On Sat, 28 Jan 1995, Pete Ashdown wrote:
quoted 9 lines Almost all reviewers, after listening to tons of music, tend to lose
> > Almost all reviewers, after listening to tons of music, tend to lose
> > an objective focus no matter how hard they try. It's sort of like an
> > occupational hazard, precipitated largely by the sheer amount of
> > really crap music out there.
>
> Which is part of the reason I stopped. I started repeating myself and having
> a hard time evaluating stuff that was good, but I was sick of. Frankly I
> don't know how Siskel and Ebert have been doing movies for so long. Maybe
> there's just more to talk about than a 70 minute disc.
I think I know what you're saying here. I knew I had to step back for a
minute when I realized that I was buying records for their
"reviewability" - can I say something interesting about this record? I'm
going to keep posting reviews, but I don't want to "jaundice my ear" by
overdoing it.
The usually worthless Spin magazine actually had something tangetially
worthwhile to say about this subject. They mentioned a phenomenon they
called "record store sales clerk tastes": people who hear so much music
that they gravitate to anything that sounds even remotely "different",
sometimes (but not necessarily) independent of quality. They mentioned the
success of that Benedicine monks's record and Beck's debut as evidence of
this sort of mindset seeping into the popular public.
Thankfully, though, I'm still finding music that excites me. I had a
chance to watch a highly skilled jock (Claude Young) work his stuff the
other night during a live radio session (it's nice to get out of the
"ambient comp ghetto" every now and then, everyone should try it
sometime), and he played at least a dozen tracks I immediately wanted to
hunt down.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
dave walker
marmoset@msen.com new frontiers in pleasure management
<A HREF="
http://www.msen.com/~marmoset/">Dave Walker</A>