Music Criticism

Anything more asinine? It occurred to me, as I recently took from my schedule to indulge in some ezine diatribe, that the Interpol album never had a Casio's chance in symphony of not getting coal raked. It's just one example, but music criticism seems to have devolved with the rest of popular media: mix 10 parts entertainment with 2 parts information. It's a very sweeping statement, but I struggle to find exceptions. And I can understand why knee-jerk shit throwing is a sound approach that maintains reader interest, provided the readers aren't as interested in the music as they are with the culture. The fact is, it takes a damn good writer to convey mediocrity, whereas raving and scathing reviews tend to compose themselves. For a band like Interpol that has always been a signature sound, a blueprint that couldn't change for the comfort of their fanbase, it seems absurd to expect them to evolve or start writing insightful lyrics.

Having said all that, I've veritably boxed myself into a position of defending middle ground retro-wannabes, and I would like it stated for the record that I feel no inclination to purchase Our Love To Admire. I must also confess that there was a time (2002-03..ish) when I was a Pitchfork fiend and read their daily reviews before I checked my email. It's easy for me to rest on the crutch we all seem to use when defending former habits ("Oh, back in the day it was better, more puristic and about the music."), but I somehow doubt it's changed on a fundamental level. Here's what I suspect has happened.

When you're new, you're eager to experiment. It's been years since I made a blind, er, deaf purchase, i.e. bought something purely on a stranger's recommendation, but there was a time when I was so hungry to try new things that it almost justified the expenditure. Let album X be my foray into genre Y, and thus do I expose myself to something that I couldn't possibly make an educated judgment about. As time passed, I sampled more and more, and now I can somewhat discern what something will sound like when a writer uses seemingly arbitrary comparisons. The same probably applies to the music critics. They get spoon-fed album after album and they have to make a conclusive assessment of 10 records in less time than they used to spend on one as a teen. Hence, they arm themselves with hyperbole and diction.

Anyway, it all seems rather pointless. Music is the experience of listening to it. Not that I want to post labels on people, but if you get more pleasure from discussing how something is good or bad than you can extract from actually listening to it, you simply aren't a fan. You're just a critic. It also gets a little old to wake up one day and realize you've haphazardly surrounded yourself with people who simply don't share your taste, or enough of it. Since this blog is only read by people from Murmurs, I have no shame in dropping transparency and citing that this is one of the main reasons I left. Well, that and the corrupt management. (Censor the Woodman, will ya? Fuck you. :))

Anyway, it's not that I take issue with blogging, but I just don't see myself updating this thing more than once every 3-4 months. It's not a priority for me. However, you can rest assured that two fundamental principles ring true: 1) I will always go out of my way to find music, even if I don't feel a burning desire to spread the gospel. 2) I loathe your favorite [(Canadian) sic] album.