Fans and Critics

'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)?