Music Criticism in Video Form

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

wax poetics is great usually

― the dj screwtape letters (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 5:58 PM (3 minutes ago)

i've heard ppl say that here; i should buy a copy

Without wanting to big up my own show, I think Jordan is right to say that probably what made it more palatable was that it was in dialogue form - I think if music crit lacks anything by and large it's a sense of real life interaction between different viewpoints. One dude talking into a camera doesn't solve that. Most of my intentions* for the show were always to make it more like ILM-on-TV rather than Pitchfork-on-TV.

(*word chosen intentionally)

http://sharetv.org/images/kenny_everett_video_show_uk-show.jpg

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PXwS1IJVmVA/0.jpg

http://www.tvcream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/kennyeverett1.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKDVCc34AXI

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

ksh, you need to all get up on this: http://thequietus.com

there was a short-lived rock-crit show on VH-1 circa 1995: "Four on the Floor" starring some ex-colleagues of mine from r0lling $tone etc.

brad nelson is that bookshelf from ikea

http://genius.com/discussions/138517-Anthony-fantano-on-white-people-and-hip-hop

*spends a moment pondering whether/how much he really wants to watch someone named Anthony Fantano talk about white people and hip-hop*

Why do so many people who make youtube videos of themselves talking talk in that exact same "I am a smart guy recording a video of myself" voice?

hi -citta8 hours ago

"art doesn't belong to anyone" - white people
Reply · 46

lol i didn't realize ilm had a thread about this guy much less a user who was actually excited about his potential (?)

i also doubt very much whether i want to watch this video

woof @ this thread

markers is a prophet

i gotta remove that vlog from vimeo

that bookshelf was from target

this guy has gotten gradually more insane over the past 5 years, its been 'interesting' to watch. is this what being a music critic does to you?

does weird me out that this dude showed up right around the time i stopped writing rock crit on the regular. the game needed an anthony ______o to annoy it.

You all will remember this day when this dude takes over the world.

― ksh, Wednesday, June 9, 2010 1:14 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dude's awesome.

― ksh, Wednesday, June 9, 2010 12:02 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, you're right, I'm sure he's just a normal guy who loves what he loves and stumbled into this in spite of himself

Not sure what you're getting at. Is he more nefarious than other people who post Youtube videos? And if not, then what extra is he doing to hack the algorithm?

To me, getting in a feud with Halsey and then making a video about it would be an attempt to "go viral" but just posting reviews of albums RYM is into limits your reach a bit.

I'm not saying he's nefarious, my simple point remains that being the "world's most popular music critic Youtuber" is not something I'd consider to be an accomplishment in itself, but behind that I just hate this guy's vibe and think that he rarely has anything worthwhile to say, others are free to disagree

I think hes kind of nefarious, in the sense that his shit pretends to be criticism while being not that

the way he talks about music reminds me more of product reviews, like guys reviewing headphones on youtube or something

right, he's good at describing what it *is* but not why you should like it. I don't think I've ever gotten anything from him that I wouldn't get by just listening to the album. but yes there is that additional Youtube specific element in how he just drones on and on while cutting out every moment of silence and hesitation, stitching together sentences from multiple takes, it makes it hard for my brain to parse what he's actually saying, which would be an issue if he was actually saying anything interesting. it feels like he's just trying to hit a certain length to get that mid-video ad break revenue.

The way Fantano uses the word “project” to describe virtually any release drives me nuts.

a thing i've thought about fantano:

at the beginning of one of his very old reviews, he briefly mentions that his voice is hoarse and he is a bit sluggish because he had had a late night seeing a regional favorite band, who he named. i went and looked up the band, figuring the mention was intentional and they were a band he was personally recommending because he just digs their music (and was probably still riding the endorphins of a rad show). the band's music was passable post-grunge, post-hardcore, kinda math-rocky guitar stuff. enh, sure. makes sense for a dude with that energy to like that sort of thing.

it's just that it was at the beginning of a review of a current hyped hiphop album, so i couldn't really make heads or tails of what he was trying to do after that. then there was all the weird altright second channel stuff a year or so later. now he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. huh. he really *is* boring.

Anthony Fantano may be boring blowhard, but Cal Chuchesta seems like a pretty swell guy.