Article Response: Passion Victims

great piece of writing right there. it made me think seriously about how i actually feel about music as a whole. when i read a certain critics review on a band that i adore, i get all gushy and excited about music, buy the cd, love it, and then let it settle into the backround. does that mean i don't love the cd, that i just had an infatuation with fleeting moment? probably. but then when i'm flipping through my old cds and i stumble upon a Bouncing Souls album (gasp), put it on, and just revel in how much joy it brought me 6 odd years ago, and its at that point i think i really do love music. But i agree to some extent to the amount of passion being put into musical critiques as of late. i think that an exuberant amount of passion in a piece of criticism makes it sound almost goofy in some instances(see neumu's strokes fetish). But if an extremely well written piece of criticism is written with a slight touch of passion, it makes the article all the more appealing to me.

The piece shouldn't be taken, by the way, as some kind of review of Careless Talk Costs Lives - I read Ricky T's copy on Friday night and a couple of aspects leaped out, though. I should also say that Ned's piece in that mag, on hearing music booming out of cars, *is* doing the music-in-everyday-life thing and doing it well so CTCL is not a monolith (plus the cartoon of him is ace).

I've just read it Tom. I thought you made a good point, but I'd also like to say that as most music magazines are owned by huge corporations, sales and brand image [I'm sorry] have to stay up. Select was closed down because it wasn't making *enough* money, rather than because it was opperating at a loss. Using the passion of the writters sells magazines. "The Strokes are the best band in the world! Ever!" on a cover grabs you faster than "The Strokes sound a bit like Television. We put them and their music in an interesting cultural context" ever would.

Interestingly, I started reading Freaky Trigger (and then ILE/M) after coming across some of your writting doing a random Google search for something else. I liked what I found because it was written with feeling, honesty and charm, but most of all with passion. The writing of someone who really cared and wasn't hungover and chasing a deadline/ giving an over-worked collegue a hand/ frightened of expressing an opinion because it might scare the advertisers. I am all for passion, but I am very much against slipping into formula and cliche, the manic hyperbole or look-at-my-lists-Ma! trainspotting, that is passed off as passion. I *think* we're saying the same thing here. Do you know where I could get a copy of that fanzine from and have you read 'In Their Own Write: Adventures In The Music Press' by Paul Gorman?

I think it's very difficult to draw the distinction between foreground and background, and to say that someone "just has music on in the background" (whether you mean it positively or negatively) is a bit of an oversimplification. Sometimes I may not be hanging on every note, but nonetheless whatever's on is an important part of my present surroundings, my environment. And I'm often distracted by the task-at-hand by something striking coming out of the speakers. There is no such thing as pure, unadulterated attention, as you so rightly point out, Tom, and nor is there such thing as complete unattentiveness.

The main point -- about the rhetoric of music writing -- is spot on, in a way that I'd never much stopped to consider before: if nothing else, this "we really care" attitude only serves to distance music writing from music listeners, who have lots of other things to do with their lives and simply aren't economically able to "care" about music to the extent that, say, a professional is. (And obviously less inclined to anyway, or else they'd be writing about music.)

I think there's something else at work, though, which is that in order to tell someone that a record is good, it's somewhat necessary to tell them how it's good -- how they should be listening to it to get the same thrills out of it that you are. A lot of the hyperbole comes from this. In order to make a decent record, an artist is going to need to "care" in that way -- and so the reviewer, to let you know precisely what sort of value is in there, is tempted to mimic that caring. A good example might be Godspeed You Black Emperor! Whether you like them or not, obviously the value you're meant to be taking from it is this stirring ominous apocalyptic whirl-of-sound thing, which makes it hard to tell someone what one of their records about without saying "Stirring ominous apocalytpic whirls of sound!"

If we assume that artists "care" deeply, and listeners "care" in moderation, the question becomes whether critics should "care" like listeners (Tom's philosophy) or "care" somewhere in between. Given the preferability of Tom's results to a lot of other press, there's some empirical evidence of his approach's validity. But I do understand the other end.

If we assume that artists "care" deeply, and listeners "care" in moderation, the question becomes whether critics should "care" like listeners (Tom's philosophy) or "care" somewhere in between.

I don't agree with this division. The professionalism of music critics allows them to fall into the kind of trap that Anna describes. (Writing online must be a bit different, but I'm sure there are other motivations, e.g., recognition.) And I don't believe it's necessarily true that listeners care less than musicians and critics, although they may be less knowledgeable about the formal properties of a piece of music.

I don't think professionalism is the problem. It's the promotion of a certain mode of listening above all others. One doesn't see this as much with other types of criticism. I think it's cos with films and books and paintings, one can refer to specific elements in the work and relate them to one's responses. Music criticism is more subjective, as noted on the threads on formalism and the canon, for whatever reason. Because of the difficulty of grounding one's response in specific properties of the work, one makes up the difference with an excess of emotion. So then it seems that if one is to care about music as critics do, one can never listen to it while washing up. But what about musicians? Do they have favorite washing up music?

If music criticism is so subjective, why can't anyone be a critic? Passion is supposed to separate critics from casual listeners, but it's not enough. There are other reasons: they can create a world that corresponds to a piece of music, which may not be identical to the reader's but is convincing; they can make up threads like dave q's; etc.

Isn't it possible to get the sense that the writer cares about the impact on the reader. That is to say, if the reader can get the sense that the writer really cares about the writing itself, and if the writing is good enough, the sense of the writer being passionate should be sort of implicit.

I really liked the article actually, and it's funny because I remember when I was initially looking at Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs in the shop a year or so ago. And on the box there was a quote from some magazine "You'll think these songs were written about your life". So, being the impressionable young man that I am, I was totally sold by this. I mean, wow! Songs just for me!

None of them meant anything to me really and the album is now relegated to the dreary world of the known. But what a powerful review, if I'd read the whole thing would I even bother to think how well it was written before I got taken in by the "passion" of it? Would anyone? I don't know. Maybe now I know better.

Is this why u haven't written me back about Peaches, Tom? It's in EXACTLY the rabid breathless style you dis. Hrm. i R hoping that I am forgiven tho since it's about going to a live show, where, presumably, no washing up or bus waiting will be necessary.

I really like your piece. I wish I had a mobile phone just so I could put "One-Minute Man" on it.

No, Ive not got back to you about Peaches cos I'm a lazy bastard. Sorry!

why can't anyone be a critic?

because not everyone can write.

(he sez, awaiting the inevitable shitstorm.)

(the flipside of this is of course "does 'music journalism' even serve a purpose anymore, with the rise of blogs and especially forums like ilm where everyone -can- be a critic, even if they couldnt write a piece of sustained prose to save their lives? and is the era of forums and blogs ushering in a -new- type of music writing, that more personal and charming and idiosyncratic writing tom wants more of? i should say that ilm and the links on nylpm have given me more to think about, more laughs, more arguments than any music mag in the last year.)

I don't even read reviews anymore. Just blogs and webboards. Some of the writing I have most enjoyed has been right here. Also, Last Plane to Jakarta's Amnesiac segments, Tim Finney's blog, and Alex Honda's blog.

hurray for the under-20 blogger youth. Anyhow, I always thought a LOVE for music was some assumed state of affairs, not some frantic competition. Yes, music is constantly exciting to me, and yes, sometimes I think I go off of the romantic deep-end, but music's presence in my life is so static and consistent that it's almost mundane. Is the passion victim somebody who tries to convince themselves (and readers) that they know how to transcend this inevitable lifestyle-bound context? Can somebody link to some passion victim writing on the web?

Also... as somebody who makes music, I don't feel any different from anybody else. Why must I have some artists-only devotion to music that is beyond that of average listeners? No such thing exists. So I can understand technical aspects and the dynamics of personal creativity or whatever, but this doesn't grant me some high-horse position to love music better. Maybe I love music in some idiosyncratic ways because I relate to and sympathize with other artists in a certain way, but this doesn't mean I'm on some deeper plane.

I also don't think music should be granted inherent ways you're MEANT to hear it. I like critics suggesting/sharing (as opposed to dictating) how they hear it, but there isn't any right or wrong way. All music can be washing up music as far as I'm concerned.

plus the cartoon of him is ace

I still haven't even seen an issue! Somebody scan this up for me so I can laugh or cry accordingly!

because not everyone can write.

More accurately -- not everyone *wants* to write.

Counter(?)example being the Laughner piece Bangs quotes in his obit -- "I heard coney island baby and I went on a five day binge" etc. which is passionate and dangerous and superbly personal and of course we must recognize that he took it so seriously he drove himself to death though, which is maybe the other thing. But tremendous, really. Again, question of individual passion vs. social perforamce?

People who aren't 'passionate' (i.e., the 'average' listener who everybody here seemingly wants to take by the hand and understand) usually don't have anything else occupying their consciousness except TV or something. Come on, I know this, you know this, we all know this. (Too many music critics go overboard displaying their 'regular guy' credentials - when they're really trying to recast their adolescence, retouching the photograph to place themselves in with the REAL regular guys, who in reality, probably beat them up daily because they were nerds who listened to records all day long, instead of watching football or fag-bashing or whatever else the 12-CDers so beloved here were doing. Yet another syndrome exclusive to music crit - you don't see book critics from tough backgrounds rhapsodizing about "da guys from my hood would beat down dis faggot writer" etc. Maybe its because people who read alot are on average smarter than people who listen to music alot, and consequently are a bit more comfortable in themselves and don't need to keep reliving their adolescence, projecting themselves in a different role this time?) The way people here talk, the great musically illiterate mass is like a beleaguered, persecuted minority. Why? It's not like they would piss on YOU if you were on fire.

I was expecting a Dave Q reply along those lines - the thing is though I'm not talking about Joe 12-CD this time (who probably doesnt listen to music while waiting for the bus), I'm just saying that the music-is-my-life-man style doesnt even ring true for my 1200-CD life - it leads to a kind of stylistic inflation where everything has to be important and passionate and earthshaking.

I think most music writers like to valorise their adolescence, mostly by going on about how into music they were during it - I dont spot this regular-guy trend going on too much. Everyone I knew when I was an adolescent at least pretended to be really into music, usually Def Leppard and Pink Floyd.

The qn of should we care about what the 'average listener' listens to and how they listen to it is a separate one really - though v.interesting.

I have no problem with anyone who chooses to use music as background. If I catch myself doing that however (at home, I mean, when I've chosen to put something in the CD player) I feel like I've cheated myself of precious time.

You're right, Tom, that we could do with a bit less passion in some sections of the music press. What I like about ILM (and to a lesser extent FT) is the intelligent, yet dispassionate writing found in many threads.

Re ringtones (to 2001 what the lapel badge was to 1980 BTW?): I'm as likely as not to be in the "give the guy with the phone a smack" camp, but not so much because it's devaluing a record/song I like, rather because it's ignoring the sonic potential of the mobile phone - just one timbre (probably just a simple sine wave if you analysed it) and a handful of pitches. I heard a really strange ringtone on a train over Christmas. It wasn't even trying to play a tune but it sounded out-of-this-world, yet not irritating even after the third call came in. At least, it was far less irritating than a beeped take on "Can't Get You Out Of My Head".

journalists should have to listen to an album until they are bored with it before being allowed to do reviews.

Obvious problem with that scheme, every review would read: "This album is boring." ;)

Admittedly, "average listener" is a bit of a misnomer and I generally had in mind somebody representative of an ILM music fan rather than the 12 CD people. I think my perspective is a little distorted.

I agree with Tom (except for that bit that even mentions the 4 Minutes Pop Single, MAN! i haven't got TIME in my busy life for 4 minute singles), but i think the difference is... er... different. People who say "I LOVE Music me" are the same as people who say "I like Books" or "I like films", it actually translates as "I have no interests or personality, so will this do instead?"

Lots of us love, as Tom says, SOME music - i for instance love The Beatles (and LOVE is the correct word, i fear), but would not, COULD not, love ANYTHING that would include, say, The Stereophonics - but to Love Music in such a blanket way is to a) not understand it at all and b) be a lying show-off twat. To claim to do that "passionately" only makes it worse.

I sometimes do wonder how much people realise 'man this band are fucking brilliant and if you don't think so then you are dead' type attitudes turn people off. When I love a band I am very aware of how easily most people in the world will just dismiss my passion as the predictable ravings of a music obsessive boy (which of course, compared to most of you ILM nutters, I am not). So I try not to go on about how great they are ad nauseam because I know that's the way to close most people's ears. I secretly *am* an evangelist, but I try to be a bit more subtle about it. And sometimes that involves being overly critical or blasé about certain records in an attempt to prove that I am a discerning listener. It's a bit like not looking desperate when you try to get a girl.

From what I am hearing second-hand about Careless Talk Costs Lives, True et al. seem to be quite happy to alienate large parts of the population, perhaps on the grounds that they are '12 CD owning' know-nothings who see music as some kind of regular lifestyle component. And that bores me.

I still don't understand what 'passion' is and what it isn't. Even defensiveness is a form of 'passion', if that's how you channel your energy.

"sweary" is a great word.

To say that anything is 'passionate' is expanding the word too much. The specific writing I was responding to was enthusiasm used to big up the reviewer's credentials (I love this music so much I must be right), to divide (If you dont love this music as much as me you must not love music at all), and to sidestep (I love this music so much I don't have to say anything much about it because it defies analysis). All three of these are extremely tempting traps and I have fallen and will fall into all of them.

I'm not arguing in favour of 'dispassionate' or impersonal writing though.

(the flipside of this is of course "does 'music journalism' even serve a purpose anymore, with the rise of blogs and especially forums like ilm where everyone -can- be a critic, even if they couldnt write a piece of sustained prose to save their lives?

No. Blogs == zines. Forums == mailshots

"sustained prose" = mere artefact of econmoics of printing and available primitive tec back in the day

eg you couldn't get caxton to fire up his press just to print off a hundred thousand copies of the following: :P

I aktually like pieces of passionate prose which are more about the music as a springboard to the passion and the person, rather than the music in itself. Pieces which recognize and try to subvert the limits of subjectivity. I.e. jess stylee rather than goldberg styleee.

"So first you talk about how fuckin' much you love music, and how music made you shit your pants/sell your house/save your sorry life."

I thought this line was very funny. The LOL kind.

Good piece overall. At first, I had some problems with it, because I pictured the kind of music writing that goes in a mag like Wired and it seemed like the POV of the piece could be used to advocate for it (Wired treats music as just another accessory -- every record gets 25 words, etc.) but then I understood the real point of the thing. It's something I’ll think about when writing, that’s for sure.

Well, oddly enough, my copy arrived in the mail yesterday, and that is a rather bemusing illustration of me. ;-) And hey, Ally's quoted in an article! All is wonderful. :-) I will digest the contents and then say something...

I liked this piece for the most part. Coming at the passion-play writing style from a more broad, encompassing perspective. Obviously there's an implicit argument being made for the latter here, what with the "marriage" comments and all. The only thing that borrowed me was the last line - "And then, when you do say you love music it might actually mean something." This comment reads like a snippy tell-off, and it does everything to undermine one of the populist points being made before: as with many-levels-of-listening, so too with many-level-of-writing-and-responding. Favoring one shouldn't mean the other is meaningless or without value.

Yeah - I'm always bad at finishing articles. Mea culpa. But going back to the marriage/relationship thing I get the feeling some writers say "I love you*" to get the reader into bed, as it were. Hear it too often and you start to feel a bit cynical.

*where "you" = "music"

and, um, 'bothered' me ... I wasn't suggesting with 'borrowed' that Tom was copping my style ;)

The Bangs thread made me think of this article.

Five years on, hmmm...