The subtitle of the piece continues the patronizing tone:
Welsh trio’s debut disc recalls classic albums by bands like Hole, Elastica and PJ Harvey
What a pathetic, offensive reduction of a band’s work! The “female” thing is bad enough; call a woman a woman. This isn’t biology lab. Also, beside the fact that I can’t stand Hole, how do they fit in with Elastic and PJ Harvey other than era of popular breakthrough, vaginas, and a degree of shared “attitude”?
Perhaps this band is thrilled by the comparison and the RS ink, but to me this is no different than comparisons in the ’80s and ’90s, respectively, of The Busboys and Living Color to a handful of unrelated African-American rockers based almost solely on the fact that the band members are all “negroes.” With Exploitive Black Rock History Month upon us, what other offensive biases would you like to see eliminated from rock criticism?
Dear RTH’ers, please reflect on the following quote by uber music journalist, Sasha Frere-Jones:
Spending the nineties in a working indie band, my bandmates and I developed a shorthand for identifying other groups that we played with. After 1995 or so, there wasn’t a whole lot of variation. “Pavement or Stereolab?” we would ask, trying to discover who had inspired the act in question. Eighty percent of the time, the answer was “Pavement.”
As my educational brethren are currently wont to say, this quote provides a perfect opportunity for “think pair share.” Please reflect and discuss the accuracy of Mr. Frere-Jones’ comment. If you believe that his paradigm is a load of bollocks, please provide examples of other mid-to-late ’90s bands that would provide a template (divisive or not) that may be missing from his perspective. Note to self and readers, these are two of my favorite bands…but seriously!
From what I’ve read music critic Lester Bangs was a frustrated musician. I believe this is not an uncommon phenomenon. For every Patti Smith, David Thomas, and Chrissie Hynde who’s graduated from writing record reviews to writing records that get reviewed there must be a thousand frustrated rock critics. I’ve been told this even extends to music bloggers.
It had been years since I checked out the music of Lester Bangs. In fact, I’d forgotten that recordings of his music existed until I read the Joey Ramone memoir, I Slept With Joey Ramone, written by Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh, who is a bit of a frustrated musician himself and who played in Bangs’ band for a while. I believe Leigh is the guitarist on this track. [NOTE: I was wrong about this belief.]
I found this track surprisingly strong. I still haven’t gone back to check out his other recordings, but had this been better recorded it would sit nicely alongside some of the jazz-poetry workouts of Patti Smith and a side 2 track from Pere Ubu‘s Dub Housing.
What do you think? Yourself excluded, who’s your favorite critic/frustrated musician?
In the March 19 issue of Entertainment Weekly there’s a record review for Hands, a new album by an artist known as Little Boots, that is shockingly devoid of musical content!
The reviewer’s name is Melissa Maerz, about whom I know absolutely nothing. It goes without saying that EW is not the sort of magazine a music lover’s music lover like myself should fret over for lack of musical content, but at least I think my beef is justified as a bathroom reader’s bathroom reader. Check out the mini-review, which I’ve copied in full, after the jump, and see if you can spot any actual music references.Continue reading »
When I was young I could reel off a list of working rock critics whose opinions I couldn’t wait to read. Most of the names wouldn’t shock you. Back then, if they weren’t publishing in a nationally distributed rock magazine or fanzine, be it Rolling Stone, Trouser Press, The Big Takeover, or Option, chances are I wouldn’t have been able to read them. By the early ’90s perhaps their work was collected in a book and I’d have a chance to catch up. There were no URLs to take me to any newspaper or blog imaginable.
Today, with a billion outlets to read rock reviews, I have difficulty naming a favorite working rock critic. In part this is because I’m old and petrifying. How could I judge a rock critic by his or her opinions on a new artist whose work I can’t imagine liking that much? In part it may be because I have too many options, and I can read reviews willy-nilly without ever having to pay attention to the byline. It’s a bit like my difficulty learning song titles in the age of digital downloads. It takes work to squint and comprehend the 3-pt type scrolling across my iPod.
I’m not asking this question to blow smoke up anyone’s ass. I’m curious to know who your favorite working rock critics are – and what makes them so appealing to you. If you can post a link to a favorite piece, that would be much appreciated. Continue reading »
It becoming like flu season now. Indie bar-band The Hold Steady have released a new album, Stay Positive, and critics have unanimously given it high, high marks. Don’t believe me? Check out the album’s Metacritic page, or this summary of the album’s reviews. With extended pieces on the band appearing in places like Salon.com and New York Magazine, it’s clear that they’ve become a rock band worthy of coverage by publications that generally do not give one lousy shit about rock bands.
All of this I find quite compelling, because I completely and totally despise this band.
I’ll be honest. I saw them play Philly in 2005, found it enjoyable enough in a beery, noisy way, and headed to the merch table to buy a copy of their breakthrough Separation Sunday. About a month later, I’d had enough of their tuneless jock-rock twaddle, their boring, overrated fixation with hard-drinking Catholic kids and, especially, frontman Craig Finn’s singular inability to stop bleating out the same arrhythmic note throughout the entire album.
A Mostly Irrelevant Image
Also, many of my best friends worship this band, so there’s that.
One more thing: Since those experiences, I’ve managed to wholly avoid any subsequent Hold Steady music (a testament, perhaps, to the fragmentation of American society). Please spare me any “Oh, you just haven’t heard the right album, Oats” posts. This band doesn’t need any more fans. Which brings me to the real crux of this post.
Why won’t rock critics give this band a bad review? Yes, I’m basically asking the same question Mr. Mod posed regarding Peter Gabriel, even if I was one of the most vocal opponents of his central thesis that time. Let me explain.
Now, I’m not hurting for someone to agree with me. This is the ’00s, after all, where the hate flows like fine wine, thanks to the internet. I’ve seen it on message boards and comments sections. I know I am not alone in my Hold Steady distaste.
You might find a bit of tempered praise, perhaps even disappointment in reviews of Stay Positive. But even these reviews denote a deep affection for the band. Matador Records co-head Gerard Cosloy famously derided the band as “later-period Soul Asylum fronted by Charles Nelson Reilly,” which is awesome, though a little unfair to CNR. Cosloy is something of a tastemaker, but still not a rock critic. What the hell’s going on here?
The rock press generally lives to hype ’em up and knock ’em down. Also, rock critics love to take sides. My boys Wilco have engendered deep divisions in rock-crit circles for years now, even with an album as easy-going as Sky Blue Sky. Why are The Hold Steady given free passes from these standard, perhaps even necessary, rock-press rites of passage? (See, guys? Like in Catholicism!) And how can this possibly be good for rock ‘n’ roll? Looks like The Cool Patrol is alive and well, and doing its to best kill any joy a curmudgeon like me might be able to salvage in these dark times.
Here’s a role-playing exercise for creative, self-aware Townspeople: Watch the following by obscure yet cheesy, foreign artist from the early 1970s, Sharif Dean, and take the role of a hipster critic who is trying to make a mark for him- or herself by lauding this artist before any other hipster critic stumbles upon him. Feel free to coin a new genre for what this artist is doing. Use hyphenated adjectives. Whatever. The goal is to elevate your standing among hipster critics and to inspire a wave of modern-day artists to follow in the footsteps of this groundbreaking, visionary artist!
