Explain why we should pay attention to Simon Reynolds

And can I say I'm getting more than a little sick of him getting slagged off on this board. Find better targets or write better than him. At the moment you people are doing neither.

Tim's point on the other thread that SR is listening to a lot of current material through his own particular aesthetic scheme, possibly to his detriment, is a noteworthy one, though, and one which I'd be interested in hearing his response to. At the same time, however, our own schemes are potentially equally limiting to us all.

I disagree.

honest (especially re. changing his mind about things)

I'm not sure this quality makes him worthwhile, I am honest about changing my mind all the time. Indeed I just commented that I liked some of the Unfaves article (though that was from very low expectations). I am not a particularly interesting writer either.

and a bloody good writer.

I disagree. His post punk piece was terrible, the comment 'half unified field theory' above is spot on, his attempts at tying post- punk together were demostratably wrong with his poor coverage and chronological confusion. His writing in this months Uncut was cliche ridden drivel that I found detestable.

And you are all dying to be him.

I disagree. Is this the 'you're just jealous' rebuttal?

And can I say I'm getting more than a little sick of him getting slagged off on this board.

Yeah, lets all agree that people must praise him uncritically and call people who disagree 'idiots'. Lets do that for everybody and everything.

Find better targets or write better than him. At the moment you people are doing neither.

"You people"? As far as I am aware the vast majority of the people here like him, even if they offer very vague reasons why his writing is 'good'. It seems a similar thing to the internal debate Tom has in his recent Steps vs Ryan Adams article. If you like reading Reynolds, thats OK with me, but there is something very worrying about the need to make him above critisism.

I'm overreacting. It's just that I could use the excitement of a fight, at the moment.

I do think Marcello's respons is ridiculous. Given the sorts of questions that are regularly asked here, why is it so unthinkable to ask what it is that people find so wonderful about Simon Reynolds? I don't get it either. (I plead guilty to not having waded through any of Reynold's books, though I have read an article here and there, possibly more often than I remember.)

I think we could all do with some toning down of the rhetoric here.

Would you prefer if I called you the "Rhizomatic Reich"?

It isn't mindblowing for me except that it's so right, and so few things ARE right on dance music, especially things which aspire to place the music in a socio-historic context.

Anyway, I don't actively *dislike* Reynolds, I just don't see what the fuss is about. The last Reynolds thread basically devolved into a discussiong of whether it's legitimate for him to drop simplified pomo-isms into his writing. That issue doesn't interest me at all, mainly because he's just one of an huge group of culture critics who do that, cf. Marcus, Meltzer ("Aestethics of Rock," anyone?), Christigau, etc.

I'm far more interested in specifically exploring *why* some people gravitate so strongly to him. I suspect there's a bit of US / UK schism here, and as Ned points out, I think it also has to do with one's interest vel non in the bands he writes about. My attitude towards SR is actually pretty much the same as my attitude towards MBV (heresy!). However, so many people whose tastes I respect champion SR and MBV that I can only help but worry that I might be missing something in both cases. Anyway, that's what I was hoping this thread would help me figure out.

Rhizomatic Reich

Woohoo!

Maybe because this is the third or fourth thread on Simon Reynolds that's basically out to slag him? It's becoming almost as boring a subject as V.U. bootlegs. He's the pope here, he wrote some stuff a while ago that changed a lot of people's perception of music (writing). What a dreadful thing to do.

But even if I give him credit for this, its no reason to not be critical of each item he writes. What Ned said is OTM about Dylan further up the page, even if I don't agree with Reynolds on Dylan, I'm not saying recent Dylan is beyond reproach because he was doing some good stuff 30-40 years ago.

What seems to be polarising in this discussion is about applying critical thought to critics. I find it a very curious distinction, even if it does seem to be a very common phenomenon.

I'm not a critic, or even an aspiring critic, I'm a consumer of critisism, and as such I enjoy exploring the worth of critics. What a critic actually does after all is pass judgement on other people. It seems strange that many critics are very defensive about milder comments than they routinely dish out.

Having a conversation isn't the same as giving a speech.

I think SR's attitude is why you do or don't like him though, he's got this commited outsider viewpoint where he doesn't appreciate the pleasure of vicariousness people get from a lot of music culture, eg his dismissals of Dylan & NY rock, where a part of the appeal is that hearing the music helps you feel/become as cool and wise as Dylan, or get the killer social life options of The Strokes. It's by ignoring this that he gets his most appreciated quality: for many people (me included), SR has pointed out more interesting and/or enjoyable music than anyone else.

(I also think his writing flows superbly and he's got a great way of describing the sound of records.)

Ned's right about Alicia Keys. I even read a unashamedly pop- centric article the other day discussing the current "long-desired" return to artists who write their own songs, have a message and whom pay homage to musical traditions (Alicia Keys = most pernicious influence on contemporary pop?). What stands to be one of the most interesting aspects of Reynolds' writing in the next year or so is how he negotiates his championing of a post- punk revival/incipient nostalgia while simultaenously avoiding such pitfalls; I'm sure he will because he's so violently against them, but he's going to have to work extra hard.

I will say that I find it interesting that a thread about a music critic gets people more irate than the vast majority of the threads about music. That's one of the reasons I asked the question in the first place, actually--not to stir people up, but to find out why people are so passionate about SR. As I stated earlier, it makes me wonder if I'm missing something.

What I find interesting is the different ways the SR debate is perceived. Detractors see a sacred cow protected by an ever-touchy ILM mafia. Defenders can point to the fact - as far as I can remember it's a fact - that every thread started about SR which isn't a direct response to a piece he's written has been either hostile or baffled. Who's right? Both, probably.

Look, I'm a musiccrit FAN. I own lots of musiccrit anthologies. I read the shit all the time, for FUN. I like looking for ideas in musiccrit. My trouble is, I can't find anything cohesive is SR, and I want to know what I'm missing, if anything.

Look, I may disagree with Greil Marcus (to take a rather obvious example), but I can always figure out what he's on about --"Lipstick Traces" is attempt to identify a thread of negation running throughout the subcultures of the twentieth century, and it's interesting on that basis. I may think he's unsuccessful, or get upset because he dismisses some subcultures and valorizes others, but I can see what he's getting at.

I had hoped that responses on this thread would help me 'get' SR in a simlar way, because everything I've read seems to be bascially contradictory, and not in a Lester Bangs look-how-stupid-I-was-before sort of way. Ergo, I don't get it, but I'm apparently missing something, since so many other people *do* get it. If you're not interested in helping me out, fine. But don't ascribe to me motives I don't have, because you've got no idea what you're talking about.

(more later, I'm at work)

His piece (in the archive now) on 2-step and "feminine pressure" exemplifies everything I admire about his critical method. His piece on "B-boys on E" is short but enormously influential & at the time prescient.

On material I know very well I find his opinions just plain wrong (the Post Punk article in particular), on stuff that is less my forte (the Streets turn me off big time, I keep thinking 'Parklife') he offers no insight that allows a re-evaluation - all that stuff in the review about people too poor to go clubbing needing garage - huh? And saying 'YooKay' rather than 'UK' is just unforgivable no matter what level of irony is intended. I can't even work out how much irony there is in the Streets review with all that kids on the street speak... I don't cope with irony well though.

The folks here praising him are even more puzzling, I respect these peoples opinions and enjoy their writing - well some of these people anyway- yet I don't agree with their own self-assesment of why they like Reynolds.

I'm well aware of how absurd that statement sounds, and also that the reason I make it is that I am missing something. Thats why I keep banging on about him, like the way you keep prodding a loose tooth with your tongue.

Several of the threads have mentioned his ability to change an opinion, where can I find it in the Streets article? How do I engage with that article? How do I engage with the post punk article come to think of it?

Several folks also mentioned his ability to spot a winner, to turn folks onto something that is being overlooked. Where is that? What has he found for us lately?

I'm trying to think of what the things by him that I like have in common, in the unfaves I liked the discussion of Magpie Eyes, I liked the 'In their own write' bit and I liked the bit about Paulo Hewitt - They are all things where I had ALREADY formed an opinion, even if I hadn't examined it enough to determine why I had that opinion and Reynolds writing let me understand my own opinion more.

Thats intersting too, I didn't agree with his problems with In their own write, but I did agree the book had serious problems. I don't think I agree with his problem with Paulo Hewitt either though we probably have the the same low opinion of Hewitt (there is a great bit in 'In Their Own Write' come to think of it when Hewitt talks about 'folks like me and Stuart Cosgrove' neither Hewitt or the ITOW author seemed to have any awareness that this is akin to me saying 'folks like me and Smokey Robinson' ...

Could that be it though? Reynolds' writing feels right (as in good, not correct) when you agree with him? And I just dont agree with him all that much?

However, before I started "Generation Ecstacy" I tried to read "The Sex Revolts"--BIG mistake. I couldn't even finish Part I because I found it to be so astonishingly stupid. It was all too clearly a case where the writer[s] is forcing the text to support the theory. The idea that pop-rock is "anti-momist" at its core is almost laughable, and to not even mention a counter-discourse (psychoanalysis)that seems far more suited to the evidence cited seems almost dishonest.