what does this pfm song review thingy even mean anyway?

I actually assumed that she's English, and I mean that as a compliment.

If it wasn't totally totally obvious, I'm arguing with Mickey because his examples of unncessary opacity seem to be things that don't exactly take Ph.D.-level reading skills to work out, and I'm arguing him because he's throwing out this ridiculous across-the-board demand that criticism only ever do one thing and never ever aspire to being good writing along the way. His analogies are also kind of strange, in that if you followed them to the letter reviews would probably consist of a list of factoids about bands, ranging from town of origin to, say, the frequency range of each track. Also I like how he objects to the use of metaphors to express that a band's "sound is gigantic," which is ITSELF a metaphor, for god's sake -- reinforcing my sense that Mickey isn't actually against metaphor or stylish writing and is just asking for it to peg itself closer to his level. Plus let's just note that some of us don't read novels and such as some kind of arduous task for our self-improvement; some of us like lively prose because it's enjoyable, a pleasure in itself, and we kind of like the idea that a good writer might be able to bring some of that pleasure to WHATEVER he or she is writing about, whether it's speakers or desk-assembly instructions or whatever.

Okay. That said. Of course Dan's agreement with Mickey is right, too, because no shit, there are a lot of modern-day music writers who's "lively style" isn't actually that lively or stylish. Here's the thing: the problem is not that they're using literary tactics, it's that they're using them BADLY! So I cringe when Mickey's solution to this problem is for everyone to dumb down to some kind of ulilitarian Dick-and-Jane level (why not just list bmp and chord progression for the song in question?) as opposed to, duh, asking writers to WRITE BETTER. And I cringe, additionally, because I feel like I see way too many people doing some kind of knee-jerk dismissal of any music critic who asks them to invest the barest minimum of actual reading comprehension into the work -- like HOW DARE a critic ask me to actually read on anything higher than a fourth-grade level. If you don't want to invest that two seconds of energy to understand a sentence, that's fine, but don't leap to the assumption that the writer "makes no sense" until you've put that tiny bit of work into deciding whether it actually does "make sense" or not. (Otherwise this "doesn't make sense" complaint becomes like skimming two pages of Kant and then saying "that guy sucks, he Doesn't Make Sense.")

Okay and I would hope that anyone who's read any of my reviews will see where I'm coming from on this, because I make a definite effort to be clear about things (possibly even too much of an effort) -- I'm a big fan of clarity, just not in the terms that Mickey's preaching for it.

Which is kind of sad, if you ask me, but then I have whole other horses in this race w/r/t the survival of serious print culture.

So basically I think I'm not really in the Pitchfork demographic because the only writers they have I consistently like are the ones who I talk to here. Also pretty much everything you've written here is totally, absolutely OTM; if you're going to be "literary", study some literature first.

otm, but this happens across all the art forms. "i don't see a clear meaning in front of me, therefore it's meaningless." or "the artist is just trying to be difficult," regardless of what ELSE the artist is trying to be.

No

Anyway yeah, I'd like to think that if more people learned about writing criticism from the whole 20th-century history of critics and non-fiction writers and New Journalists and such -- and not primarily from the rock-crit establishment -- then the whole world of music writing would be less insular, less specialized or over-people's-heads ... both more sophisticated AND more "utilitarian."

and, yeah, technically, sure, you can learn lots of stuff from denby. just reading the new yorker, in general, you can learn a lot.

Also I like how he objects to the use of metaphors to express that a band's "sound is gigantic," which is ITSELF a metaphor, for god's sake -- reinforcing my sense that Mickey isn't actually against metaphor or stylish writing and is just asking for it to peg itself closer to his level.

Please stop with the insulting comments about "my level" of reading comprehension. I am more than capable of reading everything on Pitchforkmedia, except for the odd inner-references I may not be familiar with ("Shins-will-change-your-life") or extremely bizarre word choice (I will never forget the "melancholic gegeinschtein" in one review). I don't want music reviews to be taken down to "my level," but I do want them taken down to a level more appropriate for what they inherently are -- ALBUM REVIEWS.

Here's the problem, though: I don't understand why you think "utilitarian" writing is "appropriate" to the business of album reviews. Why would that be? There is plenty of art criticism that is far more esoteric than anything written on the web about music -- criticism of visual art, for instance, a lot of which isn't even accessible to people without some level of "academic" background. Criticism of literature, too, has its complex side, and not just in the world of academic study. An essay in the New York Review of Books (or, as you mentioned above, Harpers) demands more close attention from readers than most anything Pitchfork publishes.

So I ask you: why is "appropriate" for album reviews to be less demanding? Is it because we're talking about "popular" music, a pop-culture art form? But then film is a pop-culture art form, too, and film criticism seems to support everything from simplistic newspaper hacks to super-academic super-theoretical analysis. Same goes for books, too: you can read a tidy description of the latest thriller in your local paper, or you can follow the debates of "serious" high-level critics. Sure, all that high-level conversation about art -- books, films, painting -- tends to be aimed at a smaller, more initiated audience than the stuff in the local paper. But then again, isn't Pitchfork, too? (There are plenty more straightforward music reviews in general-interest magazines and newspapers, after all.)

So yeah, I'm asking you: why are you claiming that album reviews should/must restrain themselves to this humble straightforward role? Why is that "appropriate" to them in particular, when it's not the case with most equivalent sorts of criticism? Do you see what I mean here?

It's often written more clearly, too, yes, but that's not quite what I'm talking about right now: the point is that nobody writes to the NYRB to complain that a particular essay needs to be brought down to the level of "what it inherently is -- A BOOK REVIEW." People who wanted that sort of thing would just read Publishers Weekly instead.

And I might be sympathetic to the complaint that there aren't enough music publications serving that straightforward consumer-guide niche, except that I think there are loads and loads that do serve it, from AMG to EW to major newspapers to glossy magazines. The only places where the esoteric stuff really holds sway are online and in alt-weeklies, which just happen to be what everyone likes to talk about on boards like this one (presumably because that stuff is free). If there were a shortage of the straightforward -- not enough supply of it to meet demand -- that would be a very bad thing indeed, but I don't know that such a shortage exists.

most music fans and music magazine readers have as little or less 'technical knowledge' as the writers, so unless your readership was of a level of, say, readers of Guitarist magazine or another title aimed at musicians, then that wouldn't work, because the reader wouldn't necessarily understand the technical terms being (ab)used. which isn't to say your point of view is in any way invalid, but you're representing a faction of a music mag's readership.

as an avid reader of the music press growing up, i always loved writers who could demystify the technical aspects of the music just a little, but i never anted someone to lay it open. and i was always more interested in how this music related to its influence, contemporaries, followers, etc, and the experience of the musicians and how it impacted their art. and as a writer now, yes, i'm of limited technical knowledge regarding how the music is made, but i honestly don't believe that impacts on my ability to discuss the music. because i rarely appreciate it in terms of technical brilliance, but rather the personality of the music (for want of about a million better phrases), a more emotional response, i guess.

and i'm not really sure how a review's value judgement could be anything other than subjective.

So the more I think about it, maybe the kind of criticism we're all wary of here stems from exactly the stuff Mickey is advocating -- maybe thinking about these things as "just an album review" is exactly what causes the problem. If it's "just an album review," then why not freewheel and reference and slang it out? Whereas the clearest criticism -- in lots of different arts -- tends to come around when someone has something important to say about the world beyond the art itself. Because it has something to communicate beyond just describing the record for you, something that's actually more ambitious than that.

Guilty as charged! Although really if one goal of writing about music is to get people thinking about it, why is trying to teach your reader a little bit about the way the song is put together such a verboten thing?

dude, it totally shouldn't be! though i wouldn't be able to write that review.

my uncle often sends me letters saying he doesn't understand the stuff of mine that runs in the London Times, which is frustrating because that's generally the least-opaque, least-artful, most-straightforward stuff i write, and i *want (sometimes) to be understood by *everyone. he also clips out pieces in the paper that he liked better than mine, as 'guidance'.