Can we start calling critics who say mundane crap on VH1 sell outs?

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It'll be fun! Next time a Blender, Spin, Vibe or RS crit shows up to tell us that Monica has really evolved or that Bon Jovi has shown that he's a lifer or some such inanity or that Coldplay did ANYTHING, just scream SELL OUT! SELL OUT! TRAITOR TO THE CAUSE! It's kind of flattering if you think about it.

Most argumentative, line-drawing statement made by critic on VH1: Rob Sheffield says he hopes never to hear Russell Crowe's 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts.

For those playing along at home...

sell-outs: Chuck Klosterman, Rob Sheffield, Joe Levy, Sarah Letwinn, Rob Tannenbaum, Andy Pemberton, Ann Powers, Toure, Charles Aaron, David "The 348th Ramone" Fricke, Marc Spitz (the only one who dresses up for these things - he's usually wearing Bono's Fly sunglasses for some reason), Scott Poulson-Bryant, Danyel Smith

not sell outs to the best of my knowledge: Jim DeRogatis (of course!), Robert Christgau, Christian Hoard, Nick Catucci, John Morthland, Ira Robbins (appearing in a K documentary doesn't count), Chuck Eddy, Frank Kogan, Amy Phillips, Michaelangelo Matos or any other ILXor to the best of my knowledge. You bigger named crits out there in ILXland, has VH1 ever approached you? Did they offer you a big paycheck? Are their contracts involved? Why does VH1 keep SHOWING us these people?

I believe J.D. Considine has only been on VH1 in the context of "4 On The Floor," which was VERY argumentative, and therefore he doesn't qualify as a sell-out. Jack Rabid appeared on MTV years ago but I don't think he was on VH1. So is he a sell-out?

Please list all your favorite valueless soundbites from professional critics who appear on VH1. Those fashion guys who say stuff like "(celebrity) was hot before but when they did THIS, they got HOTTER!" don't count. This thread is for the music critics who BETTER be getting paid to voice such lukewarm comments in public.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 18:54 (twenty-two years ago)

when did we stop?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 18:56 (twenty-two years ago)

comment spoken by critic on VH1 that actually made me laugh (WITH the critic, not AT): Joe Levy talking about his hair in comparison to some rocker I forget.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 18:57 (twenty-two years ago)

we should be doing it LOUDER, Horace! My god, maybe we should throw blood.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 18:58 (twenty-two years ago)

haha. i might be selling out soon.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I hope the paycheck was FAT, Yancey! FAT!

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

it hasn't happened yet. one of my best friends is a vh1 producer, and she's been asking me if i wanted to do one of these things for a while now. i've always said no cuz who the hell am i? but being unemployed, if something comes up (and it looks like it might), i'd prolly do it.

but why are these people sell outs? i mean, how is it any different than writing 150 blurbs for the glossies? isn't that the literary equivalent of a soundbite? plus, i haven't seen many of these fine folks make fools of themselves. i mean, rob, ann, joe, etc., etc. are perceptive folks, so why not? and don't dismiss the loder factor: many journos are still jealous of him for so successfully making the jump. do lives get any easier than his? he's up there with the hilton sisters!

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

You would not assume these people were perceptive based solely on what VH1 has them saying.

It's way more fun to scream sell-out at somebody than to wish them the life of Kurt Loder.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but I'd LOVE to have Kurt Loder's life. Listen to records and get drunk every night on scotch at swank restaurants. Who wouldn't want that???

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Those of who don't want to look like Bryan Ferry's stunt double while pretending to care what Incubus thinks on TRL when we're 83.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Christgau was in fact on VH1's Behind the Music: 1972

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

did he say something witty and incisive or did he note that a band was huge?

I really wish I'd caught that episode now.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sorry - why is appearing on tv automatically a bad thing?

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean it hasn't helped my opinion of Rob Sheffield, and everytime I see Joe Levy I flash into the "Many Men"/Jackie Brown monolog, but um other than that...

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Blount, I really want you take every word I say on this thread very seriously, because it comes from the bottom of my heart and I passionately feel that critics should be humiliated and taunted for saying dumb stuff on TV. I'm not merely tweaking noses and bringing up a subject that I find funny. It's important that you give my words the same serious going-over that I'm giving them. Thank you for your concern.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

VO: 1972 was also the year Neil Young broke through.

[sound cue: "Heart of Gold"]

RC: Omigod that's my song!

[fade out. fade in "Alone Again (Naturally)"]

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

*falls out of chair*

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

miccio - quid pro quo

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:31 (twenty-two years ago)

oh no. there you go.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

just a gigoloooooo!

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

but seriously, I would like to know if they're getting mad loot.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

what's really bad is when the rockcrits pop up on npr, partially cuz whenever npr ventures into soft news - sports, movies, pop music - it assumes their listeners don't know anything, they assume (fairly) their listeners will know who cruz bustamante is, but will spend half of a story on gigli explaining who jennifer lopez and ben affleck are. I hear a music one on the sigur ros record last fall I thought at first was a satire - he was talking about the significance of the vocals and then playing excerpts of the gurgle gurgle, and he even invoked 'after 9/11...' - but it turned out it wasn't. the upside over tv I guess is that at least we don't have to go 'THAT'S what he looks like?!!!'

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

and I kinda doubt they're really making that much money for giving a blurb, I think it's more a case of helping their career by raising their q factor, or maybe they've always dreamed of being jeff "skunk" baxter.

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd like to raise my q factor.

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

The psuedoinsights on those VH1 shows sometimes achieve a breathtaking level of banality. "____ were different, because they rocked. Not that nobody rocked before, but they rocked in a totally new way."

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

"She was just all over the place, in your face, on display. She was like, 'Here I am!'"

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

(makes funny hand dance)

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

alot of times (esp. with rob sheffield) it will just be the critic going "Rick Springfield! Yes!" or "Remember Rick Springfield?" so the Behind the True History of The Top 100 Blah Blah Blah can segue into a thing on Rick Springfield.

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

x/p amateurist

I do a funny
hand dance when I see danyel
smith on my TV

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

oh and don't forget
lorraine ali, she's not bad
(cuter than the fricke)

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Surely insightful
Commentary doesn't come
From edited frag-

(oops)

― Andy K (Andy K), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

"They set the pattern, they broke the mold, they pushed the envelope, they took it to a new level, it was like everything that came before all rolled into one."

(Amateurist's thought process: hmmm/which of these statements is contradictor--hey! it's the video for "Mickey"!!)

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

lorraine ali is good

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 20:06 (twenty-two years ago)

"But backstage, things were falling apart."

― nickn (nickn), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

"BRUCE. DICKINSON."

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Tuesday, 12 August 2003 20:24 (twenty-two years ago)

i heard a segment about the sea and cake's most recent one about 3 or 4 months ago on NPR and i thought it was good. hell, just to hear some indie put forth on broadcast media brought a smile to my face. and what the guy had to say was better than "this just rocks cause it does"... it was justified and with sound clips interspersed, it was a lot more illustrative than most print reviews can hope to achieve.

?
m.

― msp, Tuesday, 12 August 2003 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Anything's better than watching Tommy Lee's eyes go out of focus after remembering "It was cool" for the hundredth time on "Behind the Music." Nikki Sixx (ck sp) looks like Greil Marcus next to that shit.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:11 (twenty-two years ago)

P.S. Is it selling out if you don't get paid, which I don't believe those kids do?

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:12 (twenty-two years ago)

British equiv = I LOVE THE 70s where all the NME writers of my youth get to pretend they're sub-par stand-ups.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Two points.

1. You don't get paid for being on VH-1. (I believe this goes for on-air talent as well as guests, but I'm not sure.)

2. I was invited to participate in one of their "Porn To Rock" specials, but then the stuff we discussed in the meeting didn't make the final show.

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Sidebar: I love the 80's: http://verbal.kint.tripod.com/ss.mpg
Contrast to "Ferria: It's Prismatic" (Someone had coaching on her enunciation.)

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 11:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Joe Levy....while a nice guy....is the BIGGEST SELLOUT IN HISTORY.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:02 (twenty-two years ago)

My dad heard that Sea and Cake NPR bit. He thought they sounded cool.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 14:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Of course Joe Levy's a nice guy. But his Ben-Stiller-as-overly-ingratiating-rock-critic routine was is totally unwatchable on those fucking shows.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

pretend they're sub-par stand-ups.

That's exactly what the American version is as well, Tom. Or at least a big part of it. What's funny is that the ADD editing would allow for some pretty funny associative humor but the producers leave it to the talking heads to provide their own (usually feeble) punchlines.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Why on earth would anybody who writes for a living want to appear on TV without being highly paid? It seems wholly counterproductive -- doesn't being on VH-1 mean you're putting yourself and your words into the hands of editors who have no interest in allowing you to express a coherent opinion? Their agenda is to use words that you say to bolster their own thesis/agenda, rendering you just a mouthpiece for their views.

I would have to get paid a MASSIVE amount of money to let anybody control my words to their own ends.

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:27 (twenty-two years ago)

you might not get paid, but theoretically, you're stock should go up, right? I mean, you've just become a recognized authority to millions and millions of people who can tell Rob and Fab apart.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Of course Joe Levy's a nice guy. But his Ben-Stiller-as-overly-ingratiating-rock-critic routine was is totally unwatchable on those fucking shows.

Well, not only that, but while I interned at SPIN in the summer of `89, he (he was a senior editor there at the time) chastised me for liking Love & Rockets, the Wonder Stuff, New Order and the Wedding Present (while he was digging heavily on the whole Sub Pop thing)......and fourteen years later, he's waxing rhapsodic on VH1 about Beyonce and Mariah Carey. Sickening.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Horace: I hear you, but in this circumstance you're equally allowing them to make you look like an idiot in front of that same audience if they choose. On a chunk of the discussion in this thread, a number of writers are mocked for the banality of their comments on these shows. Obviously, the participants in this discussion tend to have enough perspective on this issue to understand that these folks might have more worthy things to say, but would the wide audience that watches but doesn't read?

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I sort of doubt that many of them have much more to say.... Perhaps some of them....

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey, fair enough, but I'm not here to hate the player...

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

It's never about having anything to say. It's merely about saying it. But like being a reg'lar pundit for VH1, no matter how banal/trite/insipid you come across as, would increase yr chances of getting work from banal/trite/insipid pubs, which generally pay extremely well.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Does this place you firmly in the "sellout" camp, then? ie, the major benefit is to eventually place one's writing in a banal/trite/insipid publication (which, I would contend, means that one is content to produce appropriately banal/trite/insipid writing)?

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

clarification: by "sellout" camp, I didn't mean to impugn you, Horace; I mean to posit that you would consider this behavior a sellout...

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Selling out is overrated. It's also a slippery slope, the gray area, moving the goalposts, and six of one/half dozen the other. It's fucking undefinable.

Getting some prime time isn't any more selling out than writing about something you're not that enthusiastic about. You don't like the new Mogwai album? Great. Then leave the space to something else more deserving. Oh, but under the guise of "doing your readers a service" you will take the check and write a hit piece. That's selling out to some people.

Why don't we just call critics who say dumb shit on TV the same things we call them in, say, P*tchfork? What exactly is the difference?

If you are ever interviewed for TV (or even a publication) you know that unless it's unedited Q&A that the writer/producer is going to use whatever they want to tell whatever story they want. They will use dumbass quips if you give them. They will use shit to fit their context and not yours. Likely, they don't have the space to recreate your answer or intellect the way you want it. They will take short cuts. This will hurt you and not them. Ergo, smart people can sound like idiots.

― don weiner, Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Right -- I'd have to get seriously paid to let a tv producer make me sound like a fool.

(Yeah yeah, I do it myself for free, ha ha ha)

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I think calling anyone a sellout is a little ridiculous. I mean, for me at least, it's just a job. Like being a butcher. You don't like chopped liver? Tough luck, kiddo, you still gotta chop it if you wanna stay in business.
I mean, really, what I'm getting at, is that I find myself attracted to Lorainne Ali. Even though I don't know what she's talking about.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

IIRC, Chuck Eddy was some kind of correspondent for MTV during Gulf War I. This is actually quite awesome. Never actually saw the footage for it, me being at a quite TV-phobic college that year.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Horace, do you believe that considering critical writing just a job akin to retail service might devalue your public opinions at all?

I'm not trying to attack you or the validity of what you think, but as a reader I'd be less likely to value the critical judgments of someone who I suspected felt obliged to say something, rather than inspired to say something.

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I think you're being disrespectful to my tradesmen brethren Hurlo.
I actually think all of the overly-impassioned, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, and agenda-toting hacks are a little more suspect than the dude who figured out that scribbling considered opinions about culture was a much better way to pay the bills then working.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

If I can remove "hacks" and "considered" from your statement, then I'm comfortable saying that I just disagree with your philosophy. By which I don't mean to devalue what you do, it's just not what I prefer to read (presuming the basic quality of writing and expression to be equivalent).

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Do they still publish Maximum Rocknroll then?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't know, I don't read music publications.

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

okay.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:26 (twenty-two years ago)

But I really resent how the writing in Juggs has descended to the level of timecard-punching formula.

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I think what I was trying to say, was that I'm not going to bleed for you. And I'm not going to bleed for Mick Jagger, or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or Sigur Ros, or 50 Cent.
I don't wanna die like Lester Bangs. Not for rock-crit.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

O/T, is there stuff that you do wanna die like Lester Bangs for?

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah. Not necessarily like Lester Bangs, but there are things I do throw myself whole-hog into. At one point music writing was one of them, but I felt like I wasting the best parts of myself on something that didn't necessarily love me back.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

*curiosity*...

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Matos was on Mtv once though it may have been as man in the street and not as a pundit

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

My girlfriend once called me "a male Ann Powers." I have no idea what that means.

― Tom Breihan (Tom Breihan), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I know Amy Sohn! It freaks me out, every time she pops up I'm like "WHOA!!!!! how did you get inside that TV??"

Dave Cross is on there sometimes and since I think he looks a bit like Chuck Eddy it freaks me out. Chuck is more handsome than Dave Cross though, so the association works in Chuck's favor: when I actually see Chuck he's always better-looking than I expect.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah -- I literally recoil in horror when Levy comes on. Particularly cringeworthy was his performance on the "Sexiest Videos" special. While the show as a whole was kind of amusing in that VH-1 pulpy way, he was just mortifyingly bad, showing off all the insight of a horny 13 year-old, w/ all the requisite "Duuuude"'s and "She's Hooooot"'s.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Since no one has mentioned it I just want to say that don weiner talks a lot of sense.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

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