Hard To Write About

I guess that's why it's easier posting about stuff because I can tell a story of a night out or something and it resonates a bit more. As a general problem, people need to have heard the tune already to get a review I do I'd say. But this might be true of all reviews.

I think now I'd find it difficult to write about rock music, I was given an Irish indie band to do for Hot Press there a few weeks ago and there's just too much of an axe to grind. When it came to the crunch and they replaced my review with someone giving it 8 out of 10 and "one to watch for the future" racing post nonsense I was pretty annoyed.

I'm not sure if rock is hard for me to write about, I just think that it IS hard in terms of practicality to criticise tired shite indie rock in print mags. I had a line in it about how the constant efforts to appear passionate in rock music made idiots of bands like the one I was reviewing and I said it was due to the legacy of Cobain and Richey Edwards and stuff.

The editor was talking to me about it and he said "but are you saying Cobain/Edwards never made good music". I actually had to say "no of course not", he looked like he was about to cry.

Anyway that difficulty is not quite the topic I guess. I think I would like to write about pop more.

This question was prompted by playing the new Broadcast record - they're a group who I find very hard to write about without it feeling really forced/false - I just can never find the right images.

St Cloud I think there may actually be some real live black people posting to ILX sometimes.

(nor have i ever seen him written well about)

(haha "written well about", er yes that's a conceptual gag foax *sigh*)

The New Beats, i remember loving back in the day. Though that day was probably about a decade ago, so it's probably dated now...

"yes yes y'all" (came out last year,can't remember who wrote it though...)
"rap attack" david toop
both very good on the early stuff...

I will write about almost anything, but I often feel out of my depth when it's a genre I don't know much about. Which is a shit, cos the genres I don't know much about are generally the ones I like most.

Cool. I got some other recommendations as well from another board I visit.

"rap attack" david toop

i love writing about genres i know less about, and write about less often (eg: dance, hip hop). suddenly there's a whole new sonic territory to try to describe, and i don't have to hunt for the right reference - i can just talk about how it sounds and how it makes me feel, not necessarily how it fits into the greater genre.

also: dleone otm.

Yeah, but only up to a point... after the tenth boring indie shite album, you just feel like writing "Refer to all previous reviews on boring indie shite, there are no more synonyms left for the word 'dull'".

(Note: you can dislike a record & still care about it)

I think I find all music hard to write about, although I enjoy it (ha, masochistic tendencies?); but I especially enjoy (and put most into) writing about the ones I care about. And yeah, "care about" does not (ncessarily) mean "like".

These are all my limitations as a writer thus far and I think it's important to be a good (great) critic that you are able to provide a view on all of these musics articulately and insightfully ('the infinite criticism') (David Thompson) (separate brackets there) (note) (alright?). And I remember Matos saying something to the effect that if he feels he can't write about it it makes him want to more to prove to himself and to improve himself as a writer. This is how I feel, it's just hard to beat the ennui into practice.

wasn't it 'infinite sensitivity'?

Cozen, I don't think you should bother writing about most of those things.

And perhaps, yes, it was 'sensitivity' though I don't think I ever read this phrase anywhere and was passive-aggressively nibbling at what seemed to taste like cryptomnesia by putting Thomson in brackets, where he doesn't really ever belong.