IS ROCK CRITICISM DEAD?

if they were listening critically on some level then there would be no big huge, zillion dollar marketed albums by big artists that ever flop, and that happens all the time

wow if people are just buying everything they hear on NPR or 106 and Park it's amazing the music industry is doing poorly

lolz note I didn't use the word "buy" anywhere

so if your tastes aren't eclectic enough to have you scouring the radio dial, music is just a "lifestyle accessory" to you

late to the game but wanted to say whiney u are a v. entertaining speaker and about 99% correct in yr assessment of things.

wow you guys are really misreading me ... I'm not saying the mass of music consumers out there don't enjoy or engage with the music they listen to. Obviously they do. But the music they listen to is closely tied to the kind of person they want to be, the kind of culture they want to be involved in, the kind of images they aspire to, the kind of aesthetic worldview that they are comfortable in. People like things that reinforce their established image of themselves (and none of us are any exceptions to this, btw) - this is what I meant by music being treated as a "lifestyle accessory". People develop a conception of themselves and the music they listen to is part of that. This is not really a unique or challenging or condescending concept, so you can all kindly fuck off with your stone-throwing.

I don't think you're totally wrong, but I don't think the mindset is nearly as aspirational or tied to self-image as you do. Basically, everyone picks and chooses what songs they like or dislike out of what's in front of them, whether it's 10 songs or 1000.

this is where the whole "identity politics" aspect of music ties in as well - ie, "I am this kind of person and I subscribe to these cultural tenets, ergo I enjoy Christian/country/R&B/indie music. This music comes to me through this outlet, which more often than not plays things I enjoy." rinse and repeat

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But, Shakey, I don't know anyone who listens to music that way!

I am this kind of person and I subscribe to these cultural tenets, ergo I enjoy Christian/country/R&B/indie music. This music comes to me through this outlet, which more often than not plays things I enjoy.

This should be a Gang Of Four lyric

yeah i hafta say, people i know who have limited tastes or small cd collections, most of them still can be pretty passionate about the stuff they do like. i think the "lifestyle accessory" people exist, but they're a relative minority. i think most people have some music they really care about.

There's no causal relationship between voting for Bush and downloading a Swans song.

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I don't see why you can't really care about a lifestyle accessory...?

I object to the idea that being satisfied by a mainstream music source somehow implies that you don't care about music and see it solely as a box to be ticked on a lifestyle checklist; it seems to be completely counter to why people gravitate towards lifestyles in the first place, namely because the trappings give them emotional satisfaction. You seem to be putting the cart before the horse here.

I mean lolz consumer capitalism, isn't that what its all about

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somehow implies that you don't care about music and see it solely as a box to be ticked on a lifestyle checklist[

I see there is an issue here with the semantics of the term "lifestyle accessory"

the last time I heard the phrase lifestyle accessory was on some ad for a head shop

something about like "we have all your 420 lifestyle accessories here"

are lyfestile accessories dead?

to me "lifetime accessory" means "boyfriend".

and that was like 5 or 6 yrs ago

I mean, for every Christian out there who only listens to Christian rock, there are a bazillion others who listen to other things as well or who actively abhor Christian rock; it's not nearly as simple as "I am THIS so I only listen to THAT".

this is where the whole "identity politics" aspect of music ties in as well - ie, "I am this kind of person and I subscribe to these cultural tenets, ergo I enjoy Christian/country/R&B/indie music. This music comes to me through this outlet, which more often than not plays things I enjoy." rinse and repeat

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― Kitchen Paper Towel (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:43 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i was sitting next to this dude on a plane a couple weeks ago and he was scrolling through all these bands on his itunes and i didn't know one of them so i was spying on him, them some michael w. smith popped up...so i finally was like "ah dude is a big xian born again" dude...but then all of a sudden "ill communication" by the beasties popped up and also "what's the story morning glory" so who knows?

Haha in fairness, I think that like 80% of MN listens to Michael W. Smith!

Chuck Eddy and I have a few Amy Grant albums that Mike Huckabee and his band might wanna cover on Sunday nights.

I mean, for every Christian out there who only listens to Christian rock, there are a bazillion others who listen to other things as well or who actively abhor Christian rock; it's not nearly as simple as "I am THIS so I only listen to THAT".

I see no one raised this complaint when Whiney "objectively" cited the compartmentalized listening tastes of Bonnarroo attendees

I, for one, didn't listen to the talk because I'm still at work; my reactions are to the discussion much more than they are to the source material. At any rate, I think croupier was reacting against that in his posts.

that MINDSET grr

I'm getting my threads confused. Shouldn't Shakey be attacking Ferris Bueller again?

actually i didn't but one thing that i thought whiney was weird (a little off shakey's point here) but was the fact that while you sort of decried the camps of fans on the bonerro tweetfest (god what a term)...you yourself seemed to just write off all the "jam band crap" which, for me, if i went to bonerroo would be the most interesting thing to check out, just cuz it's sort of the roots of the fest and who the fuck knows, maybe like string cheese incident would rock my sox off in a live setting?

well Dan to sum up (pardon me for paraphrasing here Whiney) part of his point was that people's tastes are in general becoming very NARROW - listeners find a comfortable sub-section of music that they are into and they stick with it, they are oblivious to things going on outside it, and there's no critical mechanism readily available to break those listeners out of that.

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if i went to bonerroo would be the most interesting thing to check out, just cuz it's sort of the roots of the fest and who the fuck knows, maybe like string cheese incident would rock my sox off in a live setting?

lolz M@tt I love you bro

" there's no critical mechanism readily available to break those listeners out of that."

somewhere sasha frere jones is raising his hand eagerly

btw String Cheese Incident likely WOULD rock yr sox off in a live setting, I ushered a show they did with Bela Fleck and MMW and they were great

"well Dan to sum up (pardon me for paraphrasing here Whiney) part of his point was that people's tastes are in general becoming very NARROW - listeners find a comfortable sub-section of music that they are into and they stick with it, they are oblivious to things going on outside it, and there's no critical mechanism readily available to break those listeners out of that."

Is Whiney not aware of the existence of specialty music mags prior to the www?

I see no one raised this complaint when Whiney "objectively" cited the compartmentalized listening tastes of Bonnarroo attendees

Never said their tastes were, I said their tweets were

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yeah it's one of those things i'm like totally curious about but have no desire to actively make the effort to go to

like i wish a world famous hippie jam band would come play in my backyard for free

well Dan to sum up (pardon me for paraphrasing here Whiney) part of his point was that people's tastes are in general becoming very NARROW - listeners find a comfortable sub-section of music that they are into and they stick with it, they are oblivious to things going on outside it, and there's no critical mechanism readily available to break those listeners out of that.

call me crazypants but isn't this EXACTLY the thing croupier called him out about?

bonnaroo is fucking awesome btw

jesus god, someone take these prepositions away from me before I kill again

i think whiney's core point (lolz about fleet foxes and the like aside) that thoughtful criticism -- actual criticism -- is hard to find and probably going to get harder is well put and well taken.

who the fuck knows, maybe like string cheese incident would rock my sox off in a live setting?

one thing i liked about bonnaroo the 2 times i've gone is that i ended up going to see and sometimes enjoying bands i never would have. i let myself be dragged by my dancing-hippie-girl friend to both string cheese incident and widespread panic, and while it's hardly the kind of stuff i'm going to listen to in any other setting, in an open field with a big enthusiastic crowd it was pretty entertaining.

dan I'll let croupier speak for himself but no I don't think that was his original cricitism of Whiney

haha hard to believe but all I originally said was that whiney bitching about NPR playing fleet foxes because shitty critics like them was pretty off-key from an overall defense of music criticism. If you're actually trying to argue that critics are worth supporting, you can't complain when they succeed in getting an act attention just because you think your tastes are better.

best thread in... awhile! (guess i'm a little cranky today, IRL i just yelled at a guy in a wheelchair who ran into me on the sidewalk)

It is a good thread and I'd say more on here if I weren't fighting a frickin' cold/headache/earache combination.

is rock critic dead?

http://www.speakeasy.net/~mike1627/Linguo.jpg

yeah, good thread. i actually read everything you people had to say, and god knows i haven't done that in a long time. hahahahaha!

my whole point about the lifestyle accessory comment was related to croupier's point that most people don't listen to/experience/absorb music in terms m coleman was describing (ie " pop music as MUSIC at its core? why can't listeners -- or critics -- be responding to music when they like a pop song?") - its not just about appreciation of craft for most people, what the music signifies is often just as/if not MORE important. So identity politics is always a crucial component of criticism - it gets beyond the "wow the drum programming on this song is really well done" sorta analysis and into the music's subtext, its social role, its political signifiers, its relationship to musical history, its context, which is really (imho) what most people are engaging with when they listen to music. Not just the average listener, but music obsessives like us as well. That was what I meant by lifestyle accessory - that music is a part of a larger, deeper identity for most people - and not just a medium to be appreciated for its strictly technical merits (ie, "that guitar solo is really hard to play" or "this beat is fun to dance to", although that stuff all figures in as well on a surface level).

Whiney asks for more people to offer WHY they listen to the music they do - which more often than not is gonna come down to some level of lifestyle/identity politics kinda thing, and not so much appreciation of technical craft (although you will get weird exceptions to this like people who claim to listen to Dragonforce because all the musicians are SO AMAZING. But even guys who, say, privelege indie rock over rap because hip hop isn't made by "real musicians" are betraying their own identity politics more than their engaging with the actual craft of either genre)

That was what I meant by lifestyle accessory - that music is a part of a larger, deeper identity for most people

that makes sense, though "accessory" might be a little off. you're really talking about how people draw personal meaning from art and incorporate it into their lives and identities, etc. and i think the HOW and WHY that whiney's asking can take a lot of different forms. i'm sympathetic to the argument that more music critics should actually know more about music from a technical standpoint, because it really does make a difference in understanding something about how it works. otoh i'm sympathetic to the idea that most music fans don't really know much about music per se, and so a good populist critic doesn't have to understand the mechanics to talk insightfully about the way music functions socially or politically or whatever. probably the real thing is that you can do good, interesting critical work from either direction (even if a lot of the best of it is going to incorporate some elements of both) -- and that there isn't enough good, interesting critical work being done from any perspective. (and that some of the relatively few places that have provided forums for that kind of thing are either moving away from it or are just plain disappearing from the landscape.)