"Use other words please."

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Underrated.

Colin Meeder, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Duane - you slag off the Dead C too much.

Andrew L, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

oh c'mon i never do that any more!

unknown or illegal user, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

band being reviewed = 'band x' meets 'band y'
If this were true, we could stop the review right there.

Vinnie, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah & they've usually already "met" anyway

unknown or illegal user, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

This opens itself up to meltzerian madness and beauty. aka:

Imagine X meets Yazoo on the moon and they take crack. The guitars are more angular than ever before in their prolific careers, and they chime, atmospheric in the arid sky. The music they scribe is willfully perverse, rising above their pre-packaged boring workaday ouveres. Now imagine you go fuck yourself.

Sterling Clover, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Quick, all professional published music critics within the sound of my voice, adopt the word Pseudoesque...use it in your next review...and see if your editors notice!

Lord Custos III, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Sorry. I was just making that word easier to read...it is NOT, repeat NOT a hyperlink. So stop clicking on it.

Lord Custos III, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

custos invents the combo noun-less prefix-suffix

mark s, Friday, 26 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

one month passes...
"Gang of Four."

Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 29 August 2002 02:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

two months pass...
PUNCTUM

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 6 November 2002 11:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

eight months pass...
"X in Y shocker!"

Please stop.

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 10 July 2003 08:43 (twenty years ago) link

JtN in OTM shocker. I used this the other day and then felt bad about it.

N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 10 July 2003 08:45 (twenty years ago) link

what words are we allowed to use?

Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 10 July 2003 08:59 (twenty years ago) link

The word which is making me crazy at the moment is "relevant".

Tim (Tim), Thursday, 10 July 2003 09:02 (twenty years ago) link

what words are we allowed to use?

other ones

N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 10 July 2003 09:16 (twenty years ago) link

i hate swearing in journalism when not a direct quote... (i allow the word "shit" to be used in hiphop writing but that's it) see magazines that say "cool/catchy/XXXX as fuck". i have had these things written *into* my work and it is really annoying... i know i sear a bit on ilx, but that's more like a conversation, so ok in my book, but not in writing, please...

Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 10 July 2003 09:26 (twenty years ago) link

... so what words am I allowed to use?

Tim (Tim), Thursday, 10 July 2003 09:31 (twenty years ago) link

what words are we allowed to use?

other ones

& zeroes, p'haps...

(?(mark s: "no,no,no - use other zeroes please!"))

t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 10 July 2003 13:38 (twenty years ago) link

"oh no, something, OH NO!" is cringesome.
"bukkake" i don't really understand.
"dude".

sean g, Thursday, 10 July 2003 13:48 (twenty years ago) link

Dude do's and dont's

Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 10 July 2003 13:59 (twenty years ago) link

Supergroup, as in, "Although one hesitates to apply the overused term 'supergroup', drawing members from Zumpano, Maow, Destroyer and other unheard of bands makes them a sort of indie rock supergroup."

Curt (cgould), Thursday, 10 July 2003 17:20 (twenty years ago) link

three months pass...
Congrats, you now have no critical terms left! Fucking hell, lighten up -- yer public doesn't read as obsessively as the writers, they're much less likely to get het up about use of 'formally daring' or whatever. You don't get plumbers noncing on about their rivals' grouting being 'tired, played out' do yer. I get more bothered about well-worn (itself a cliche term) quotes, 'children of marx and coca-cola' or 'nobody's perfect', whatever.

Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:14 (twenty years ago) link

Scrupulously avoiding clichés is a cliché. Writing should look effortless, and that means it should have the occasional cliché, they're the drop of vermouth in the gin.

H., Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:49 (twenty years ago) link

Writing should look effortless

Look brah, no hands!!

enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:50 (twenty years ago) link

Effortless is maybe the wrong word, but writing should be free flowing, it shouldn't look forced. I defend the occasional use of clichés.

H., Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:54 (twenty years ago) link

duane makes a useful point, and in new zealand, i guess we really don't know what people in London get bored with conversationally, but then as duane says, generally nobody in places like this reminds people that they're really doing something annoying. please tell me in my case too.

(i often think i'm being too verbose or unlazy in computer posting becasue i seem to post more than other people sometimes)

george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 6 November 2003 13:59 (twenty years ago) link

i don't slag the dead c too much do i ? it's just that here in nz it's too much of a fun thing to bitch about them, and too small a country for the dead c to be bothered avoiding quite happily participating in the "dead c joke" where appropriate

if another nz band as good (at times) as the dead c popped into view, everybody in nz would be bitchily joking, with in most cases the band joining them

i don't thing anbody who i know that enjoys music and has nz connections really dislikes the dead c

george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 6 November 2003 14:07 (twenty years ago) link

I am sick to death of clichés! The only music journo. I can STOMACH these days is written in Gaelic (I think it is music criticism anyway). It is a WHOLLY EXCITING and PHONETICAL experience to these ears. I is like nothing I have ever read and remains so to this day! If you ever want to re-evaluate your perceptions of boring old music I suggest you pick up this book that I have. I don't remember what it's called, but you will know it when you see it because it is blue and a seminal mind-f**k, let me tell you. Now here is the problem: I project into the future that the sheer LIMITS of my understanding will eventually cause me to become jaded with regard to the genius of Gaelic music criticism. I mean, how many times can you read the phrase "sljdnneo ssmeiofmmm" anyway, without wanting to puke? I mean, come ON. What happens then? Well, I'll tell you what happens. I have begun my seminal work where I completely revolutionize the music criticism industry itself by myself writing IN GAELIC about all the bands of today. "It's been done", you scoff (and you'd be right). But wait. This is no ordinary Gaelic. This is a new kind of Gaelic you've never seen before because it's IN BRAILLE. (Hint to budding music journos: a ballpeen hammer, an awl and a sheet of aluminum) So far, my eponymous efforts have been rejected as "too heavy" by the establishment at the post office, but believe me, they will come around because this is like The Strokes, revolutionizing the foundations of music to a whole 'nother level.

jazz odysseus, Thursday, 6 November 2003 16:39 (twenty years ago) link

I knew that Paul Morley wd come back one day!

Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 6 November 2003 16:43 (twenty years ago) link

the majority of these phrases i really hate, but a few of these i've never seen in reviews - only on this forum. i dont believe this makes these phrases genuine cliches.

i overuse "apparently."

billstevejim, Friday, 7 November 2003 05:44 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...
At my job we write headlines, captions and blurbs. These are our banned words:

Ever
Still
Very
Again
Worst
Fail

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 02:28 (nineteen years ago) link

one month passes...
'tude

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:16 (eighteen years ago) link

In all forms of journalism and speech for that matter, stop saying "certainly".

geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Coruscating. I seem to *only* ever see this one in music writing.

Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 4 June 2005 06:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh yeah, "Thanks for playing" can go, too. Not a music-writing problem, but at this point still an incredibly irritating way of saying "You're dismissed."

Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 4 June 2005 06:49 (eighteen years ago) link

two years pass...

"might fall apart at any minute"

used just today on ILM

yes it makes your point but seriously: OVERUSED

wanko ergo sum, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 22:57 (sixteen years ago) link

full disclosure

J0rdan S., Tuesday, 5 February 2008 23:05 (sixteen years ago) link

"make no mistake"

Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 23:14 (sixteen years ago) link

I am guilty of many of these but always hated SEMINAL.

CHANTEUESE is super lazy for girl who sings, and I'd like to fuck her.

Mike McGooney-gal, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 23:16 (sixteen years ago) link

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Bodrick III, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 23:21 (sixteen years ago) link

"interesting."

ian, Tuesday, 5 February 2008 23:43 (sixteen years ago) link

Sure I've whined about them before but apparently not covered on this thread:

"sophomore"

"trope"

ledge, Wednesday, 6 February 2008 00:18 (sixteen years ago) link

"meme"

It's not clever, illuminating or remotely accurate to compare cultural phenomena with genes, so stop it. Thanks.

Jamie T Smith, Thursday, 7 February 2008 11:57 (sixteen years ago) link

Also "viral".

Jamie T Smith, Thursday, 7 February 2008 11:59 (sixteen years ago) link

"prog"

Tom D., Thursday, 7 February 2008 12:00 (sixteen years ago) link

"languid" (Hello, music reviewers for Metro!)

Jeff W, Thursday, 7 February 2008 12:32 (sixteen years ago) link

i can't believe no one's said "plangent"

Tracer Hand, Thursday, 7 February 2008 12:40 (sixteen years ago) link

I've had too much wine to have sexual intercourse.

Geir Hongro, Thursday, 7 February 2008 13:00 (sixteen years ago) link

"meme"

It's not clever, illuminating or remotely accurate to compare cultural phenomena with genes, so stop it. Thanks.

-- Jamie T Smith, Thursday, 7 February 2008 11:57 (1 hour ago) Link


I disagree. even if you don't buy into the whole "memetics"/genetics extended metaphor (which a lot of people who use the word don't even seem to be aware of), it's a useful term which fills a gap in our language, and I would hate to see it die off eventually just because it's perceived as a trendy buzzword.

bernard snowy, Thursday, 7 February 2008 13:16 (sixteen years ago) link


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