- Music
- 12 May 01
The privilege of being given space in a newspaper to pontificate on the events of the past year is afforded to very few people. As such it is a privilege. The same applies to rock criticism in general.
The privilege of being given space in a newspaper to pontificate on the events of the past year is afforded to very few people. As such it is a privilege. The same applies to rock criticism in general.
Let’s leave the free albums out of the equation. And let’s merely acknowledge in passing the fact that compared to the kind of work engaged in by 95% of humanity, being paid to review albums is like money for jam. What’s more fundamental is that for anyone who cares about music, who believes that it’s got some kind of real role in helping us come to grips with the world, (whether as art, entertainment, manifesto, aphrodisiac or spiritual sustenance), it is a privilege in itself to be afforded the opportunity to participate on the frontline of rock’n’roll (and allied musics), to be involved in shaping the thinking of musicians, in refining the understanding of audiences and in orchestrating, to even a small degree, the commercial and artistic dynamic between the different elements in the complex chemistry of modern music. It is galling in the context to see just how badly so many rock writers measure up to the reasonably implicit in that privilege.
A lot of what passes for rock criticism combines ignorance, ego and prejudice in a lethal dose of hollow opinionation, committed to the page for no purpose other than the low self-gratification involved in imagining that the effect may be to hurt, insult or otherwise discomfit the musicians or bands who are at the receiving end. As anyone with even a few months experience in journalism knows, vitriol comes easy. It’s far more difficult to be rigorous, consistent, self-critical – and to put the necessary time, effort and energy into understanding what’s going on musically, even in (especially in) a genre with which the critic lacks fundamental empathy. But that is what valid criticism is about: it involves reflection, insight and understanding before anything is ever committed to paper.
It’s positively laughable at times, the barrage of cliches used to abuse a band’s efforts, as themselves being cliched. It’s sad, the poorly written, badly structured woefully inept pieces in which musicians are dismissed as being inept! Eamon Dunphy isn’t the only Emperor parading around in a new set of clothes, fabricated out of an inflated sense of self-importance, and stitched together with a complete lack of logic, finesse and rigour.
How many times have you read that such and such an album shows everything else currently being committed to vinyl up for the ludicrous fodder that it is? How many times have you read that this, that or the other single stands head and shoulders above the saccharine morass of contemporary pop? How many times have you read that among the intellectual pygmies who pass for musicians nowadays, the only band who seem to understand the dynamic of the three minute single are – you name them. Or words to that general effect. Now, how many times have you rad these same things being repeated by the same, writer(s) about different albums, each new judgement as shallow and illformed as the previous, each new review as sloppily articulated.
It’s a cowardly critical play: this is ‘great’ but just so that you won’t think I’m a sucker, I want you to know that I think everything else is crap. The joke is that those who protest most loudly about the sorry state of rock/pop/whatever you’re showing your contempt for yourself, are often the very one who scribe a deluge of over-the-top, exaggeratedly positive reviews of the artifacts which, for whatever arbitrary reason, they happen to decide to like.
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The truth of course is that not everything is either brilliant or brutal. It is anything but a black and white world – rather the vast bulk of what’s released on record comes in differing shades of grey. So instead of reaching for the bag of cliches, striking up a superior pose and ranting about how godawful something is ad nauseum, the critic’s responsibility is to put the music in an aesthetic framework and to identify why its good, bad or indifferent within that framework. The journalistic problem is to produce critically worthwhile pieces which are entertaining as well as informative. But that’s where the real skill comes in. Anyone can get a cheap laugh out of rank abuse – but to make perceptive, informed balanced, critical writing entertaining is another thing entirely.
So rather than presuming to lecture the musicians of this country and the world on what they’ve been doing wrong in the context of that impressively diverse collection of fine albums and singles printed on the left (and that’s only for starters), it seems far more relevant to ask those critics who whinge on about how predictable and boring things have become, what in the name of Jaysus they’re talking about? True, there is no fad around which those in need of peer approval can effectively rally but the river is deep, the mountain is high and there’s a wealth of good music there for the finding.
If anything, the absence of tribalism and the posturing and hype that goes with it is a good thing. And if you spirit is too mean and your sensibility too narrow to encompass an appreciation of ‘artists’ as diverse as U2, Ry Cooder, Hue And Cry, M/A/R/R/S, De Danann, A House, Dwight Yoakam and George Michael, to take a random seven, than that’s your problem.
Ian Paisley has a way with words. He’s good at dishing out abuse. He is highly entertaining. Ian Paisley is a bigot.