Have critics become irrelevant?
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Sometimes I question why I write about music. Given what's coming out these days, I often wonder what's the point. Take, for example, the last five bands that got a review rating of three or below (out of ten) in Decibel: Suicide Silence, Molotov Solution, Psychostick, Iwrestledabearonce, and The Devil Wears Prada. (These ratings came from five different writers.) As of last night, these bands averaged over 8.5 million profile views and 150,000 "friends" on MySpace. Critical disdain obviously hasn't held them back.
This reminds me of a great New Yorker article about the marketing behind Hollywood movies. I highly recommend it, if only so people are aware of the advertising forces they face. Now, marketing and advertising are not per se bad. The free market of information includes these things. Consumers are free to make up their own minds. But once enough money becomes involved, companies shift from making things that are good to things that sell.
These are not mutually exclusive, of course. Some big sellers are in fact good. Now that sites like Amazon and Yelp aggregate consumer opinion, bad quality is less likely to be rewarded. But how does one explain the multi-platinum success of, say, Nickelback or Hinder, who are routinely critically reviled?
The New Yorker article offers a clue:
Many studio executives argue that films can't objectively be categorized as "good" or "bad": either they appeal to a given demographic — and make the studio at least a ten-per-cent profit — or they don't. "Most critics are not the target audience for most of the films being made today, so they're not going to respond to them," Sony Screen Gems' Clint Culpepper says. "How a fifty-six-year-old man feels about a movie aimed at teen-age girls is irrelevant."
Numbers bear this out. On rottentomatoes.com, which aggregates critics' reviews, the top 10 grossing movies last weekend (July 3-5) averaged a 50.5% rating: utterly mediocre. Critics have become irrelevant because "quality" is no longer at stake. Only sales are. Kids at Hot Topic have little use for my thirty- and forty-something colleagues. In earlier times, critics commanded more cultural bandwidth. Now companies have figured out end runs around critical reaction. A newspaper review stands no chance against billboards, print ads, video trailers, and merchandise tie-ins.
Now, I am not bemoaning diminished influence on my part. I am just one guy. Anyone who bases consumption decisions solely on my opinions is a fool. People should aggregate information to make up their own minds. MySpace, YouTube, and downloading free people from depending on critics to know what things are like.
But I do bemoan the increasing irrelevance of criticism in general. Due to the abovementioned resources, the value of critics has shifted from reflection to refraction. Perhaps we can make people see things in a different light. Perhaps we can stimulate discourse that goes beyond the original object. But if nothing matters but sales, what's the point? Once art gets to the level of Iwrestledabearonce or Suicide Silence, talking about it becomes meaningless. Reviews become ads plus text. If the text is unhappy enough, it can even backfire. People are more interested in low ratings than mediocre ones. If I rate a band low enough, I might actually get people to check it out. Criticism means little in a world where all publicity is good publicity.
24 Comments:
"Criticism means little in a world where all publicity is good publicity."
I agree on that point but only if we manage the matter through a purely commercial point of view. When looking for quality and not for sales I will always rely on my favourite critics and friends, because I care about what these people could think about a band I'm thinking of listening to.
In that context critics are as important as always, with the difference that now it is possible to, as you say, aggregate info from many different places and critics, so they may be taken in consideration in a more fizzy way, but they are still important and still can make the difference.
Why should we read this blog if you didn't? I already have Google ads to sell me records, I look for opinions and thoughts.
Criticism is an Art in itself. Maybe it has a function on that level regardless of how many people are persuaded by it, and maybe it is by developing that artistic function that a Critic actually finds the power to influence the market in a significant way. How can any review have a heavy impact on the culture if its own writer has conceived of it as merely a side note to that culture? If s/he thinks criticism is merely a tool for discerning what is good and bad, his/her own work suffers, becomes powerless. Some criticism retains its power even after the products themselves have lapsed into obscurity. Harlan Ellison's WATCHING is a fine example.
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Ditto what CB said. I (shamefully) admit that I always read the book reviews in my mags, but haven't read a book from a review in years. I don't read those reviews just as the Cliff notes. I read them because they're so interesting to read unto themselves.
"Reviews become ads plus text."
Part of the problem is that this is what most criticism, especially in the music world, is. That's not always a bad thing: for people like me who are getting older, increasingly irrelevant, and basically only listen to music--and not just metal, either--that came out during or before the mid-90s, a blog like this sometimes makes me aware of bands that I would otherwise not hear. I think one of the great strengths of this blog, though, is that there's enough thought and ideas going on here (especially with posts like this one) that it doesn't feel like this place is just all about "this record is good, buy it/this record sucks, don't buy it" that too many other blogs are about.
What I'd like to see more of would be the equivalent of good book reviews (think New York or London Review of Books type stuff) but about music. Simon Reynolds wrote a recent review of the new Sonic Youth album for the Guardian that is along these lines--I'd love to see something like this but about metal.
I agree with the sentiment, but your terminology is confused.
Criticism will never be irrelevant; reviewing, however, has been - and will continue to be - irrelevant.
The world needs less milquetoast reviewing of milquetoast music, and more critical writing about said music.
Opinion is a strange bird in a world empty of absolutes. "Informed" or "educated" is the "best" one can do. Offering an unabashed, informed and educated critique of music will always have a significant bearing on its subject, regardless of its effect (e.g. "[getting] people to check it out."
Critics should write about music not for promos or money or whatever, but because they feel they must. If they are doing it for any other reason, it's bogus.
Buck up, penbangers. It's always been "about sales."
The first essay I read on this subject that really struck home with me was Oscar Wilde's "The Critic as Artist." It basically says what C.B. said, albeit a little more forcefully: artists shape reality by changing the way people experience it, and critics shape art by the same means. A healthy critical and artistic dialogue is crucial to the formation of a society or art form because it creates the possibility for conscious action. Without critical dialogue, we just exist--and I suppose, to tie it in to this discussion, we would only cultivate what sells, as opposed to what strikes us as valuable or ideal.
Blah blah blah. I've taken something I found inspiring and made it seem clunky and pretentious, and I don't feel like taking the time with this post to rework it (this is why criticism is not my forte).
Probably a more purposeful point to make is that while nasty reviews for these five bands hasn't impacted the world of music, it certainly has impacted the cultural grouping that constitutes Decibel readers. Metal has always been sustained by small groups, defining their ideals through critical dialogue (hence all the damn subgenres). I guess there's a group of people that define Iwrestleadabearonce as reflective of their values, too, and they're pretty numerous... which is messed up, but which seems like a different problem.
TRAWETS NILTGEOV: "Critics should write about music not for promos or money or whatever, but because they feel they must."
Exactly. I think (just like all commercial artforms) critics who have to worry about getting a paycheck from someone else are pointless.
What would you say of the flipside of the coin, where sites like Pitchfork literally command an audience? Reverence for criticism gone too far? Criticism at that point becomes a direct engine of sales, at least in some capacity. I guess to some that's an ideal? I read IO every day, and definitely picked up on some bands I would have otherwise never heard of. I guess there's just a certain type of person who takes criticism into account (in this case I guess not the teenagers that buy up Iwrestledabearonce).
The irony here is that all of us reading this post are the types of people who DO care about critics, so Cosmo has directed his question to an audience that is eager to engage in a dialogue on the matter.
I think most people who read this blog on a daily basis would be categorized as "obsessive fans," and so a forum like this is essentially BY obsessive fans FOR obsessive fans. Many of us probably have, with differing degrees of success, tried at our own hand at something similar to this.
Did criticism matter more during some other era? Probably, due to the plain fact that there were fewer options (ie, bands, albums, etc) and also fewer forums for opinions and criticism to be dispensed. Basically, the heightened significance happened by default.
Cosmo is posing an interesting question, but I certainly hope he hasn't become discouraged. Websites like this one go to great lengths to quench my desire for this type of music discussion, but probably strengthen the obsession even more in the process. For that I am deeply thankful.
I completely agree with Craig. The critical discourse, and its readers, are detached from the commercial processes that the modern music industry operates by.
Perhaps Lester Bangs was a significant sales influence, but only because more effective forms of targeting and marketing to large groups of similar-thinking consumers had yet to be developed.
But we lucky few should be happy with our lot, and continue to look for ways to share our opinions; we may not be affecting many people, but the people we are affecting are the ones who appreciate it most.
Some great points here -
C.B. - I agree that the best criticism is an art in itself. But by definition, it is a parasitic artform. No object to criticize, no criticism. Thus, it at least starts out as a side note to culture. But as you pointed out, sometimes it can transcend its subject.
Graeme - Thanks for the Sonic Youth link. The opportunity for that kind of review is rare. Sonic Youth, because of their age and legacy, are already ripe for criticism. Also, the project in question, a tribute to other artists, naturally lends itself to criticism. Underground metal, which doesn't affect pop culture in the way Sonic Youth does, doesn't afford the luxury of such context. You will notice that Reynolds does not actually discuss the music until the end of the text, in a short afterthought. There, he devolves to standard review-speak: "But I can't say I felt anything, exactly, from the songs." That speaks as much as the hundreds of words he expended above.
Stew - Accepting your usage of "criticism" as the artform that C.B. referred to, and "reviewing" as a lesser "this is good/bad" type of discourse, I think the lines often blur. Implicit in most of our criticism is an assessment of the merit of an object. When we do short capsule blurbs, it's pretty much impossible to do criticism with a capital C. We're just "reviewing" then. When you say, "Highly recommended," that has commercial implications. And there's nothing wrong with that. There is only so much time and money in the world. Getting people to avoid bad art in favor of good art makes the world a better place; it supports artists, etc. Which leads me to
joseph - There's nothing wrong with making money. I wish my favorite artists, bands, critics, etc. could make a living from what they do. Only when people start doing things for the money and letting it affect their work does it become a problem.
Anthony - Not clunky nor pretentious at all. I really need to read that Wilde piece. Thanks for the reference.
Anonymous - re: Pitchfork, I would say that it has been successful *in spite* of the criticism it contains. For many years, the quality of its writing has been highly derided. Only in recent years has the site started to pay attention to that aspect. Pitchfork has commanded an audience through business savvy - being the first, offering an up-to-the-minute news service, and offering a large quantity of content that appeals to a certain demographic. Basically, it is successful because it is the biggest, not because it is the "best". Things that are the biggest usually aren't the best b/c they need to compromise to appeal to the greatest numbers. I know many people only look at Pitchfork for the numerical ratings and don't read the actual text of reviews. If a purchase decision is at stake, for some that is unfortunately sufficient shorthand.
Craig - "Discouraged" doesn't quite describe how I feel. In the terms that Stew used above, I do this site out of (perhaps misguided) compulsion. For me, it's a fight against certain forces (negativity, stupidity, etc.) and an attempt to create a better corner of the world, however small. "Sad" is perhaps more accurate. When teams of bean counters steamroll humans into submission, that is cause for sadness.
Matt - I'd be inclined to agree, except for the hordes of publicists that fill up my inbox. Commercial processes are only too happy to harness critical discourse for their own ends. As you pointed out, though, discourse on an individual level makes it all worthwhile.
What an interesting conversation. This subject is close to my heart as well, because for every day I actually write about music, I have at least one or two days during which I think, "Writing about music is pointless." But of course I still do it. I don't know if that speaks to anything greater than habit or, as you say, compulsion. But what's wrong with compulsion?
I'm also of the opinion that for every even-keeled, observant, talented, funny, keen, knowledgable critic out there, there are probably 30 or 40 who simply get off on shitting on other people's art, try to impress with wordplay/cleverness, have been brainwashed by queasily romantic Critical Theory professors, are willing vehicles of sales/promotion/marketing, and/or are outright assholes. And I think this absolutely applies to film critics as well.
So I suppose my point is, maybe there is a reason people don't listen to critics anymore.
"Perhaps we can stimulate discourse that goes beyond the original object."
Ooh, that's some Roland Barthes-esque thinking there! Actually, I'd love to see record reviews go the direction of a Harper's book review where you can tell it was written over weeks/days (or maybe not and they're just that good) and there is thought-provoking, multi-dimensional identity to the review itself.
"When we do short capsule blurbs, it's pretty much impossible to do criticism with a capital C."
I can sympathize with this, but don’t take it as a rule. On one hand I see very few writers bringing capital C (which I interpret as in-depth critique with a careful and learned dissection of both technical and non-technical aspects of art) criticism to metal. On the other hand criticism isn’t in the word count; it’s in cutting through the BS and examining what-the “suchness”-of a given work is, and placing it in the appropriate context. Now, sometimes that requires looking at things from several different angles and other times not, and I think that should to some extent reflect what is being presented. Good, bad, vital or not, sometimes it may take only a few sentences to get that across. But I think where criticism fails is not in pronouncements of what is “good” or “bad,” (where the problem then becomes articulating why) but in confusing likes and dislikes as marks of quality, reducing the complexities of art (including criticism) to simple fanboyishness. Fighting that tendency may not translate into any kind of shift in the marketplace, but it does help to deepen our understanding of art.
In metal especially critic’s insights are frequently cast aside for first-hand reminiscences by the bands. I just sat down and watched Get Thrashed the other day, and the films major failing was being unable to explain what made Thrash so different from everything else at the time, and more than that, how bands like Metallica and Slayer went from releasing albums like Kill em All and Show No Mercy to Reign in Blood and Master…Instead you see a lot of talking heads repeating how fast and great and cool these albums were, with very little context and explanation as to what made them so great and specifically the different sounds and techniques of the most influential bands.
Criticism is about filtering, and it always has been as 'quality' is subjective (to an extent anyway). A critic filters for their audience. Their audience is comprised of people who usually broadly agree with their opinion.
I would argue that in the internet age 'criticism' is even more important, as people have to filter through increasing amounts of available stuff to get to the stuff that appeals to them.
The popular magazine you mention attempts to talk to a mass market audience. That's slightly less appealing to myself, hence I'm here and not yapping about Madina Lake on their site.
I do agree in seperating one's expectations for criticism and reviews. It's a good point. But can anyone point me in the direction of music criticism then?
I read in an interview once from the film critic Nathan Lee (don't quote me on that!) where he said something along the lines "the best thing a critic can do to become a better critic is to watch less films". A film critic's frame of reference that is limited exclusively to the world of film is a small world indeed. The same goes for music criticism.
Roger Ebert is considered by many to be the most "populist" of film reviewers. But in reading something that he has written one can see a mind that is pulling many things into his review that goes outside of film. I hardly see any of this for music criticism.
My favorite music blog would be Surreal Documents: not really criticism per se but definitely not reviews either. Valter rarely throws on good/bad qualifiers. It's not the sort of writing that will increase an artist's album sales or generate much sway with the kiddes, but it's interesting reading. Music isn't this isolated thing. It informs and is informed by many things. It'd be cool to see the reality of that undeniable truth in music reviews... more frequently?
Thinking about this some more, it's this idea of inherent quality, that supersedes subjectivity, and even objectivity to distil a piece of art down to its essence and, somewhat bizarrely, fix it in time.
It's all rather "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" which was a self documenting memoir of a deranged mind.
The vast majority of people have no interest in, and in many cases outright reject what most high critics experience as high quality.
Not only this, quality is time based, what's good now, may not be good later. I recognise that part of a critics job is to try and transcend this, and most don't achieve it, but the opposite is also true - what's crap now, may be considered good later - something that is harder to predict.
The fact is, with music, there are just too many environmental factors to achieve this nirvana like state. I don't even believe that it exists.
So why worry about it? I write about music for myself primarily, and if anyone else is listening (which they aren't) and they derive some value from it, the that's fantastic. But there's no way that I would (or anyone else should) confuse my opinion with the "truth".
This is a really interesting subject. I'm going to write about it. The truth about my writing is that it's deeply mediocre:))
@deathwithabeard: When music writers widen their purview they are accused of not "writing about the music," or not discussing "what the music sounds like."
When a writer brings visual art, history, theology, or philosophy into music crit, it's best to duck and cover. Gawd forbid the writer pull from personal experience; the reception is even more indignant.
If you are looking for this kind of crit, I thank you. Not many are.
When I asked a good friend (who writes music crit for a "living") why only "reviews" are appreciated by the reading public he answered thusly:
"The armchair anthropologist in me sez it's the twin torpedoes of MTV
and Rupert Murdoch. Between the quick-cut ADD incubator that
mouth-fucked and mutated Eisenstein, and Murdoch's dictum to give the
people WHAT THEY WANT, we were all doomed."
I just hope to be served cocktails while the ship sinks. I'll offer to play the piano, too.
So much text... I'll keep what I think simple: no critic has ever mattered, no reviewer has ever mattered, and neither will ever matter.
It's the fans, friends, the fans!
With mp3s reviews are irrelevant. What we need now are release lists - album name, artist, short description, label, dates, and links to mp3s. That's it. This frees "critics" to write about music itself instead of wasting time reviewing. Who wants to read their opinions? That's useless.
Chesty - we have those already. They're called download blogs.
"Beethoven had his critics too. Can you name one of them?"
As a fellow music writer I agree but lets face it, like it or not whether you review music for an underground punk magazine, webzine or NME, it's still really just an advertisement for a product. The difference is it has sometimes been endorsed by Insert Largely Unimportant Writer's Name Here______________________. No matter what is said people will buy what sells.
Brokencyde or Attack Attack being a terrible bands will get more reads on message boards and therefore they become better known than anything about a good new bands.
Some people still listen to the radio and buy the music that is dished up to them which is why stuff like Nickleback, who I don't think are truly terrible but have become this generation of writer's example of mediocrity due to the fact that reviewer will always dig deeper than the general public. Previous cliched examples of mediocrity from music writers are Creed, Staind, U2, Limp Bizkit, Oasis. I guess my point is a lot of reviewers have access to a lot more music or whatever than the general public who are largely just aware of bestsellers.
That's a good point, that reviewers have more access to music than the public and thus have more developed tastes.
But the public still has some level of discernment. It doesn't accept *everything* it's handed. Some Hollywood movies flop. There's a chicken/egg problem in arguing that the public likes art b/c it's popular, because it's the public that makes art popular in the first place.
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