Fans and Critics

I dunno, it always seems a bit easy, doesn't it? Maybe it has something to do with producing good negative criticism (I find it far more easier to write about music I love), in describing why you don't like a sound, why invest energy in detailing something you don't like when you can cruise on a sociology-light and write about the fans of music you don't like. Beware, this is just a little hypothesis.

It seems this is as old as music criticism itself, and some fans (Belle & Sebastian, Lynard Skynard, Metal fans esp Iron Maiden, Queen fans, Yes fans) have been targeted far more than others (say the too- cool-for-school consensus surrounding say Stooges, Television, The Clash, Sex Pistols). Needless to say Morrisey fans are always fair game ;)

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personally i think it would only be relevant when you are reviewing a concert. it's not like you get the fans attached to the record when you buy the cd, right?

I went off B&S a bit after seeing them in concert, it was at the Shepards Bush Empire and people kept walking past me and bumping into me. I don't think you can really criticise a band for their fans, but is pretty tempting I guess, and can be quite funny sometimes...Though of course, such reviews which concentrate on fans lose all creditability, and are therefore not reviews but rather a critique of fandom.

It's lazy, heartless, and even worse, it's pure stereotyping. I don't like seeing it at all, unless it's a concert review and it's really, really relevant to talk about the fans, i.e. it's a band/artist that inspires look-alike behavior or hysterical behavior or there was a fight or some such. It just simply doesn't work otherwise, cos quite frankly, I'm left wondering, "Well, yes, sure, you think Weezer fans are such and such, but did you actually listen to the song?"

Maybe I'm a bit touchy about the whole thing, because several bands I like are victim to this sort of "criticism", and quite frankly I don't think *I* fit the mould of any of the bands in question's "stereotypical fan", and if *one* person doesn't, then you know a *lot* of people don't. I just fail to see what Gill Armstrong being a bit psychotic has to do with "Motown Junk" and I fail to see how that's a criticism of the band, just like if I try to actually review B&S's music (which I rarely do) I avoid mentions of the fans because they don't have anything to do with what B&S are doing.

Then again, Fred *is* the ex referenced on my blog as the one who said I "didn't look like a Pavement fan", so I expect this sort of thing from him ;)

"he seems to focus on the fans not the music." tom, is that you speaking or is that the weezer fan whom you received the criticism from speaking? ;)

i don't speak of weezer fans until the last paragraph, after i'm through listening to and talking about the song. when a band has a fanatical fan base, and when i just totally DON'T get that band, i don't think it's wrong to put out some kind of appeal to them to tell me what is good about the song or if even the song is good at all. (i've received e-mail from one weezer fan we all know and love who says that the song sucks. i feel a bit more justified.) i don't hate weezer fans -- they just kind of are, as opposed to your belle & sebastian fans, morrissey fans, etc. more than anything, i'm perplexed by them, just like kate is puzzled by people who love abba and tom with gybe! devotees. ;)

or to put it much more succinctly:

who needs the fans as an excuse to hate a band when the band more than accomplishes the task on its own?

It was a paraphrase of the criticism, Fred. I liked the review but still have no idea what the record sounds like because you kept comparing it to things I'd never heard like 80s Cheap Trick.

what? you're telling me 3 doors down and eve 6 haven't travelled across the atlantic? "92.3 k-rock" is what i'd compare it to, but that's more of a radio station than, like, a band. here's who they play, though, according to the website's playlist:
staind
linkin park
moby with gwen stefani
godsmack
incubus
lenny kravitz
alien ant farm
fuel
u2
oleander

weezer is curently #41 on their playlist, company "hash pipe" fits in well amongst, but with the requisite weezer touches.

Fred: I'd be willing to bet that the Weezer fan took your FIRST paragraph as a criticism of the band as well as the fans.

The thing is, you weren't discussing Weezer as a whole or Weezer as a myth or Weezer as a corporate entity in need of a new bank account (sorry, irritating day at work so far). You were discussing Weezer's new song. And fuck me if I know anything about it after reading what you wrote, other than that you, for some reason, didn't like it. That's not a successful review of the *song* to me, whether it's a good piece of writing or not.

"92.3 k-rock" - sounds a ghastly station like so many of american radio stations (have you see the gavin radio report website - the so called alternative section - its 95%+ chock full of shite) - the term "modern (cack) rock" - playlist policy: round up up every pseudo- alternative/guitar muck on major labels - and play to maximum rotation.

Why would anyone want to listen to such a station? - as for 3 doors down and eve 6 - I am aware of their names from adverts in Alternative Press / CMJ - thankfullly I have avoided them in Britain.

I remember when you wrote about Belle & Sebastian thinking that you music journos should fuck off and mind your own business, leaving B&S to the fans. I admit that's a slightly extreme reaction, but there you go; I would rather some things I liked remained unmediated by critical opinion. I'm not sure if that relates to what you are saying here. I think critics should focus on the music and leave talking about fans to background colour articles. It gets annoying when a band is reduced to sweeping generalisations about people who like them.

I love it when reviewers call me urbane,pseudo intellectual,maudlin etc because of me being a proud Tindersticks fan. But I hate the LUMPEN PROLE NOBLE SAVAGE ideas of some critics.

... just coz I go clubbin and like charthouse !

It doesn't work when you just generalise like that about a band's songs (fans are a separate issue but they're far too easy a target to lead to effective criticism) because it doesn't actually say anything. We do it all the time on Pop-Eye because it's incredibly hard to write about something just because it's landed in the charts, not because you've got anything interesting and useful to say about it.

DJ Martian, have you heard of XFM? They play a really good selection of indie/alternative/alt-indie/pop-punk/punk-pop/independent/rock/indie rock/alternative indie music. I think you'd like it.

The local free weekly had a Nelly Furtado concert review that focused almost entirely on the fans in attendence. Get this, the reviewer was puzzled as to why there wasn't any black people in the audience. Now why should there be black people at a Nelly Furtado show? Well, according to the reviewer she had PORTUGESE blood in her. What the hell? I could give a f*** about a bands fans.

Wait, unmediated by uncritical opinion? What type of happy, shiny 'only us, the happy people' world do you want or pretend to live in? Yech. I hate to say you lived up to a B&S fan stereotype there, but you know...

"I went off B&S a bit after seeing them in concert, it was at the Shepards Bush Empire and people kept walking past me and bumping into me"

Someone wimpier than Belle and Sebastion fans, will wonders never cease!

One of the funniest things I've seen in recent years was Steven Wells campaign against B&S in the NME. Strangely, there seemed to me to be only one reason for this; we (the fans) beat him at football. He called us 'pasty faced vegan geeks'. How I laughed.

'But it's all about the fans' is what so many of these bands themselves tell us. Granted, I've most often heard this from the 'prefab' variety of group while they're accepting some sort of massive popularity prize at the music award show o' the week, yet it always rings true. And of course that's because, in that particular case, it probably is true. If your entire band is of the cute recruit variety, chances are good that the chief catalyst of your current existence is the money over art. I'm not saying that a work of great art can't result as a fabulous bonus - but I suspect that's rather more due to a 'you have spend money to make money' attitude (hiring of top studio musicians, producers, outright buying of great songs and great songwriting, etc.) doing whatever it takes to fit the purpose, than it is due to artistic vison. Call all that irrelevant if you must, but it is inescapable fact that some music is created first and foremost as product to be sold, and that said product will be engineered to appeal to the targeted consumers. This makes the tastes of the aforementioned consumer,(oh heck, just for fun lets call them fans) absolutely integral to the end result. So. A highly simplified model I know, and there is a massive amount of territority between music as product and music as art. Of course it is possible to critically review both types on tangible merits only, however I do think it's very common and very informative for product reviews to include a great deal about the persons that they are geared towards. Think of car ads and you probably are unable to think of the minivan without thinking of the family that typically owns it, or the BMW without the smug rich bastard behind the wheel. Clothing is another - do we always judge our garments on style or substance alone, or is it sometimes useful to think of who would be seen wearing them? *cough AICON cough* But then you think of the visual arts world and you have the Mona Lisa vs. a brilliantly designed takeout pizza flyer and you get the same thing all over again - only you don't go applying the same term to all the people who like either or both.(pizza flyer fans? I think you see where I'm going with this, so I won't go on much more except to say that perhaps this renders all these associated terms like 'fans', 'critics', and even the word 'music' itself, as woefully inadequate and too encompassing to be of any use in answering a question like this.

I guess what I'm saying in the end is that certain bands and their music are far more defined by their fans and what their fans are like than certain others, so it only makes sense that in some 'music' reviews, inclusion of the fanbase is really quite relevant. This also makes the other extreme sometimes worth commenting on also - there are those musicians who deliberately fuck over their own fans routinely in the name of art. Maybe it's just a 'c'mere, go away' routine, a reverse angle that will trick the non-consumer into consuming. If it stinks of this and the fans buy into it as they were meant to - I think that might be noteworthy in a critique. On the other hand, I do think it's possible to have this kind of band who *are* sincere rather than manipulative, but then they have legions of fans who are there simply because they are total twats who always did what their mothers told them not to do. In this case I'd lean towards leaving fans out of the reviews since it ain't the musicians fault that they're so twatty, but I'd mention their lameness every other chance I got.

This reminds me of the Sloan line in 'Coax me' that goes 'and I think Consolidated's Ok, It's not the band, it's their fans I hate.'

Um.. yes...quoting song lyrics - how embarassing. A first for me on ILM. So sorry...better get my butt to bed.

whoah... I wrote a book. Sorry, this little grey submit window is like a mini full of clowns.

On a slight tangent here, what EXACTLY is the Morrissey fan stereotype? I have an idea, but it was kinda shattered when I went to see him in 1999 and the Kentish Town Forum was full of beer boys.

It used to be sensitive flowers in the 80s, then he started invoking the National Front and it gradually mutated ...

That would explain the mutants at the gig then :) . Actually, the gig was packed with funny little groups who seemed to pop up sequentially. First the Forum was awash with teenage art-student stereotypes, then hard-looking gay men trapped in 1987 (before anyone shouts at me, the observed persons usually had their arm round their boyfriend, which is always a bit of a giveaway), and then finally the Beer Boys and Essex Girls, which shocked me I can tell you. I always thought that all that NF business would have been self-defeating, as I could never picture skinheads EVER liking Morrissey, and I didn't see any, but who could claim to know the political persuasions of the Beer Boys (or anyone else, for that matter)?