What makes for a good music critic in 2010 ?

also LOL @ dero teaching college students how to write...

I just wish (especially in print) that music writing could take itself a little less seriously. I used to by mags, not just because they told me about the latest music, but also for light relief. That's not to say journalists should be reverting to Pitchforkesque needless style-exercises, nor to degrade themselves to tabloid reporting, but instead to try and bring a feeling of stylish or humorous edgyness to their writing. Too many music mags (in the UK at least) read like car maintenance manuals.

totally off tm, if anything most writers have the opposite problem - everyone trying to be humorous, pursuing the joke at the expense of the music, that awful matey light tone.

Yeah, that's awful too. It should definitely still be informative writing but there's nothing wrong with injecting a bit of humanity into the writing imo.

Too many music mags (in the UK at least) read like car maintenance manuals.

dunno who you're thinking of (I'm guessing the Wire which whatever you think of it exists pretty much in a world of its own) but I don't think that's true at all

exists pretty much in a world of its own

i'm curious -- what do you mean by that?

i just don't think a blanket "i ignore lyrics" stance is even possible for a pop music critic.

sure. i think xhuxk was most otm about this -- you write about them when you notice them. which is sometimes, but not all the time.

otoh, i wish more people wrote about drums when they notice them -- because i think people do notice drums, they just don't have a good vocabulary for talking about them.

As a reader or writer, I like two kinds of reviews.

1. Extremely short ones that very roughly categorize the music in question so that if I'm scanning a lot of these I can flag some to follow up on online. Two sentences of description, or a few other bands this is kinda like. Minor bonus points for an album-cover thumbnail, track listing and/or link to where I can hear, but if you don't have 'em handy, never mind, I can google.

2. Thoughtful essays that situate some music in some interesting context. Could be musicological context, could be historical, could be about the band's evolution or their country's, or an instrument's, or a kind of soup. Could well be about the writer's life, not the artist's. The only real requirement is that the writer have engaged with the music in some way. I'm not particular about what way. Or, more accurately, I'm incredibly particular about what way, but I'm not methodically particular. Just about anything can work if done with enough enthusiasm and commitment and empathy.

Too many music mags (in the UK at least) read like car maintenance manuals.

dunno who you're thinking of (I'm guessing the Wire which whatever you think of it exists pretty much in a world of its own) but I don't think that's true at all

― this guy was grey for me to poupon (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 20 April 2010 11:12 (8 hours ago) Permalink

exists pretty much in a world of its own

i'm curious -- what do you mean by that?

― "excellent sound-of-a-generation indie" (ksh), Tuesday, 20 April 2010 17:39

I am guessing he means that there are not alot of magazines like the Wire and that the Wire rarely covers popular music on the top of the charts

I'm excited to learn of the new Gibson book coming out upthread, though it's not 'til September. This should be a good one too - China Miéville - Kraken (June 29, 2010)

With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.

In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.

As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.

There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.

All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.

I find anything about squids inspiring. I used to speed-read through the reviews section of nearly every music magazine on the rack for a period of 20 years. Lately I just skim a few web sites, and prefer more original think pieces that approaches music from a fresh perspective. I mostly dislike interviews. I listen to music so I don't have to listen to people talk about themselves.

Spoiler alert: I'm about to make some more mundane observations...The lyrics angle interests me. Generally speaking, I'm far more apt to write about lyrics when it's a funny novelty record than I am when it's somebody whose lyrics are commonly written about. If I were writing about U2's "In God's Country" or Springsteen's "Tunnel of Love," two songs I love by artists I don't particularly care for, I'm almost positive I wouldn't quote a word--I'd try to write about the sound of those records, how that hits me. But with something like Figghole's "Red, White and MILF," their Sarah Palin song from two years ago, I don't think I could write about that without quoting lyrics--they're so ingenious, I want to quote every last one. I'm sure I'm not alone in believing that funny lyrics are generally far more quotable than lyrics that supposedly tell us about the emotional state of supposedly important artists. Again--generally. Sometimes the emotional state of important artists interests me a lot.

More of:

1. Own up to the subjectivity of it all: To quote another Oscar, "the highest Criticism... is the record of one's own soul." Kael is a touchstone because she taught so many of us to bring everything to bear in our responses--politics, personal experience, other art, the responses of other people--and she wasn't afraid to take up aspects that hadn't found a common language yet. So I don't agree that you should avoid reading other criticism, but I would avoid explicitly responding to it in your writing, because there's so much more there, both in the art and in yourself. Those kind of responses can be the poetry of peer pressure.

2. Be okay with your differences and gaps: I recently reviewed the Fatboy Slim/David Byrne Imelda Marcos disco opera knowing I'd have very little to offer about how it stacks up next to most contemporary dance music, much less other Fatboy Slim, but that I might contribute something on the subject of Byrne's attitude toward the Marcoses. I probably failed, but my point is it's futile to try coming up with THE definitive take on everything--we want YOUR take. Think about friends at parties playing a record and breaking down their theory of why it's so great: They're sharing their enthusiasm, not granting their approval.

3. Cut to the chase: Think about your all-time favorite albums and then go back and read reviews and notice how most of them seem to miss the point. Or think about reviews now that focus on some minor issue or conceit by way of a lead. The first thing people want to know is: "Why does this matter?" Or "Why does this matter to you?" That applies to albums you don't like. What's your new idea?

4. Write with authority. You gain authority by showing knowledge about your subject, the world, and yourself, and expressing your insights with clarity, sharp metaphors, and close arguing skills. Writers who don't explain odd references or don't provide examples for bold claims lose authority. They gain it by showing they've listened widely and deeply and developed a "take" of their own, so that they can make up new categories, spot unsung traditions, and (yes) recommend good music in creative comparisons. Any pan of X could hold it to a higher standard set by Y. How much greatness have we been introduced to this way?

5. Make spiritual peace but practical war with your ignorance: Do your homework. Yes, of course you can read the press release--after you've fully digested the music if need be--but also pull books off your shelf or go to the library or store. Challenge yourself. Read good critics about the artist and genre, listen around, then decide why you agree or disagree. Go beyond the obvious first couple pages of Google hits (newspapers in an artist's hometown are a good start), and remember that reporting is fallible. Check your information. There's always more to the story. What comes out of an artist's mouth can be crucial for basic facts, but Xhuxk is right when he says the ultimate truth is whatever comes through the speakers.

6. Write for a person. Are you writing for a genre specialist with unlimited income, or a music head who might wind up buying 40 or 50 albums a year? Or both? Authority depends less on what your answer is than on HAVING an answer, and shaping your response around it. Which involves context: I love Christgau because I know he's honestly recommending that anyone anywhere buy every A album if he/she can afford it, and at least recommending to a general audience to consider buying every B+ album. (He's also a master of poetic shorthand for this, as well as all kinds of phenomena, musical and otherwise.) However you define it, knowing where you draw that B+ line--which seems to be 3 and ½ stars in Rolling Stone, or a 7 in SPIN--is key, not just because money is short but because life is.

7. Put your taste and preference on the table: If everything else an artist has done stinks, artfully say so. Your pan might carry less weight for fans, but your praise might also carry more weight for detractors, and either way, readers will trust you more. Or at least they'll trust you to be you. Putting these things out in the open is a subtle way to help readers get their bearings. Plenty of talented people don't seem to understand that disagreement is a fundamental condition of loving music and loving criticism. Of course it's helpful to try to figure out why masses of people might love something you hate, or hate something you love, but don't compromise between your feelings and theirs, and for goodness sake don't generalize about audiences. Unless you're writing a serious, memoir-like reflection on your membership in a subculture (and even then), don't pretend you have any idea what is in other people's heads.

8. Have fun. Play is the extra layer of creativity on top of knowing. It's what you do with your skills or muscles, and the reason anyone would look for your byline. The more authority you have, the more creative you can be, like a runner so far ahead in the race, you can dance across the finish line. It's also what you can do at a certain level of assumed reader knowledge. I'm thinking of Klosterman's Beatles piece, but also pretty much anything by my Minneapolis-rooted friends. You must love life.

9. Be good, not just great. Criticism involves moral judgments just like anything else. The more public, popular, praised, or otherwise successful an artist, the more latitude we have to condemn their art. What's the point in attacking obscure local work, unless it's blatantly provocative or corrupt in some way? (Or unless you're a Maximumrocknroll-style genre completist, pledged to review every last thing in your mailbox?) Why kick somebody when they're down?

Even successful artists often didn't choose to have their personal lives follow them onstage. Criticism is journalism of the soul, but it's still journalism. Adhere to its highest standards. That doesn't mean myth-making isn't part of it: All journalists are storytellers, and biography is elemental to criticism. But good biographical criticism tends to be over-researched and understated, and works best where it's measured and clearly grounded in tentative interpretation (I'm thinking the best of David Thomson). Generally speaking, don't trust biographies, and be skeptical of autobiographies: Turns out the Clash were an even more interesting story than the one they told about themselves. Same with the White Stripes. Again, do you really know anything for sure except what's coming through the speakers?

10. Write in your voice. This is both a complicated and simple thing, complicated because the voice in your fingers is different than the one on your lips, simple because you know when it's not yours--usually after editors are done with it. Rewrite edits back into something you would say while keeping what they're looking for. Avoid pandering to perceived audiences: Do you really use that slang? Try on other writers' voices to develop your own, there's no shame in that. But people ultimately know when you're being yourself.

This is the most eminently reasonable advice I've read on the internet in quite a while.

a lot of music journalism in 2010 just seems more like appreciation writing than journalism, or rather, criticism. which is cool, it has its place, but doesnt really help you think of new ways to really analyse music.

pete is pretty resoundingly otm

This is something that certainly goes against the zing culture, but I would add to Pete's list:
11/ Don't be cruel just because you can. It's one thing to criticise the music; it's another to start making assumptions about the worth of the person making the music based on their album. Cruelty might raise easy laughs, but it doesn't make you a critic, and it diminishes you in the long run.
12/ Remember, you're reviewing the band. not the fans. Too much music writing takes pops at the people who buy the music: "it's music for idiots". Maybe you think only idiots could like it, but chances are there are plenty of people who aren't idiots who feel differently, and who might take against a writer who calls them idiots. Call the music rubbish, not the fans stupid.

Not a professional by any means - and this thread has been great reading - but my suggestion wd be

Postpone judgment

By which I mean certainly moral but also critical judgment. Enjoy exploring, analysing, adding context and describing before anything else.

So much criticism seems to hit the ground running with its ultimate opinion tacitly apparent in its tone while pretending to review. Find good (even if it's a struggle), find bad (ditto), but keep postponing that 'this is good'/'this is bad' moment (if you feel you need it at all.) it is in some ways for the reader the least important part.

if only that was even possible what with, you know, deadlines and lead times and promos

i mean i basically agree - i feel most "ready" to take on an album a few months after first hearing it - but this is pretty much impossible

I took that to mean "delay making a judgment in your writing until the end"

Yep, sorry, wasn't clear - what HD said. Although that's perhaps also because of what lex said.

there's always ways to talk about music that you've taken the time to consider -- year-end pieces, genre overviews, looks back at an artist's catalog with a news hook -- but as far as reviewing new releases go i think it's understood by the reader and everyone else that you're going with a gut instinct first impression. but i do agree that emphasizing the badness/goodness in reviews of new records is probably not a great idea, which is one of many reasons why numbers/stars do far more harm than good.

Yeah, the one thing I might take issue to in Peter's great long post (which has tons of excellent advice) is the stuff about "Why does this matter?"...I mean, I think I know what he means (you have to get the reader's attention), but a lot of reviewers might take that advice to mean "Why is this important?" (assuming the music is important --which, honestly, very little music ultimately is, in the long run), something that's often better to let the reader figure out his or herself. It's not always possible, but at least keep the "show don't tell" rule in mind. If your description of the music (and/or whatever context you put it into) is smart enough, the "mattering" can come naturally, and if your ideas are interesting, mattering might not even matter. With wordcounts under 100 per album in many venues these days --one thing that sucks about 2010 music-crit obviously -- killing two birds with one stone is frequently the only choice you're gonna have.

And obviously, another thing that really sucks about 2010 music-crit (as Lex alludes to) is the stupid universal insistence on reviews coinciding with (even preceding) release dates. Wasn't always that way, believe it or not -- and right, sometimes the smartest things written about records are written months (or years) after they come out.

emphasizing the badness/goodness in reviews of new records is probably not a great idea, which is one of many reasons why numbers/stars do far more harm than good

Strangely, one thing I've liked in the past few years about reviewing music for places like Billboard, rhapsody, and emusic (where wordcounts are all extremely short oddly enough) is that trashing records is rarely if ever an option -- It forces me think more about what makes a record singular, and what's actually happening on it, and how I can say that in an interesting way, whether I love the music or don't like it much. And since every word counts -- if my limit is 600 characters, I'll probably use all 600 -- there's little room for empty superlatives, either. Which might not necessarily make for the most memorable writing -- having strong opinions and room for wisecracks often helps criticism -- but I bet it makes the reviews useful.

okay so sure in 2010 Whiney's Twitter has dropped a nuke in the arms race to be FIRST but does that in any way prevent future consideration at length and writing of smart things months (or years) later? like in 2011 when all music criticism will be performed at length and leisure by gifted amateurs anyway?

like in 2011 when all music criticism will be performed at length and leisure by gifted amateurs anyway?

is this a given?

j/w

With wordcounts under 100 per album in many venues these days

This denies any notion of actually practicing journalism. Even if you're an editor presiding over it at some publication. Then, more accurately, one is a scheduler, a job that more accurately dovetails with
the tight lacing of every single review to release schedules.

Then there's the big quid pro quo thing.

What xhuxk describes about Billboard, rhapsody and emusic (except for the wordcount thing; I can go as long as I want, though I usually wind up in the 200-250 word range because that's how I was trained) is also true of my work for AMG. It's much more about description than rendering a hard-and-fast verdict, and I have to stay away from stuff like "an early contender for Album of the Year" because, in theory, AMG reviews aren't locked to the time they're first published or to street dates - they're supposed to linger there for when someone looks the album up for research or something.

xpost i dunno how light does a check have to be before one considers oneself an amateur?

xp I don't blame Whiney -- I blame Entertainment Weekly, 20 or so years ago. That was the first shot in this war. But sure, people can still write at length, and ages after a record comes out, on their blogs and other websites, just like they could write for fanzines in the old days. They just can't (usually) get paid for it. (And I'm not saying that's entirely bad for music criticism, either. But I dunno, for me personally, a paycheck tends to be a good motivator -- even though some of the writing I'm proudest of has been done for free.)

So much criticism seems to hit the ground running with its ultimate opinion tacitly apparent in its tone while pretending to review. Find good (even if it's a struggle), find bad (ditto), but keep postponing that 'this is good'/'this is bad' moment (if you feel you need it at all.) it is in some ways for the reader the least important part.

This is what Manny Farber (especially in the late reviews co-written with Patricia Patterson) was quite good at.

op: animated .gifs

Remember, you're reviewing the band. not the fans.

I'd amend this slightly: oftentimes you're reviewing the track or album or mix or performance, rather than the artist themselves. I think that makes a difference (and I'm guessing it's part of what ithappens means anyway), if only because a work doesn't usually add up to a whole. (I keep thinking of Scharpling & Wurster's Rock, Rot & Rule, in which Wurster's clueless book author says that Neil Young rots. "But what about . . ." Scharpling asks, naming the obvious canonical stuff. Wurster, who's only heard the bad '80s records: "That's six albums.")

NB I don't blame Whiney either and I hope that's clear. and I agree -- as with The Death of The Newspaper these forces have been in motion since long before the average home had access to broadband internet. also agreed that paid work today will almost always trump spec work today. which is sort of baked into my crack about In The Future All Music Writers Will Be Amateurs.

at this point I read 33 1/3 more than I read pfork so who knows

It forces me think more about what makes a record singular, and what's actually happening on it, and how I can say that in an interesting way, whether I love the music or don't like it much

I have to admit, my old dream/ideal used to be that one could find a way to describe how a record works that would make everyone who'd dislike the record cringe, and everyone who'd like the record get excited, all without suggesting an opinion either way. (I think I may have gotten close to this once -- a review that got loads of email saying either "you're right, this sucks" or "you're right, this is awesome" -- but this is one of those unreachable ideals, obviously.)

x-post: Totally agree about show don't tell, I was more thinking about how for years I struggled with leads until I remembered that sometimes you just need to start writing about what you're writing about and not worry about a clever way in, especially if your clever way would break the momentum, and always if it would make anyone wonder, "So why is this being written about again"?

So I don't agree that you should avoid reading other criticism, but I would avoid explicitly responding to it in your writing, because there's so much more there, both in the art and in yourself.

True to a point--you'll certainly save yourself a lot of grief, and there's something kind of noble about staying above the fray--but one of the best things for me about reading Kael and all her rivals from the early 60's was the way they'd have at each other. Kael would complain about Sarris, he'd complain about her, Simon would complain about both of them, Macdonald would chime in, etc., etc. I suppose it was quite annoying if you just wanted to know whether or not The Disorderly Orderly was worth seeing, otherwise highly entertaining and instructive. (The nobility of above-the-fray: Stanley Kauffmann, most of the time.) And Kael's "Circles and Squares," her epic diatribe against Sarris, is one of her greatest pieces of writing. (Unless you're a Sarris acolyte, in which case it's just shrill.) Maybe you just mean that stuff shouldn't creep into regular reviews. Mostly, I think that's a good idea.

It's important not to take attacks seriously too. Poor Sarris never forgave Kael, despite several attempts on her part to mend fences.

I'd have to look it up, but as I remember it, there was still lingering bitterness in the piece he wrote after her death.

Yeah, he still hadn't gotten over it.

Here's the piece. "In berths and hard cash, she profited much more than I did--in addition to its prestige, The New Yorker paid better than The Village Voice, and Pauline did stints as a consultant in Hollywood. But she deserved it for her relentless self-promotion and her artful suggestion that she was the ultimate authority on all movies because the opinions of colleagues were worthless."

And, uh, oh yeah--RIP!

hatchet jobs on other critics who are just plain wrong and stupid is so much fun, though. LOVED doing it the one time i got commissioned to do so. still regret that at the time of the taylor wift feminist débâcle i was too tied up with work to have time to eviscerate that autostraddle piece.

It's important not to take attacks seriously too. Poor Sarris never forgave Kael, despite several attempts on her part to mend fences.

idk, publishing a diatribe against someone is as definitively bridge-burning as you get.

(i don't think having a thick skin is necessarily a good thing for a critic!)

Like someone else said upthread, I don't really care too much for historico-contextual screeds about how the album fits within the artist's oeuvre. For me the key is to find words to describe the music in arresting and interesting ways. The master of this is David Keenan, who gets a lot of stick from all quarters but has an unmistakable style based around a more or less unique critical vocabulary. Any of his capsule reviews on VT would serve as examples.

I generally quite like Keenan's turn of phrase but it strikes me as heavily cribbed from Byron Coley (who I guess is pretty in thrall to Beat-ish vocab himself)

xpost Thanks for that Sarris piece, so much there.

Keenan is like a humourless, arid & v. pompous mystic version of Byron Coley.

I'm a longtime reader of the bimonthly classical review Fanfare, and once in awhile its critics just eviscerate each other in a special section in the back of the mag. Last time it was a dude whose reviews are really useful to me sonning a dude whose reviews don't do shit, but it was so harsh I felt bad for the vic.