[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
i kin ramble on this
semi-connected responses . . .
Why give N'Sync a good review when it doesn't need it? The album's
gonnna sell a bazillion copies anyway.
But.
I'm not really seeing roundly negative reviews of boy bands, etc in the
mags, esp. not in RS.
And Rob Sheffield somehow became RS's ubercritic in the last two years,
and he loves the stuff.
But the thing of it . . .
Loving pop music is fine, and I do sometimes.
And the massive success of certain pop bands helps keep all the machinery
going. N'Sync sells records and records and records, which ensures that
the record stores stay open, which means there's a slot for the new Eels
album, even though so few people seem to care.
And pop music will survive and does survive. Does not go away. Even if
it's fun, we've heard it before. And sometimes that's fine.
But if you're a critic, in the best sense, part of your job will be to
say really great things about bands and writers that are great but get
mostly ignored. Which happens a lot to people who write non-pop,
non-accessible, great music.
Re: prog rock. This music gets a hard time because it's not very rock
'n' roll. Rock has this element of accessibility. This thing where,
while there are great bands and performers who can really do a song
right, three kids in a garage can also play the song. It's anti-elitist,
anti-bourgeois, anti-establishment. Prog rock is elite. There's good to
that. But. It pulls the people's music so high up off the street . . .
Backstreet is so establishment, so
let's-re-state-the-middle-class-values-of-bourgeois-America, that they
deserve to have their butts kicked by critics, even if they make nice
sounds.
>So what are you gonna do with someone like Linda Ronstadt? She's made
quite the >living off other people's songs yet has remained quite
credible.
Forget Linda. Frank, baby. Frank.
And Jeff Buckley would have been one amazing interpreter if he'd stuck
around . . .
The punk reaction to prog rock is still key to understanding the pop
landscape.
And part of Sid and Johnny's angry reaction had to do with the fact that
rock and pop--the people's music, right?--was being taken over by
bourgeois trained musicians in gazillion dollar studies. The people's
music comes from the people. The people live in the houses. The houses
have garages, but rarely gazillion dollar studios. Rarely expensive
guitars. Rarely time for heavy music training. But the average joe can
learn to play a guitar and sing nice songs, or angry songs. Simple and
real.
"Hey, it's Romeo. He nearly gave me a heart attack. You shouldn't come
around here, singin' up at people like that."
I dunno.
Why do critics like Radiohead?
More importantly, why do we talk about critics as if they're one big
Critic. Not true. I like reading critics I know because I get an idea
of how I agree and disagree with them; this is how I read Peter Travers's
movie reviews; I think he's a dope, but I can usually tell if I'd like
the movie.
Here end my incomplete thoughts.
Fred
np: Soft Cell
________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/MediaNation/OtR/