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Critiquing music can be fraught: whether it was Miles Davis or Elvis Costello who said it first, ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’. Our first event on the art of music criticism focuses on popular music.
Led by Lawrie Zion, critics Chris Johnston, Clem Bastow and Mikey Cahill discuss the role of the modern music journalist – as buying advisor, social historian, cultural critic – and how it’s become about everything but the music.
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Apologies in advance for a long, multi-facteded question...
Do you think this perceived 'critical failure' is a recent (last 10 years) phenomenon attributable in part to new communication styles and tools?
Back in the early and mid-1990s, even publications stereotypically thought to be mono-genre - for example, Guitar World, often misperceived as being metal-centric - would feature ahead-of-the curve stories about indie and alternative bands and artists in a way that is governed more these days by the hipster/taste politics of popular websites like Pitchfork. Most of the staffers were actual musicians, as well as being music lovers, and able to interrogate both the material and the zeitgeist surrounding it in professional, structured ways.
In the days before crowdsourcing and peer-to-peer music sharing, I often bought albums on the strength and articulateness of the reviewers writing (guys like Alan Di Perna, Brad Tolinski and more). A lot of people these days simply wouldn't care to read heaps, preferring to check out what the other tastemakers are doing.
13 December at 02:53PM
I haven't got time to respond to all this, but just wanted to tell you that your multi-facteded question is okay with me. Think you are nice.
Andy Rubberes
17 December at 03:35PM