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

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Mine (I think) was the Virgin double comp. of Wigwam (obscure yet lauded mid-70s Finnish 'krautrockers') which the young Penman and the not-so-young Angus Mackinnon totally rated. Unbelievably bland and nothing-y, I thought, and sold it almost immediately. (Also I hated the red-green combo of the just-revamped Virgin label: shallow, moi?)

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

mark s, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Difficult to pinpoint exactly which critic and what record. NME giving Metallica's '...And Justice For All' a score of 1 was a bit predictable and boring. And probably I had this moment far earlier but my classic moment remains: Reynolds on A.R.Kane (a band btw which can be used in many recent threads ;)

Omar, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The moment I started reading record-reviews. Uh no, I think it was the review of the Roches.

Stevie Nixed, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can still remember NME giving the second Deee-Lite album only 6/10. I never stopped believing. I even bought the third album.

JoB, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was still into rock when NME gave Jimmy Page's 'Outrider'album 9/10 - and bought it immediately - it was awful - have always borne a grudge since then - even kerrang were more critical !

Geordie rocka, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I got on ILM and discovered that there were intelligent people who prefer Britney Spears and Destiny's Child to Radiohead and "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

Dave M., Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Elvis Costello's impossibly dull Imperial Bedroom - # 1 on the Village Voice's critics poll for 1982.

Patrick, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I read reviews stating that Nirvana and Radiohead were any cop.

Ally, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What!?! Music critics can be wrong!?!?!?!

Tim Baier, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There could be many such moments, but I think the main one for me was realising just how fucking mediocre Oasis were.

Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

First time I understood they're wrong: reading a review of Blade Runner that debated the film on the aesthetics of Harrison's hair.

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.

K-reg, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wait, _Check Your Head_, from 1992? I may expose my own utter sadness here, but Simon Price wrote the review for that one for MM and he loved it. So they weren't all trashing it. ;-)

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Realizing the critics were wrong -- mm, probably when I went to UCLA and actually encountered music critics for the first time via the _LA Times_, _LA Weekly_ and _Rolling Stone_. From there unto perdition.

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not to derail my own thread, but: "a review of Blade Runner that debated the film on the aesthetics of Harrison's hair"

Critic = not wrong. QED

mark s, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I still like Oasis, even liked a couple of the songs on the last record (although only a couple). They're a fun little band. I think the moment at which I realized that critics can be wrong was when Spin had that load of toss Cornershop record as their #1, and I almost bought it. Then I snapped out of it and went back to listening to "My Big Mouth".

Dave M., Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mark s - Agreed, given that there is so much confusion surrounding B.R. now (the directors cut, the influence it now has, it's literary lineage and reputation) there is little else that we can safely talk about. But I feel that a review in 81 that discusses how good his hair looks without noticing the implications this has on a film, where the protagonist may or may not be artificial, still falls short for me. (token-emoticon-symbol)

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

K-reg, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'll dig it up when I can. Then get a scanner...

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What do you mean, "wrong"? I'd much rather hear examples of how critics made arguments based on false/ignorant premises than simply cases where opinions differed, which seems to be the case with most of the responses here.

charlie va, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, most of the reviews I've ever read have stated completely erroneous facts, from who the writer of a song was to something as easy as what tracks were on a release of an album (hello, Simon Price). I don't have loads of examples of it to list though, because it's not something I memorize. It's merely something that I realized years and years ago and it eventually turned me off of reading reviews at all.

Ally, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mark s. - my mate Fidge saw predator before me and summed it up thus - 'the aliens got dreads and arnie's a ginga called Dutch who smokes a big cigar ! '

Geordie Racer, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The NME's "We are the best, everyone listens to us, we dictate the styles and fashions of the future" line, their slating of Ocean Colour Scene and the continued success of said band. Conclusion: NME (and possibly all crtics) IS IRRELEVANT

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...

DG, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We had shitty ass critics in my hometown, and I never trusted them. But then I hardly ever overlapped with what they wrote about, so I didn't care. However, some asshole wrote a review of Built To Spill's "Perfect From Now On" which was amazingly offbase and that really turned me off. I used to trust CMJ, but then after the fourth issue I read, I decided they liked too much stuff. Then I liked Puncture for a while, but after the third issue I bought, I decided they reviewed too much stuff. It couldn't all have been, as per their mission statement, "music that matters".

Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Probably the first time I ever really took notice of music criticism as a thing that one could care about was in reading Stereo Review, whose reviews (when they were of records I had even heard of, at that age) pretty regularly incensed me. Things did not improve as I read more music criticism.

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

Josh, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

does this question presume a one-time belief that critics were infallible? it does seem like a strange presumption.

sundar subramanian, Friday, 11 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Fair point: but I think I probably did my usual head-shuffle with writers I thought were rubbish (i.e. failed to toe some arcane intra- punk line I'd made up myself): "These fellows? They are not worth the name 'critic'... Ha!" (I was a bigger twit then even than now — I think...)

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...)

mark s, Friday, 11 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark: your recent postings (esp. the above) define the *true* meaning of the much-abused term "foreign land", and it isn't that far away, but it's nothing I feel I can reach (i.e. it's only about two or three years before I was born, but seems indescribably distant). Hague answers Hitchens but offers a nightmare of the future in response to a not-inaccurate description of the past.

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

*most: please ignore the above*

Robin Carmody, Friday, 11 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the term 'ruralpolitan' is so post- modernist depressing it should be the title of a beck song or something.

ethan, Friday, 11 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey Ethan, don't blame me. Now, who was it in the Blue Posts again? Magnus or K-reg?

Robin Carmody, Friday, 11 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

While we're off-topic, the term "countrypolitan" gets thrown around in the U.S. quite a bit to describe the upscale nashville overproduced schmaltz sound.

Sterling Clover, Friday, 11 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Countrypolitan" was a term I took away from Dave Marsh's 1001 Singles book - he seemed to use it to describe all the country records I thought I might actually like, and so when I listen to say Glenn Campbell now that word springs to mind.

Tom, Friday, 11 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I'm not mistaken, countrypolitan is the lush, muzakish, un-twangy sound that country developed in the late 50s/early 60s partly as a reaction to rock and roll. It pretty much dominated the 60s as far as country sales went. Think Jim Reeves. I'm not sure Glenn Campbell would fit in there - not enough choirs and strings and stuff on his records.

Patrick, Saturday, 12 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...
Has anyone ever had a "Wow, the critics can be right" moment?

the pinefox, Saturday, 7 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Has anyone ever had a "Wow, the critics can be right" moment?

that would have to be simon reynolds energy flash. breakbeat/oldskool hardcore (i never like the term 'ardkore) getting praise in print (even 5 years after the fact) was a novelty.

gareth, Saturday, 7 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my first "wow, the critics can be wrong" moment: Go-Go. The reviews sounded great pulsating party music, big bass, african rhythmes, Jazz, Funk, Soul influences...then I heard the much touted Trouble Funk.

stevo, Sunday, 8 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

When I 1st heard the Saints. Paul Morley (a genius, no doubt) had recently sneered "Angry young men! Feel the power of their revolution!" in a review of "Prehistoric Sounds".
Wigwam - Mark, you were probably right (few years since I heard 'em tho)

duane, Monday, 9 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I saw a terrible review of Bitches Brew (Miles Davis) in a copy of Stereo Review or some similar magazine. They gave it a 4 out of 10 for performance, and a 0 out of 10 for sound quality, describing it as a "murky, incoherent stew" (or something along those lines). Clearly, they did not Get It!

Phil, Monday, 9 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe it was a review pre-remaster? ;)

Josh, Monday, 9 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two months pass...
As it is, I grew to strapping manhood in Rolling Stones' "post-whitewash" era, in which their big-selling targets of bile have been upgraded to classic status.

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.

Jack Redelfs, Wednesday, 26 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mouldy Peaches - but really it's one of many moments.

doomie, Wednesday, 26 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It has to be when I discovered the illicit pleasures of Sarah Records. The fact that so many music critics despised them at the time with such outrageous zeal embued the label in my eyes with a deliciously illicit appeal, akin to the attraction an "18" certificate film holds to a 10 year old. Aversion therapy?

Dickon, Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...
When I realized all music reviewers pre-wrote glowing reviews of anything Beck, Radiohead, or Ani DiFranco put out when they had only a track listing to go by.

Love, Jeff

Jeff Guidry, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

According to the critics Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is/was a milestone album. I bought it, listened to it and lost my faith in the critics. Never got into it though I would not say it is bad. But boring it is. So flat.

alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

seven years pass...

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)

art-ghetto superstar (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 25 April 2009 18:16 (sixteen years ago)

slow clap

Matos W.K., Saturday, 25 April 2009 22:12 (sixteen years ago)

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

SORCEROUSES..roll on stage! (Pillbox), Saturday, 25 April 2009 22:48 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Hideous Lump, Saturday, 25 April 2009 23:51 (sixteen years ago)

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

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

art-ghetto superstar (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, 26 April 2009 00:54 (sixteen years ago)

just messin around...

Vaclav Havel mostly. (Matt P), Sunday, 26 April 2009 00:55 (sixteen years ago)

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

tylerw, Sunday, 26 April 2009 00:57 (sixteen years ago)

not really

art-ghetto superstar (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, 26 April 2009 00:58 (sixteen years ago)

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.

fandango, Sunday, 26 April 2009 09:43 (sixteen years ago)

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

Ismael Klata, Sunday, 26 April 2009 10:31 (sixteen years ago)

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!

THESE ARE MY FEELINGS! FEEL MY FEELINGS! (I eat cannibals), Sunday, 26 April 2009 19:02 (sixteen years ago)

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).

Someone Still Loves You Evan and Jaron (Tape Store), Sunday, 26 April 2009 19:13 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Geir Hongro, Monday, 27 April 2009 11:42 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter (J0hn D.), Monday, 27 April 2009 11:51 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Geir Hongro, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:11 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:13 (sixteen years ago)

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

Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter (J0hn D.), Monday, 27 April 2009 12:18 (sixteen years ago)

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

Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 27 April 2009 12:22 (sixteen years ago)

I hear he's into racism now.

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:24 (sixteen years ago)

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".

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:25 (sixteen years ago)

I hear he's into racpopism now.

m coleman, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:25 (sixteen years ago)

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

Ismael Klata, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:47 (sixteen years ago)

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

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:52 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Øystein, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:52 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 12:57 (sixteen years ago)

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.

invitation to rabies (╓abies), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:04 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Geir Hongro, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:15 (sixteen years ago)

Say again?

Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:18 (sixteen years ago)

OH YOU ALREADY DID

Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:18 (sixteen years ago)

Looks like Joe Strawman simply emigrated to Norway.

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:19 (sixteen years ago)

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

FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:22 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Geir Hongro, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:23 (sixteen years ago)

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

invitation to rabies (╓abies), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:25 (sixteen years ago)

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

Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter (J0hn D.), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:26 (sixteen years ago)

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

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:29 (sixteen years ago)

(x-post)

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

Tuomas, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:29 (sixteen years ago)

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.

FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:31 (sixteen years ago)

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.

bendy, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:32 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah, seems either oblivious or overly cautious.

invitation to rabies (╓abies), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:36 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Bill Magill, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:38 (sixteen years ago)

you tell 'em

Unknown Artist (G00blar), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:41 (sixteen years ago)

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

invitation to rabies (╓abies), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:42 (sixteen years ago)

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

bendy, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:43 (sixteen years ago)

"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.

Bill Magill, Monday, 27 April 2009 13:46 (sixteen years ago)

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

invitation to rabies (╓abies), Monday, 27 April 2009 13:50 (sixteen years ago)

"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

Philip Nunez, Monday, 27 April 2009 18:53 (sixteen years ago)

"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.

THESE ARE MY FEELINGS! FEEL MY FEELINGS! (I eat cannibals), Monday, 27 April 2009 20:24 (sixteen years ago)

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.

THESE ARE MY FEELINGS! FEEL MY FEELINGS! (I eat cannibals), Monday, 27 April 2009 20:28 (sixteen years ago)

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."

Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter (J0hn D.), Monday, 27 April 2009 20:30 (sixteen years ago)

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

thirdalternative, Monday, 27 April 2009 22:41 (sixteen years ago)

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.

tylerw, Monday, 27 April 2009 22:43 (sixteen years ago)

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

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

pipecock, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 01:37 (sixteen years ago)

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

ian, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 02:09 (sixteen years ago)

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.

ian, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 02:19 (sixteen years ago)

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

dad a, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 02:26 (sixteen years ago)

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

one art, please (Trayce), Tuesday, 28 April 2009 03:09 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 28 April 2009 03:14 (sixteen years ago)

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.

Bianca Jagger (jaymc), Tuesday, 28 April 2009 03:41 (sixteen years ago)


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