Best Music Writing

Great post from Dominique there. Or am I just saying that coz I like his music? ;)

(on cue, All Spectacular comes onto my shuffle)

However, if a musician I like lists a bunch of music they're into, you're damn right I'm looking at it. Likewise, if some publication ranks, say, the 10 best French prog records, I will look at it -- not because I want validation, or because I actually expect to learn something (tho I might) -- but because that's some of *my* favorite music of all time. I want to see if they're getting it right! I mean, I say that with some tongue in cheek, but I have certainly voiced my disagreement with a website list in the past, when I felt strongly -- and funny enough, it's partly how I got my first real writing gig.

OTM, although maybe Buzzfeed or whatever should employ more musicians for this purpose.

it's all down to the shifting requirement of the music critic. most people don't read music crit as a buyer's guide any more. generally speaking, i sit down to read reviews after i've heard the records as a way to find out more about what i'm listening to and get interesting new perspectives.

to paraphrase Whiney at a Twitter conference ages ago - it's all about the 'why', not so much about whether or not it's a 'good' record.

Nobody is saying "let's stop being enthusiastic and screaming about music we love and hate". Just stop doing so with numbers and comparative chin-stroke and ballots. We wonder why people are like "wow 2014 is a bad year for music" it's because we're at peak levels of thinking a 7.0 is "above average" and "good".

or maybe there's just not as much music that excites the population of ilm out there. i totally agree with drew's article, but it's still acceptable to say 'i don't like this record or this artist' or 'i prefer this over that'. giving things a grade makes little sense though, it's not a coursework assignment.

I get that looking at criticism through the capitalist "here's the winner" prism is dangerous.

recent rolling stone 1984 pop list was a pretty great example of how lists can function, though i realize that's really predicated on the year (and the fitful waves of nostalgia caused) and the form (pop)

the funny thing about this debate is that neither "well-written, informed but honestly subjective descriptions of experience" nor "faux-objective estimations with ratings" pay many mortgages these days, though i suppose that suggests one might as well aim for the former if they're going to bother at all

It is not the review itself but the fact it is reviewed that gives it the seal of approval. that it is considered worthy of words and inches, these records are the winners, somebody somewhere wanted the words

It is not the review itself but the fact it is reviewed that gives it the seal of approval. that it is considered worthy of words and inches, these records are the winners, somebody somewhere wanted the words

― saer, Friday, September 26, 2014 4:01 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this has become so apparent in the last few years especially. no one remembers whether any given publication gave any given album a good or bad review, but if that artist is continually covered in a publication's NEWS section...that is the real seal of approval. (an artist can even score a good review, but if they don't make the news cycle, no one cares)

yes. i admit i often fall into the trap of judging music on whether ILM itself would give an artist/album not only the seal of approval, but any attention at all. This is a ridiculous admission, of course.

the only reason i ever read that dusted site was for the lists. matmos did a good one. lists made by musicians are pretty much the only lists i read. basically, i just love reading what musicians have to say about other music. always my favorite part of any music magazine like the wire or mojo.

yea^

the photographs in the dd piece were like cheese in healthy soup

count me in the "lists are actually pretty OK" category but they should be either:

- well-written lists, in which case it just becomes another framework for organizing good writing, and one that results in less transitional cruft at least;

- lists with unexpected entries. this can even be context-free -- my best music discoveries in 2014 were from actual file directories with nothing but the filename -- as long as you are encountering something you wouldn't otherwise encounter. they don't have to be by musicians, just by someone who knows what they're talking about and whose taste is broad. (for instance, a list of 30 different artists and nothing else gives me 30 names to Google! and who knows how many once factoring in side projects and the like.)

archives are lists, things already have listableness in them, curating and presenting does not have to be tied to personal preference (favorites) or history, it can be active and political, using objects to open onto something else.

i got an e-mail from someone who wanted to do a documentary on a list i did for decibel magazine. which was weird. i guess the idea was to document how hard it was to track everything down on the list in actual record stores? it had taken this person years...

someone made a quiz out of my noise list:

"How many did you heard from beggining to end?"

http://www.listchallenges.com/top-25-noise-albums-according-to-decibel-magazine

theres a difference between lists and inventories, scaruffi.com is an inventory (if sometimes an inventory of lists sure), the nww list is really an inventory; lists are finite, maintained, curated, anankastic rhetorical devices; inventories are exhaustive, proliferating, they hide nothing and freely reveal the limits and limitations of their authors

I like that distinction

I have only heard six of those noise albums in full, revoke my noise cred now

btw that's a good list, will check some of those out

yeah, i dunno, good idiosyncratic lists with good writing attached can be fun to read. they mostly make my eyes glaze over though. the internet will do that to you. i've definitely learned a lot from random RYM lists of weirdness and Youtube playlists. and those are obviously just data for the most part. i liked dd's thing a lot though. i just enjoy reading him. reduction on the web seems like a logical response to the too-muchness of the web. it makes sense to me. sometimes people come in my store and they can't take it all in and they end up buying whatever i'm playing on the turntable at the moment.

not so much about whether or not it's a 'good' record

as a writer and reader of music coverage, whether a record is "good" is one of the least interesting aspects of a review for me. i just like learning about the music and watching the writer think, draw connections, be inspired.

obviously if something is fucking terrible i'd like to know, but most music exists in the space between 0.0 and 10.

You are wrong. You fuck with it or you don't, there is only 0 or 10.

I mean I only read the 0s and 10s on Singles Jukebox :/ I don't care about your 6s

if i didn't read 6s i'd never read alfred

"i want your 6" -george michael in 2014

6 is natural
6 is good
not every song scores it
but every song should

i posit that this is an example of a great list http://www.vulture.com/2014/09/50-best-bootleg-bart-t-shirts.html

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/content/dam/vulture/slideshows/2014/9/bootleg-bart/boot-leg-bart-18.jpg.r.nocrop.w610.h610.jpg
skuhfkesnfkebggeukfj

in non list-related but great music writing I really enjoyed Damon Krukowski's article on mono http://pitchfork.com/features/oped/9492-back-to-mono/ - it's a good historical presentation, it explains how sound works really well and makes a good case for advantages to mono. He's written quite a few good articles for p4k, would like more. I like his tone and style, reminds me a bit of Byrne in How Music Works.

I saw some Twitter lolling when that article came out but many many mixers just work in mono and/or almost mono without even thinking about it. I called around! Drums in mono, overheads super narrow, it makes sense. Ideally I'd love one and the other for different contexts. Stereo recordings sound weird in public places.

it's weird when i hear a recent/modern pop/rock/indie rock record that uses stereo sound in an interesting/creative way. noticeable. remarkable. most stuff could be mono and nobody would be the wiser. most of it sounds mono.

I wrote about this last year, when that box set of nine Miles Davis albums, reissued in mono, came out - I would love to see labels like Posi-Tone or Criss Cross switch over to mono.

most stuff could be mono and nobody would be the wiser.

This is otm. Listening to Cheap Trick's debut recently, it dawned on me that the fact that the drums are mixed mono does nothing to diminish the power of the music; if anything, said power is accentuated.

Some stereo drum mixes are ridiculous. Panning the hi-hat hard right only makes sense if the listener's head is positioned where the snare drum is, and facing the drummer. If you're sitting four (or three, or even two) feet in front of a drummer, you will not hear the hi-hat only in your right ear.

As a guy who got a state college education in Aesthetics, my knee-jerk reaction to that title was “Fuck yeah! Finally someone speaking up about this music ‘journalism’ bullshit.” Then I read the article and found myself shaking my head, going “No, no, no, Drew, you’re not wrong, you’re just totally missing the point.” I literally never feel the urge to call someone out online for being wrong or misguided or whatever, let alone do any sort of long-form writing on AGB, but I felt like Drew was begging for a conversation about this, that he was intentionally pushing people’s buttons (while still being true to his opinions), and that I actually had a strong enough opinion of my own (again, very rare) that I should respond to Drew’s rant and make people not feel bad about saying something like The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid is their favorite ambient record.

Not fully read it yet, but Fact just pointed to and approved of this long reply to Drew's piece here

That piece also misses the point, as I see it. Numerical ratings, Baker's Dozen lists, democratic procedures of list-creation like Metacritic, or voted-by-critic pools like Polaris, they create an illusion of "objectivity" and that is the problem. Under that pretence, all 13 of Drew's arguments are in fact true. The pretence of objectivity. It's reinforced in the language used by music writers, when they presume to speak on behalf of everybody instead of themselves or their publication alone. All my absolute favourite writers put themselves at the heart of their criticism, take responsibility for what they praise and what they pan, instead of being some illusive ghost prophet. I mean, I didn't actually realize that the Baker's Dozen thing was supposed to be an "all time" list, tbh, I assumed it was meant to be fun and subjective, just like Quietus usually is

It's reinforced in the language used by music writers, when they presume to speak on behalf of everybody instead of themselves or their publication alone.

Speaking on behalf of the publication is often the publication's house style, not a decision made by the writer. I'm all for the "I."

I don't think it's bad to say that some albums are better than others. I have a friend who gets very cynical about any sort of Rotten Tomatoes/Rate Your Music type site, because "why form your own opinion?" - to which my response is "just see every movie and listen to every album, then you can!"

Well yeah! The delusion-of-objectivity holds writers back just as much as it eradicates enthusiasm in audiences xp

It's different for video games and films. I always look to Rotten Tomatoes and other numerically-based review sites for video games and blockbuster films because at the heart of those art forms is the necessity of functionality. Gameplay has to be tight, i.e. 3D has to titillate. That famous argument that Hideo Kojima had that video games like food cannot be considered "art" because they still have to be playable, be edible. Not like music or dance or lit

I tend to like writers that express fannish enthusiasms about things, and lists are an outlet for fan enthusiasm. There's a kind of arrogance involved, though I wouldn't characterize it as arrogance to objectivity. It's more like arrogating to tell the world what is good. I don't need writers always to be careful thinkers. Sometimes imposing absurd hierarchies is more fun and more reflective of the writer's honest feelings.

Luke Haines and Peter Hammill weigh in:

https://twitter.com/LukeHaines_News/status/515127513212026880

They only have to be functional for the player to understand the controls. A game like Minecraft doesn't really explain anything to you and has no clear objective, for one.

xposts

Yeah I don't agree with Kojima of course, but I only play ADOM and I only eat Chipotle

pompous drivel shock!

ha fuck that guy

well this is Luke Haines we're talking about

i remember that guy from the 90's. he was debonair.

He's widened a bit