critic's darlings

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Quite possibly the most overrated band in rock history, unless the Velvet Underground count.

― Evan (Evan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 02:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

Fugazi - some critic's band! The Argument was their first record to place in the Pazz & Jopp. A large percentage of Fugazi's fans are musicians though (see also: Rush).

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 02:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

Evan really is a Dave Matthews fan!

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 02:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

Fugazi - some critic's band!

Find me ONE critic who has even deigned to give them as much shit as Sonic Youth got (incl from Rob C.)

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 02:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

Robert Christgau - "The most principled band of the '90s declined to send out promos, a decision I would have respected even if they hadn't been so stalwart in minimizing ticket prices, staging all-ages shows, and otherwise putting punk's D.C-based straight-edge ethos into practice. Since their Dischord label remained solvent as other indies went mainstream or under, I'm sure they understood venture capital better than me. I bought three early-'90s albums: 13 Songs, Repeater, and Steady Diet of Nothing. These were enough to convince me that from the strictures of Minor Threat's razor-sharp hardcore to the confrontational formalism of Fugazi's surgical AOR, Ian MacKaye has always been a musical puritan as well as all the other kinds. Obsessed with corruption, he figured out that words and voices don't excise it as efficiently as a well-honed guitar--specifically Guy Picciotto's precise, rock-solid distorto riffs. On Repeater, Picciotto offered something like pleasure. On the other two the resemblance was more abstract. I'm not any kind of puritan. So I stopped buying their records. [2000]"

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well shoot me in the ass.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think S-K trumps Fugazi then, if only because they were called America's Gr8st OMG Rokk Band back in 1997 when Lifter Puller still existed.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

which critics like baxendale?

― keith (keithmcl), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

This thread is so fundamentally flawed.

The Fugazi/S-K thing is obviously ridiculous to anyone who has ever been to a show by either band. That goes for most everyone in this thread.

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

Nate, the bands you're mentioning have lots of fans that aren't critics; you might as well call Bob Dylan a critics darling. I could only wish the gender makeup of rock criticism was similar to the gender makeup of a Sleater-Kinney audience.

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

which critics like baxendale?

actually, yeah. i've never read a positive Baxendale review.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

Urgh, I sense another Sterling Clover "but REAL people don't like them" argument coming up and I thought we were talking "critic's darlings" as in bands that could, in the eyes of the press, do no wrong and also if you dislike them you are clearly CRAZY IN THE HEAD, but apparently this is becoming some sort of weird echo of the Sterling Clover P&J thing so I'll shut up.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

(Wow, I was really redundant there. HEY NATE EDIT FIRST THEN POST)

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

critic's darlings = bands who's fans are almost exclusively critics or who's love from the critics is in now way proportional to the love they get from their target demo

at one time, John Hiatt

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

for a negative review of Sleater-Kinney see Griel Marcus on One Beat

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

haha good charlotte

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 03:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

(The Baxendale thing was an abortive in-joke. I know they've been savaged in the UK, although their US reviews were favorable.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

I bet Yo la Tengo is the king here. You take a band's entire fanbase & then figure out the percentage of those fans who have had at least one record review published...Yo la Tengo is untouchable.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

the us reviews read from the same set of talking points, derided for being "ironic" and not as good as pulp or pet shop boys.

― keith (keithmcl), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

pretty much any band with former rock critics (Yo La Tengo, Magnetic Fields, Pet Shop Boys) gets love from critics. Yo La Tengo were a critic's band circa Fakebook (it's still a little insane how high that record placed in the P&J), but now - post-Painful, esp. post-I Can Hear the Heart... - not anymore, or at least not anymore than most indie-rock bands.

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

I bet Yo la Tengo is the king here. You take a band's entire fanbase & then figure out the percentage of those fans who have had at least one record review published...Yo la Tengo is untouchable.

I know a lot of critic types who hate YLT.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

buncha assholes!

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

wait,,,critic 'types'?

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, critic types bad things about Yo La Tengo on their computer-machine key-boards.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

Miss Rosen! Nate's accusing you of using bad grammer Miss Rosen!

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

better ger yr hair did (copywritten 2001 missy elliot)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

That's it Blount, you better be waiting under the flagpole at recess!

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

waiting under the flagpole - http://63.172.85.108/flagpole/FMPro?-db=reviews.fp5&-format=review2.htm&-lay=reviews&type=record&publish=yes&-op=cn&band=tatu&-recid=33562&-find=

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:47 (twenty-one years ago) link

Miss Rosen! Nate's accusing you of using bad grammer Miss Rosen!

Er, no he's not!

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

meanwhile - http://63.172.85.108/flagpole/FMPro?-db=reviews.fp5&-format=review2.htm&-lay=reviews&type=record&publish=yes&-op=cn&band=sigur%20ros&-recid=33517&-find=

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

Damn it, the flagpole is occupied by a Students for Jesus prayer circle group!

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

Pavement doesn't really fit the criteria but most fans that I've talked to really hated "Terror Twilight" although I seem to remember it getting reasonable reviews.

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 04:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't know about Yo La Tengo -- maybe it's just that the critics have been successful, but at the point where they were serious critical darlings they had a pretty big fan base as well.

How about people like Aimee Mann (pre-Magnolia)? I tend to think "critical darling" mostly about this cadre of people who are making accessible pop music, to glowing reviews but decidedly non-pop sales. I imagine that some years ago there would have been plenty of critics claiming there's no stylistic reason Aimee Mann records shouldn't chart high, and then going on about how it's "the industry" or people's bad taste or something that's "keeping her down." (You know the type I mean, right -- the preferred middle-of-road singer-songwriters of top-level critics everywhere?)

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 05:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

nitsuh you sound like sterling

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 05:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

[rubs hands in an evil manner]

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 05:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

I tend to think "critical darling" mostly about this cadre of people who are making accessible pop music, to glowing reviews but decidedly non-pop sales.

Like Big Star?

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 05:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

Face it. NOBODY likes Baxendale. Nobody. Except for my psychotic wifebeater ex-boyfriend, but then again, last thing I heard, he was shagging their keyboardist. Ew! I feel unclean! It was bad enough we shared a record label with them, but this! Eeeeuuuwwww!!!

― kate, Tuesday, 18 February 2003 07:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh but Jess, I said "top-level" critics specifically so I wouldn't! Also I like Aimee Mann.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 07:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

beck.
i don't mean his early stuff. but explain that last album to me? that snoozer made every critics list. they were comparing him to gordon lightfoot like it was a good thing. this was the only accurate live review i ever found ( i actually went to that show too). but maybe me and the reviewer were the only ones falling asleep, maybe everyone really did dig that stuff deep in their souls, not just cuz they paid admision and because it was beck and because the critics told them it was good. who's to say? the world is a mysterious place.

― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 10:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

Erik Digibeet and I like Baxendale! And we are chanting "ONE OF US" in the direction of Nabiscuh!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 10:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm not a critic, but I happen to think the Mekons are one of the greatest bands of the past quarter century. Pere Ubu rocks too.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 13:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, the Mekons have caught on in the past few years. But there was a time...

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jerry, I only just got some Baxendale (from Amateurist's big sale). I've only listened to a quarter of it so far: I thought "Music for Girls" was great, but I got a little scared as the next few songs rolled out -- it got a bit too, umm, Divine Comedy for my tastes. But there's still about a 50-50 chance that I'll decide I like that upon further listens. Even if "Divine Comedy + Ladytron" as a description makes me shudder.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 17:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

I know a lot of critic types who hate YLT.

Good thing too.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 18:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ned, do you actively dislike YMG? The only responses I've seen to them have been: passionate fandom and indifference.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 18:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

YLT or YMG? Because I lurv YMG.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 19:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

What about YMO?

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 19:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

YMMV

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 19:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

MMM, YMG. YMMY.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 19:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

YYY Delilah?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 19:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

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