I think any field based on the critique of art is full of people who
attempted to accomplish something in said art field and failed, at some
level. This may not mean "they made shitty music" but most likely means
they were dissed by a friend or some important person at a concert was
indifferent to their stuff.
This crops up especially in movie reviews, where the majority of critiques
online aren't actual critiques of the movie, but are from people who have a
beef with everyone's directing style. They're the ones who think an indie
film is automatically better because they don't have the budget to afford
good cinematography. I've read countless reviews of movies based on silly
things like "the director totally messed up this scene; if *I* was the
director, i would've done much better." pff.
I see a lot of the same snivelry in music reviews, painting reviews, and so
on. "If I had this melody, I would've done something much more interesting
than just a crunchy beat." "The use of oils is just so overrated - I can't
believe this artist is serious." "It's interesting, but since I can't feel
emotion for myself, I don't get it."
A large amount of critical journalism is shrouded by the journalist's own
"issues." That's where most of the problem is, in my opinion. They can't
just "deal" for a while and give an objective review.
cheers
derek
At 12:45 AM 7/19/2001 +0000, you wrote:
quoted 20 lines Cliche or not, if music journalists are indeed "failed rock stars" then i>Cliche or not, if music journalists are indeed "failed rock stars" then i
>admire them for being able to move on from making subpar music to start
>trying something else (that they *might* be better at).
>
>The main issue I have with music journalism (this is where the might from
>the above paragraph comes in) is when writers desperately try to describe
>the sound of an album by pulling awkward words out of the woodwork that
>the general educated populace doesn't care to understand. And even if the
>words were understandable, the result of using them in such a forced,
>unnatural fashion is to reduce the writing to impenetrable drivel. Drivel
>that is separated from that produced by a person learning to write merely
>by the size of the words.
>
>Similar frustration arises when journalists try to read something into a
>piece of music that just isn't there.
>
>So, bottom line: Thank you journalists who read (and help produce) this
>list for doing what you do. You save me a great deal of time. But please
>just try to be a bit more straightforward. The phrase "you might like
>this if you like X, Y, or Z" oftentimes is more than sufficient.
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