Alex Ross - Bring the Noise
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Tonight I went to a roundtable discussion involving John Rockwell, former New York Times music critic; Alex Ross, current New Yorker classical music critic; and Linda Ronstadt, who needs no introduction. The mean age of the audience was at least 40. It was like "Inside the Actors Studio," but for music, and marginally less patronizing.
All three commentators were enlightening, but I went to see Ross. Recently, he's become my main writing influence. Most of my work in the past two months is an obvious and pale shadow of his. His clarity, economy, and insight will always be touchstones for me.
Public Enemy - Bring the NoisePublic Enemy - Bring the Noise (w/ Anthrax)
Yesterday, Ross' new book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, came out. I bought a copy and did the "fanboy queueing for an autograph" thing. Actually, I was the queue, as everyone else lined up for Ronstadt. There's nothing like droves of elderly people earnestly and slowly buying Linda Ronstadt CD's.
Astoundingly, and unprovoked, Ross signed my book with "Bring the noise!" During the whole discussion, I had been struck by how much Ross resembled Anthrax' Scott Ian (and, to a lesser extent, another Ian, MacKaye of Fugazi). Hence, the above sounds.
Two Ross must-reads: (1) his column this week on classical music and the Internet. It has a fascinating discussion of the Naxos label and its MP3 shop, which ties into my recent digital distribution rant; (2) this wonderful column exploring what "classical" means. I found many (unintended) parallels between classical music and heavy metal, and our experiences writing about our respective genres:
The music attracts the reticent fraction of the population. It is an art of grand gestures and vast dimensions that plays to mobs of the quiet and the shy.
If you know enough metalheads, this rings resoundingly true.
2 Comments:
A nice piece, but I've never read any tomes on music criticism except for those within the metal genre (and there's only a few of those of any consequence). My own writing is merely a pale attempt at "flying blind" from a longtime fan perspective without drawing on any specific influences, and is outside of my formal education.
I write (or attempt as the case may be) because I enjoy doing so as a hobby and as a rabid fan of metal. The last quote is very apt and I would like to hear his take on the more extreme forms of our chosen genre. Once again, nice piece.
For sure, there is a place for criticism from all kinds of backgrounds. One of my favorite things about metal writing is its earnestness and general avoidance of the irony that plagues so much writing on indie rock. Of course, such earnestness can also backfire, but it's hard to find such passion elsewhere.
I think Ross might be open to metal, though I'm pretty sure he's inexperienced with it. In his book, he talks about Radiohead and Bjork in the context of modern classical, and the fact he digs atonal, way-out-there stuff like Stockhausen - well, that s*** is more "extreme" than most metal.
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