Many of you may be thinking, "Yeah, no shit," but the sudden and precipitous drop in the quality of Pitchfork's reviews is noticeable even to the site's long-time detractors. The 3.3 (out of 10) rating they gave the new Le Tigre album was so out of line that Gawker actually mentioned it. If the folks at Gawker took time out of their busy Tina Brown/Graydon Carter/Olsen Twins-dishing schedule to bring it up, you know it's bad. Then, this morning, the review for the new Ted Leo + The Pharmacists album not only yielded a mediocre mark (7.0), but Rob Mitchum proceeded to piss and moan about how disappointing the album is. Worst of all, the central criticism was based upon the oldest, laziest mistake a critic can make: "I didn't like this because their older stuff was better." Dude, cut the fanboy horseshit and review the fucking album on its merits. It's exactly this kind of crap that kept the Pixies' Bossanova and Trompe le Monde from being considered great albums by the critical community. The entire tone of that site has gotten irritating. Pretentious douchebags who poo-poo fun music because they desire something more "ambitious" get old fast. No one likes to hear a bunch of critics turn their noses up at everything they hear. The world already has one Village Voice.
Now don't misunderstand me. I don't think the world should be filled with rapturous reviews for shitty film and music. Nor do I think that feeling differently about a piece of music than I do makes someone else an idiot (with some obvious exceptions like Mariah Carey and Celine Dion). Far from it. I think Captain Beefheart and Black Dice and Wilco sound like shit, which to most music geeks is like admitting you want to rape nuns and vote Republican.
A world filled with Peter Traverses and Joel Seigels and Entertainment Weekly clones would suck. But as Lester Bangs so brilliantly proved, there is a vast, hilarious, illuminating world in between middle-of-the-road mainstream backslapping and esoteric wankery. As a former music critic and a fanatical music lover, I just hate to see people mistake dismissive negativity as criticism. People have lost sight of the fact that criticism is for the reader, not the writer. If you want to mope and bitch for your own gratification, start a blog.
Okay, that was a rant. *steps down from pulpit*
**CORRECTION: The girl in the James Iha picture yesterday was NOT Ultragrrrl. The management apologizes for any offense or hurt feelings, because the chick in that picture isn't lookin' so hot. My bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment