ILMers - Harshest music critics in the world? Have any of you ever made a record?

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Not trolling, just curious.

― Karin Azeergah, Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

more than a few here have made records, yes.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I am the third Neptune. Chad Hugo takes out his inferiority complex on me.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

but of course, that's what makes our opinions all the more valid than those of the proles.

― chicken tonight (chicken tonight), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I am Pharrell Williams.

At least, Emma sometimes gets me to pretend I am...

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm gonna make an dance-punk anti-folk fusion record in my bedroom in London consisting solely of my own bodily noises. It'll be huge with all the New York scenesters and Christgau will cream his panties

― Bob Shaw (Bob Shaw), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

revive "music critics are failed musicians" meme

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I have made a record, and I'm a fucking nobody

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm curious--who said ILMers were the harshest music critics in the world? because I'm relatively certain it wasn't anyone on ILM

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I played ukelele on "I'm The Urban Spaceman"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

well, i've heard Matos is the gruffest music critic in the world...

― gaz (gaz), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"Hey, Gaz! That jibe was really uncalled for--oh, wait a minute, I forgot. You're [[poking him in the ribs w/elbow]] the harshest music critic in the world! Nevermind!"

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I said ILMers are the harshest critics.

― Karin Azeergah, Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

You know those handclaps in that Lumidee single? That's actually me spanking Dom's arse.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

haha is there some guy who actually has the title "harshest music critic in the world" and just sits on a throne all day throwing albums away and shouting "SUB PAR" or "POORLY REALISED".

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

ott.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Over the top, OVAH THE TOP!!!!

― Lemmy (Ned), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:38 (twenty-one years ago)

but the thread title's inference is clearly "So you guys think you're the harshest et al? Have you ever made a record?" and no one I'm aware of seems to think that we (haha "we"--an even more nebulous concept than usual on a public internet message board, fell into that trap too oh well) are anything of the kind

xpost: Ronan I kiss you.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Karin Azeergah are you an mf doom psuedonym?

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

[[elbows Matos back]] i'm the harshest music critic critic in the world. i'm gentler on the actual music.

― gaz (gaz), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Ned I originally wrote the elbow-poke crack w/your name but put Gaz's in there in tribute to his xpost. but I'm thinking of you, good buddy!!! :-)

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Gaz I'm wounded! everyone thinks I'm gruff 'n' I'm just a pussycat!

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Amazing! :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

haha I so threw up the ball for that ott comment and jess was like john mcenroe.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:42 (twenty-one years ago)

let's find him an umpire to yell at now

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i sing backing vocals on a live rush 7" - a version of 'closer to the heart' that got to no. 28 (ish) on the uk top 40 back in 1982.

there ya go - ILMer in chart hit shocker!

actually, as there were another 9999 people also doing 'backing vocals', chances are there is another ILMer who appeared on the same record.

― stirmonster, Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

his umpire is the world as we know it

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm gonna throw my racket into the stands if ilm doesn't stop being so pissy soon

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

karin didn't you hear the underground shit i did with skam?

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:50 (twenty-one years ago)

this pussycat thing is getting out of hand, thank god jess has given up the mantle.

― gaz (gaz), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I am glad that no one has attempted a serious ans so far.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

New people never get serious answers around here. New is the new black.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

actually several people have given serious answers.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

including myself.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

every one of my answers has been serious apart from the elbow-in-ribs one, which was clearly marked as a joke

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Must one be a chef to accurately judge the merits of food?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:16 (twenty-one years ago)

O no, Mom! 'The new black' is actually 'the old pink',
as some people seemed to agree on that dildo thread on ILE.

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

how many musicians who criticize critics have ever written a review?

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

You know, I'm surprised to realise that I have never written a record review. I've done interviews and musician biography pieces (I prefer them dead). But somehow I wouldn't feel equipped to review someone's record, despite making them myself. I think I'd be uncomfortable with the gap between 'this is my opinion of a record' and 'this is the opinion of record (in the sense that The Times is spoken of as 'the paper of record'). That jump my opinion would have to make from subjectivity to semi-objectivity, or, at the very least, from immediacy to longevity. An opinion is not made for such a long journey. An opinion cannot pack such a large suitcase.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

does anyone really view reviews (yuck) in that sense anymore, though?

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I'd be more comfortable with a password to an online review which the editor had given me permission to go back in and change at my whim.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Any judgement system without an appeals mechanism has to be considered barbaric.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm warning you, I'm taking this Pitchfork judgement all the way up to the Supreme Spoon!

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:41 (twenty-one years ago)

jess - hell yes. assuming you're talking about longevity, that is.

i don't want a review to be coldly objective in the "paper of record" sense. i expect it to reflect the critic's personal opinion/reaction/etc. but i do expect it to last.

the reviews/critiques i can't stand are the ones that seem tossed off in a matter of minutes after listening to the album once or twice and not really thinking about it and not really worrying about whether you, the writer, will still believe what you wrote six months from now. i want the reviews i read to be definitive for the critic who's writing them, and i think the great ones are.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

the appeals mechanism is capitalism.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

...said the judge, throwing the man with the criminal record out onto the labor market to fend as best he could.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:44 (twenty-one years ago)

well, i AM an american, after all.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:45 (twenty-one years ago)

And I've made lots of criminal records!

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:47 (twenty-one years ago)

... including "The Little Red Songbook ..."

(Rim shot, please ...)

― Chris O'Connor (Chris O'Connor), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Moan, groan ... sides shudder ...

― Chris O'Connor (Chris O'Connor), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 15 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Simple explanation for that: you can even express music criticism in art

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 23:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I am still glad no one has given a serious ans to this q ;)

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 4 September 2003 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I've made records. I respond poorly to bad reviews. I only write reviews of records I like. I've got a sorta hippie sense of "why expend lots of energy dwelling on something you don't like" - if somebody buys a record they wouldn't have bought had they read my slag thereof, are they that much poorer? No; they may like it; they may enjoy the process of figuring out why they don't like it.

Also, so many bad reviews read like pre-fab constructs that were waiting for an album to come along so the reviewer could show off how many ways they'd dreamt up to say "this sucks."

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Thursday, 4 September 2003 23:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Must one be a chef to accurately judge the merits of food?

...Such a good point I can't possibly augment it with anything of use.

I've made records. Thay were ok at the time. Now they're terrible, after a fashion. "Fashion" is the key to all of this - all reviews should be taken with the requisite pinch of salt, cf when/where/what else was going on musically at that time/who was the writer obsessed with at that point...ie. CONTEXT IS ALL.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 4 September 2003 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

You don't have to have made something to think it's so, SO beautiful

― flower child, Thursday, 4 September 2003 23:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I invented emo.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 5 September 2003 06:19 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm with john d's approach. i only review stuff i like. spread the word on the good stuff rather than dwell on the sh*t.

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 5 September 2003 06:26 (twenty-one years ago)

"Must one be a chef to accurately judge the merits of food?"

What if one is (or has been) the musical equivalent of one of those guys who stands outside tube stations with a little trolley trying to sell luke-warm tubes of under-cooked, past-it's-sell-by-date, rancid offal and gristle in buns* to passers by?

* or to put it another way: Live In A Dream / Chaos In USSR by Sub-@ctive (Flexi Disc given away free with Issue 12 of Grinding Halt fanzine, Grinding Halt Records , Cat.: GH001, 1981)

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 5 September 2003 07:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I was in Fat Les.

― cis (cis), Friday, 5 September 2003 15:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 5 September 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Let me see here, I appeared on (counts to self) 4 CDs while I was in college (3 having international distribution), one since leaving college (also with international distribution), have recorded another and will appear on a major motion picture soundtrack this fall.

Choral singing: the easy way to build a recording resume.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 5 September 2003 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

(And the best part is I AM NOT A MUSIC CRITIC! Disdain with impunity WOO!)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 5 September 2003 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm usually pretty hard on rekkids I critique, especially ones I like.

However, as my work is neither published nor dictated onto paper/the screen whatsoever, my entire audience consists of the bored fuckers milking their beers waiting for me to shut my bonghole about how much better the new Andrew WK record could've been so they can get back to talking about the upcoming UK basketball season.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 5 September 2003 19:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha ha, I just realized no one's ever heard any of my records either. It's like I'm being chased by a black hole that's swallowing everything I ever try to do.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 5 September 2003 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

um nick can we get back to talking about basketball here? Thanks.

― hstencil, Friday, 5 September 2003 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm actually Geri Halliwell.

― Ally (mlescaut), Friday, 5 September 2003 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

John D's post is pretty otm. I think negative reviews can be worthwhile, but many do feel like lip-smacking chances to shred into somebody, ANYBODY.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

you know what makes writing a negative review easier? Reading the band's press release. It's usually so effusively positive and full of self-adoring quotes that it dignifies any bile you may have in you after hearing their mediocre-to-horrible album.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

some guy in germany made an album of ours from mp3's we'd previously uploaded online. mind you, it's pretty crap. and previously slated on here, hopefully.

and stir - surely not rush ?
tut tut.

― frenchbloke (frenchbloke), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:15 (twenty-one years ago)

critics who stoop to making fun of the press release in their reviews are only humiliating themselves. it's tantamount to scooping up a piece of shit off the ground with your hands and carrying it around while screaming 'hey everyone, look at this absurd, laughable piece of shit. ha, ha, ha, those idiots.'

― jl (Jon L), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't say you should make fun of the press release in reviews (duh, that's tacky). I said you should use the press release as internal fuel for your crusade to make sure the TRUTH about this band gets out. They are spreading LIES, so you must correct them!

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

people who disdain the entire idea of the negative review hate fun for ever and ever.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Jess is the David Stockman of critics.

― J (Jay), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

http://members.tripod.com/~ClassicCars/

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 5 September 2003 21:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Great googly-moogly!

― J (Jay), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:02 (twenty-one years ago)

>I didn't say you should make fun of the press release in reviews (duh, that's tacky).

it's tacky but pitchfork's leading the way, they seem to produce a third of their copy this way...

>They are spreading LIES, so you must correct them!

all I'm saying is, it's often the case that musicians rarely have anything to do with the final shape of their press releases, which are vile by definition. not to say they shouldn't be held accountable for the people they've chosen to represent them. but some (young) critics seem to read the press release as a transparent extension of artistic intent, it's just a mistake.

I'm just reacting to a bad review that pretty much read (and quoted from) a ludicrous, hyperbolic press release as if it were something I'd written, or even approved. So pay my thin-skinned self no mind.

― jl (Jon L), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually used to own this car (mine was a nice lime green):

http://www.er3.com/73dart/73.dart.jpg

man, I miss that car..

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:04 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think i've ever written an outright pan before. certainly not for money.

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

(most papers shockingly don't like to run them since they decrease ad revenue.)

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:07 (twenty-one years ago)

(or um because why waste space on a bad record when you can champion a good one?)

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

trust me: not having your record reviewed AT ALL is much much worse than a bad review

― the surface noise (electricsound), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

exactly!

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 5 September 2003 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

i seem to see things that bore me in music better than things i like -- i couldn't be employed as a critic because i'm so jaded by music, i do often feel i've heard it all before -- i may not love music anymore, but i know why i don't -- maybe i'm not taking the right suggestions or hints, or have a bad or 'punk' attitude

but i have no compunction going out of my way to attempt to deflate show-biz here or anywhere else, as i see whole industries mounted on dross within the music biz -- the artistic freedoms that were flowing between artist and mass consumer from the mid '60s on seem to me to have been deliberately squashed by the industry ever since -- so i feel there's much less honest art going across commercial music stations these days for instance

"things ain't what they used to be" for me i suppose -- the entertainment industry has ruined what i felt was integrity in popular music -- yeah, i couldn't be a critic, i'd be too harsh, and perusing most music would be like a day job to me

(i have not been recorded, but that's due to practical concerns, in that i'm semi-proficient enough musically to hear the sameness and get bored but not up to scratch enough to assemble and record music i think would not be -- music listening has soured my interest in music making itself is my ostentatious excuse)

(and there are plenty of exceptions to my dislike for music of course, but that sort of music is the exception, of course)

― george gosset (gegoss), Saturday, 6 September 2003 04:40 (twenty-one years ago)

If I buy a record and feel like I've wasted my money then a bad review might well result. Or if I'm writing about a record I know a lot of people will be hearing and want to 'contribute to the discourse'. Slams of an unknown record are a bit pointless if you've got limited space - warning people off a turkey that they might otherwise buy is something else entirely. Generally though message boards are the best place to say that something's shite.

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 6 September 2003 07:22 (twenty-one years ago)

tom if you buy a record and dont like it, do you really consider that money 'wasted' ? serious qn, not setup for disagreement or anything

― trife (simon_tr), Saturday, 6 September 2003 07:29 (twenty-one years ago)

trife, are you bill gates?

― gabbo giftington (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 6 September 2003 07:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Not always but sometimes: mostly it's more like losing a bet. Sometimes I think "maybe it'll grow on me", or there's a good track or two, or I think "fair enough it's rubbish but at least I've heard it and know". Or I think "OK, it's crap, but I should have known better when I bought it." But sometimes I think "this is just shit" or "somebody should have warned me" - a lot of the time when I write bad reviews it is actual resentment at people who've said it was good and persuaded me to buy it.

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 6 September 2003 07:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Back in the days of sampling I used to console myself for buying bad records by saying, 'Well, I'll sample something from it.' Because even the worst record probably has two seconds of cool sound somewhere on it. (It might sound crap forwards but cool backwards, or you might be able to filter it into coolness.) And a track based on that sample would earn so much more money than you'd lost buying the rotten record that the grey clouds, the feeling of having been cheated and let down, were banished just by thinking about it.

Of course, in the New World Order I neither buy records nor sample any more. I 'think music' and the likeminded 'hear my thougts' thanks to the Sliverspin Harmony Nexus.

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 6 September 2003 08:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i buy lots of records but never listen to any of them!!

win-win!!

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 6 September 2003 09:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Hoo hoo har har har har, oh this is a funny question, this is a funny question indeed.

I would dig up my old "How do you handle bad criticism" thread if I could find it.

I've just made another record. I will preserve myself from ever having to read another bad review of it by never ever letting any more members of the press have a copy of this one. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

― kate (kate), Saturday, 6 September 2003 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I've made records but I'm not about to tell any of you what they are

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 8 September 2003 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey Kate, I am not and never will be a member of the press (HINT HINT HINT).

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 8 September 2003 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

(And Dadaismus is secretly Lance Bass.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 8 September 2003 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

''I've made records but I'm not about to tell any of you what they are''

were they reviewed in the wire keith? ;)

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 8 September 2003 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

...I wrote in an complained about them getting good reviews

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 8 September 2003 15:09 (twenty-one years ago)

"...my entire audience consists of the bored fuckers milking their beers waiting for me to shut my bonghole about how much better the new Andrew WK record could've been so they can get back to talking about the upcoming UK basketball season."

You are leaving out the local metal fans that just want to find new some method of making crank in their kitchen sink and hate anything that doesn't sound like hate.

― earlnash, Monday, 8 September 2003 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

if it aint hate it aint music

― dave q, Monday, 8 September 2003 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

The Harshest Music Critic

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Monday, 8 September 2003 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Fuck the load of you. I was in Vogue!!!

― kate (kate), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't know Vogue had a problem page, Kate! ;~P

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

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