small press in Boston. Pat (now Patrick) Califia, who was pretty influential at the time, absolutely panned it in a major queer publication. It was painful, I think, but Eli and friends tried to make light of it--IIRC, Califia called him a "dinosaur," and there was a lot of joshing about exactly which kind of dinosaur he might be.
The thing is, nobody else was writing about disability and queerness in quite the same way, and the book really spoke to a lot of readers. I often ran into people who said it was life-changing. Once, someone I had just met, "Oh, you're Orlop?" and I was all modestly prepared to hear my own writing praised, but the person went on to say, "You're in the acknowledgments of Eli's book!"
*sigh* Yes, yes I am.
Exile & Pride has been adopted in many college classrooms, and was recently re-released by Duke University Press. Eli has a pretty comfortable life speaking and leading workshops. It's an important book. Califia was just wrong about it, for whatever reasons.
Anyway, that's my story of vindication after a bad review.
posted by Orlop at 12:15 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
The thing is, nobody else was writing about disability and queerness in quite the same way, and the book really spoke to a lot of readers. I often ran into people who said it was life-changing. Once, someone I had just met, "Oh, you're Orlop?" and I was all modestly prepared to hear my own writing praised, but the person went on to say, "You're in the acknowledgments of Eli's book!"
*sigh* Yes, yes I am.
Exile & Pride has been adopted in many college classrooms, and was recently re-released by Duke University Press. Eli has a pretty comfortable life speaking and leading workshops. It's an important book. Califia was just wrong about it, for whatever reasons.
Anyway, that's my story of vindication after a bad review.
posted by Orlop at 12:15 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Years and years ago, I inherited a friend's position as the restaurant critic of the local alt-weekly (not the one here in Indianapolis, so no reflection on them). Only I was told the position was changed to a restaurant columnist -- I was not to review restaurants, because the paper got much of its advertising from them, and they didn't want to risk a negative review ticking off an advertiser.
It was still fun, and sort of refreshing to have been told so forthrightly that the paper's content was dictated by advertisers. And in fairness, I doubt a local alt-weekly could afford to burn too many bridges.
posted by Gelatin at 12:15 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
It was still fun, and sort of refreshing to have been told so forthrightly that the paper's content was dictated by advertisers. And in fairness, I doubt a local alt-weekly could afford to burn too many bridges.
posted by Gelatin at 12:15 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm okay with never thinking about pitchfork again and forgetting the site ever existed.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:16 PM on May 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:16 PM on May 2, 2018 [11 favorites]
I've been an arts writer for a long time. I used to review theater for a local newsweekly and every year they would ask me to write a best and worst productions of the year and every year I would tell them I would do the former but did not want to do the latter. They would sort of bully me into it and I would write one with all sorts of excuses at the front, but once I got a bit older and harder to bully I stopped ever writing those things. It just seemed mean-spirited. Oftentimes I was writing for the first time about a play, because if I don't like something, unless it seems important to discuss it, I usually don't write about it.
There is a philosophy in critical circles that, as HL Mencken said, you gain critical credibility when you spit on your hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats and maybe there is something to that. But screw it. I only want to write about what I like right now.
posted by maxsparber at 12:18 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
There is a philosophy in critical circles that, as HL Mencken said, you gain critical credibility when you spit on your hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats and maybe there is something to that. But screw it. I only want to write about what I like right now.
posted by maxsparber at 12:18 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I still get irrationally angry that the AV Club published this C-review of The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You
See, this is why I don't read music reviews, because even just reading this sentence describing the review makes me want to put a brick through the AV Club's window.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:21 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
See, this is why I don't read music reviews, because even just reading this sentence describing the review makes me want to put a brick through the AV Club's window.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:21 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm okay with never thinking about pitchfork again and forgetting the site ever existed.
It's basically the same as every other music publication now, anyway.
posted by atoxyl at 12:21 PM on May 2, 2018
It's basically the same as every other music publication now, anyway.
posted by atoxyl at 12:21 PM on May 2, 2018
I'm fine with Pitchfork now. They've been basically defanged, I feel. And their Over/Under interviews are some of my favorite things on the internet.
SansPoint: Counterpoint: "Call Me Maybe" is great, as is most of the rest of Kiss.
posted by Maaik at 12:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
SansPoint: Counterpoint: "Call Me Maybe" is great, as is most of the rest of Kiss.
posted by Maaik at 12:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
> Ryan sends me an email telling me that the writing was fine, but I was rating things too high and he didn't have the time anymore to work one-on-one with reviewers and that he'd have to cut me loose.
Positive music negative criticism criticism.
posted by ardgedee at 12:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Positive music negative criticism criticism.
posted by ardgedee at 12:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I still have a few clippings from NME from, like, 1991 because they were so brief and so cruel.
One said that a metal act named The Dwarves was so bad, it was like they had listened to all the worst music in the world and learned all the wrong things from it.
Another one described the lead singer of some group as if someone had taken the face of....a Russian politician, maybe Boris Yeltsin....and held it against the side of a moving bus.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:28 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
One said that a metal act named The Dwarves was so bad, it was like they had listened to all the worst music in the world and learned all the wrong things from it.
Another one described the lead singer of some group as if someone had taken the face of....a Russian politician, maybe Boris Yeltsin....and held it against the side of a moving bus.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:28 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
What's the happy medium where I don't need to wade through reviewers' egos, can spend less time with discovery than when I trawled music blogpost blogs for hours, and can avoid the self-reinforcement trap of recommendation algorithms to find some level of serendipity?
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 12:29 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 12:29 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
(if you want to see someone who can spend 15 minutes making it clear that they have no fucking idea what they are talking about, watch Fantano's review of Chance The Rappers "Acid Rap". I'm not going to link it because it is stupid.)
posted by lkc at 12:31 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by lkc at 12:31 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I just went to look at pitchfork after a gosh...ten year break I think I'm more interested these days in exploring music through Spotify, Bandcamp, AllMusic and Discogs.
I'm still not over the way things were in the early 2000's with pitchfork being the "comic book guy" for indie music and all the stupid cachet and sway they had over people's careers. I hated it then, and I'm not interested in their opinions now.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:31 PM on May 2, 2018
I'm still not over the way things were in the early 2000's with pitchfork being the "comic book guy" for indie music and all the stupid cachet and sway they had over people's careers. I hated it then, and I'm not interested in their opinions now.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:31 PM on May 2, 2018
Exile & Pride has been adopted in many college classrooms, and was recently re-released by Duke University Press. Eli has a pretty comfortable life speaking and leading workshops. It's an important book. Califia was just wrong about it, for whatever reasons.
Eli Clare is great! How sad about that first review.
~~~
A problem with writing negative reviews is the difficulty of separating the urge to unpack from the urge to kill. Like, the bad kind of negative review - the kind that gets more clicks and is more fun to write - is the Oedipal-kill kind, where your goal is to read unsympathetically and do your best to eradicate the book. That urge to destroy is very powerful and hard to reign in, and usually wrong. But it's hard to maintain the critical force to write a good review unpacking a thing without being at least partially animated by that spiteful killer's urge.
It's a reason I don't like to write negative reviews - I find it hard to trust myself.
~~~
Another thing that caused the decline of negative reviewing, IMO, is Goodreads/internet review aggregation. It's more effective to skim through twenty or thirty amateur reviews written at all levels of skill and perception than to read one virtuoso negative review - I'm far more likely to get a good sense of whether I'll like something from Goodreads.
I really read positive/analytical reviews for more than just "should I read this", so it's not the same thing - I read these for ways of interpreting the text and things to look for in it. A positive review isn't really about "will I like this", since I can pretty much establish that by other means. A positive review is about how I'll read something and how it relates to the other things I read.
posted by Frowner at 12:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Eli Clare is great! How sad about that first review.
~~~
A problem with writing negative reviews is the difficulty of separating the urge to unpack from the urge to kill. Like, the bad kind of negative review - the kind that gets more clicks and is more fun to write - is the Oedipal-kill kind, where your goal is to read unsympathetically and do your best to eradicate the book. That urge to destroy is very powerful and hard to reign in, and usually wrong. But it's hard to maintain the critical force to write a good review unpacking a thing without being at least partially animated by that spiteful killer's urge.
It's a reason I don't like to write negative reviews - I find it hard to trust myself.
~~~
Another thing that caused the decline of negative reviewing, IMO, is Goodreads/internet review aggregation. It's more effective to skim through twenty or thirty amateur reviews written at all levels of skill and perception than to read one virtuoso negative review - I'm far more likely to get a good sense of whether I'll like something from Goodreads.
I really read positive/analytical reviews for more than just "should I read this", so it's not the same thing - I read these for ways of interpreting the text and things to look for in it. A positive review isn't really about "will I like this", since I can pretty much establish that by other means. A positive review is about how I'll read something and how it relates to the other things I read.
posted by Frowner at 12:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Another one described the lead singer of some group as if someone had taken the face of....a Russian politician, maybe Boris Yeltsin....and held it against the side of a moving bus.
Didn't a writer for NME once describe Hope Sandoval as "spastic and froglike"?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Didn't a writer for NME once describe Hope Sandoval as "spastic and froglike"?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
But I dunno, I have a hard time thinking the 90s/00s version of Pitchfork put much of a dent in the Flaming Lips, or even Jet. The small bands who get a really bad review early in their careers I can feel bad for. And Liz Phair, but lots of publications gave that album a bad review - the feeling that this was unfair is more in context of the feeling that people were unfair to her from the beginning.
(And Sonic Youth was telling critics to fuck off from back when Christgau was giving them pithily terrible reviews)
posted by atoxyl at 12:33 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
(And Sonic Youth was telling critics to fuck off from back when Christgau was giving them pithily terrible reviews)
posted by atoxyl at 12:33 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
This Racked article on algorithmic style recommendation recently posted to MeFi seems relevant.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 12:33 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 12:33 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Anything NME took the piss out of was a signal to me that I'd probably love it.
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:34 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:34 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'd love to see a companion piece along the lines of "How do reviewers feel now that they don't seem that relevant anymore?".
Or is that true? That seems like an unexamined axiom of the article.
posted by selfnoise at 12:35 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Or is that true? That seems like an unexamined axiom of the article.
posted by selfnoise at 12:35 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Before you could just find every song in the history of the universe simply by typing its name into Google (fine, except for the full studio version of "Rolling Sevens" by ABC and a few thousand others), reviews influenced whether I bought an album and (during my years as a college DJ) sometimes whether I'd even play a song from an album I'd not previously heard on my show. Why spend time or money on something if there's a pretty good chance it will be junk?
Really good reviews would often inspire me to seek music out.
Yeah, now that I can find virtually anything ever recorded (except for a decent quality version of the Hey Zeus version of "Country at War" by X and thirty handfuls of others) I treat reviews as interesting ways to sometimes narrow my search down ("they like this one song so let's look for that") rather than as a guide for where I should spend my filthy lucre.
Negative reviews are super fun to read, but its even more fun when the same reviewer recants years later after they've spent some actual time listening to and living with the music instead of just writing a critical hot take.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:35 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Really good reviews would often inspire me to seek music out.
Yeah, now that I can find virtually anything ever recorded (except for a decent quality version of the Hey Zeus version of "Country at War" by X and thirty handfuls of others) I treat reviews as interesting ways to sometimes narrow my search down ("they like this one song so let's look for that") rather than as a guide for where I should spend my filthy lucre.
Negative reviews are super fun to read, but its even more fun when the same reviewer recants years later after they've spent some actual time listening to and living with the music instead of just writing a critical hot take.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:35 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
The article about the lack of negative reviews is far too reductive, blaming it entirely on the fandom and angry mobs of the internet, without a single mention of how advertising and marketing have become so much more sophisticated and powerful, turning bands and artists into brands. Even in traditional media alone there is less and less room for negative reviews because of that. Add the increasing role of online media and bloggers, who have even more incentives to write positive reviews - from pure exposure to actual material perks and freebies and the most precious currency of all, access. And then, add the fact that music labels have been increasingly absorbed into larger and larger corporations, often the same corporations owning the media where music is reviewed...
The whole picture is more complex than "angry mobs on the internet". Maybe it’s a chicken and egg thing, but fandom and marketing both feed into this from opposite ends.
(It’s the same with books, movies... but maybe to a lesser extent?)
posted by bitteschoen at 12:39 PM on May 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
The whole picture is more complex than "angry mobs on the internet". Maybe it’s a chicken and egg thing, but fandom and marketing both feed into this from opposite ends.
(It’s the same with books, movies... but maybe to a lesser extent?)
posted by bitteschoen at 12:39 PM on May 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
(It’s the same with books, movies... but maybe to a lesser extent?)
I was just thinking this same thing. Like, there are so many movies that make big bucks despite getting panned critically, and it's always been this way. But the music world seems to work differently, outside of a few Acceptable Targets like, I dunno, the Eagles or Nickelback or whoever.
Is there some structural difference in the music industry or record contracts or something that accounts for this?
posted by tobascodagama at 12:42 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was just thinking this same thing. Like, there are so many movies that make big bucks despite getting panned critically, and it's always been this way. But the music world seems to work differently, outside of a few Acceptable Targets like, I dunno, the Eagles or Nickelback or whoever.
Is there some structural difference in the music industry or record contracts or something that accounts for this?
posted by tobascodagama at 12:42 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Over the years, I've noticed I'm more (or less) trusting of reviewers if I know what they don't like rather than that they like. It's very easy to like (or pretend like) everything and not rub anyone the wrong way, particularly acts with big fan bases. Last year when there were a lot of thinkpieces over the death of poptimism, plenty of them pointed out at a lot of review outlets being little more than a cheer squad for any artist that crossed a sales threshold, which kinda meant it went full circle and it reached the same level of shameless self-absorption as rockism where status beats the rest.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:43 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by lmfsilva at 12:43 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
One said that a metal act named The Dwarves was so bad, it was like they had listened to all the worst music in the world and learned all the wrong things from it.
That's a completely accurate description of early Dwarves Its Your Party . They went through several iterations, from whatever that was (bad version of The Cramps maybe?) to trash rock and porno album covers with SubPop in the early '90s, to trashy pop-punk by the late '90s to trashy kitch Metrosexual Man by 2005. So good on that guy for recognizing exactly what they were.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:46 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
That's a completely accurate description of early Dwarves Its Your Party . They went through several iterations, from whatever that was (bad version of The Cramps maybe?) to trash rock and porno album covers with SubPop in the early '90s, to trashy pop-punk by the late '90s to trashy kitch Metrosexual Man by 2005. So good on that guy for recognizing exactly what they were.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:46 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, now that I can find virtually anything ever recorded
This is definitely what made reviews "not matter." Maybe one reason I'm relatively unfazed by the harshness of these examples is that growing up alongside Napster et. al I guess I've really always seen music reviews more as commentary, or even a performance in their own right - anybody remember the SA "Your Band Sucks" column? - than as a serious recommendation system.
posted by atoxyl at 12:48 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is definitely what made reviews "not matter." Maybe one reason I'm relatively unfazed by the harshness of these examples is that growing up alongside Napster et. al I guess I've really always seen music reviews more as commentary, or even a performance in their own right - anybody remember the SA "Your Band Sucks" column? - than as a serious recommendation system.
posted by atoxyl at 12:48 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
biteschoen, tobascodagama: With movies, at least, there's been the rise of the entitled fanboy for genre movies, who will savage any critic who dares impugn their comic book movie. (Typically they're the same sort who will also savage any critic who approves of the "SJW"-ized new Star Wars movies or comic book movies that have women as more than sex objects.) The Beyhive or whatever the heck term Taylor Swift fans use for themselves aren't nearly as aggressive.
posted by SansPoint at 12:48 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 12:48 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
To be more on-topic, though. Pitchfork is one of those sites I could never get to into. Mostly because I just can't stand Thom Yorke or that whole whiny indie rock movement that was their bread and butter of that era. I would occasionally browse it to see them pan contemporary hip-hop, and my rule of thumb was "If Pitchfork loves it, I will probably hate it, if Pitchfork hates it, I'll also probably hate it, but sometimes the reviews are funny."
The one that stands out for me was about 10 years ago, when Nas released "The Nigger Tape" when his upcoming album was renamed to "Untitled". Pitchfork panned the tape, and then when "Untitled" was released, they panned THAT and referenced how much better the mix-tape (again, that they panned) was.
And, I mean, that was 10 years into their bullshit already.
Music is funny, though, in that people have opinions of it, and people want to be right and be validated about their opinions and want to know what the cool stuff is before anyone else does, so when it gets popular, they can say they were in to it before they were big. I mean, not everyone, but music nerds like me definitely go that way. Some of the trouble is that people can write or review with the structure of a compelling argument, but its still just an opinion. BUT if its well-structured and compelling or persuasive, then it makes it easier for people to parrot the message, even if its ungrounded opinionated nonsense.
I mostly listen to hip-hop, and I have for a long fucking time, and occasionally I get the lecture from younger fans about how Kendrick is the GOAT or something-something jazz-influence, and I can't really be mad at it, because I've been there, but its also the same shit I've heard for the last like 30 years, and it wasn't really new then.
But at the end of the day, most music critics are either failed musicians or snobs who never even tried. Pitchfork had the attitude that they were smarter than everyone and therefore their taste was better. If people's careers were ended by pitchfork, then they were, well, niche and maybe just trying to cater to the pitchfork crowd. Is there any band that was actually elevated by one of their reviews?
Also, surprised it hasn't been linked yet: Pitchfork gives music a 6.8.
posted by lkc at 12:52 PM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
The one that stands out for me was about 10 years ago, when Nas released "The Nigger Tape" when his upcoming album was renamed to "Untitled". Pitchfork panned the tape, and then when "Untitled" was released, they panned THAT and referenced how much better the mix-tape (again, that they panned) was.
And, I mean, that was 10 years into their bullshit already.
Music is funny, though, in that people have opinions of it, and people want to be right and be validated about their opinions and want to know what the cool stuff is before anyone else does, so when it gets popular, they can say they were in to it before they were big. I mean, not everyone, but music nerds like me definitely go that way. Some of the trouble is that people can write or review with the structure of a compelling argument, but its still just an opinion. BUT if its well-structured and compelling or persuasive, then it makes it easier for people to parrot the message, even if its ungrounded opinionated nonsense.
I mostly listen to hip-hop, and I have for a long fucking time, and occasionally I get the lecture from younger fans about how Kendrick is the GOAT or something-something jazz-influence, and I can't really be mad at it, because I've been there, but its also the same shit I've heard for the last like 30 years, and it wasn't really new then.
But at the end of the day, most music critics are either failed musicians or snobs who never even tried. Pitchfork had the attitude that they were smarter than everyone and therefore their taste was better. If people's careers were ended by pitchfork, then they were, well, niche and maybe just trying to cater to the pitchfork crowd. Is there any band that was actually elevated by one of their reviews?
Also, surprised it hasn't been linked yet: Pitchfork gives music a 6.8.
posted by lkc at 12:52 PM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
atoxyl: Maybe that's why I do feel somewhat compelled to check out music reviews from time to time. I don't stream, so anything I want to listen to I need to buy or steal. If I were the sort of person who felt like $9.99 a month to rent a huge catalog of music was a good deal, maybe I'd just let the algorithm decide for me among what's new.
But I'm not. I listen to albums. I like to do deep dives into artist discographies. I like to look at reviews of an artist to find which a good record to start with. If you're the sort of weirdo who actually buys music on any format, rather than streaming it, then it can help to at least check a review site so you can see what's out there and get a general sense of if it's something you might want to check out.
I should also add that my consumption of new music and new artists has fallen pretty hard since quitting my sideline as an ostensible music critic. All my favorite new releases from 2017 were from bands and artists I already followed: St. Vincent, Sparks, OMD... the only exception was an album by a local band called Bootblacks, and even that was their third album.
posted by SansPoint at 12:54 PM on May 2, 2018
But I'm not. I listen to albums. I like to do deep dives into artist discographies. I like to look at reviews of an artist to find which a good record to start with. If you're the sort of weirdo who actually buys music on any format, rather than streaming it, then it can help to at least check a review site so you can see what's out there and get a general sense of if it's something you might want to check out.
I should also add that my consumption of new music and new artists has fallen pretty hard since quitting my sideline as an ostensible music critic. All my favorite new releases from 2017 were from bands and artists I already followed: St. Vincent, Sparks, OMD... the only exception was an album by a local band called Bootblacks, and even that was their third album.
posted by SansPoint at 12:54 PM on May 2, 2018
Yeah I don't really understand why you would bother to write a negative review of something obscure. What's the point?
The reason to write a negative review in the first place is to steer someone away from something. But if the average reader is unlikely to run across that thing anyway, then you might as well just roll out the Mission Accomplished banner and move on to something else.
Pointing out something obscure that's good, by contrast, is a very valuable service. As is steering a reader away from something bad if it's popular enough (e.g. new release from an established artist) that they might conceivably pick it up on reputation alone. But even there, I think the more productive attitude is "if you liked $XYZ's earlier work, this is nothing like it! Beware!"; i.e. focus on the service you are providing to the reader, not on holier-than-thouing, which seems to be where a lot of negative reviews go.
Naturally all rules are flexible if you are a really gifted or witty writer. But few are.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:56 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
The reason to write a negative review in the first place is to steer someone away from something. But if the average reader is unlikely to run across that thing anyway, then you might as well just roll out the Mission Accomplished banner and move on to something else.
Pointing out something obscure that's good, by contrast, is a very valuable service. As is steering a reader away from something bad if it's popular enough (e.g. new release from an established artist) that they might conceivably pick it up on reputation alone. But even there, I think the more productive attitude is "if you liked $XYZ's earlier work, this is nothing like it! Beware!"; i.e. focus on the service you are providing to the reader, not on holier-than-thouing, which seems to be where a lot of negative reviews go.
Naturally all rules are flexible if you are a really gifted or witty writer. But few are.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:56 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
That Liz Phair album doesn't rate a 0.0, but it's not very good.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:57 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Chrysostom at 12:57 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
> If people's careers were ended by pitchfork, then they were, well, niche and maybe just trying to cater to the pitchfork crowd.
This is just about dismissive enough to be an actual old-school Pitchfork review
posted by Maaik at 12:58 PM on May 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
This is just about dismissive enough to be an actual old-school Pitchfork review
posted by Maaik at 12:58 PM on May 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
I love music, and I love good writing, but I have yet to find anyone who's reliably managed to translate the subjective experience of listening into a reasonably objective experience in writing. There's been lots of entertaining writing about music in general, but when speaking about the actual sounds and whether they're "good" or not, a review tends to be broad ("angular", "immersive", "cathartic", or my favourite: "cohesive") or comparative ("it's like Belle & Sebastian meets The Plasmatics!"). At the end of one you can usually tell if the reviewer liked the album, and what genre it falls in, but that's about it. Couple this with oft-nonsensical rating scales ("oh, it's a 8.6, not a 8.7"), and you're left with a school of writing that has yet to justify its own existence beyond the skill or wit of any particular author. You could replace 95% of Pitchfork or Rolling Stone reviews with "RIYL X, Y, and Z" and they'd be more useful.
I think at some level that even music critics know that they're not really able to speak meaningfully about music, which is why so many tend to adopt the same safe writing devices, that sort of reference-filled style that gives you a bit of musician bio, spins a bunch of shallow analysis and projection out of a few lyrical snippets, inserts some tiresome personal reflection, and generally talks a lot but doesn't really say anything but does a good job of masking this if you don't squint too closely. That the focus is on lyrics is not surprising: they're the easiest thing to grasp, and focusing on words lets you say something in a way you can't about a sound, which is why literary criticism is recognized and examined whereas reflections on music criticism are so often limited to meta-articles like this or tales of debauchery featuring Lester Bangs. But if it was all about words we wouldn't be calling it music; lyrics, for all that they can be bits of genius, are the least important element of music as a whole (it's so easy for people to name songs that they love with terrible or even no lyrics; now list the songs you consider to be great solely due to their lyrics, ones that you regularly listen to but at the same time absolutely hate all the music of).
While I'm at it, Louis XIV's Finding Out True Love is Blind is a great cock rock song. But I won't bother trying to convince you otherwise.
posted by Palindromedary at 1:02 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think at some level that even music critics know that they're not really able to speak meaningfully about music, which is why so many tend to adopt the same safe writing devices, that sort of reference-filled style that gives you a bit of musician bio, spins a bunch of shallow analysis and projection out of a few lyrical snippets, inserts some tiresome personal reflection, and generally talks a lot but doesn't really say anything but does a good job of masking this if you don't squint too closely. That the focus is on lyrics is not surprising: they're the easiest thing to grasp, and focusing on words lets you say something in a way you can't about a sound, which is why literary criticism is recognized and examined whereas reflections on music criticism are so often limited to meta-articles like this or tales of debauchery featuring Lester Bangs. But if it was all about words we wouldn't be calling it music; lyrics, for all that they can be bits of genius, are the least important element of music as a whole (it's so easy for people to name songs that they love with terrible or even no lyrics; now list the songs you consider to be great solely due to their lyrics, ones that you regularly listen to but at the same time absolutely hate all the music of).
While I'm at it, Louis XIV's Finding Out True Love is Blind is a great cock rock song. But I won't bother trying to convince you otherwise.
posted by Palindromedary at 1:02 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
If I were the sort of person who felt like $9.99 a month to rent a huge catalog of music was a good deal, maybe I'd just let the algorithm decide for me among what's new
as a user of Spotify I think their algorithms are kinda garbage except for their "bands like this" section. I spend most of my time exploring that section and following scenes and reading up on them. I also like going to record stores and looking for old weird shit that's cheap that I've never heard of just buying it, then of the 10% I like I'll go to Spotify and see if there are other bands in that scene or genre or era that I like as well.
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:06 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
as a user of Spotify I think their algorithms are kinda garbage except for their "bands like this" section. I spend most of my time exploring that section and following scenes and reading up on them. I also like going to record stores and looking for old weird shit that's cheap that I've never heard of just buying it, then of the 10% I like I'll go to Spotify and see if there are other bands in that scene or genre or era that I like as well.
posted by Annika Cicada at 1:06 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I still read reviews of media all the time - these days though that's often after listening to/watching it, to see what other people think. I think the evolution of the critic into "a writer who writes about somebody else's work" is just fine and natural. That can be pyrotechnic negativity if you want - less influence means less responsibility. Just write something worth reading.
I guess for movies or novels I still take reviewers somewhat seriously for recommendations, because you can't "just" check it out on your own with no investment. But for music it's strictly a supplement.
posted by atoxyl at 1:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I guess for movies or novels I still take reviewers somewhat seriously for recommendations, because you can't "just" check it out on your own with no investment. But for music it's strictly a supplement.
posted by atoxyl at 1:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have to chime in with my favorite negative review of my previous band which was NYC classic punk style band.
"You sound like some shitty band like Unsane or The Ramones"
.....uhhhh, thanks?
Admittedly it was a minor music website that later folded, but I do wish I had framed a screenshot of it or something.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:23 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
"You sound like some shitty band like Unsane or The Ramones"
.....uhhhh, thanks?
Admittedly it was a minor music website that later folded, but I do wish I had framed a screenshot of it or something.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:23 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Music reviews were dead to me when I read a review of a Phish album in my college newspaper that made me run out and buy it and I was SORELY disappointed. Music reviews mean nothing. They cannot tell you whether or not YOU will like something.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
i.e. focus on the service you are providing to the reader, not on holier-than-thouing, which seems to be where a lot of negative reviews go.
See, I think this is just a limitation of the review format in general. Because the whole "objective score" thing is bullshit when it comes to art anyway, and clearly there are a lot of people who get something out of listening to Nickelback or watching Michael Bay movies or whatever, even if they're technically bad on the merits by which the art is judged. Who do you serve by saying that some popular thing -- which clearly a lot of people are enjoying, or it wouldn't be popular -- is bad and the people who like it should feel bad?
One trend I've seen in games coverage lately which I think is a great synthesis of the way out of this trap has been the replacement of "reviews" with "impressions". With games, that's been driven by as much by the "live service" trend and frequent updates that means a game is no longer frozen in time upon release, but I think it's a good artistically as well -- both for the art of games and for the art of game criticism. A number out of 100 or 10 tells me jack shit, but someone telling a story of their journey playing the game tells me a lot both about whether it's a game I might like (review as "consumer guide") and about what the game itself has to say and how it says it (review as "art criticism").
posted by tobascodagama at 1:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
See, I think this is just a limitation of the review format in general. Because the whole "objective score" thing is bullshit when it comes to art anyway, and clearly there are a lot of people who get something out of listening to Nickelback or watching Michael Bay movies or whatever, even if they're technically bad on the merits by which the art is judged. Who do you serve by saying that some popular thing -- which clearly a lot of people are enjoying, or it wouldn't be popular -- is bad and the people who like it should feel bad?
One trend I've seen in games coverage lately which I think is a great synthesis of the way out of this trap has been the replacement of "reviews" with "impressions". With games, that's been driven by as much by the "live service" trend and frequent updates that means a game is no longer frozen in time upon release, but I think it's a good artistically as well -- both for the art of games and for the art of game criticism. A number out of 100 or 10 tells me jack shit, but someone telling a story of their journey playing the game tells me a lot both about whether it's a game I might like (review as "consumer guide") and about what the game itself has to say and how it says it (review as "art criticism").
posted by tobascodagama at 1:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I kind of miss music reviews, I think it's a useful service, but I never looked at Pitchfork for more than a minute.
Like a lot of tech things, I don't think the situation is better or worse now, just different.
I can listen to almost anything I want to see if I like it. Yes, but there are approximately 10 million releases a day. How do I know what to give more than a few seconds to? Today most of my music purchasing is mostly blind luck. So I guess a lot like when I was digging through LP's in the 70's and 80's.
Music fan reviews are mostly useless.
5 stars: "Every little thing they do is magic!"
1 star: "Guy looked weird at my dog at Starbucks once, he's a jerk"
Some movie and book sites are better, but I go straight to the negative reviews. Because the positive fan reviews rarely tell me anything useful. I might disagree with the negative review, but it's more likely to give me an idea if I'd like it.
But strangely professional movie and book reviews seem to be doing a lot better, in spite of the fact that we have a much better and more robust replacement for them in the amateur world.
posted by bongo_x at 1:26 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Like a lot of tech things, I don't think the situation is better or worse now, just different.
I can listen to almost anything I want to see if I like it. Yes, but there are approximately 10 million releases a day. How do I know what to give more than a few seconds to? Today most of my music purchasing is mostly blind luck. So I guess a lot like when I was digging through LP's in the 70's and 80's.
Music fan reviews are mostly useless.
5 stars: "Every little thing they do is magic!"
1 star: "Guy looked weird at my dog at Starbucks once, he's a jerk"
Some movie and book sites are better, but I go straight to the negative reviews. Because the positive fan reviews rarely tell me anything useful. I might disagree with the negative review, but it's more likely to give me an idea if I'd like it.
But strangely professional movie and book reviews seem to be doing a lot better, in spite of the fact that we have a much better and more robust replacement for them in the amateur world.
posted by bongo_x at 1:26 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
"You sound like some shitty band like Unsane or The Ramones"
See, that is a very useful negative review.
posted by bongo_x at 1:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
See, that is a very useful negative review.
posted by bongo_x at 1:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I definitely don't read professional criticism to figure out what art/media I want to pursue. For that it's far more important to listen to direct recs from friends, impressions from acquaintances who I know share similar tastes, and factual information like "this movie is a retelling of The Tempest" or "this book Buries Its Gays". Fancy published reviews are definitely a postmortem, analytical-interest thing.
It's mostly books that are relevant in my case I suppose, and those aren't that huge of an investment for me since I'm a fast reader who makes heavy use of the public library.
posted by inconstant at 1:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's mostly books that are relevant in my case I suppose, and those aren't that huge of an investment for me since I'm a fast reader who makes heavy use of the public library.
posted by inconstant at 1:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
tobascodagama: Something I always tried to do in my reviews was contextualize the album. If it's a new release by an established artist, I'd discuss how they got to the new album, and where it seems to fit. If it's a new release by a new artist, I'd find where it has common ground in stuff I assumed the reader would know about, so they know what they're getting into. (I've also never bothered with the "score" nonsense. You wanna know what I think, read the damn review.)
posted by SansPoint at 1:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 1:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Well that's just nitpicking, isn't it?
posted by the duck by the oboe at 1:41 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by the duck by the oboe at 1:41 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
if music reviews could kill a career, grand funk railroad would have been dead, dead, dead
and they're the ones who first came up with the idea of printing their bad reviews as part of their album art - the poster included in grand funk live had quite a few
there were times i liked them and times i thought they were annoying and there were many better bands at the time
however, by the 80s it became apparent there were a lot WORSE bands, too ....
posted by pyramid termite at 1:44 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
and they're the ones who first came up with the idea of printing their bad reviews as part of their album art - the poster included in grand funk live had quite a few
there were times i liked them and times i thought they were annoying and there were many better bands at the time
however, by the 80s it became apparent there were a lot WORSE bands, too ....
posted by pyramid termite at 1:44 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Way back in the days of my youth, music reviews would appear in physical magazines and you would spend money to read what someone thought of whichever band was on the hot seat. In one of these magazines ( I forget which one) one of the reviewer was reviewing a small act that had a sound very similar, and probably influenced by a very large act. The review was succinct (far more succinct than this comment) and to the point, and negative. I quote:
"Yes, Yes. Therefore no."
This is my all time favorite record review.
posted by evilDoug at 1:46 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
"Yes, Yes. Therefore no."
This is my all time favorite record review.
posted by evilDoug at 1:46 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Negative music reviews seem like a crazy anachronism to me. Why bother? Of course I wasn't going to listen to whatever music you're criticizing. I'm never going to (deliberately*) listen to any music at all unless somebody raves about it so hard I turn my head away from the pile of music already on my hard drive that has a collective running time larger than my remaining life expectancy.
(*I mean, of course I'm going to randomly click on links to YouTube or Spotify or whatever, but that's not the sort of thing that a music review will cause or prevent.)
posted by straight at 1:53 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
(*I mean, of course I'm going to randomly click on links to YouTube or Spotify or whatever, but that's not the sort of thing that a music review will cause or prevent.)
posted by straight at 1:53 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
starcastle, right?
posted by pyramid termite at 1:54 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by pyramid termite at 1:54 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Spent a while as a music writer, and I've spent my whole life as a music lover/thinker/maker. And a couple of things jump out to me:
1. I've come to realize (partly through discussions here on the old meta-filter) that every person's relationship with the music they love is so deeply specific to a subjective mindset that it can be really easy for criticism to be useless. There's a lot of music I love that I know is garbage by consensus critical standards, but it meant something to me at a specific time in my life, and that personal emotional attachment, which exists only in my head, is the basis for my entire relationship with the piece. It's hardly a given that some external writer's going to have anything to say that's relevant to that situation.
and
2. I used to really enjoy the savage negative review of something I hated, but I'm just kind of exhausted by the phenomenon now. It usually serves as a monument to the cleverness of the reviewer, and while I have nothing against cleverness, I just no longer think it's enough. I'd wayyyy rather read an impassioned, well-constructed defense of a piece of music I don't like (even if said defense doesn't change my mind) than an epic takedown of something I hate as much as the reviewer hates.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 1:56 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
1. I've come to realize (partly through discussions here on the old meta-filter) that every person's relationship with the music they love is so deeply specific to a subjective mindset that it can be really easy for criticism to be useless. There's a lot of music I love that I know is garbage by consensus critical standards, but it meant something to me at a specific time in my life, and that personal emotional attachment, which exists only in my head, is the basis for my entire relationship with the piece. It's hardly a given that some external writer's going to have anything to say that's relevant to that situation.
and
2. I used to really enjoy the savage negative review of something I hated, but I'm just kind of exhausted by the phenomenon now. It usually serves as a monument to the cleverness of the reviewer, and while I have nothing against cleverness, I just no longer think it's enough. I'd wayyyy rather read an impassioned, well-constructed defense of a piece of music I don't like (even if said defense doesn't change my mind) than an epic takedown of something I hate as much as the reviewer hates.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 1:56 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
"Yes, Yes. Therefore no."
Also "The FIXX suxx".
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:56 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Also "The FIXX suxx".
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:56 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Partie Traumatic is actually fairly good in a mid-two-thousands indie kind of way. I really don't think it deserves a 0 rating. That definitely says more about the reviewer than the band.
My sister worked for a national (international, even) publication with a book review section. If they didn't like a book by a first time author, they just wouldn't publish anything. No endorsement, but also no needless ruining of someone's work and potentially their career.
posted by leo_r at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
My sister worked for a national (international, even) publication with a book review section. If they didn't like a book by a first time author, they just wouldn't publish anything. No endorsement, but also no needless ruining of someone's work and potentially their career.
posted by leo_r at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
In 1999, I was largely unfamiliar with Pitchfork, but I was a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. When Pitchfork reviewed The Fragile, it simultaneously brought them to my attention, and told me all I need to know about their reviews.
posted by curiousgene at 2:01 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by curiousgene at 2:01 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
The only Pitchfork review I agree with is their first 10/10 review.
posted by gucci mane at 2:05 PM on May 2, 2018
posted by gucci mane at 2:05 PM on May 2, 2018
Upon further research it appears that Pitchfork has removed that review from their website, but it was for the band 12 Rods' EP "Gay?"
posted by gucci mane at 2:07 PM on May 2, 2018
posted by gucci mane at 2:07 PM on May 2, 2018
I feel like my cohort has moved from discovering music via Pitchfork to NPR or BBC 6 floating in the background. (My cohort: people who have been listening to Belle and Sebastian for over 20 years)
Negative reviews have their place, but those Pitchfork 0.0 reviews were more about young dudes feeling sad that no matter how fast they typed, they would never be Lester Bangs.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:09 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Negative reviews have their place, but those Pitchfork 0.0 reviews were more about young dudes feeling sad that no matter how fast they typed, they would never be Lester Bangs.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:09 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
I believe you can find that 12 Rods review here.
posted by curiousgene at 2:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by curiousgene at 2:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I grew up in a time when it was cool to hate certain music. It contributed to me thinking that making music was completely out-of-reach for me: even if I could technically do it, why open myself up to the vitriol? The answer I have finally discovered is because it’s fun and personally rewarding, if nothing else. I welcome this more accepting period in music history.
posted by mantecol at 2:22 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by mantecol at 2:22 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
At the height of NME’s power in England in the late 70s they had Julie Burchill on staff, and she only gave bad reviews. In the end she admitted that the only music she liked was the first Sex Pistols album and old Tamla Motown records. She moved on, but had already destroyed a pile of upcoming bands with her universal hatred of all current music, and some of them might have been good.
posted by w0mbat at 2:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by w0mbat at 2:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Music reviews have always smacked me as a bit useless. The act of describing and analyzing music that way just seems to produce so much less fruitful information than nearly every other kind of art and its respective reviews. For me, the only way to judge, review, or evaluate an album is to listen to it a few times myself.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:25 PM on May 2, 2018
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:25 PM on May 2, 2018
I love music, and I love good writing, but I have yet to find anyone who's reliably managed to translate the subjective experience of listening into a reasonably objective experience in writing.
Holy cats, yes. When I write about music (and I do at a blog that nine people read on a good day), I struggle with how to describe almost everything. I use "angular" a lot more often than I ever imagined I would. And "mid-tempo." Also, I've come up with some tortured (and some utterly banal) metaphors to try and describe exactly what I'm hearing.
I used to feel bad about this, but the more reviews I've read, the more I've realized that almost everyone does this because dancing:architecture. Yes, you can break down the time signature and the key and the chord progressions or melodic path or whatever, but that doesn't tell most people anything about they can understand about the song. Furthermore, music is such a personal experience that my favorite writing about music is often stuff addresses how a particular song effected a particular person at a particular moment.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Holy cats, yes. When I write about music (and I do at a blog that nine people read on a good day), I struggle with how to describe almost everything. I use "angular" a lot more often than I ever imagined I would. And "mid-tempo." Also, I've come up with some tortured (and some utterly banal) metaphors to try and describe exactly what I'm hearing.
I used to feel bad about this, but the more reviews I've read, the more I've realized that almost everyone does this because dancing:architecture. Yes, you can break down the time signature and the key and the chord progressions or melodic path or whatever, but that doesn't tell most people anything about they can understand about the song. Furthermore, music is such a personal experience that my favorite writing about music is often stuff addresses how a particular song effected a particular person at a particular moment.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
In the zine era, record reviews were a form of entertainment. The bigger zines like Your Flesh and Forced Exposure ran so many reviews in each issue that it was obvious nobody was going to give anything the attention they deserved, so reviewers ideally tended to try to give brief fair impressions (not necessarily literal descriptions) of the stuff they liked and riff freeform over anything they considered a waste of their time. It was rare for anything to get more than a hundred words; over fifty usually meant the reviewer was either struggling to pin it down or was waxing lyrical over its best or worst qualities.
There was an implicit trust involved in reading the opinions of people who, for example, thought Jandek was not a waste of their time: Regardless of whether you agreed with their thought on Jandek, you knew they were working from a fundamental willingness to find the art in deliberately primitive and difficult music. Which of course risks being its own basis for discrimination, but hey there was always Spin or Rolling Stone for the easy listening stuff.
That in turn implies that reviews necessarily represented the opinion of the zine, when they didn't (aside from when its publisher wrote it). Or that there was an enforced uniformity of opinion among the reviewers, when there wasn't. The regular suspects usually had their own spheres of interest; Jimmy Johnston for a while was obsessed with questionably-legitimate limited edition reissues of 70s-era Mediterranean prog rock, for example, and everybody seemed to either go through a Merzbow phase or else bounce off Japanese noise entirely, even if they were plenty accommodating of heavy, challenging stuff otherwise.
It probably sucked for the bands on receiving ends of negative reviews but it seemed unlikely that, regardless of whether the prose was favorable or not, most of the readership would ever cross paths with the single or album at their record store anyway. So the blast range was probably even more selective than the distribution would have been.
And ultimately these reviews existed at a time when very few people could be exposed first-hand to all the recordings out there. The amount of music anybody could read about far outstripped the amount of music they could hear, even when there was a healthy and well-connected freeform radio station in listening range. So I think in many cases a band starting out wasn't helped by positive reviews nearly as much as they were helped by colorful reviews that made them memorable by association.
Now it's a lot easier to decide first-hand about music. Reviews don't have to function as a means to learn about new music long before you can have an opportunity to hear it. But people have opinions about things and reasonably want to share them because we're social animals. Everybody is the best expert about their own tastes but some people are better than others at writing well-informed, well-expressed reviews. They can spot things I missed, and sometimes steer me from my first hasty opinions about things. These people are still worth reading (*this is an opinion completely unrelated to the existence of Pitchfork).
posted by ardgedee at 2:40 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
There was an implicit trust involved in reading the opinions of people who, for example, thought Jandek was not a waste of their time: Regardless of whether you agreed with their thought on Jandek, you knew they were working from a fundamental willingness to find the art in deliberately primitive and difficult music. Which of course risks being its own basis for discrimination, but hey there was always Spin or Rolling Stone for the easy listening stuff.
That in turn implies that reviews necessarily represented the opinion of the zine, when they didn't (aside from when its publisher wrote it). Or that there was an enforced uniformity of opinion among the reviewers, when there wasn't. The regular suspects usually had their own spheres of interest; Jimmy Johnston for a while was obsessed with questionably-legitimate limited edition reissues of 70s-era Mediterranean prog rock, for example, and everybody seemed to either go through a Merzbow phase or else bounce off Japanese noise entirely, even if they were plenty accommodating of heavy, challenging stuff otherwise.
It probably sucked for the bands on receiving ends of negative reviews but it seemed unlikely that, regardless of whether the prose was favorable or not, most of the readership would ever cross paths with the single or album at their record store anyway. So the blast range was probably even more selective than the distribution would have been.
And ultimately these reviews existed at a time when very few people could be exposed first-hand to all the recordings out there. The amount of music anybody could read about far outstripped the amount of music they could hear, even when there was a healthy and well-connected freeform radio station in listening range. So I think in many cases a band starting out wasn't helped by positive reviews nearly as much as they were helped by colorful reviews that made them memorable by association.
Now it's a lot easier to decide first-hand about music. Reviews don't have to function as a means to learn about new music long before you can have an opportunity to hear it. But people have opinions about things and reasonably want to share them because we're social animals. Everybody is the best expert about their own tastes but some people are better than others at writing well-informed, well-expressed reviews. They can spot things I missed, and sometimes steer me from my first hasty opinions about things. These people are still worth reading (*this is an opinion completely unrelated to the existence of Pitchfork).
posted by ardgedee at 2:40 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
The reason to write a negative review in the first place is to steer someone away from something.
Well, that’s one way of seeing it, but if you see that as the only or primary purpose of reviews, isn’t that also a way of blurring the line between criticism and marketing?
The main reason to write a negative review should be... because you honestly think what you are reviewing is bad and has little artistic merit and deserves a negative review, simple as that. Sure it may be less interesting to read criticism of something obscure than of something influential, but that’s kind of tangential to the purpose of reviews - regardless of what is being reviewed, honest criticism still has a value in itself, it can serve its own purposes. It shouldn’t be primarily concerned with promotion or sales, one way or the other.
I’m reminded of this debate about bad reviews and honesty in reviewing Irish writers in Ireland - despite being about literature and not music, and about a specific smaller-scale scene too, it’s an interesting read and the writers interviewed bring up arguments that are relevant at a wider level about the role of criticism today.
posted by bitteschoen at 2:54 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Well, that’s one way of seeing it, but if you see that as the only or primary purpose of reviews, isn’t that also a way of blurring the line between criticism and marketing?
The main reason to write a negative review should be... because you honestly think what you are reviewing is bad and has little artistic merit and deserves a negative review, simple as that. Sure it may be less interesting to read criticism of something obscure than of something influential, but that’s kind of tangential to the purpose of reviews - regardless of what is being reviewed, honest criticism still has a value in itself, it can serve its own purposes. It shouldn’t be primarily concerned with promotion or sales, one way or the other.
I’m reminded of this debate about bad reviews and honesty in reviewing Irish writers in Ireland - despite being about literature and not music, and about a specific smaller-scale scene too, it’s an interesting read and the writers interviewed bring up arguments that are relevant at a wider level about the role of criticism today.
posted by bitteschoen at 2:54 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
The worst review a band I've been in has ever gotten was this one. It was incredibly mean-spirited but also contained some very on-point insight into the mindset of the album. The lead singer / guitarist was gutted.
Many moons later, after the band had broken up, AllMusic put up this glowing review.
There literally is no winning.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:00 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Many moons later, after the band had broken up, AllMusic put up this glowing review.
There literally is no winning.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:00 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
I got to listening to Leon Russell a few months ago, the record Carney, which I really love, still, all these years later. In wanting to dig in and learn something more about Russell, and more about the record, I got to searching 'round the internet, foolishly read some gaseous bag of pus "critic" putting the record down, and putting Russell down. It has never ceased to amaze me how some clown who has never done anything of worth, who has contributed nothing to Art, contributed nothing to Beauty, and nothing of Beauty, it has never ceased to amaze me that these people have a platform, and can actually hurt those who have the courage to lay their heart out on the line for us.
I love movies. I love music. If I ever were to write about either of those I would write only about movies and/or music that moved me, and I would write about how it moved me, I try to gather any/all inside, insightful information I could about the band and the members of the band -- who is the main songwriter, who is the real leader of the band, where are they from, do they come from money or not, etc and etc.
The only way you'd know that I didn't like or love a record or movie is if I didn't write about it. Because how could I be so vain as to assume an authoritative voice of something which I just perhaps don't understand, which by conscious or unconscious anger and/or stupidity I would lampoon, and perhaps harpoon. It's not my business to slash at something I perhaps just don't get. I just can't presume to understand it all. Whereas I do know what I love, and I'd want to share that with anyone who has the time to read about it.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:12 PM on May 2, 2018
I love movies. I love music. If I ever were to write about either of those I would write only about movies and/or music that moved me, and I would write about how it moved me, I try to gather any/all inside, insightful information I could about the band and the members of the band -- who is the main songwriter, who is the real leader of the band, where are they from, do they come from money or not, etc and etc.
The only way you'd know that I didn't like or love a record or movie is if I didn't write about it. Because how could I be so vain as to assume an authoritative voice of something which I just perhaps don't understand, which by conscious or unconscious anger and/or stupidity I would lampoon, and perhaps harpoon. It's not my business to slash at something I perhaps just don't get. I just can't presume to understand it all. Whereas I do know what I love, and I'd want to share that with anyone who has the time to read about it.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:12 PM on May 2, 2018
Is the Album Review Dead?
Isn't the album itself dead? I mean, the j gray time I bought a full album was The Complex by Blue Man Group, when I was in Las Vegas 13 years ago. It seems pointless to buy albums when 95% of my music listening is on Pandora and YouTube.
posted by happyroach at 3:55 PM on May 2, 2018
Isn't the album itself dead? I mean, the j gray time I bought a full album was The Complex by Blue Man Group, when I was in Las Vegas 13 years ago. It seems pointless to buy albums when 95% of my music listening is on Pandora and YouTube.
posted by happyroach at 3:55 PM on May 2, 2018
The one that stands out for me was about 10 years ago, when Nas released "The Nigger Tape" when his upcoming album was renamed to "Untitled". Pitchfork panned the tape, and then when "Untitled" was released, they panned THAT and referenced how much better the mix-tape (again, that they panned) was.
That in turn implies that reviews necessarily represented the opinion of the zine, when they didn't (aside from when its publisher wrote it). Or that there was an enforced uniformity of opinion among the reviewers, when there wasn't.
That's the other thing about early Pitchfork - it was an essentially amateurish endeavor (see some of those infamous removed reviews) with very little consistency between reviewers. It's hard to believe people were ever taking those numbers seriously.
posted by atoxyl at 4:29 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
That in turn implies that reviews necessarily represented the opinion of the zine, when they didn't (aside from when its publisher wrote it). Or that there was an enforced uniformity of opinion among the reviewers, when there wasn't.
That's the other thing about early Pitchfork - it was an essentially amateurish endeavor (see some of those infamous removed reviews) with very little consistency between reviewers. It's hard to believe people were ever taking those numbers seriously.
posted by atoxyl at 4:29 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Regarding negative reviews, I direct theatre and some of my shows have been savaged. I resented those reviews but when those savage reviews were written in good faith (and 75% of the time they were), they led me raise my game for the next show. Sometimes that was because I was forced to eventually recognize that the reviewer was correct. Sometimes that was because the reviewer was wrong and in figuring out why I thought the reviewer was wrong, I started to become more aware of my own aesthetic. I'm a better director because of those good faith negative reviews, even if they stung.
There's a world of difference though between good faith negative reviews ("Joey Michaels' play runs out of steam and fresh ideas in the second act") and bad faith negative reviews ("Shit Sandwich"). The former identifies the reviewer's issue (thus providing something to mull over) while the latter exclusively insults and demeans. A good critic, in my opinion, should be able to identify why they don't like something.
Positive reviews are always nice, but I don't necessarily learn anything from them except how I'm great, and I already know that.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:33 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
There's a world of difference though between good faith negative reviews ("Joey Michaels' play runs out of steam and fresh ideas in the second act") and bad faith negative reviews ("Shit Sandwich"). The former identifies the reviewer's issue (thus providing something to mull over) while the latter exclusively insults and demeans. A good critic, in my opinion, should be able to identify why they don't like something.
Positive reviews are always nice, but I don't necessarily learn anything from them except how I'm great, and I already know that.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:33 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm still bitter at Pitchfork for killing off The Dissolve.
posted by octothorpe at 4:36 PM on May 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:36 PM on May 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
The worst review a band I've been in has ever gotten was this one.
Mine was "Somnambulistic poke salad".
posted by thelonius at 5:07 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Mine was "Somnambulistic poke salad".
posted by thelonius at 5:07 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Morrison aside, part of me feels like the premise gives too much credit to reviewers, and I guess it sort of acknowledges that when the writer says "One mitigating factor with, say, the Black Kids review was that the band, to be honest, really wasn’t very good." and including Sonic Youth & Flaming Lips, who obviously came through those bad reviews okay. If you take sales as an indicator of a career, Liz Phair's precipitously declined after her second record and the 'sell-out' album actually gave her a decent bump (Guyville 500k, W-S 600k, WCSE 300k, LP 450k).
Thinking back to Pitchfork's heyday mid-2000s, how many adult-alternative-pop-rock-whatever bands like Black Kids were pushed as the next big thing by a very white establishment as hip-hop continued its ascendancy? How many bands with a solid debut or great record or fantastic single fall to the circumstances inherent to any collaborative artistic endeavor, regardless of positive or negative critical reception? It's pretty understandable that folks may not want to talk about the time when some arbitrary jagoff talked facile shit about something they put effort and time into.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:27 PM on May 2, 2018
Thinking back to Pitchfork's heyday mid-2000s, how many adult-alternative-pop-rock-whatever bands like Black Kids were pushed as the next big thing by a very white establishment as hip-hop continued its ascendancy? How many bands with a solid debut or great record or fantastic single fall to the circumstances inherent to any collaborative artistic endeavor, regardless of positive or negative critical reception? It's pretty understandable that folks may not want to talk about the time when some arbitrary jagoff talked facile shit about something they put effort and time into.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:27 PM on May 2, 2018
Pitchfork? Shit, that ain't nothing compared to Rolling Stone's reaction to just about anything that was hard rock, prog, glam, and on and on in the 70s. Wenner only liked artists who originated in the 60s and most of his critics were journalism kids. They could write pages about deciphering Dylan lyrics but at an utter loss to analyze music. Check out that third-to-the-last link of OP's, It's all right there.
As a teen in that era I clearly remember how out of touch RS was with what was "in" among the college dorms and high school parking lots. Yeah, there was a lot of shit in that era, just like any other era. But RS had a horrible pattern of dissing anything they didn't grok and praising artists whose best days were a 5-10 years before (a triumphant return to form!).
God, it must have just KILLED Wenner and Dave Marsh to admit Rush into their Rock n Roll HoF!
posted by Ber at 5:28 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
As a teen in that era I clearly remember how out of touch RS was with what was "in" among the college dorms and high school parking lots. Yeah, there was a lot of shit in that era, just like any other era. But RS had a horrible pattern of dissing anything they didn't grok and praising artists whose best days were a 5-10 years before (a triumphant return to form!).
God, it must have just KILLED Wenner and Dave Marsh to admit Rush into their Rock n Roll HoF!
posted by Ber at 5:28 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Wait a minute wait a minute, I was about to link to the Pitchfork takedown of NIN's The Fragile (an album I love and have always loved) posted back in...2000 or whatever, because it was a fun bad review (something Pitchfork rarely knows how to do), only to discover that it has been replaced by a fawning review of the remaster from last year. LAME.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:53 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:53 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, Rolling Stone. Although I can't say anyone I know hated it growing up, no one read it. For a bunch of young people completely obsessed with music RS had absolutely no place in our world, it might as well have been BH&G. I've read a tiny bit of RS in the last 10-20 years though. Because it's always been a magazine for old people.
posted by bongo_x at 6:09 PM on May 2, 2018
posted by bongo_x at 6:09 PM on May 2, 2018
> the Pitchfork takedown of NIN's The Fragile
Archive dot org has got you covered. (score: 2.0)
Back in the day they had all their archived reviews listed by artist; click on the alphabet at the top of the page to see what they thought of other stuff coming out in 2000 and earlier.
posted by ardgedee at 6:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Archive dot org has got you covered. (score: 2.0)
Back in the day they had all their archived reviews listed by artist; click on the alphabet at the top of the page to see what they thought of other stuff coming out in 2000 and earlier.
posted by ardgedee at 6:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Is a pitchfork 0/0 for Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers what ruined them? Because that review was totally fair.
Wait, were Sonic Youth ruined?
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:50 PM on May 2, 2018
Wait, were Sonic Youth ruined?
posted by Cookiebastard at 6:50 PM on May 2, 2018
Wait, were Sonic Youth ruined?
Sonic Youth ended with Thurston and Kim's marriage a few years ago (a decade after that album).
posted by atoxyl at 6:57 PM on May 2, 2018
Sonic Youth ended with Thurston and Kim's marriage a few years ago (a decade after that album).
posted by atoxyl at 6:57 PM on May 2, 2018
Rolling Stone's reaction to just about anything that was hard rock, prog, glam, and on and on in the 70s...Check out that third-to-the-last link of OP's, It's all right there.
Yeah I checked that......they actually said, on the review of the first Led Zeppelin album, that Jimmy Page was a bad producer
posted by thelonius at 7:01 PM on May 2, 2018
Yeah I checked that......they actually said, on the review of the first Led Zeppelin album, that Jimmy Page was a bad producer
posted by thelonius at 7:01 PM on May 2, 2018
I've criticized, and I've been criticized.
Patti Smith: "The critic does not mean to criticize, the critic means to open eyes" (paraphrase quote/channeling Baudelaire in an old issue of Creem.)
I trashed a bit in small college mags when I was stating out, but I got over it. Trashing is lazy and dull. In those pre-Internet bubbles, there were those bitter 90s weekly local magazine music critics who often pissed vitriol all over everything local, new, and different. They were in my view contemptible & pathetic. You may have had them in your town.
Critique is an art form in itself, a reflection of the work with a personal creative view meant to impart a deeper insight.
posted by ovvl at 7:19 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Patti Smith: "The critic does not mean to criticize, the critic means to open eyes" (paraphrase quote/channeling Baudelaire in an old issue of Creem.)
I trashed a bit in small college mags when I was stating out, but I got over it. Trashing is lazy and dull. In those pre-Internet bubbles, there were those bitter 90s weekly local magazine music critics who often pissed vitriol all over everything local, new, and different. They were in my view contemptible & pathetic. You may have had them in your town.
Critique is an art form in itself, a reflection of the work with a personal creative view meant to impart a deeper insight.
posted by ovvl at 7:19 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was working for a distributor when Travistan came out and I remember there were stacks of them received prior to it's release date because this was on Barsuk at peak DCFC, then the review destroyed any chance of it being sold. Whatever went out the door was returned immediately after. I honestly never listened to it but is it that bad?
posted by monkeymike at 7:37 PM on May 2, 2018
posted by monkeymike at 7:37 PM on May 2, 2018
Wait, were Sonic Youth ruined?
Sonic Youth was a ruined temple from day one. You can't ruin a ruined temple any more than it is already ruined. It goes: plan, temple, ruined temple, and anything after that is gravel, backfill, and boulders used to shore up eroding coastlines.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:14 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Sonic Youth was a ruined temple from day one. You can't ruin a ruined temple any more than it is already ruined. It goes: plan, temple, ruined temple, and anything after that is gravel, backfill, and boulders used to shore up eroding coastlines.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:14 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
The band that I remember being done in by pitchfork during this time period was Sound Team, which bummed me out at the time because I thought that Movie Monster was a good record with some memorable melodies and an emotional weight to it. More mainstream but less 'discerning' publications like salon.com celebrated the record, and the pitchfork reviewer decided that they needed their 'next big thing' momentum stymied.
The band put this 'visual representation of their pitchfork review' up on youtube, and broke up soon after.
posted by umbú at 8:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
The band put this 'visual representation of their pitchfork review' up on youtube, and broke up soon after.
posted by umbú at 8:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
The relationship between artist and fandom has grown to the point where any negative press is immediately shut down or completely ignored.
Sounds familiar.
Also, is it just me, or did the critical reaction to Funstyle do more damage to Liz Phair's career than Pitchfork's 0.0 review (shared by more than a few others) of Liz Phair?
posted by gtrwolf at 9:16 PM on May 2, 2018
Sounds familiar.
Also, is it just me, or did the critical reaction to Funstyle do more damage to Liz Phair's career than Pitchfork's 0.0 review (shared by more than a few others) of Liz Phair?
posted by gtrwolf at 9:16 PM on May 2, 2018
I honestly never listened to it but is it that bad?
It's alright, kind of a middling album but alright. I'd say it's just below that reunion Dismemberment Plan album but I'm not really into either, they just never clicked with me. And that's fine! Plenty of artists I like more than Travis Morrison have albums here and there that don't click with me and I don't think that reflects negatively on them. He tried some things on it that I thought fell flat, the "Get Me Off of This Coin" songs especially, but there are some good songs.
I still can't quite parse if he's being dryly ironic on "Born In 72" or if it's just a reeeaaal problematic whine about being a white guy though, and that kind of sours me on it. Plus it's hard to separate all the weird "pro Iraq War but don't call me pro Iraq War because I have Important Thoughts" stuff from my assessment of Travis Morrison's work sooo... Travistan is ehhh (for me) but also Pitchfork dragging people in their reviews suuucks but also Travis Morrison made it hard to like Travis Morrison sometimes so I guess that's where I'm at.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:16 PM on May 2, 2018
It's alright, kind of a middling album but alright. I'd say it's just below that reunion Dismemberment Plan album but I'm not really into either, they just never clicked with me. And that's fine! Plenty of artists I like more than Travis Morrison have albums here and there that don't click with me and I don't think that reflects negatively on them. He tried some things on it that I thought fell flat, the "Get Me Off of This Coin" songs especially, but there are some good songs.
I still can't quite parse if he's being dryly ironic on "Born In 72" or if it's just a reeeaaal problematic whine about being a white guy though, and that kind of sours me on it. Plus it's hard to separate all the weird "pro Iraq War but don't call me pro Iraq War because I have Important Thoughts" stuff from my assessment of Travis Morrison's work sooo... Travistan is ehhh (for me) but also Pitchfork dragging people in their reviews suuucks but also Travis Morrison made it hard to like Travis Morrison sometimes so I guess that's where I'm at.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:16 PM on May 2, 2018
people want to be right and be validated about their opinions and want to know what the cool stuff is before anyone else does, so when it gets popular, they can say they were in to it before they were big. I mean, not everyone, but music nerds like me definitely go that way.
This is a position I've been stumbling across for decades now, and continue to feel compelled to reject. Because I am (by some definition) a music nerd, but I've never felt compelled to bail on any artist just because all the uncool kids suddenly started liking them.
Yeah, I've bailed on all kinds of former faves over the years, often as they've achieved Big Deal Success. But sometimes success itself causes big problems (ie: hearing too much of any artist can cause allergic reactions). Other times, it's deliberate changes in direction on the part of the artist in order to achieve success that has put me off (call it selling out, I guess, but I've always maintained that only the artist really knows if this is the case).
What is definitely true in all of these cases is that I've lost a love I once had. Which is damned sad, but it happens. And more important, in keeping with the love analogy, if you dump a guy (or a girl) because of what you think other people are thinking (as opposed to what you yourself are feeling) -- well, I feel sorry for you, and hope you wise the f*** up. Because that's no way to treat love.
posted by philip-random at 10:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is a position I've been stumbling across for decades now, and continue to feel compelled to reject. Because I am (by some definition) a music nerd, but I've never felt compelled to bail on any artist just because all the uncool kids suddenly started liking them.
Yeah, I've bailed on all kinds of former faves over the years, often as they've achieved Big Deal Success. But sometimes success itself causes big problems (ie: hearing too much of any artist can cause allergic reactions). Other times, it's deliberate changes in direction on the part of the artist in order to achieve success that has put me off (call it selling out, I guess, but I've always maintained that only the artist really knows if this is the case).
What is definitely true in all of these cases is that I've lost a love I once had. Which is damned sad, but it happens. And more important, in keeping with the love analogy, if you dump a guy (or a girl) because of what you think other people are thinking (as opposed to what you yourself are feeling) -- well, I feel sorry for you, and hope you wise the f*** up. Because that's no way to treat love.
posted by philip-random at 10:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Bashing the major music criticism sites aside, though, what blogs/ sites do people use for finding new and emerging musicians here on the blue? I've been going off of a mix of Stereogum, AV Club, and Pitchfork, which is to say, pretty mainstream.
It's absolutely true that album reviews aren't important. But I would still argue there's a use to critics as sommeliers and curators- the critic should really function as a guide, helping to direct you to overlooked and obscure music that aligns with your tastes. That's been the philosophy that's guided my critical writings.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 11:47 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's absolutely true that album reviews aren't important. But I would still argue there's a use to critics as sommeliers and curators- the critic should really function as a guide, helping to direct you to overlooked and obscure music that aligns with your tastes. That's been the philosophy that's guided my critical writings.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 11:47 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
The thing I always trash Pitchfork for is retracting their original review of Sufjan Stevens's "Michigan" and replacing it with a much more favorable review when the album started getting more notice (If anyone can even find the original, I'd be very impressed). They lost a bunch of credibility with me for both the original negative review of what seemed a rather important album, and for having the gall to pretend later that they'd been right all along. Corrections need to be noted and left on the record.
posted by Dokterrock at 12:01 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Dokterrock at 12:01 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Duran Duran's ill-conceived covers LP 'Thank You' provoked the NME to describe it as a 'wanking donkey monster duffer of an album'. They rated it 48/10.
posted by Luther_Blissett at 5:40 AM on May 3, 2018
posted by Luther_Blissett at 5:40 AM on May 3, 2018
> retracting their original review of Sufjan Stevens's "Michigan" and replacing it with a much more favorable review
archive.org to the fore again: "Michigan" was released on July 1, 2003 and got an 8.3 in a review datelined July 28, 2003. If they ran a negative review, it was up for less than four weeks.
posted by ardgedee at 5:56 AM on May 3, 2018
archive.org to the fore again: "Michigan" was released on July 1, 2003 and got an 8.3 in a review datelined July 28, 2003. If they ran a negative review, it was up for less than four weeks.
posted by ardgedee at 5:56 AM on May 3, 2018
"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new."Music and restaurant reviews have a lot in common. Subjective, prone to negativity, but ultimately ephemeral unless they are identifying something new, and telling us why it's interesting.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:29 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Isn't the album itself dead?
No. Next question.
posted by Maaik at 6:53 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
No. Next question.
posted by Maaik at 6:53 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Sorry, that was pithy and deserves a better response. Artists are still releasing album-length personal artistic statements (see: Lemonade, Rainbow, Dirty Computer), more albums than ever are being released on vinyl, a format that explicitly rejects skipping around from song to song, and people are still buying, listening to, and discussing them. Record Store Day was just a couple weekends ago. I'm sorry that you've stopped buying albums, but that is absolutely not everyone's experience of music. Albums aren't dead and artists you probably care about are still working very hard to put them out and they don't deserve to be dismissed like that.
posted by Maaik at 7:01 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Maaik at 7:01 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Just to take this in a slightly different direction, there are written reviews and then there are artists willing to put out a song negatively reviewing another artist's song. It's pretty easy to find criticisms of artists, but negative reviews of actual songs are much more rare, for obvious reasons.
To highlight a few:
Nerf Herder Van halen The most like a written review, where every Van Halen album is reviewed. To a certain point.
Self - Moronic A review of Alanis Morrisette, and her song Ironic. It's mostly just misogynistic and cruel.
Brian Burns - Nothing to Say This song was taken down from youtube, the link is to the lyrics and is generally reviewing Nashville and Texas country music and saying they are converging and getting worse. The specific songs mentioned are (I think) Kenney Chesney - She Thinks My Tractor is Sexy and Jason Boland - Pearl Snap Shirts.
I am now going to try to convince you that She Thinks My Tractor is sexy is one of the most reviewed (negatively) songs in song of all time (reviewed 2.5 times in other songs - again this genre is rare). First, before it came out Robbie Fulks indirectly referenced Chesney in a song called Fuck This Town and Chesney musically bringing country music down. This song is much like the Self song above - more cruel ("Chesney is the faggot in a hat") than anything else. After it came out, a song called I'll Sing About Mine - Josh Abbott version was written that also directly critiques ("tractors ain't sexy and life is hard for small town people like me") it. So that's 2.5 songs pounding Chesney. That's pretty bad right?
And the reason they are so rare is that musically its very easy to get hoisted by your own petard, as Brian Burns later wrote a song called "Rattlesnake Tequilla" that makes a tired "Don't tase me bro" joke. Glass houses/stones, etc.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:24 AM on May 3, 2018
To highlight a few:
Nerf Herder Van halen The most like a written review, where every Van Halen album is reviewed. To a certain point.
Self - Moronic A review of Alanis Morrisette, and her song Ironic. It's mostly just misogynistic and cruel.
Brian Burns - Nothing to Say This song was taken down from youtube, the link is to the lyrics and is generally reviewing Nashville and Texas country music and saying they are converging and getting worse. The specific songs mentioned are (I think) Kenney Chesney - She Thinks My Tractor is Sexy and Jason Boland - Pearl Snap Shirts.
I am now going to try to convince you that She Thinks My Tractor is sexy is one of the most reviewed (negatively) songs in song of all time (reviewed 2.5 times in other songs - again this genre is rare). First, before it came out Robbie Fulks indirectly referenced Chesney in a song called Fuck This Town and Chesney musically bringing country music down. This song is much like the Self song above - more cruel ("Chesney is the faggot in a hat") than anything else. After it came out, a song called I'll Sing About Mine - Josh Abbott version was written that also directly critiques ("tractors ain't sexy and life is hard for small town people like me") it. So that's 2.5 songs pounding Chesney. That's pretty bad right?
And the reason they are so rare is that musically its very easy to get hoisted by your own petard, as Brian Burns later wrote a song called "Rattlesnake Tequilla" that makes a tired "Don't tase me bro" joke. Glass houses/stones, etc.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:24 AM on May 3, 2018
What you're describing are answer songs, and there have been FPPs about them previously.
posted by ardgedee at 7:33 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by ardgedee at 7:33 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think there is a distinction but would probably agree many of those answer songs (including Southern Man/Sweet Home Alabama) qualify. The primary distinction being plenty of those answer songs are done from a point of reverence of the song they are critiquing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on May 3, 2018
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on May 3, 2018
Subjective, prone to negativity,
I used to edit and review a fair bit for a local zine/mag, and generally worked from the angle that if I had nothing at least halfway nice to say about a particular artist or album, then skip it, find one I did have something nice to say about -- there being simply so much good music that was getting overlooked.
But what about people I knew, people who'd ask me straight up to review them, but deep down inside, I just didn't much care for their stuff? Finally, one night, cornered in a bar, a little too drunk to care too much about hurting feelings, I looked a guy in the eye and said (much to my surprise in retrospect), "Man, I'm just not in your target market."
There was a pause where he thought about this, where I suspect he worked through all of the ramifications, overt and subvert, of what I'd just said, and then he finally just shrugged and said, "Fair enough." And he never bugged me again.
Over time, I've come to realize that, far from being evasive, the Not Your Target Market position ought to be one of the governing directives for any/all cultural review and critique. I mean, I'm just not into romantic comedies, never have been, never will be. So who cares what I think about them? Or anything remotely superhero related (unless it's Buckaroo Banzai).
But I would still argue there's a use to critics as sommeliers and curators- the critic should really function as a guide, helping to direct you to overlooked and obscure music that aligns with your tastes.
absolutely, as long as the critic's tastes have some overlap with yours.
posted by philip-random at 8:30 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
I used to edit and review a fair bit for a local zine/mag, and generally worked from the angle that if I had nothing at least halfway nice to say about a particular artist or album, then skip it, find one I did have something nice to say about -- there being simply so much good music that was getting overlooked.
But what about people I knew, people who'd ask me straight up to review them, but deep down inside, I just didn't much care for their stuff? Finally, one night, cornered in a bar, a little too drunk to care too much about hurting feelings, I looked a guy in the eye and said (much to my surprise in retrospect), "Man, I'm just not in your target market."
There was a pause where he thought about this, where I suspect he worked through all of the ramifications, overt and subvert, of what I'd just said, and then he finally just shrugged and said, "Fair enough." And he never bugged me again.
Over time, I've come to realize that, far from being evasive, the Not Your Target Market position ought to be one of the governing directives for any/all cultural review and critique. I mean, I'm just not into romantic comedies, never have been, never will be. So who cares what I think about them? Or anything remotely superhero related (unless it's Buckaroo Banzai).
But I would still argue there's a use to critics as sommeliers and curators- the critic should really function as a guide, helping to direct you to overlooked and obscure music that aligns with your tastes.
absolutely, as long as the critic's tastes have some overlap with yours.
posted by philip-random at 8:30 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
more albums than ever are being released on vinyl, a format that explicitly rejects skipping around from song to song
Heh, I dunno on using vinyl sales as an indicator of the album as a release format. The medium is certainly on the up for the past decade or so, but there was a study couple years ago that backed the prevailing idea that half the people that buy vinyl releases don't even listen to them and are in just for the object, and the yearly top 10s are mostly filled with the hot reissues, not new releases.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:36 AM on May 3, 2018
Heh, I dunno on using vinyl sales as an indicator of the album as a release format. The medium is certainly on the up for the past decade or so, but there was a study couple years ago that backed the prevailing idea that half the people that buy vinyl releases don't even listen to them and are in just for the object, and the yearly top 10s are mostly filled with the hot reissues, not new releases.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:36 AM on May 3, 2018
Isn't the album itself dead?
Not dead but perhaps obsolescing. Or as Marshall McLuhan's Tetrad of Media Effects would have it, every medium moves through four stages in relation to how we perceive it, how it affects us, blah blah blah. The key point being that every medium, regardless of how popular it may become, eventually shifts into a phase of obsolescence as something else comes along that supplants it for ... reasons. But the key point here is that no medium (and the particular affect it has) ever vanishes entirely from the culture, but rather, as it moves through its obsolescence, it changes its shape somehow and inevitably cycles back through ...
One example I heard discussed recently was how way back when in pre-telephone days, the mail was delivered several times a day in urban areas. So you could wake up in the morning, send a friend a note that you wanted to meet with them for lunch. They'd confirm by mid-morning and you'd be chowing down together by early afternoon. How is email not an extrapolated analog of this?
As to how the music album as singular artistic statement might eventually regain (or perhaps supercede) its former cultural impact -- let's just say, I'm looking forward ...
posted by philip-random at 8:48 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Not dead but perhaps obsolescing. Or as Marshall McLuhan's Tetrad of Media Effects would have it, every medium moves through four stages in relation to how we perceive it, how it affects us, blah blah blah. The key point being that every medium, regardless of how popular it may become, eventually shifts into a phase of obsolescence as something else comes along that supplants it for ... reasons. But the key point here is that no medium (and the particular affect it has) ever vanishes entirely from the culture, but rather, as it moves through its obsolescence, it changes its shape somehow and inevitably cycles back through ...
One example I heard discussed recently was how way back when in pre-telephone days, the mail was delivered several times a day in urban areas. So you could wake up in the morning, send a friend a note that you wanted to meet with them for lunch. They'd confirm by mid-morning and you'd be chowing down together by early afternoon. How is email not an extrapolated analog of this?
As to how the music album as singular artistic statement might eventually regain (or perhaps supercede) its former cultural impact -- let's just say, I'm looking forward ...
posted by philip-random at 8:48 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I admit that I only read reviews after I've already listened to and liked the album. I like reading other people's experiences with the music. The last time I did this was for Diet Cig's I Swear I'm Good at This. It was a negative review, and that was the last time I visited pitchfork.
I mean, come on. The review is so painfully overwrought. It's very obvious the reviewer just doesn't like the music because it's twee and she's reaching to try and find something objective to support her totally subjctive (but still valid, c'mon believe in yourself) opinion.
posted by FirstMateKate at 3:02 PM on May 3, 2018
I mean, come on. The review is so painfully overwrought. It's very obvious the reviewer just doesn't like the music because it's twee and she's reaching to try and find something objective to support her totally subjctive (but still valid, c'mon believe in yourself) opinion.
posted by FirstMateKate at 3:02 PM on May 3, 2018
Oh, and tangentially related to the vinyl-making-a-comeback conversation, they've released the Drive Soundtrack on tape, and it's very beautiful (at the bottom of the article).
posted by FirstMateKate at 3:09 PM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by FirstMateKate at 3:09 PM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Thanks for reminding me of Partie Traumatic, which is an absolutely awesome record. It had near-universal good reviews, except from Pitchfork. I hate when people try to be "taste-makers" instead of just honestly reviewing media and art.
posted by King Bee at 4:17 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by King Bee at 4:17 PM on May 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
How could they leave off the classic Pitchfork Jet review?
"Hey, all you American motherfuckers, we're Jet! Here's a song that sounds like AC/DC, a band you love."
posted by euphorb at 8:53 PM on May 5, 2018
"Hey, all you American motherfuckers, we're Jet! Here's a song that sounds like AC/DC, a band you love."
posted by euphorb at 8:53 PM on May 5, 2018
more albums than ever are being released on vinyl, a format that explicitly rejects skipping around from song to song
no, it doesn't - those little spaces between the bands of grooves? - if you want to hear the 3rd song, you just put the tone arm down in the space that comes before the 3rd band and just like that, you get to play the 3rd song
and that's a deliberate design decision, so that any DJ playing albums could choose the song they wanted to play on the record
in other words, they deliberately enabled skipping around
posted by pyramid termite at 6:46 AM on May 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
no, it doesn't - those little spaces between the bands of grooves? - if you want to hear the 3rd song, you just put the tone arm down in the space that comes before the 3rd band and just like that, you get to play the 3rd song
and that's a deliberate design decision, so that any DJ playing albums could choose the song they wanted to play on the record
in other words, they deliberately enabled skipping around
posted by pyramid termite at 6:46 AM on May 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
« Older The 8 Year Voyage of the Legolas | They were all made in the winter of 1913-1914, the... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
I've personally never liked negative music reviews (except of tentpole artists- the million sellers - I can draw an exception there) because why people dislike a band or even a genre of music is too personal. It's better to hear from a previous fan judging a band against itself. If that means bad albums aren't reviewed at all, then so be it. But it probably just means your review staff needs more diversity of opinions.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:42 AM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]