Article - Music Criticism has turned into lifestyle reporting
 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...reporting.html

Interesting read.

I love music, and talking about music, and thinking about music. I hate reading music reviews that basically describe the way a band/musician looks and acts and never really goes into the music other than saying "It's like a cross between Early-Genesis and the Meat Puppets".


What you guys think?

its a pretense to say there's anything that can be SAID about sounds anyway.

i dont like it when people pretend that all this superficial artificiality has gotten in the way of the "real authentic" music. fuck all entertainment that imagines it can recover some authentic vitalist energy or spirit. that's a substitute for religion.

actually now that ive read the article im more sympathetic to it.

the problem is that the only place you could go to make music writing culturally valid would be to analyse and talk about the psychologies and lyrics and aesthetics in a way that related it to the wider cultural context.

and when you even HINT at doing that you get fucking slaughtered by the chorus of "its just fun man dont spoil it with your pretentiousness!". this is the dominant response and its incredibly loud and aggressive and anyone who dissents from that is going to get screamed at and ridiculed.

the fact is the majority AGGRESSIVELY DEMAND that instead of culture they have a kind of context free sludge of entertainment that they imagine exists in this space of pure enjoyment and has absolutely no "depth" or "meaning", things which terrify them. in fact, what they want from the entertainment junk they consume is a kind of ritual that absolves them from thought and delivers them to a space where their frivolous personalized affects are elevated into this kind of transcendental experience. at the most, they'll say things like "to me, this means..." and what it always means is something that can be interpreted in ANYWAY whatsoever and ultimately has the point that you should feelgood about yourself.

our times would rank perhaps the most conservative and stupid cultural climate that humans have ever known, and that is funny considering we have the technical means to produce culture that would have been unimaginable throughout most of history.

now, instead of politely applauding or reflecting on someones work, your audience is at best gonna cheer you on and link or like you, but more likely viciously tear into your work on boards or comment sections. what is being demanded is the impossible - that banal junk be produced that has ZERO meaning, has ZERO awareness or understanding of itself in a social or political context, but that also manages to act as a kind of soothing breastmilk for atomized and isolated individuals who want to just float around as infantilized consumers being distracted by noise and shiny stuff and the narcissism by proxy of identitarianism.

i mean, i've been RAGING about all this for years, on this board and on other places, and a few other people have, but really i'm talking like one or two at the most.

you could see this start during the early 00's when indie became hyper twee/kitsch and the most excruciatingly positive, happy, upbeat crap you could ever imagine. this was the music of TOTAL DENIAL. it was happening at a time when mass slaughter and destruction was occurring due to the collision of advanced US military technology and primitive islamic fundamentalism. the response of the culture doing the murdering was to dress up as a bunny rabbit and finger paint with florescent colours and write songs that sounded like self help affirmations.

so now look where we are - turn on your fucking tv and find me an add that doesnt start with banjo or ukelele music and a cooing voice talking to you as if you were an infant.

why? because this is what we want from culture now:

“Imaginary plenitude,” the desire to return to this (never actually existing) state in which we had a direct, unconstructed, pure and “full” perception of the world, as well as the instant and effortless gratification of every wish through thought alone.

we can't face nihilism, and so we've regressed to fantasies of omnipotence. but really, the history of 20th century culture is basically about one thing - the decline of religion and various ultimately failed strategies to ward off the threat of disenchantment through science and endow the individual or the collective human subject with some form of omnipotence, or some replacement for its loss of value and meaning to itself.

and since we're also only allowed to criticize individuals, and to knock down the individual who thinks critically at all like you've done in response to this post, then how the fuck can we expect to have a culture less vapid than we have now? since ALL THE MAJORITY OF YOU IDIOTS WILL EVER DO IS ATTACK THE INDIVIDUAL TO PROVE HE'S NOT PERFECT BECAUSE YOU'RE REALLY IMPRESSED BY THAT KIND OF RETARD CYNICISM. playing this game of implicitly demanding perfection. anything you can do i can do meta. tl:dr its cos the majority are idiots and they can now loudly air their stupidity whereas in the past it was more difficult for audiences to interact and thus quality stuff could happen due to the performer not being intimidated into silence. so send me money on paypal u fuckups

You didn't read it

The article is not about the quality of music or what is real or not real.

It is about the analysis of musical output.

anything can be said about anything, if you choose to limit yourself that is fine, but it does not apply to anyone but yourself.

yeah i didnt read it until the 3rd post

I stopped talking about music (seriously) on the interwebs about 10 years.

As I see it, it's only good for one thing, and that's stepping on nutsacks.

I mean, have any of you read Loudr's Hip HAP Cafeteria? Total fucking garbage, that is.

I only like cds, lps and cassettes because they pile up in a mess against my walls and make my dates say that I like something when they step into my bedroom. I never listen to any of them. For real.

some of my favorite quotes from the article:

Some smart criticism flourishes in the blogosphere but, with all the background noise, you would have a better chance of finding a Victrola needle in a Radio Shack.

please take me to your victrola needles.

When Harry Connick, Jr. recently used the word “pentatonic” on American Idol, his fellow judge Jennifer Lopez turned it into a joke.

i never thought i'd find myself siding with harry connick jr. in any kind of musical dispute, or with his person over j-lo's magnificent ass, but that's why i judge her by her ass which is her only contribution to world culture.

During the entire year 1967, The Chicago Tribune only employed the word “lifestyle” seven times, but five years later the term showed up in the same newspaper more than 3,000 times.

on the other hand, in 1967 the only acceptable "lifestyle" was to be a white man with a corporate job, a house in the suburbs, a wife, 2+ children, attending a protestant church, etc.

this is just to say (skipping some steps) that the social revolution of the 60s now merely amounts to customized consumerism of the most vapid kind, or as db would rightly call it, american banality. this is of course a universal phenomenon. "what brand represents you"? lemme see….

these can’t serve as the foundation for a healthy musical culture


tacitus was right. history is a permanent downward slope. get used to it somehow or kill yourself. there are only dystopias.

---

anyway this reminds me that i rarely go "upstairs" in this forum because i don't have the language to discuss music and i wouldn't pretend otherwise, even though i think i have a pretty good musical ear. still, my ear is an aphasic fuck who can't explain himself. but i'm also wondering if i'm not as aphasic because i never got to read the people that the guy mentions.

anyway-- whoever has them-- please show me your selection of victrola needles.

Hand on my heart, the only people I've ever come across on this forum who can write about music in an interesting and stimulating way are Savage Clone and Jenn. You haven't missed much.

jenn is our lester bangs, per that article.

The internet is for posting images, not writing long posts. Nobody follows your good advice on life etc and when they do it's maybe only via private message. Besides, if you ranted the way Jonathan does all the time in a pub the chances are that Clare would throw a glass at you.

I stop reading any post after three lines.

that said, I still listen to a mix Gabbers made years ago.

actions speak louder than turds.

actually. i was all excited about the future and that all things would be consider one. past tense/the now, kinda like Beck in a Beck non-post modern way turdism way by the way of interconnection collective way without the lameness.

turn outs.....the internet in 2014 is more SHALLOW and fickle than we realized. like the 90's but, a more sophisticated white trashiness. they'll always win. for now!

sugar boo boo. honey boo boo. it's fucked and im happy for it. AY PAPI suck it.

i've felt for awhile that music criticism is essentially an "intellectual" breaking down why they're totally smarter than the performer and reader, who are all vulgar salt of the earth types who don't understand music as a result of their utter lack of postgraduate liberal arts education. more reviews contain the line "nietzsche once said..." than contain a reference to concepts such as tempo or harmony, because the writers don't know what that is


"fuck a critic, they talk about it but i live it" - meth man

while i agree with the article i don't think it's right to view this as being unique to contemporary music journalism. the brouhaha about that elvis presley character certainly centred around fancy 'lifestyle' things like pink cadillacs, gold lame suits and mansions more than fancy "vocalstyle" things like trilladeedoodoos and boobeepbadaps.

took me a while to read this, but it was worth the wait.

no, i'm not shitting you.

speaking of neil young (elsewhere) do a search here and see what people wrote about him when he made an antiwar song that wasn't like a classic but it was antiwar.

o wait this board is from 2006.

"artists should stick to…" bla bla bla etc. people were ENRAGED. how dare he! etc.

anyway it's late i gotta go but okay.

ps

the narcissism by proxy of identitarianism.

this is great. gotta go but talk tomorrow maybe. i'll think about something that you said but can't reply now.

he brouhaha around elvis was not music criticism. it was social commentary. Music criticism of rock n roll did not begin until later on after elvis had already come and gone. rock n roll was seen as such shit unworthy of true criticism.

cheers man!

Tell me if I'm a dick or just wrong.

I read "good" music criticism from someone clearly talented and bright (Greil Marcus comes to mind), I sort of think it's kinda sad they choose to use their talents to write about rock music, for fucks's sake. Feels like a waste.



I'm not sure what this means. Stimulate to what? Putting on the record itself? What's the point?


I like Chuck Klosterman because he's very perceptive and usually focuses on the characters behind the music. Same for Nick Kent's immortal "The Dark Stuff."

As for writings about the music itself, it's useful when it's about jazz or classical or some other genre where I could use some technical help. But rock?

Again, even when people do it well, it seems like a waste of talent.



(Oh, wait. I'm just a snob. Never mind.)