Music Criticism in Video Form

Some of prindle's ones have been really great...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdNhxSDBV9Y

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQITSJuNIyA

but then also, recently, very depressing if you've been reading him for a while.

prindle's are at least kind of fascinating/horrifying for fans of his writing, but this other dude...why the hell would anyone watch this?

unless they themselves have considered talking about an album for five minutes into a camera in front of a black backdrop

Because The Needle Drop dude rules.

is this who you want to be when you grow up or something?

i mean unless you can't find a guy in glasses to talk to you about albums in person, i can't see what purpose this guy serves.

he's got people to pay attention to music criticism -- that's something. also, dude's entertaining

dude has less than than 10,000 views on any video. Not bad for a vlog of a dude talking about albums for five minutes with no sound samples (wtf is up with that, btw?) but dunno if he "got people to pay attention to music criticism."

insofar as (1) he has some viewers and (2) you consider what he's doing music criticism -- and i do -- then "he's got people to pay attention to music criticism," at least momentarily

i mean, his is a small fuckin operation, but i'm all for some dude who obviously loves music doing a half-decent job turning other music fans onto good stuff

judging from the comments these people were already paying attention to music criticism when they got to him

sure, you're probably right -- all or even most of the ppl watching his videos probably already have some sort of interest in consuming music criticism, but at the same time he's at least furthering their engagement with it, which is neat. and i think he succeeds pretty well in doing pretty good reviews in this format. i'm all for people trying out projects like this. i also just like his stuff

*most or even all

the title of this thread made me think of something else entirely!

besides the derogatis show, are there any people doing criticism in audio form (which would seem like a more natural fit)?

there's a fantastic deconstruction of "hyper enough" on the laughter guns EP by some college DJs that I wish people would do more of, even if they're not joking.

one day someone will do this well

who wants to look at a music critic?

i was hoping da croupier was planning on launching a competing vlog

xpost

I was thinking this would be about critics tearing music videos apart beavis & butthead/MST3K style, where all you would see is a silhouette maybe.

video is a more forgiving and flexible medium than prose, i.e. allows a lot of more divisive stylistic chops to be sidestepped completely and a lot of observations are simpler to express in realtime. it's quicker&less effort also. reading a tool fan trying to spot instances of the fibonacci sequence in lateralus wld be awful, but youtube is like an anaesthetic. vlogs are shit. all you guys are fools for even imagining them imo.

irl lol, but

youtube is like an anaesthetic. vlogs are shit. all you guys are fools for even imagining them imo.

Huh?

minutes with no sound samples (wtf is up with that, btw?)

I think he used to have sound samples in some of his older review. Whatever happened?

yeah, i thought he did too -- copyright issues, maybe?

I'm trying to think where video offers an advantage over an audio review. Would you pull up spectrum analyses of records?
I think it could be a useful to show where someone maybe ripped off someone else, but it isn't immediately obvious by listening to it.

you could slowly pan over album artwork and pictures of the band while actors read quotes from the musicians, reading rainbow style.

interpretive dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdmSFXKM_QU

xp to ksh

video is less abstract and more sensory, & that dazzle sweetens the transmission of all sorts of shit. ppl will watch lots of shit they wldn't read, changing the ratio of yr senses can have a numbing effect, youtube is like an audiac, the headphone anaesthetic where you wld increase the volume till you couldn't feel any pain, or presumably, hear afterwards

the laurie anderson curlers line gets me every time!

xpost

wow. i should just stop reading & watching more on YouTube O_O

isn't mark prindle the guy who gave terrible reviews to all the miles davis discs?

yeah, i'm pretty sure it's him. OH BOY, SOMEDAY I HOPE TO HEAR THOSE REVIEWS IN "V"LOG FORM.

mark prindle's hyperactive reviews always made me think he'd sound like beavis.

besides the derogatis show, are there any people doing criticism in audio form

I wish audio criticism wasn't just guys talking about music, but rather making music in response. It would be fun if some music website ran a regular column in which the reviewer wrote and performed songs that described/responded to/criticized/analyzed new releases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyasBBoQqCA

there is this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRmIfn85d3Q

xpost

i used to own that mini Marshall amp

dying @ Electronic Wuss video tbh

yung whiney done found his very own twitter gimmick i see

this is a masterpiece!
http://www.tubafrenzy.org/weblog/mp3/HyperEnoughPart2_TheDJsRevenge.mp3

modz plz mercy kill this thread, thanking you

Electronic Wuss one's spot-on. I'm just dreaming here, but if propagated widely enough I think it could kill off that whole genre.

Someone needs to check with continuity about that earring that starts showing up about a minute in on the Chris Brown one.

the only youtube things i ever liked were those Save The Album ones. cuz i will pretty much always prefer listening to musicians talk about their fave albums then listen to a rock critic talk about anything. not that they are all great (the save the album things), but i just like the idea. i've always been a fan of the desert island disc/invisible jukebox/blindfold test/etc/etc feature with musicians. probably more a fan of that kinda thing than i am a fan of most rock crit.

do you like listening to rock critics at all?

If anyone's interested, I just found the one I did: http://vimeo.com/7391295.

I only filmed it seven months ago and I already disagree with some of the absolute positions I take here. Also why do I care so much whether Brian Wilson's incoherent moans are from beyond edge of mental illness? Never record yourself doing anything.

i'm sure someone's mentioned it on this thread but it's absolutely ridiculous to review music in video format without including bits of the music or even clips from their videos or live shows. Weak, imo.

"do you like listening to rock critics at all?"

not too many of them. i don't really read rock crit much at all anymore. i read the reviews in decibel just to see what people are raving about there. i read ilm obviously. i think i would like a subscription to the wire because i am interested in some of the things they write about. i admire finney, sherburne, and stelfox. strange coincidence, that also happens to be the name of the law firm that represents me. wait, does tim write for the wire? in any case, they write about things that i become increasingly more interested in as time goes on. and write (and think) in a way that is interesting to me. i'd like to subscribe to a good classical mag too (but i do get jon lewis on ilm for free). i think i'd be all set. most "rock" writing is abysmal and impossible to read. let alone watch on video! talking about critical writing and reviews. there is still good historical journalism about music out there. even though it gets harder and harder to find.

i feel you on that, and i would totally subscribe to the Wire if it wasn't so damn expensive in the US

Decibel's the only music magazine I really love. i also read Pitchfork, and sometimes the New York Times and Village Voice music sections. and some blogs. but i've been looking at stuff in other music magazines at the bookstore lately and not too much appealed to me

wax poetics is great usually

okay, maybe "abysmal" is too strong a word. how about "not really worth reading unless i'm really bored and stuck somewhere and there is nothing else to read". that's more like it.

yeah. i just wish more magazines covered different bands and published more longform stuff. the world doesn't need twelve more articles on She & Him imo

And if I die tomorrow, nobody’s going to outdo that run.

only one way to find out for sure, rip big man

xpost I figure he's responding to Halsey's claim: "I’m certain my least memorable song will be remembered more fondly and for more time than anything you ever do with your life will be."

yeah Alfred, you're not wrong. It is something to be proud of. I phrased that poorly.

The thing that baffles me about Fantano is that he doesn't even include clips of the music he's reviewing in his videos. You're just being breathlessly lectured at by some douchebag for 20 minutes or whatever. He's literally insufferable.

Steven Hyden, who I don't believe is well-liked here either, did an interesting interview with Fantano about the "state of music criticism" last year:

What surprised me, however, was Fantano’s genuine alarm at how established media institutions — in music journalism and elsewhere — have been diminished, even as that decline has inadvertently bolstered his own brand.

guessing that's for monetization reasons xp

I occasionally watch the videos where he's discussing "issues", I don't really want to hear him describe an album either.

I think the difficulty here is that "relevant" and "impactful" are both terms of measurement nobody who's actually interested in the substance of their work ought -- in my very admittedly minority opinion -- to pursue. "relevant" just means "famous," and "impactful": in what sense? does his critique inform the way others talk about music? if we allow "yes," in what sense? In the sense that he talks about whatever came out this week that others are talking about, that the topic of general conversation in music online is certainly informed by what he talks about. that's very true, but it's more "notes on current culture" with a specialized focus in music than music criticism. He's had a big impact in that, yes, and for lots of people that's what music criticism amounts to. But I don't think I could identify any musical positions he holds; like a lot of people, he seems to have gotten on board metal when it started getting more clicks, and then got interested in pop when that's the way it went. there are leftsetz corollaries here tbqf

having said that I think he's overhated-on and is at core a guy who gets very pumped about music, and who has been able to find an angle on that that gets him paid, and who wouldn't if they thought they could

I backed away from "impactful" because it's a bullshit word.

feel like his role is more like that Ray William Johnson guy, he doesn't really have opinions or a coherent set of likes and dislikes, he just reacts to shit

feel like his role is more like that Ray William Johnson guy, he doesn't really have opinions or a coherent set of likes and dislikes, he just reacts to shit

― frogbs, Tuesday, June 23, 2026

That's my complaint. For him, albums live in a context-free phantom zone. Besides enjoying their prose for its own sake, the fun of reading Ebert and John Leland or whoever when I was younger was the connections they made to antecedents. "Oh, this movie is influenced by a director named François Truffaut? Gimme."

That said, an easy crutch in music writing is to turn paragraphs into a stew of this-reminds-me-ofs.

Fantano contributed to an anti-SJW video with a clip advising the "SJWs" to drink bleach. He has never really apologised for this, only saying that the makers of the video misrepresented the context. he is a creature of 4chan and unless he disavows everything about them he will always be deeply suspect.

I feel the main thrust of his “criticism” has always felt closer to the function of AI — how is the generic Critic talking about these sorts of albums — than that of a critic, ie an individual whose unpredictability is where you detect a soul

i figure this guy just reviews the same stuff pitchfork and rolling stone do, idgi

― brimstead, Monday, June 22, 2026 9:17 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i think he takes his cues from rate your music

or vice versa

I feel the main thrust of his “criticism” has always felt closer to the function of AI — how is the generic Critic talking about these sorts of albums — than that of a critic, ie an individual whose unpredictability is where you detect a soul

― ok (D-40),

This.

yes, d-40 otm

unfortunately, 95% of music talkers/influencers on tiktok have inherited his mannerisms and overly-pedantic analytical style

always loved how Nmesh's Dream Sequins extensively samples his Floral Shoppe review on the last track, specifically the parts where he's wasting time rambling about all these new genres and the history of plunderphonics and just describing the shit that happens on the album and saying "oh it's supposed to be weird", kinda cemented my impression of this guy as someone who just can't see anything beyond this overly wordy critical lens. even Scrauffi on occasion would really like something and wax poetic about it in a way that made you wish you could hear what he was hearing. I don't think Fantano has ever given anyone that feeling.

interesting discourse here. he *did* tell you guys who he was from the start though: "the internet's busiest music nerd."

...and, to his credit, has been nothing more ever since.

joke

if you break it down, the most widely recognized in their respective fields are usually the busiest, nerdiest ones. i mean, i'dve called herbie hancock "the syntheziser's busiest music nerd" at one point in his career. just for accuracy.

and to be clear: no, i don't like fantano's work. it never should've been a thing. or at least not the thing it became.

there are leftsetz corollaries here tbqf

Was thinking this earlier today. Seems increasingly clearer with time.

there are leftsetz corollaries here tbqf

Wake me up when Fantano develops an obsession with "real artists, man" and fixates on, like, Jackson Browne as a paradigm of same.

You know, the “real artists, man” guys are wildly annoying and stupid, but please can we admit they are worlds better than the “How dare you give Carly Rae Jepsen a light 6” people we have now

Two sides, same coin, surely.

yeah the poster who gets whiny about a 6.9 for CRJ is like this because he thinks she's a real artist, man.

Wake me up when Fantano develops an obsession with "real artists, man" and fixates on, like, Jackson Browne as a paradigm of same.

"relevance" is just "real artists, man" in newer duds