[ advance note: i kind of got tangential and long-winded, sorry ]

that's the hard part though. from personal experience (and i'll be others will back me up), critiquing things you really don't like, or hate, or just can't get into is the hardest part. with things you like, it's easy to become horrendously verbose, but the temptation with things you regard as less-than-stellar is to just talk shit and write it off without really attempting to give honest feedback.

i read your review. i thought it was fair, and fairly un-judgmental (as far as dissing goes). i disagree wholeheartedly with some of your opinions, but here's the point... they're opinions. i have my own. you evidently listen to about an eclectic array of music as i do (fennesz is absolutely wonderful, btw). i can respect duffy's perverse love of linkin park, even though i will never understand it. it's his opinion.

you write music criticism for yourself, essentially. i think it's fundamentally a way to explore your particular feelings about a given record or piece of music, and the best ones are those that have layer upon layer for you to unwrap.

listening to music critically, doing anything critically, can be an incredibly rewarding experience, i think THAT'S the best reason to do it. but none of us like the music we do because we analyze and criticize it. at least, not entirely. we love it because it connects with us as human beings, it's another form of communication, and when you GET what someone else is doing, it feels right. i absolutely adore some completely and utterly unoriginal shit. maybe it reminds me of something or someone. maybe it moves me in some way. maybe it just makes me shake my ass. whatever.

the other bottom line is, if you post something about your band and invite criticism, expect to get criticized. what did you expect, really? there's no point in deriding the critic on a messageboard, come on. my band has received some criticism that we all feel is unfounded, and is based solely on some people having no idea where we're coming from musically, but i think the idea response to that is, yeah, go ahead, talk shit with your bandmates, but don't slam the critic and say "oh, they don't know what the fuck they're talking about". maybe they don't. it *is* an opinion, after all, and you should leave it at that. part of the fun of doing this is discussion and arguing with people who are basically your allies. i know it's geeky fan-boy shit, but every once in a while, you just have to get in a really "oh no you DID-ANT" kind of debate with each other. seen high fidelity? combine the three employees of championship vinyl and you have most music critics. they're like id, ego, and superego. (no, i haven't read the book yet, so i don't know how it measures up)

speaking both as a musician AND a critic.

i am, however, still embarrassed for duffy on the whole linkin park thing.

Linkin Park ...

hmm...

I think I will just leave it alone.

I was discussing this whole thing with a couple of co-workers today shortly after I posted this. To give you some background on them, one is an artist, musician and runs a very interesting little noise and ambient oriented record label, and the other is a 20-something graphic designer with great taste in art, fair taste in music, but not a musician. The latter's point was very interesting to me. His point being, that art criticism, and by that I mean visual art criticism, is generally a lot more objective than music criticism.
(is there any way to abbreviate criticism? it's too much to keep typing it over and over again ... i'll go with ctcsm.)
And in my general experience with ctcsm journals like ART IN AMERICA i think that's true. Whereas mags like JUXTAPOZ, a decidedly more street-level art mag, the ctcsm has a distinctly "rock music" flair. In other words, A.I.A seems to cite influences, techniques, history, movements, whereas JXTPZ says "this shit is cool" and here's why we think so.
I still don't know which of these i find more informative or "valid"

I agree that finding a writer you tend to agree with leads you to the possibility of finding things you would also like, it also has the possibility of leading you to more of the same ol' same ol'.

I also agree that writing, like music or art is a work of passion, and you wouldn't do it if you didn't feel strongly about it. (At least i would hope so.)

HOWEVER!! There seems to be 50 critics/people-who-consider themselves-critics who are following somebody else's lead for every 1 that has an honest, or even dissenting opinion.

This brings up the point of negative reviews, and is it worth anybody's time writing, or reading them ... discuss.

HAH!!

i could yammer on for days about this, typing is a bit limited, maybe we should start a 18th century music "Salon" group. We could all wear wigs and flounce around like a bunch of nancy-boys!! HAH!!!

ok, now i'm getting loopy.

rock.

J

Sorry I haven't responded sooner. I didn't even see this thread until yesterday afternoon.

Okay, so here’s my two cents …

I don’t consider myself a critic. I love music. I love listening to music. I love seeing bands play live (though with two young children at home that doesn’t happen as often as I’d like). I love to talk to people about the bands I love. If you glance through the CDs I have on my MP3 player currently you’ll see that I don’t love just one type of music – I’ve got everything from Slayer to Lisa Marie Presley to 84 Nash to Warrant to Radiohead (heck, I’ve even got Avril Lavigne’s CD loaded up).

In my mind, critics are the ones who get paid to do what they do and who are assigned reviews of bands that they don’t necessarily like. For both Swizzle-Stick.com and Atomic Ned, I write about what I want to write about, what I like and, sometimes, what I don’t like. I don’t have a fancy vocabulary and I know I don’t often do CDs that I really like justice, but I write what I know. No bullshit. The one thing I hope is that when you are done reading something I have written, you’ll know exactly how I feel about the CD and you’ll either run out and pick it up yourself or say, “Whoa, this is one I want to avoid.”

The thing that drives me nuts – but “sells” papers – is when people write letters to the editor complaining about a review that somebody has written (case in point: the people who called John Petric every name in the book because of the review he wrote about the recent moe show in Columbus). Petric gets paid to review bands that come to Columbus. Some of those bands he isn’t going to like – it’s that simple. As a reader, it’s YOUR responsibility to make your own opinions about certain writers. I know in some magazines that I read that I’ll search out reviews by certain writers that I either like or dislike and read those first. I figure that if I really dislike a writer and he/she reviews something I can usually read into that review and decide for myself if I want to check out the CD. For instance, if a writer says “This god awful piece of crap sounds like the result of the members of Dokken trying to sound like Built to Spill,” I might pick it up because I like both of the mentioned bands.

Another thing, as a reader of reviews, that I actually like quite a bit is nice, short reviews. I do some writing for a site called 75 or Less where all the reviews are 75 words or less. To me, that is ideal. I want quick little blasts rather than 10,000 word essays about the deep meaning of each song. Yes, in some cases, long reviews are warranted, but I like reading reviews in magazines like Entertainment Weekly and, especially, the Big Takeover where the reviews are short and to the point. (Unlike this long, rambling post).

Finally ... eqj ... you ask what right John Petric has reviewing a moe show. The answer is all the right in the world. It's his job. I waited tables for a few years. There were some customers that I knew came in and didn't tip. They'd come in again and again and there were times when they'd sit in my section and I had to wait on them. I didn't get to pick whether or not I waited on them and I'd always bitch and moan to whoever would listen. "That couple sucks. They never tip no matter what kind of service I give them." Waiting on them was my job. Was I happy to do it? No. Did I try to make the best of the situation? Sometimes. Petric does the same thing -- he might not like everything that he is assigned to review but he's presenting his opinions. If you don't like it (and I'm not talking about you, eqj), then don't read his stuff anymore -- you know what kind of stuff he likes and dislikes. Heck, I've disagreed with a bunch of stuff he's written but I don't get bent out of shape about it the way that the people that write letters to the editor do.

Excellent points, all.

Question:
Do you guys generally read reviews about new records before you go buy them?
I know we've gotten into this from a "why do critics do what they do and what's the point" but, tangentially, do you read reviews and pay attention? It seems that everyone does. I don't think I have a bought a record based on a review in years. I think maybe ... hmm ... I can't think of one, honestly. I read reviews as a spectator I guess ... what is critic x going to say about this record/show with no intent of listening to his opinion.
This may be completely contradictory to something i have said earlier, but then, i have every right to contradict myself i guess.

Another point for everyone's consideration, including my own, as I have not made up my mind:
The Internet(tm), man's shiny new Tower of Babel, where everyone has a voice and no one gives a shit what anyone else is saying, as long as their website is getting hits. Thus empowering everyone, EVERYONE to become fashionista, music critc extraordinaire and literati. Is this "voice of everyone" drowning out solid knowledgable writing/art/music in favor of the LCD (lowest common denominator not liquid crystal display)?
Does the cream TRULY rise to the top without the backing of SEAGRAMS and VIRGIN and the dept. of defense, as the socialists say it will? I have yet to come across a band that I liked that was pushed as "man they got 4gazillion downloads on mp3.com"
I was going to conclude this with "i hope i am not pissing anybody off" but i suppose i hope that somebody's pissed off ... I'm not.
I still don't like ELEPHANT, RADIOHEAD, ZWAN, or FLEETWOOD MAC.

hah!!

J