A different ethics in music journalism question

(the only way one can objectively judge art is in the technical skill that went into its creation, and that is not a very good way of judging the merit of any art)

How much can be gleaned from moral disgust or whatever?

Of course moral criticism is a valid way to talk about a record, provided you don't allow yourself to tip over into Daily Mail-esque hectoring territory.

It's weird, but I have very little problem with violence in films, but I do have a real problem with music with an overtly bigoted/hateful message (lazily-picked example, Boom Bye Bye*), in a way that I don't with... I dunno, Cop Killer or Fuck Da Police (more lazily-picked examples). I suspect its because the latter examples seemed to be actually reflecting something in a violent manner in a not-dissimilar way to many films, while the former example just seems like an articulation of extreme prejudice. Thoughts?

*I know next-to-nothing about this record, by the way.

Surely, the lyrical content IS an integral part of the record though and in many ways its kind of an easy way out to exclude it from criticism? Especially in the cases I've mentioned above.

Personally I think by this stage I suspend these automatically when listening to things, this may be a sign I have questionable standards in this respect but I prefer to say that it means I am only interested in the artist as the artist.

Archel's point makes sense but isn't your "reaction" to something potentially different to your "appreciation" or "assessment" of it. I'm not alluding to "reactionary" or anything with that, simple take as read.

I can love music I disagree with (lots of religious gubbins for example), but can't ignore lyrics I understand and would tend to write what I thought about them as well as the noise.

But in response to that Tim, do you think negative moral reactions can be interesting? Or positive ones for that matter? Particularly given the fact that if a smart and good reviewer is morally upset by something, it will probably have been berated left right and centre.

Perhaps though what you say is pertinent and raises another issue, do reviewers conveniently sidestep their moral reactions to things because they aren't confident enough that they can express them and still remain interesting?

Have you read many reviews/articles where this fear has been overcome?

sticking to this single angle (or totally ignoring it) is making a fetish of certain of yr own critical techniques w/o declaring or exploring the morality/politics of this fetish-as-choice

Are you saying whatever you discuss is a moral issue to some extent? Er are you agreeing or disagreeing, sorry.

Does anything good come out of moral objection, artistically? What non traditional moral objection works are there? Are any traditional style revulsion pieces genuinely interesting? Basically how many people can express this without getting bogged down. Is the language of moral discontent conducive to any kind of good writing?

And if this isn't the case, is this why there's such a consensus among writers about to use Nathalie's example issues like Marilyn Manson outrage being so stupid.

Is this to do with the idea of music upsetting people being canonical in itself, the punk thing? etc etc?

Great line.