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Winning Critical Acclaim
Alex Reynolds writes "'Are pop critics doing a good job? What does it mean to do a good job as a pop music critic? What is the difference between good and bad pop music criticism?' Loren Jan Wilson's innovative Pitchformula project takes the archives of music criticism and journalism from the popular Pitchfork web site and analyses them for commonalities in content, determining what attributes make for a 'good' or 'bad' evaluation. From this data, Wilson sculpted his compositional and performance technique to write rock music that should win critical acclaim."
MORE freaking Radiohead knockoffs.
sulli
RTFJ.
What is the difference between good and bad pop music criticism? ... From this data, Wilson sculpted his compositional and performance technique to write rock music that should win critical acclaim.
Anyone else see the problem here?
As a freelance music writer, I care to some degree that my kind of writing can be reduced to this. His work provides some perspective, something I can use to step back and evaluate what I do. Am I a shill or doing something useful?
Outside of this, I find his work is a funny and insightful commentary on how the whole flow of media and information can fold back in on itself in an unexpected way. Metameta, baby.
Mod me down if you will, I know it is slightly offtopic, but I think the majority of people involved with the music business do a much much worse job than they could.
They are driven (not that I can really blame them) by profit.
The artists themselves write terrible songs (look at 'Frankee's song in reply to Eamon's song - how many of us could write lyrics to another song? Exactly, pretty much everyone - It's not challenging, and her lyrics are pretty damn bad too). The critics don't really care who ends up number one, or who doesn't even enter the charts, they care about money. Just like Microsoft, and look where that got them (yeah, they may be rich, but they're hated by a lot of people).
Musicians, Footballers, Actors, etc. They all make massive amounts of money for things which contribute almost nothing to the evolution and development of mankind. Now look at people like nurses, firemen, teachers, etc. We (at least here in britain) often hear about them going on stike because of low pay, yet they contribute a great deal to mankind.
The whole monetary system is really messed up.
If we sorted it out, we might see some musicians and critics who work hard at their job.
Disclaimer: I love music, couldn't live without it, and I think a lot of artists do a great job, but I stand by my point. They should get paid the same, if not less than people who actually do the world good.
This guy is saying for the most part society in general is pretty damn predictable and if you know how you can produce something that is "pleasant". i.e. it fits well within the mainstream and can be said to have some mildly controversial elements (ha! controversational) while not really offending anybody.
Essentially you can bank on being able to sell something if you're prepared to make pap. Is it any sort of news that tastes in music can be estimated as easily as tastes in food?
McDonalds anyone?
You said it yourself: "subjective" is the key word. It's a lot easier to write objectively about film or books than it is about music. You can (and should) still take in film and books subjectively, but your subjective view and my subjective view are, as the word implies, subject to you and to me, respectively, and you are not me and I am not you and sometimes I'm not even I.
My point is that any review will have elements of the objective and of the subjective in it, but in music there's much less to be meaningfully objective about (outside of technical fundamentals) compared to film and books.
You should especially take Pitchfork reviews with a grain of salt.
Many of the reviewers there have vastly different opinions of many artists, and many have the typical indie rock prick mindset of "the more obscure it is the better". And the 10 point and single decimal scale has always irked me. What the fuck is the difference between a 6.7 album and a 7.3 album?
I like the reviews in the Rasputin Manifesto (the magazine run by Rasputin Records), because they're relatively short, and don't use a point/star scale. You have to actually read the review to see if you'll like it or not.
I usually just go to Pitchfork to get my daily dose of concert/new release news.
I belong to the ______ generation.
Please listen to the following groups:
Crimson Glory (the first two albums)
Therion
Apocalyptica
Arcturus (la masquerade infernale)
Tristania
Solitude Aeturnus
Paradise Lost (Draconian Times)
Type O Negative
Nightwish
i am not including 'extreme' death/black metal groups because i don't like them.
If that still sound the same to you then you have a serious problem.
I am not saying you have to like it just understand the variation.
I may not be a big fan of many kinds electronic music (such as dance, house, modern 'trance' etc) but i simply love the works of Future Sound of London, or Sven Vath). This is because i understand their difference.
I suppose that to you that's "all the bleeping sounds that the composer knew were on his synthesizer".
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
The results are hardly suprising.
Critics like Radiohead, Sigur Ros, The Flaming Lips and Wilco.
Critics hate The Vines.
One thing you can't recreate by analyzing databases is sincerity, which is an integral part of the bands that critics like.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
A good music review will leave you NEEDING to hear whatever it is that was the subject of the review. After reading Psychedelic Reactions and Carborateur Dung (the finest collection of rock criticism ever) I needed to run out and listen to Bowie and The Clash and the MC5 and James Brown and The Animals and The Velvet Underground. And I hate Lou Reed. But damn Bangs is convincing.
Some of the best reviews do exactly what you suggest, they hint at what has gone before (isn't that what all music does anyway?)...it can be difficult to describe a band in words without referencing the influences because the basis for your commentary is also the basis for the music. So, stay away from reviews that say: "I deem this album 3.5 stars because I am able to determine what's good." (I don't think David Fricke of Rolling Stone has ever written a good review. And Greil Marcus stopped being good when he stopped emulating Lester Bangs.)
A good review is objective: "This album sounds like Aphex Twin, Pink Floyd and Nine Inch Nails got together, kicked each other's asses, and then had torrid, violent make-up sex." Or "If Tom Petty and Willie Nelson wrote a Counting Crows song, it wouldn't sound anything like this, but the words might be similar."
ps. You still BUY albums??! Loser.
I could see how someone could argue from that perspective, and I understand that you're advancing this case for the sake of arugment, but such an opinion is easily dismissed:
FDR suffered from polio. Whether he was a good President or bad, he did sit in the White House longer than any President in U.S. history. The docs and nurses who kept him from dying helped America's Commander in Chief stay alive during WW II.
Were the teachers of Robert Goddard or Margaret Thatcher or Neil Armstrong helping someone who would otherwise have been culled from the gene pool at an earlier age? It seems to me that the contributions of teachers affect everyone who is taught, be they intrinsically capable or otherwise. But all benefit from their teaching.
The term "Darwinian" is often used to justify the notion that "survival of the fittest" means survival of the strongest individuals, when it really refers to the adaptability of an entire species. In this sense, members of a species (humans) that contribute to the overall strength of the species are quite valuable indeed.
I don't disagree that musicians, athletes, and actors can be valuable members of a society and the species as a whole. The notion that an individual can be a representative of an ideal can be a very compelling motivator for those who wish to emulate that individual, as any cyclist who watches the Tour de France can attest.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Microsoft sucks Linux roxors troll survives ESR open source copyright SCO karma whore repost redundant STUPID FUCKING MICHAEL potatoes.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Pop music isn't sold on the basis of how good it is, it's sold on the basis of how effectively it's marketed.
Better to spend your time analysing the ways in which millions of people are convinced that the latest trashy teen queen singing her little heart out about how in love she is could possibly be worth buying.
(Long Dark Teatime of the Soul tells us how, too!)
Y'know, Pitchformula is a much more fitting name for Pitchfork. I find that pitchfork reviews aren't so good for any sort of consumer guidance or artistic criticism, but at least give a snapshot of whatever the consenus indie-rock orthodoxy is at the moment. And the oh-so-precious two significant digit ratings serve as a sort of indie-rock orthodoxy stock report.
For example, let's look at Wilco's last few records: Being There, a "a spinoff of a successful band" that with a score of 6.8, "[h]as its moments, but isn't strong"; Summerteeth, which shot right up to a 9.4 (ratings key: "Amazing"), the review getting bonus points for using the innane phrase "Elvis Costello-by-way-of-Phil Spector", and not mentioning already emerging record-label problems (although I can't help but think that those probably nudged the score up a bit); and then we get the much-ballyhooed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, with record-label troubles so severe that they couldn't go unmentioned in the review, and a perhaps not-uncoincidental 10.0 (ratings key: "Essential") rating. There's no review for A Ghost Is Born yet (although those with up-to-date versions of QuickTime can have a listen at that last link), but past market performance suggests that although the review will be good, you probably should have sold at Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's 10.0.
The formula for "successful" pop music is pretty simple:
a) Whatever crappy song Clear Channel puts in heavy rotation to foist upon their radio-listening hostages
A decent critic doesn't simply echo popular sentiment - that's what billboard charts are for. But a decent critic can take changing social views and trends into account when writing a review, and talk about why an artist is relevant or how they play into the larger musical scene.
Good criticism isn't a knee-jerk decision about what's good and what's bad - relatively subjective judgements. It's more about having a dialouge with the art, and judging it on its own merits.
A good reviewer should have been able to talk about Smells Like Teen Spirit as it worked against a popular backdrop of early 90s manufactured pop (think the new kids on the block), and should also have been able to talk about how it works artistically in a cultural vacuum.
at least the author understands her obsession for popular music reviews is unhealthy. i must applaud the methods and approach used...but the goal makes me uneasy.
i think the concept of this analysis is only useful to monitor the homoginization of creativity. perhaps remotely notable for product marketing purposes, if tied to sales data. the idea suggests an elevated status for critics while cheapening both artists and the most victimized segments of music consumers.
sure, one can have a statistical analysis of what makes certain critics write approvingly. but the question is what is that worth? i think less than nothing. net negative for culture, but perhaps an advance for the ruin of beautiful experiments.
orwell's songwriting machine is born.
If the music is crap, but the critic likes it, the critic is crap.
Later, rinse, repeat.