Christgau, Chusid, or DeRogatis: Which critic is the most useless?

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― g®▲Ðұ, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 04:19 (seventeen years ago) link

And I have to say that DeRogatis' bio of Bangs was a good read, despite the many examples of DeRo using it to appoint himself Bangs's heir.

― MC, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 04:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Still, in a list of anything, chances are DeRogatis is the most useless.

― rogermexico., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 05:42 (seventeen years ago) link

the reason criticism is is to narc opinions wtf

― luriqua, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 06:20 (seventeen years ago) link

No but really, Nabisco -- all human communication is pointless. Serious.

― Pye Poudre, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Why is this thread still happening

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.americansouthwest.net/southwest_travelogue/photographs700/road.jpg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:39 (seventeen years ago) link

why are you still happening?

― artdamages, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:39 (seventeen years ago) link

scott, i want to buy your coffe table book

― artdamages, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:40 (seventeen years ago) link

HI DERE WAHT IS BAKC IN DAY RECOMMENNDD

― gff, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I give it B+

― Mark G, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 14:44 (seventeen years ago) link

So those of us who aren't insane tend to be aware that music criticism is not really about being "right" or constructing the "heirarchies" you seem to think we all believe in.

As sensible as this is, I think it leaves something out - which is that trying to convince the other guy (or gal) that you are right and constructing elaborate hierarchies is a big part of what makes all this senseless bickering about music interesting and fun for a lot of people. Many critics adopt a pose of know-it-allness and arcane knowledge that sets their opinions above those of the masses. Christgau plays with these tropes of authority in his use of grades, as though he were a professor (ie., the societally approved arbitrator of truth and knowledge), and a lot of his rhetorical style involves implying that there are "real" gradations of value and importance in music that reasonable people could agree on, were they to perceive things as clearly as he.

― o. nate, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link

I always read his capsule reviews like abstracts for a student's paper.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 15:22 (seventeen years ago) link

"I've simply noticed that the majority of people who post regularly on such sites get extremely defensive when their own opinions are called into question, more so than is logical or necessary."

=

"i irritate everyone i meet"

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 16:10 (seventeen years ago) link

HAHAHA

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

^^ o.nate gets it.

― souldesqueeze, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link

haha "now someone said something else that kinda makes sense, so that's what i REALLY meant"

― M@tt He1ges0n, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Just one of the few non-flaming, on-topic posts with which I happen to agree, that's all.

― souldesqueeze, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:43 (seventeen years ago) link

"I can't believe you compared Jessica Simpson to Debbie Gibson. Jessica has and never will be in the same pop idol class as Debbie was in the 80s. Shame on you!"

― Billy Pilgrim, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, so far as I can tell O.Nate is saying the exact opposite of what Soul's been saying, which is that taste and subjective and all, but it makes the conversation a lot more fun if we kind of pretend we're making official value judgments anyway. (At the very least this saves us the trouble of saying "in my personal opinion" before every sentence.)

― nabisco, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:45 (seventeen years ago) link

It's just the pretension of such an attitude that I find repugnant, unless it's obviously tongue-in-cheek.

― souldesqueeze, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Obviously is in the eye of the beholder.

― Pye Poudre, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:50 (seventeen years ago) link

worst
thread
ever

― M.V., Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link

haha "now someone said something else that kinda makes sense, so that's what i REALLY meant"
classic trolling maneuver

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:53 (seventeen years ago) link

"When Charles Trenet passed away in early 2001, France reacted almost as dramatically as America did following Frank Sinatra's death nearly three years earlier: it was a time of national mourning. Tributes filled the TV, and nothing but Trenet songs were heard on the radio. He was a prophet so honored in his native land that not even the rumors that he was both a homosexual (apparently true) and, far more worrisome, a collaborator with the Nazis during World War II (probably not true, but it's complicated) could temper the national enthusiasm for the man, who was billed as "Le Fou Chantant" (the Singing Fool)."

― Billy Pilgrim, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Dude, Christgau is/was a college professor. He gives records GRADES. Is the humor/tongue-in-cheekness not evident to you?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:56 (seventeen years ago) link

By the way, when I was having this argument with my younger brother when I was 16 years old, my argument was pretty much "Yes, we're all able to have / form our own opinions, but if I know more about a subject than you do, then my opinion is more right." This would piss him off to no end.

Now I've grown a lot since then, but essentially it's right. Rock critics get paid to devote their careers to understanding music and culture. It's no hobby (at least for non-lazy ones). So when souldesqueeze writes that he's "incredulous of the supposed value of criticism" and about "anyone who is convinced that their opinions (of rock & roll, for Chrissakes!) are so refined as to warrant them a living wage is delusional," but I have read, enjoyed, and learned from Bangs' bio of Blondie and Marcus' Lipstick Traces, among many others, well then I have to call bullshit on that.

Get a job rent-a-cop...

― MC, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 19:57 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't really need rock critics for opinions.

but sometimes the good ones will make me look at stuff i already like in a different way.

or stuff i don't like a in a different way.

or describe something i like or dislike about something in a way that i couldn't quite put into words.

that's why i like reading stuff.

― M@tt He1ges0n, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:02 (seventeen years ago) link

"The genius of Bill Simmons is that whether he's talking about Jerry Maguire or the most recent NFL weekend, you read what he writes and then you think to yourself, yes, that's exactly what I was about to say."

― Billy Pilgrim, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think it's that it "it makes the conversation a lot more fun if we kind of pretend we're making official value judgments." It's that these things ARE real judgements of value for us and we feel that there are elements of human nature involved in these perceptions of value, i.e., some music seems to be about beauty and passion and transcendence and freedom.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm inclined to see it both ways, but uh, GO TIM.

― Pye Poudre, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:13 (seventeen years ago) link

M@tt is on point. Opinion is almost the secondary consideration to teh learning of teh stuff. (Unless of course you're reading Ent Weekly's bite-size crapola.) Of course if I tend to agree with a critic's opinion more times than not, I'm going to heed him in the future.

― MC, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Dude, Christgau is/was a college professor. He gives records GRADES. Is the humor/tongue-in-cheekness not evident to you?

Ya srsly. He's the "dean of rock criticism" for crissakes.

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link

thought about posting my tuppence here, but as usual, "Nabisco OTM" will suffice.

― tom, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:30 (seventeen years ago) link

It's that these things ARE real judgements of value for us and we feel that there are elements of human nature involved in these perceptions of value, i.e., some music seems to be about beauty and passion and transcendence and freedom.
Kant to thread

Hi tehre I'm new here but I knwo the general mindset.

― Sparkle Motion, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:44 (seventeen years ago) link

i think one major point is that a lot of these reviews exist to either elicit contentious responses or to spawn discussion. tongue-in-cheek, "i'm jus messin about guys lol" reviews result in a wasteland of failed pussy-ass writers who are too afraid to get behind their own arguments.

― rps, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 20:50 (seventeen years ago) link

There's a very good essay called "The Critic as Artist" by a certain Oscar Wilde our beleaguered topic poster should read. I always thought it contained a pretty excellent justification for the entire critical enterprise.

Frankly, I find it more than a little bizarre that anyone would question the legitimacy of criticism at this point in history.

― Angsty, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Uh, examples?

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:03 (seventeen years ago) link

(xpost)

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:03 (seventeen years ago) link

"Getting behind" your arguments is one thing, and I agree: if you're going to post an opinion, you may as well do it with conviction. But you've got to maintain perspective and not delude yourself into thinking that you're more qualified than others to believe what you do, at least concerning something as open to interpretation as music or film.

― souldesqueeze, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:07 (seventeen years ago) link

more qualified than others to believe what you do???

― ghost rider, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link

all my posts are being deleted here...so i wont be back..bye...

― marissa, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link

[weird scott seward image]

― ghost rider, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

AWESOME XPOST

― ghost rider, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

you might be projecting self-delusion onto writers where none exists but for argument's sake i think a little of that isn't necessarily a bad thing in writing.

― rps, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

finally someone who can communicate with souldesqueeze at his level of rhetoric has arrived on the thread!

― ghost rider, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost to marissa obv, who has gone off this thread because of me ;_;

― ghost rider, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link

don't blame yourself.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:15 (seventeen years ago) link

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Srsly dude what do you want every record review to come with a disclaimer to spell out the obvious for you?

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 21:18 (seventeen years ago) link

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