Why are music critics afraid of writing about love?

(asked after realizing tonite after my last blog entry - possibly my last blog entry in a true sense - that everything i write (at least in the last two years) has related in some way or another to the love of another person.)

But mainly I wanted the question to focus even on why writers are so loath to deal with songs all about love by talking about love. Or more broadly, treat music made for and used for relating to people as though it were for itself. Somewhere the notion of artistic "expression" went out the window and audience "reception" didn't enter back in and people just think about the market instead, like a bad parody of Adorno who at least saw people stultified by culture.

Eddy solves this, sometimes, by favoring writers often who can write about themselves (and he does too, though he denies it). And when he does the rockboys (dirty funk boys?) jump on them for who they are or even who they were. I don't know if this is an insoluble crisis or if the only answer is to be deeply dippy about everything and turn into a feh - hippie or emo kid.

That said, I really like reviews that function like big analogies - if they can get you to read a description of a place or something else in their head, and then if they tie it together in a way that makes me want to go listen to the song, I'm happy. So why love songs? Why wouldn't writing about any kind of song- as long as you feel that the reviewer has actually heard what they're writing about & can pass that along to you- be just the same?

That said, I am loathe to chime in with my usual bullshit since I am scared at what some of the people on here might come up with.

What the hell...

Love, as a tangible and intangible concept is easilly the most vital aspect to human existence. A cliche? Yes, but then also no, as well as yes again - as anyone who has been in love would realise. Love, in all its myriad forms, incarnations and degrees is not something to run from, airbrush or skip over - it should be celebrated, endorsed and embraced.

Music critics may be lumped with the rest of western civilisation when it comes to skirting the issue of discussing and investigating the issue of love. Why? Beacause we can no longer see past surface perhaps, or are deluged by the facile - we fetishise the mundane - the issue of 'cool' too is of note; love aint cool, cool is about detachment and love is about drowning I guess... This one could run and run man.

"Why do critics write about the music itself and not the reason we need it, or what it tells us we need?"

Don't want to get sidetracked here Sterling so sticking to the issue of love, well, it's a minefield huh. I'm coming across like an idiot right now because of what I'm saying here, and yet I believe that love and human understanding of love is intrinsic to us all.

I think I'll shut up now and see what the rest of yer say - but thank you Sterling.

In contrast to that, I've been in a great relationship for two years and I can't think of a single song which i associate with my boyfriend for anything other than coincidental reasons or because he likes/dislikes it. I know that's not what you're asking for Sterling, but since being in a relationship obviates the need stuff like the article I linked to, it leaves little to inspire me.

Ha ha Sterling anyway if you want more writing about love why don't *you* do it you lazy fuck. ;-)

i. it is a band = it is a polyamorous gang-bang
ii. julia lennon (or equiv): also know as "who is the bez in yr marriage?"
iii. l.reed hearts j.cale (and similar IN EVERY COLLECTIVE)
iv. star: "i fucked the audience they were gagging for it" => audience: "star is so tripping the gagging was directed quite crosswise to that so ner"
vi. "i love everything so why do i hate [insert trivial nodepoint of flaring disagreement]
vii. "we don't talk any more"

i think roger is otm here

for me, *real* love in all forms (the impact, the glories, the loss) results in a disarming of defences, a loss of overly-fetishized 'perspective' or (worse) 'critical distance'. when i am at my worst (or best) in love, i rarely have the words, and when i do, i have a stifling fear that they are too overwhelmingly facile or compromised to carry any real weight or value

perhaps i'm just a glutton for punishment, but i've been meaning to start a thread DEFENDING my love for the new coldplay rekkid (*ducks*) on these very terms. i've gone through some heavy shit over the past few months, and during that time, the only thing that my muddled and dumbstruck heart wanted to hear were chris martin's dumbstruck idiosms (ie: "the truth is, i miss you", "come back and sing to me" etc) because THATS HOW *I* FELT.

felt. (see? distance = perspective = i know its wrong but it felt so right!)

I'd welcome those sort of reviews as I haven't seen any like that for a long time (though I can't remember seeing a review like that right now but I'm sure I've seen one).

The reason it doesn't happen is that it would be viewed as 'self-indulgent' to talk about it. Either that or they lack the imagination to do this in an interesting way.

Dealing with emotions is difficult in this cold world. Its far easier to talk about how recs fit in the scheme of things (scenes, new trends, more business like things like that).

However, I do think that not enough of these kinds of pieces are writen for music rags. Perhaps there is a stigma of being a "fanboy" if you write from the point of view of acceptance first, analysis later.

I actually was typing something for this hours ago, then flicked over to check the links Sterling had put in his question - when I came back all my bastardin text had disappeared. I took that as an Omen.
Then mark s's list appeared and I got one of me usual headaches.

My Victorian Dad Opinion : Our Culture is already obsessed with the representation, articulation and encouragement of Love, to an extent and in a manner that has made the expression and maybe even the experience of it somehow feel inevitably compromised and devalued. (I even find it difficult to avoid putting the word in inverted commas in this thread.)
Part of me agrees with Sterling - I read the Moby review he linked to and it seemed strangely empty, one step away from an 'it's about so much more than the music' attitude leading to 'I can't buy this album because the guy is bald'. But another part of me is absolutely fucking sick of the (seemingly inevitable) clichés used to express romantic idealised notions of what Love is 'supposed' to be like, and the emotional puritanism of 'one true love' that we get sprayed with every other day.
So I'd quite like a rest from the whole Love business (ha) - and probably the last thing I want to see at the moment is the language of Love starting to crop up in Music reviews.
(mark s I have vague bad memories once again of circa '81 NME-Morley writing about music in just this way, a way that Sterling might have liked, but which I found infuriating)

But maybe my attitude is just a result of exposure to too much crap culture and not enough proper clever and sensitive stuff - that's another thread, right? - or too narrow a focus, derived from inadequate personal experience (no kids). I don't know.

''Perverts.''

ned- This is nothing to do w/me. it really isn't.

The readers are looking to be entertained and informed. If that includes some naval gazing from the writer fine, but lets not lose sight of the fact that it is not that important in the grand scheme of things.

More contempt for the reader is what I ask for. Writers that get the letter boxes of mags and papers overflowing.

Often, whatever the motivation, reviews are too pithy and neutral to really matter.

Take one of last coupla Yo la Tengo albums, for instance. Nevermind if you liked them or not. They are obviously about love, and yet the reviews mention this almost in passing, i.e. "beautifully describes the ups and downs" or something. But you see, that's because they're reviews.

I think a distinction can and should be drawn between record reviews and music writing. There's no place for a description of love in a review, as any such description is bound to get personal, if not downright purple. So the record is about love, okay, but you know about love. You've been in love. And your opinion of what such and such lyric or melody means is going to be based on your subjective experience of your own love. And... whatever. I could write 10,000 words about And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, but they would all be relative to me and only me, and at that point, it's not a record review anymore.

Then there are those unafraid to be a little purple if necessary, and they do not write record reviews, and maybe they even know that. Even then it's a huge risk, because when love is the subject at hand, even the finest prose can barely scratch the surface of it. And there's no such thing anymore as "music poetry." (Go ahead... tell me there should be.)