[schizophrenicroom]

i really like most of the people at stylusmagazine.com

[Savage Clone]

The people on this board are just "some dickhead" too, you know.
Like I said, you get to know whose tastes you like. Same thing, really.
Most of the critics I like don't get a ton of cash for their efforts, and in the case of people like Phil McMullen, in fact sacrifice a great deal in order to give exposure to music of value that had little exposure otherwise.

[Pookie]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

Well, no one says you have to agree with a critic's assessment after you hear the music yourself. All I was saying is that the best ones are a valuable resource and can help steer you in the right direction more often than not, and I felt like you were being pretty dismissive of the positive role some of these people can play in the cultural landscape.

Edit:
I can't believe I used the phrase "cultural landscape." Fuckin' a.

Cliches are there to be used.

[Everyneurotic]

wow, i suddenly like my dayjob even more.

come pay day, i'll know how fulfilling being a dickhead can be.

That's one good way, but reading people whose taste and writing you admire is also another. You could also walk into a record shop and buy records just because of the label that they're on, without even knowing the artist. Or some bands you thought that you didn't like, you could end up loving just because someone plays them to you and explains their music while doing so. There isn't a strict code of conduct for ending up liking music or else.

Edit - Sway

[Everyneurotic]

i don't know, but reading a review kinda requires you to have a developed sense of opinion and not take it like dogma.

plus critics and writers usually also interview and feature bands, etc.

[quote=Everyneurotic]i don't know, but reading a review kinda requires you to have a developed sense of opinion and not take it like dogma.

quote]
That is something that you aquire while listening to more and more music. It still doesn't mean that your sense of judgement has to be taken for granted all the time, or else how are you going to discover more good music?

[Everyneurotic]

but there's a mental process going around, porky; sure, a critic, at certain points in one's life, has heard and knows more about music than us, yet you can read his/her opinions and take them apart, why does he say the album is good/bad? there's reasoning behind it and by understanding this, you might agree or disagree with it, and those are basic things one doesn't require to listen to tons of music to know (critics who just name drop and compare music to obscure artists and leave it at that are just people who know squat about writing and shield away in their snobby record collections, just like writers with extensive vocabularies who can't seem to tell a simple tale).

in my opinion, a good writer/critic can explain what a band/album is in a way one can understand, no matter how many albums you own, while at the same time giving his personal opinion about it, getting it clearly out and separated from the actual description.

in essence, what i meant was that one needs to read the review and accept it as one guy listening to the album and giving his thoughts along with (hopefully) an in depth look and not just see what the rating a certain thing has been given.

[Everyneurotic]

i want porky to answer me.

[Georgekrz]

the best music criticism in my opinion, by far, is the NY Times music section, Kalefa Sanneh and Jon Pareles, and the others, but those two come to mind first. day after day they put other papers, and music publications, to shame.

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

but there's a mental process going around, porky; sure, a critic, at certain points in one's life, has heard and knows more about music than us, yet you can read his/her opinions and take them apart, why does he say the album is good/bad? there's reasoning behind it and by understanding this, you might agree or disagree with it, and those are basic things one doesn't require to listen to tons of music to know (critics who just name drop and compare music to obscure artists and leave it at that are just people who know squat about writing and shield away in their snobby record collections, just like writers with extensive vocabularies who can't seem to tell a simple tale).

in my opinion, a good writer/critic can explain what a band/album is in a way one can understand, no matter how many albums you own, while at the same time giving his personal opinion about it, getting it clearly out and separated from the actual description.

in essence, what i meant was that one needs to read the review and accept it as one guy listening to the album and giving his thoughts along with (hopefully) an in depth look and not just see what the rating a certain thing has been given.

Agreed. Obviously you don't just read someone's reviews and take them for granted. As i previously posted, the more you listen to a lot of music ,the more you get a definite idea of what you like and what you don't like, therefore the same critic you admire might be raving about a record that you won't like based on the previous experiences that you've had listening to the same band's records. You take from someone what you bring with you. Cliched, i know, but it's still that simple.

[Everyneurotic]

a (good) is like a friend or acquantaince who you can discuss a record, it's a too way thing even if none of the sides in the discussion can hear each other.