People who say if you can't play, then you shouldn't criticize

If you've never been a politician, then shut your mouth about the President. You traitor.

If you've never been on patrol as a policeman, stfu with you criticisms of the cops. What, are you a friend of criminals?

If you've never been on TV, stfu with your stupid whining about MTV's live coverage of Live8. What, you don't like commercials and cutaways? Do you know how to operate a control room fader? I thought not.

In fact, shutting up is the best practice unless you're the world's expert on everything. It makes for a calmer society. I bet you support trouble and strife, perhaps you are a traitor, a criminal, a radical Muslim, a socialist/liberal, a kook or an [embittered fill-in-the-blank.]

ENDENDENDENDENDENDTILT!

It also implies that art is all about impressing the lower life forms with your ASTONISHING AND INCREDIBLE SKILLZES. Pretty lame.

1) If they're putting it out into the public arena, anyone, even a deaf and blind mute can criticize it. Only, in that case, prolly only in very sloppy handwriting.
2) Who is to say that, while untapped and untrained, the person criticizing has more natural talent than Mozart? It could happen...
3) So long as you are able to articulate your problems with said music, then your opinion is unassailable. Its your OPINION.
4) I would be much more likely to listen to Kenny G if it were called "Smoove Jazz."

Not it musn't. People are stupid. Sales mean nothing. And having technical "chops" doesn't always equate with having style or discernible "talent".

I can't play sax at all, let alone "as well' as Kenny G., but my ears work, and I can discern that what he does with the instrument is offensive to them, despite the fact that I cannot replicate those same sounds myself (which I wouldn't want to anyway, so nyah!)

He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there...

fucking classic there.

If anyone questions my take on a record, I just whip out my Strat and say, "Oh yeah! Check this out! "bleeddededededededililyilyilylilybledillybledillydillydillydillydleeeeee!" Now, who says that the new Mountain Goats is a let down? Yeah, bitchez, I thought so!"

This is especially popular among Morrissey and Michael Jackson fans, and I suppose most of the other Hardcore Defensive Mong type fanbases, often in an "x has sold more records than you and is thus better than you, how dare you criticise him/what do you know about music if you have sold no records/etc" way.

I've been meaning to make some tossed off home-made EP and make everybody I know buy it for five pence so I can say "ah, but I have sold THIRTY-SEVEN RECORDS - as such you are even lower in the musicianknowledge pecking order than me and must DEFER".

"My chops are fucking insane so I don't worry about it."
-- Mark (r-...), July 11th, 2005 5:48 PM. (later)

Are those chops pork or lamb 'though Mark?

Can you imagine going to a restaurant and getting a crappy meal only to be told, "Can you cook better than the chef? THEN SHUT UP!!"

I've had to say that once. I was very drunk. And the "funk rock" dudes I was telling this to were already in the middle of a fight with other guys at some U-district party I DJed at a few years ago... so I don't think they heard me.

I've had this exact argument (as in with Yngwie and Kurt being the representative examples) with my brother before.

heh, "lately."

I think you'll find we've already discussed this phenomenon on this other thread.

obviously anyone who repeats the thread title verbatim is a bit silly, but there is another side to it. the whole 'it's my opinion' thing is fine, but i would rather read critics with some musicological knowledge than another ptichfork style, it's-my-opinion-and-by-the-way-look-at-me-i'm-charles-bukowski type dude

"Come in handy" potentially yes; but I certainly don't think it's necessary to be able to appreciate the difference in the technical abilities of (to use an example that's already been used on this thread) "Kurt Cobain guitar playing versus Yngwie Malmsteen guitar playing".

The (potential) problem with journalists who have aspirations to become musicians however, is that they tend to develop a tendency either to glorify the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen simply because it's difficult to play and not because it's actually any good; or to dismiss the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen because (subconsciously?) by questioning the validity of achieving such a level of virtuosity, they believe they can somehow justify their own personal failure to have done so.

I suppose that pop music lives or dies by its instant appeal. you can't expect people to defer judgement until they learn the musical logic behind it, they will judge it straight away, which is very democratic and totally cool. But when this attitude becomes all pervasive, applied to all music, even all culture, i think that people start to miss stuff, and their opinions become less worthwhile or interesting.

i just mean that people shouldn't be *proud* that they know nothing about musical techniques or theories.

Unsurprisingly I think this is completely OTM. I also think Kenny G is horrible.

-- Stormy Davis (electrifyingmoj...), March 14th, 2005.

I think the idea of classically trained musicians operating within a pop context is fascinating, though, do they actually throw in stuff that only another music student would recognize or appreciate?

Bacharach's stuff seems like basic-sounding great pop, but I'm sure there's weirdness in there.

But at the same time, there's nothing more annoying than critics attempt to describe music in technical terms, and fail at it.

The most famous one is the misuse of the term feedback.