IS ROCK CRITICISM DEAD?

in a lot of ways, music criticism, is the baby, of writers, making people happy

Let's all get shitty jobs so that Al can afford to take his kid to Starbucks in a couple of years.

"3,000 rock crits and a baby"

rock criticism is dead, and will be reincarnated as my scion

some scion

congratulations!!

"When rock crit is reincarnated as a Scion, can I borrow the keys?"

i am enjoying this good cheer because tbh the past 24 hours have been about the most pessimistic and hopeless i have felt about the whole situation since i found out

christgau is risen

lol was toying with christ/gau puns for the past 5 mins but yours was better than any i had

congrats!

which ringtone cru member are u gonna name it after? I propose HOOS

also: congrats!

some brood

true story: once a few years ago the mrs. looked over my shoulder at an AIM window as said "ethan...i like that name"

i don't think even luriqua is a big enough padgettstan to name his first born that, though

lol god help us if there's ever a luriqua jr.

talk about burying the lede!

great new euphemism!

congratulations, some dude sr.!

name the kid Vedder

i think after a family friend who's a huge NIN fan named his first son Trent we collectively put our foot down like NO ROCK STAR NAMES

i choose to believe your friend named his kid after Trent Tucker

some woman just came in and sold me a big stack of 70's rolling stones. so i'm gonna sit around and read name-brand critics all day.

Holy crap this thread exploded. Still not finished reading, but I'll just mention that the only critic I've been really following is John Mulvey. Ironically I never noticed him apart from others in the Uncut reviews, mainly because I don't buy it anymore, just skim at the bookstore. I subscribe to Uncut on Twitter, which is mostly incredibly annoying, because it updates what it's playing in the office almost hourly. The one thing that keeps me from canceling are the occasional reminders of Mulvey's posts in his Wild Mercury Sound blog. I like how he reviews promos pretty much when he hears them, long before the official release date when most reviews are coordinated to come out and duly collated at Metacritic, weeks after most of us have heard 'em.

http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/index.php?blog=6&p=1208&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Looking at his half-year list and recent posts, a lot of this stuff isn't even leaked yet, like Fiery Furnaces, Cornershop, Wild Beasts and White Denim (a Texas band that has no U.S. distribution?) His casual blog-style writing isn't as polished as the 100 word blurbs in the glossies, which is a good thing. It's been a while since a single writer got me excited about multiple releases in a given week. I'm currently listening to Arbouretum and Sleepy Sun, which I wasn't aware of until seeing them in his blog. David Fricke sort of plays this role at Rolling Stone, and would do well to follow the Wild Mercury Sound model and expand on his casual album reviews.

I presume with its overpriced cover price and high overhead, that Uncut's days are numbered. Hopefully Mulvey and some others like him will be able to maintain an audience, perhaps by banding together into their own site?

― some dad (some dude), Tuesday, March 17, 2009 9:15 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ i thought this qualified as an announcement guys

― some dude, Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:42 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i knew u were reproducing but even i assumed this was abt your dad jokes

now 100% more authentic

I barely graduated high school and went to three semesters of community college; while there, I met my wife, and academics went right out the goddamn window.

― unperson, Wednesday, June 17, 2009 6:42 PM (20 hours ago)

This would be the Curvy Colombian Wife, right? Spina Biffita?

Bizarre that Mulvey lists Alela Diane at #9 in that list, and no Neko Case at all. (Speaking as someone who loves both albums, but really no comparison.) I wish I remember who I was reading/watching/listening to recently who said that the music critic is transforming/will transform into a curator-like position instead - probably lots of people have been saying that lately. It's something that confused me at Whiney's argument; yes, everyone can download the albums for themselves and render their own judgement, but who has time for that?

Looking for a good place to put this. Failing.

A pretty good conversation between Carl "Let's Talk About Love" Wilson and Jesse "Jian Gomeshi's a Raging Pervert" Brown, on Brown's podcast: http://canadalandshow.com/podcast/last-music-critic

Bit dull. Also, hyperbolic and meta. Would rather he was just talking about new music that he's into etc. That should be the job of a music critic. Next podcast: "what does it mean when the writer we're calling the last music critic goes on a show and never discusses any music."

"the writer we're calling the last music critic"--do people actually say that?

"The Last Music Critic" is the name of the podcast episode. Starts off with Brown saying stuff like "Carl Wilson changed the way we think about music. I don't know if that's hyperbole or not". I'm listening to this thinking "YES. IT'S HYPERBOLE!"

Thanks--why the royal "we" is a terrible idea. (Not really a knock on Wilson; definitely a knock on whoever would make such a statement.)

In the podcast Brown goes on about how he (I guess as a teenager) hated hip-hop but finally started to like it in the early 90s, realizing his own musical snobbery. In 2007 Wilson did his book about Celine Dion which somehow reminded Brown of his own experience (of shedding his rockism or whatever). In this way, Wilson "changed the way we think about music". It's all a bit silly. I'd rather have Wilson just do his job and talk about whatever music is on his radar right now.

He who is not busy being born is busy dying