Perfect Sound Forever: "What do you think about music journalism today?"
Richard Meltzer: "I never read it. I live in Portland and there's this paper called Willamette Week -- it's the weekly throwaway here. The music section is large, it seems much too large -- why they thought to over-cover the music is beyond me. Those rare times when I read a review, it almost always reads like hype. By which I mean, the syntax, the unit sentence, utterance is so much like hype, the writing of press releases."
I've spent a considerable amount of time reading album reviews recently and the experience has left me in a foul mood. I did the same thing a few years back when I first started writing about music: What should a review look like, I pondered, and what should it cover? How do you describe the different types of voices, guitars, and productions? How much background do you need on a group? Should you describe songs and lyrics in detail or just give a general impression? This inquiry made a certain amount of sense to me at the time: I didn't want to be a joke, the type of reviewer that readers laugh at because they don't know what the hell they are talking about. It never occurred to me that learning to review from other reviewers -- the pros -- would have negative consequences, i.e., that I'd lose track of what I really thought in an effort to write something that resembled processed cheese.
This time when I returned to reading reviews, however, it was more of an unhappy experience. I couldn't believe how much processed cheese there was out there, so I kept reading for signs of semi-intelligent life. In magazine after magazine, I kept asking myself: do people really read this shit? For all the adjectives, action verbs, and clever phrases, many album reviews are interchangeable, meaning most say absolutely nothing ("one of this years most electrifying releases"). Negative reviews are seldom harsh and usually have something positive to say ("while this may not be one of the group's best efforts, fans will find this batch of songs well worth their time"), while positive reviews read like ad copy ("a major statement from one of our most talented songwriters").
Most reviewers, it seems, are incapable of offering insight or, in place of that, an honest opinion. This lack of critical judgment, in fact, leaves conspiracy-minded music lovers with the suspicion that reviewers are really publicists working under aliases or that record labels own major stock in the folk/country/rock magazine racket. It's my belief that most of the albums out there teeter somewhere between really good and really bad, meaning they're stuck in the mushy middle. Reviewers, however, give the impression that most of the albums that come out are pretty darn good. If this were true, reviews would be useless. The listener could just go to the local record shop or barnesandnobel.com and buy whatever albums she thought might be good; since most albums -- according to reviewers -- will be pretty good, it's not much of a crapshoot.
Nice, Warm, and Fuzzy
Nice reviews of mediocre artists and albums, filled with fuzzy analysis, are particularly irksome. Like a New Age schoolteacher, the reviewers that write these abominations have the ability to unearth affirmative qualities in the most loathsome music imaginable. In a way, this is understandable: most musicians, and the albums they make, aren't awful. As incredible as it might seem, most musicians can play their instruments and sing in key; furthermore, the songs they record usually have at least a small portion of competence, meaning they aren't too embarrassing if played over the airwaves. While all of these attributes are no doubt praise worthy, they're also the same qualities possessed by even the lowliest of bar bands, playing at a local dive in your town tonight.
Nice reviews simply overrate ordinary bands and offer criticism that isn't very critical. "There's nothing fancy here, but it's all solid . . ." sounds like an advertisement for a Sears' lawnmower. ". . . Even if the trio hasn't quite mastered which brush strokes will best paint its musical genius", the reviewer muses, the band "seduces even the most cynical critic in places with vibrant brilliance". This leaves the reader with an odd portrait of a so-so album by a brilliant band that seduces unsuspecting critics.
Fuzzy analysis and extended metaphors also give the mistaken impression that the writer is not only clever but that he or she actually has something to say. I still don't know what a phrase like "it's really a straightforward singer-songwriter project done in a mountain style" means; or what a "deft Americana blend of Neil Young and Springsteen/Petty heartland rock (with a mondo slice of Stones' hip-shake as a kicker)" sounds like. A recent Ryan Adams review stated: "The result is perhaps too diffuse and rough-edged to be considered his best work, but it probably is a better overall representation of his wandering muse than either of his previous solo outings or his earlier work with Whiskeytown." What in the hell, someone with a faint familiarity with the English language might ask, does this mean? Is it a good album or just a representative one? Is it better than his best work because it's more representative? Who knows and who cares.
As somebody's maxim goes, 95% of the music stands somewhere in the mushy middle; of the remaining 5%, 2.5% is really awful, and 2.5 % really good. Nice reviewers don't understand that they're shit catchers for 97.5 % of everything that comes down the pike. Instead, they barely manage to recognize the really horrible albums, leaving the reader -- who has been looking for guidance -- pretty much where he started. Of course it isn't just the reviewer's fault: a number of publications show little enthusiasm for negative reviews (the more negative, the less enthusiasm). But reviewers, like sheep, cattle, and school children, usually comply without too much of a fight.
Lowdown, Mean, & Ornery
A little over a year ago Peter Blackstock of No Depression was complaining about Ryan Adams' new album, Gold. He noted in his editorial: "Temptation (eventually and rightly avoided, I expect) was to run a one-word review of the album: 'Pyrite'". Instead, the magazine ran a lukewarm, though nice, review that offered nothing more penetrating than: "Adams is capable of producing a classic album, but Gold, despite some moments which brush against brilliance, is not that high-water mark". It seems to me that the magazine was being a little disingenuous here: Blackstock tells us what the review would've been, then tells us that No Depression was big enough not to run it. Next, they run another review by another writer that no one even believes. Why not run the one-word review? At least it would be honest.
I remember checking out the first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide at the local library when I was in my teens. The pages were falling out of this fabulous book, and I accelerated the process by spending hours flipping through the entries to learn about all of the rock bands that I loved. The best part of the book was its mean spirited attacks that were funny as hell, attacks that gave me the impression that a reviewer had been forced to consider the work of a band she believed beneath consideration.
I fondly recall Alan Niester's introduction to Rush. "This Canadian power trio, which boasts a vocalist who sounds like a cross between Donald Duck and Robert Plant, reached its pinnacle of success the day it was discovered by Circus magazine and turned into fanzine wall-decoration material". It was a mean thing to say perhaps, but Geddy Lee did have an unusual voice. Then there were Mikal Gilmore's comments about Hot Tuna. "When Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady conceived this band, they wanted to call it Hot Shit, but RCA wouldn't hear of it. Too bad." These statements, filled with the kind of gleeful bile only a child could think up, nonetheless struck me as accurate and witty, and I haven't forgotten them since.
Negative reviews may not be more accurate than nice ones, but I generally find them more entertaining. Of course it's always possible that the negative reviewer is just a cynic who doesn't like anything that's been recorded after 1975. Perhaps. But I've known a lot of people who care passionately about music and they get majorly pissed when it comes to sell-outs, flakes, pretentiousness, gross stupidity, and label hype. If an artist has sold out to the mainstream, betrayed the trust and integrity of his vision, and left those who love his music hanging in the lurch, why in the hell should he be let off easily? Why shouldn't he be crucified? Again, this process may not be pretty, but you at least gain the impression that reviewers are saying what they think and that means something, even if it isn't very nice.
Bringing Out Your Inner Asshole
If reviewers don't want to be what George Zissimos of Perfect Sound Forever calls a "promo whore" -- someone who kisses the record label's ass for free CDs -- then they need a set of principals. Something that keeps them honest. Words on a piece of paper that they can nail to their bedpost and read every morning when they get up and read again before they hit the sack. Sort of like the Ten Commandments, only they won't keep you from going to hell when you die. They will, however, keep you from looking back at your writing in twenty or thirty or forty years and thinking to yourself, "what a smuck".
1. Saying what you think. A reviewer needs to have the nerve, the "I don't give a fuck" attitude, to say exactly what they think, meaning they must be willing to piss off the artist, his mother, the fans, and the record label. There was an old axiom that you should never make a review personal; you critique the art, not the artist. But music, and art in general, is too important to let the artist off for half-assed work. If the artist gives her heart and soul, then the writer will work her ass off to make the artist immortal; betray the writer/music lover's trust with inferior work, and she will buy the rope and personally do the hanging.
2. Don't be soft on sub-standard work. As I said above, 95% of everything is okay. But today, anybody can put together a band and put out a CD. Anyone with a couple grand and a half-realized vision can start a record label. But there's simply too much stuff out there for reviewers to soft-pedal the mediocre. While everyone will not agree on which 2.5% is great, there shouldn't be as much confusion as there is. If a reviewer can't tell the difference between okay and great music, then perhaps she shouldn't be reviewing.
3. Get rid of clichés. Of course clichés are a problem in all writing, but there's something about music reviews that make formula more obvious. I think it's the way reviewers try to cram so much into two or three hundred words, making phrases like "throughout the album" convenient short cuts. The singer's voice is heartfelt, the guitar solos are twangy, and the album, filled with finely crafted songs, is an instant, or soon-to-be instant, classic that deserves a wider audience. A stellar debut finds a fresh face throwing down the gauntlet in a style that's tough as nails but still understated. I admit that all of these clichés didn't show up in the same review, but I did pull them out of recent reviews from national folk and alternative country rags.
4. Put yourself on the line. Sometimes you've just got to make a fool out of yourself. Offer an opinion. It won't kill you to screw up, and even the best critics have had to revisit an old misfire from time to time. This doesn't mean that you need to make gross overstatements like political pundits, but you can offer a candid opinion on the worth of whatever album is in your CD changer. Maybe you'll get hate mail or decide later on that you didn't know what the hell you were talking about, but so what? It's not about being right or wrong, but offering an assessment based on your taste and experience.
5. Don't be afraid to start from the subjective point of view. We all have our own idiosyncrasies, so there's no need to ignore them. Instead, a reviewer should exploit the hell out of them, because that is what makes him or her and their reviews different from the other 77,000 reviewers. Reviewers will connect with some readers, miss with others. A reviewer may fear that his or her views are so singular that no one will agree with them, but even then, readers will keep reading just so they can write letters to the editor.
6. Be entertaining. Reviews, like all writing, should also be fun to read. I realize that style, taken to extremes (Lester Bangs), is incomprehensible. Still, no one enjoys reading pieces that resemble term papers written in third person. It's true -- 200 to 300 words don't give you much space to work out a style. If in doubt, just remember to ask yourself WWHSTS*?
An Honest Day's Work for Little to No Pay
Of course principals and manifestos aren't very practical for every day reviewing. I have to admit that I penned several clunkers, filled with insincerity, while I was writing this article. The process of writing about reviews, in fact, has left me a bit self-conscious. How many, I wondered, of the 200 or 300 reviews I write each year suck? How many descend into formula, make commonplace observations, and basically fail as lively non-fiction?
Often reviewers just don't have enough time to think things through properly, and some assignments are strictly of a commercial nature. Reviewers run into other roadblocks along the way, like their editor. The editor, however nice he or she may be, is not going to let the reviewer write whatever he wants to write. Editors also get pissed off if you don't follow instructions, so unless a reviewer wants to get stuck reviewing self-released albums from Idaho jug bands, they have to try to get along. It nonetheless seems odd that most reviewers -- who make very little if anything for their efforts -- are still willing to spend their time writing stuff that could only be considered dignified by a publicity department.
There has to be more to reviewing than getting free promos and seeing your name in print. Most of us don't want to be -- to borrow Richard Meltzer's phrase -- a whore just like the rest. Somewhere, after money, time, and editors are figured into the equation, you, the reviewer, have to find some place in your writing for a smidgen of the truth as you see it. Just one honest sentence per review. Just one website to review for that doesn't give a flying fuck what you write. Just one fat notebook to write down what you really think in order to keep yourself honest. You owe it to Art and God to passionately engage the most passionate of muses, and to bring out -- if need be -- the most brutal aspects of your personality to assess it. Otherwise, you may as well get a publicity job or write poems for Hallmark.
* What Would Hunter S. Thompson Say?
