you first "wow, the critics can be wrong" moment

First time I understood the value of my own opinion: Check Your Head - Beastie Boys. On the way back from Glastonbury, we sat through the A.M. outside Slam City skates in Manchester, waiting for it to arrive, then listened in isolation on the M62. It wasn't just a good day, I thought it was the best record I'd ever heard, so when I got the reviews it was a personal breakthrough. (Q- two stars. NME- dunno. MM- dissed it, badly) Now I know this is a bit of UK Journo shame so if anyone knows where these reviews are on-line, I'd enjoy reading them again.

Critic = not wrong. QED

Ned - Whatever, I'd like to read it.

PS Not that I like OCS. They're poo. But rich poo. PPS What confusion over Blade Runner? Deckard *is* a replicant (in the director's cut anyway)! It's all in the eyes...

I can't really pinpoint any specific moment, sadly.

But yes, there really were centralised tastemakers back in those antic days: when, I might add, it was often FUCKING HARD to find records if you didn't live in A BIG CITY. In 1977/78, I often had to walk two or three miles just to find an NME! (Besides, I was a pore teen w/no money: mostly I bought second-hand, when I didn't just look at the cover — he said, hitting the echt Bob Cratchit note).

So "wow" really was about falling out with apparent friends: or anyway having yr gurus turn round and slap you in the face. (Also: not unrelated — I wanted to BE a writer, not a consumer...)

... I only became a ruralpolitan out of generational luck ...

*most: please ignore the above*

If I'd been born twenty years earlier, my "moment" would have been reading Rolling Stone's pan of Pink Floyd's "Animals." It's bad enough that they indicted the album for not containing any saxophone solos -- they had to continue and deride the album for being "too depressing." Huh? This is _Pink Floyd_, for Allah's sake.

As for the original question... I guess my initial quarrel with critics was their initial bemusement and condescending tolerance of Collective Soul, followed by a campaign of critical jibe and insult that continues unabated to the present day. Funny thing is, I can now at least understand some of the Critics' complaints, but Collective Soul are one of those early love affairs that you just have to sticky by, come hell or high water. Anyway -- they may not be a trailblazing outfit, but their most clever appropriation of was from King Crimson's "Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part 1," a fact that critics will are too dim to ever realize.

This question doesn't really apply to me, actualy. Call it Ego, but I never _did_ think the critics were always right. For some reason, I always knew that my taste and opinion was the ultimate arbiter, and that if Kurt FRICKING Loader and friends agreed with me, more power to them.

P.S It may surprise you to learn, Mark, that I have not only heard _of_ Wigwam, I've actually heard them as well. Ironically, I was exposed to them by _downloading_ two of their mp3s. I still have them, somewhere, though those snoozing 0's and 1's haven't been stirred in months.

Love, Jeff

prolley my first encounter with Rubber Soul is the moment when I discovered that most people sucked at listening to rock music...(Cross-thread note: it's possible that I had gotten the impression of Rubber Soul as a great album from a library copy of the Rolling Stone Record Guide)

slow clap

Probably Spin Magazine's "yellow" review of Loveless (this was back when they had a three-color rating system, yellow signifying lukewarm/average).

My "wow, critics can be posturing douchebags" moment was the Village Voice review of Dire Straits Brothers in Arms, which, through flawless logic, proved the following:

1. In "Money for Nothing," Mark Knopfler uses the word "faggot."
2. In the same song, Sting sings the words "I want my MTV" to the tune of "Don't Stand So Close to Me."
3. Therefore, raging homophobes Knopfler and Sting are telling faggots not to come near them so they don't catch the AIDS.

xxp just messin around...obviously most people do not suck at listening to rock music...

Rubber Soul: still a steaming pile, though...

just messin around...

Rubber Soul: still a steaming pile -- of genius!!

not really

i'm not trying to be holier than anyone else HOOs if that's what you mean...

There's no massively specific "wow, the critics can be wrong" moment from the age of print for me... maybe only when the band Suede came out and there were a few articles so laughably naked and confident in their admittance that "this is what WE want from music (i.e. find dead easy to write about and dine out on etc), what this music is going to REPLACE is [insert ludicrous blanket dismissal of recent shoegazey/dancey/post-rockish music]..."

I was thinking, crikey, this is pretty desperate stuff!!!

I stopped buying the NME/MM shortly after. There had always been rants and axe-grinding, but it was pretty obvious it would soon be nothing BUT and that the trend was with them. And then the whole 90's Britpop culture backlash reeducation project proved me horribly right on that :/

I think the internet era has heavily exaggerated and enabled the tendency of some critics to project their own ideas and ideals onto some really mediocre music that seems to "fit" what they're after (but is actually a bit shit). But mostly they're shouting into the same void as everyone else so it doesn't seem quite as pernicious as it once did.

the tendency of some critics to project their own ideas and ideals onto some really mediocre music that seems to "fit" what they're after (but is actually a bit shit)

conscious of this for as long as I've been conscious of music criticism - oddly, first in genres in which I had little interest. I remember early 90s NME etc hip-hop coverage for a long time as being full of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Consolidated, 3rd Bass, when it was just obvious even to me that this wasn't what it was all about

I feel the opposite about Suede, by the way. It was totally clear that they were offering something no-one else was - songwriting, sass, not being ashamed to try - the critics who scoffed at them for this were another bloc who missed the point big time

Back in my old hometown, we had a movie critic named Christopher Potter who was resolutely and absolutely RONG about everything. He had a total hard-on for, like, third-rate animated films of the sub-Disney pedigree, and hated, well, everything good. I can remember him praising the shit out of the Gus Van Zant remake of Psycho as better than the original, and I know he liked Little Nicky…

I remember that he got into an argument with my dad in the men's locker room of the Y, claiming that he'd seen the original Dial M For Murder as 3-D, when it had only been rereleased as 3-D. Oh, and that it was Hitchcock's finest film.

So, I grew up with a recognition that critics could not only be wrong, they could be consistently and perversely wrong.

Then I became one briefly, and tried to first mitigate my own RONG tendencies (insufferable pronouncements of objective quality), then tried to embrace it because it was true to me, and ended up failing both ways. Woo, critics!

Don't know if there was a specific album, but it definitely coincided with the start of my neverending love affair with pop music. With film, this has happened a lot in recent years. With films like Alpha Dog, which was brilliant up until hte last twenty minutes. Or with pretty much every shitty documentary (most receive decent-to-great reviews).

Throughout the 80s, I found that critics were right more and more often. Then, in the 90s, I saw critics who liked hip-hop and dance, and I realized critics could still be wrong.

I didn't have a big moment about it, but I did read a live review of a band whose name sounded like they might be good in the L.A. Times around 1982 or '83. The reviewer thought they were unfocused and really not all that good, though he (she, maybe; could have been Kristine McKenna) conceded some energy, maybe a hint of possibility in the band. I thought: "Hmm, the other stuff I'd heard about them made them seem more interesting." A few months later, with money in my pocket from my first job, I found a cut-out of the Birthday Party's Junkyard, and bought it. It didn't give me a big eye-opening OMG moment but over the next few months they became my favorite band, and I thought: "JD You should have followed your instinct earlier, that Times critic just didn't really get it & was rendering his judgement based on a misunderstanding of the music."

Geir I wonder if you could expand a little more on your feelings about hip-hop and dance as you have not made them clear.

Geir I wonder if you could expand a little more on your feelings about hip-hop and dance as you have not made them clear.

Actually my feelings on dance have changed a bit since then. :) Dance music may be intelligent head music, and as such, it may be good.

When I was teen in the early 90s, electronic dance music was the main thing I listened to, and I remember some older rock critics complaining that "they don't even play real instruments!", or "they just press the button and the machines do the rest!", or "it's just the same monotonous beat again and again!", and so on, and I was like, fuck these old geezers, this is the music of the future.

I used to read that critic, too. Good old Joe Strawman! I wonder where he is now.

He's alive and well and writing for Drowned In Sound.

I hear he's into racism now.

To be honest though, these sort of critics did really exist. I still remember one review of a house album, where the critic said, "This sounds almost like real music".

I hear he's into racpopism now.

Heh, I remember an Orbital interview where they went to great lengths to refute joe strawman by showing that the inspiration actually did still come from humans - they'd done a drawing of a band with computers in place of guitarists and everything

That's kinda funny, because it seems Orbital themselves couldn't care less about Joe Strawman:

Pity: I'd like to rehear and reconsider now. But who's even heard of Wigwam lo these 20 years?

Proggers! I never managed to get into "Fairyland" myself though. Worst vocals ever, too.

Wigwam actually had a reunion a few years back, but I'm not sure if they're still together. I think they're quite respected among Finnish prog rock fans, because they were the first local band to record for a big international label.

I don't think I had this moment as specific to music critics. It was probably simultaneous with my first 'adults can be wrong about stuff' moments as a kid.

When I was teen in the early 90s, electronic dance music was the main thing I listened to, and I remember some older rock critics complaining that "they don't even play real instruments!", or "they just press the button and the machines do the rest!", or "it's just the same monotonous beat again and again!

Then again, they were partly right. But there were exceptions, actual intelligent crossover acts like Leftfield, Orb and Orbital, who managed to get a bit away from the monotonous beats and repetition and actually added something intelligent and listenable to the mix.

Say again?

OH YOU ALREADY DID

Looks like Joe Strawman simply emigrated to Norway.

tbh a lot of those critics were right. most dance music was really boring and generic. so is most ____ music.

But in the case of dance music, those who were into it tended to like the most boring and generic works, while it was those originally not into it who praised the much better crossover stuff.

in the case of ______ music, those who were into it tended to like the most boring and generic works...

Say again?

― Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Monday, April 27, 2009 9:18 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

OH YOU ALREADY DID

― Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Monday, April 27, 2009 9:18 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haaaahahaha Nick please mail me your bar tab tonight 'cause it's on me

I dunno, I've always found most of ____ to be pretty great, especially hard____ and ____rap.

(x-post)

Progressive ____ though, I can take it or leave it.

dance music writers had to praise generic stuff because it was mostly made for dancefloors where music needs to be kind of generic and the people buying the music were different (ie djs not so much 'general listeners'... though in the end everyone became a dj rite?)... different kind of writing than what 'rock crit' had become was required.

I have a hard time understanding middling feelings about a band as over-the-top as Birthday Party...hearing hints of potential. It's like "Overall, I didn't like Sarah Palin's speech, but I think she's got some good ideas here and there. And she sure has a lot of energy!" It sounds like the writer was trying too hard to hear what those who liked the band were hearing.

Yeah, seems either oblivious or overly cautious.

I don't think I've ever read a music review that I thought had any merit, especially when written by that shithead Robert Christgau or appearing in that fishwrap called Rolling Stone.

you tell 'em

So in other words you have no interest in music or are a challop chameleon xpost

now that it is printed on glossy stock and is quarto, perfect bound, it's a lot harder to wrap fish in it.

"So in other words you have no interest in music or are a challop chameleon xpost"

Uh no. And it's easier to wrap fish in it that read it.

Yea I should probably know better than to counter ridiculous hyperbole with ridiculous hyperbole.

"I remember that he got into an argument with my dad in the men's locker room of the Y, claiming that he'd seen the original Dial M For Murder as 3-D, when it had only been rereleased as 3-D. Oh, and that it was Hitchcock's finest film."

Where can I see this in 3D? (DIAL M FOR MURDER)

Not a big fan of criticism as a profession, but I kind of begrudgingly trust critics to know their own opinions about things in a more decided and articulate way than a casual enthusiast, Ebert praising the Garfield movies in the voice of Garfield notwithstanding.

If the argument is that they are elitist/undeserving cultural gatekeepers, then the internet has effectively removed those barriers to entry, so now we have... pitchfork

"Where can I see this in 3D? (DIAL M FOR MURDER)"

It was rereleased a few years back and did a theater stint. I don't know if it came out on DVD or anything as 3D.

Re: Dance "music"

Critics would have been well-served by dropping tabs of e and spending eight hours throbbing in some warehouse. It's the same as admitting that most psych was twee tripe that was only mitigated by massive doses of LSD.

Or you could always try to evaluate it in terms of what it's trying to do, you know, on its own merits. But that's not nearly as much fun.

I have a hard time understanding middling feelings about a band as over-the-top as Birthday Party...hearing hints of potential. It's like "Overall, I didn't like Sarah Palin's speech, but I think she's got some good ideas here and there. And she sure has a lot of energy!" It sounds like the writer was trying too hard to hear what those who liked the band were hearing.

when they toured the U.S. hardly anybody had ever heard of them though - I know their Danceteria show got decent turnout in NY but I don't think many people were there for the Palace show. My suspicion is that the reviewer thought "this singer guy has too much charisma to not go somewhere but this music is dour."

Rolling Stone Record Guide (blue edition) giving a "square" (no star) review to Bob Dylan at Budokon.

dunno if it was the first time, but I do remember being shocked that Rolling Stone had given Pavement's Wowee Zowee two stars ... took me a little while to realize that I loved that record.

What kind of 'tard doesn't like Trouble Funk?!

Also, I would be down to fistfight Geir over dance music and hiphop anytime.

^^^ take notice, ILM: this is a real man.

i think my first moment like this was when pitchfork gave nyc ghosts & flowers a 0.0. or maybe it was mark prindle not liking the velvets.

1982, The Who, It's Hard, five stars in Rolling Stone.

Weren't Wigwam on Eurovision about 5 or 6 years ago? Or am I going mental.

I was ready to say the Rolling Stone review of Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime, which I remembered as being insufficiently enthusiastic, but I just went back and read it, and it's a very good first take by David Fricke, and three and a half stars doesn't seem like the pittance I took it for. It deserved five, but whatev. Around the same time Maximum Rocknroll was meh-ing the Replacements, so that was my education in wrongness from both sides.

When I was 15, I wanted to buy Bjork's Debut, since I liked the singles that were then on the radio, but then I read the RS review, which gave it like 1.5 stars. Thought "man, I guess the rest of the album sucks" and didn't realize for another couple of years that the critic was probably just full of shit.