Music criticism
I find myself unpleasantly drawn to write music criticism lately. I feel bad about this because I cannot stand to read a word of the stuff. See what you think of this "review" of the new album Separation Sunday by The Hold Steady, published originally at Pitchfork.
It is, I suppose, hard to describe music, at least to a technically inept audience. And I suppose the reviewer is only trying to give a sense for the flavor of the album, partly by evoking the same effects in prose, as though there were a well-defined isomorphism between music and writing that preserves emotional and poetic content (maybe we could call this an emomorphism). But isn't it just incredibly boring to read? (This is true even when the music is not itself boring to listen to, giving the lie to the idea of an emomorphism.) And at the end, do you have any more sense than at the beginning whether the music is something you would want to listen to? I could not write music criticism of this kind, nor could I write something better-informed by actual musical knowledge, which I lack almost entirely.
It seems to me that these mercifully short pieces of "criticism" would be more properly called recommendations than reviews (at least, those that are positive). It's the numerical score at the top that really matters--one reads Pitchfork to find out what, if you are an indie kid, you should be listening to. The reasons why just this is what you should be listening to don't matter, or at least not the stated "reasons", since it really has as much to do with trends and politics (if that is not too dignified a word for the idea that one should not like bands that have "sold out," for instance) as with, what is probably impossible to define, genuine musical quality.
This is why I think the radio DJ serves this function better than the music critic--in principle I mean, if radio DJs played what they liked and not what the station owners get paid to promote. The format allows only a few words, such as, "This is the new single from so-and-so. I dig it; see what you think." And then the song, and you decide for yourself. Just like a friend giving you a CD that they think you might want to hear. That's what we really want, isn't it? An introduction to music that the introducer herself enjoys, and then to be left alone with it.
But then, I think there is room for something more. If there is a particularly challenging piece of music, or something that is a little outside the range of the established taste of the person you are recommending it to, it might call for some guidance in how to listen to it. Or, what I like to do most of all is to attempt to situate the music in the emotional context in which it acquired for me the significance that it now has, in the hope that the audience will hear it in a similar light. For that is what we want, isn't it, in sharing the music that we love with other people? We want them to see in it what we also see in it, and thereby to effect a heightened mutual understanding. But this is perhaps not an appropriate sort of introduction for a large and anonymous audience.
Fortunately, the audience here is neither large nor anonymous, and so I will not refrain from introducing some music in the way I have just described. Unfortunately, I cannot actually provide the music itself, since that would be illegal (damn the RIAA!). You might say that is what I did already two posts ago.
Craig Finn isn't a singer. His voice is a harsh, nasal, confused, emphatic bleat, clamping down on certain words and rolling tricky internal rhymes around in his mouth until they come out all broken. He sounds more like the sketchy drunk guy yelling in your ear at a show, asking if you know where to buy drugs, than like the frontman of the band onstage. Finn's voice may be difficult, but don't let it be a deal-breaker.I get the impression that it is the reviewer who wishes he was said poet laureate. This is a fairly typical review, I think (I make generalizations despite the fact that I usually don't read them--in any case, I chose this particular one as my example entirely at random), in its dense deployment of adjectives (one per three words, I'd say as a rough average), imagery, mixed metaphor and half-tongue-in-cheek colloquialisms or pop culture references ("up in this piece"?).
Finn may not be Art Garfunkel up in this piece, but he uses his adenoidal rasp to blurt twisted, dense shards of squalid back-alley imagery and bruised druggy lamentations, broken teeth and broken bottles, and tattered hotel-room Bibles and hidden knives. He's the poet laureate of the loading dock behind the mall where the runaway kids get together to sniff cheap coke at 5 a.m.
It is, I suppose, hard to describe music, at least to a technically inept audience. And I suppose the reviewer is only trying to give a sense for the flavor of the album, partly by evoking the same effects in prose, as though there were a well-defined isomorphism between music and writing that preserves emotional and poetic content (maybe we could call this an emomorphism). But isn't it just incredibly boring to read? (This is true even when the music is not itself boring to listen to, giving the lie to the idea of an emomorphism.) And at the end, do you have any more sense than at the beginning whether the music is something you would want to listen to? I could not write music criticism of this kind, nor could I write something better-informed by actual musical knowledge, which I lack almost entirely.
It seems to me that these mercifully short pieces of "criticism" would be more properly called recommendations than reviews (at least, those that are positive). It's the numerical score at the top that really matters--one reads Pitchfork to find out what, if you are an indie kid, you should be listening to. The reasons why just this is what you should be listening to don't matter, or at least not the stated "reasons", since it really has as much to do with trends and politics (if that is not too dignified a word for the idea that one should not like bands that have "sold out," for instance) as with, what is probably impossible to define, genuine musical quality.
This is why I think the radio DJ serves this function better than the music critic--in principle I mean, if radio DJs played what they liked and not what the station owners get paid to promote. The format allows only a few words, such as, "This is the new single from so-and-so. I dig it; see what you think." And then the song, and you decide for yourself. Just like a friend giving you a CD that they think you might want to hear. That's what we really want, isn't it? An introduction to music that the introducer herself enjoys, and then to be left alone with it.
But then, I think there is room for something more. If there is a particularly challenging piece of music, or something that is a little outside the range of the established taste of the person you are recommending it to, it might call for some guidance in how to listen to it. Or, what I like to do most of all is to attempt to situate the music in the emotional context in which it acquired for me the significance that it now has, in the hope that the audience will hear it in a similar light. For that is what we want, isn't it, in sharing the music that we love with other people? We want them to see in it what we also see in it, and thereby to effect a heightened mutual understanding. But this is perhaps not an appropriate sort of introduction for a large and anonymous audience.
Fortunately, the audience here is neither large nor anonymous, and so I will not refrain from introducing some music in the way I have just described. Unfortunately, I cannot actually provide the music itself, since that would be illegal (damn the RIAA!). You might say that is what I did already two posts ago.
posted by gregates at 6:31 PM
3 Comments:
Yes, it is true that I treat everything (music and film especially), when I try to speak intelligently about it, as a work of literature. I know nothing about cinematography and nothing about music theory, so there is little else I can do. But I was not even treating the songs as works of literature so much as opportunities for reflection on two possible responses to heartbreak. Insofar as this is criticism at all, it is only that I think both songs are worth listening to precisely because, when heard in the right way, they present this opportunity.
The focus on lyrics comes because that is the part of the song that is reproducible in text. It is certainly true that "Atmosphere" gets the emotional significance it has from the music as much as (and probably more than) the lyrics. As a poem it would be nothing special. But how do you translate the effect of the music into a description? I haven't the faintest idea, which was one of the points of this post. And I lack the expertise and the vocabulary to talk intelligently about the song's musical elements in a more technical sense.
It is all well and good to say that "The song succeeds in evoking this almost desperate, yet not quite hopeless sense you describe mostly by juxtaposing a bleak musical background to one of Curtis's warmer vocal performances," but if this is all you say, even if it is true, won't it will be more-or-less content-free to anyone who has never heard the song? I am trying to justify a kind of commentary that might serve as an introduction or re-introduction to a piece of music, not as an analysis.
And isn't the role of pop music in our lives often to acquire, because of the context in which we hear it, significance that goes beyond what is explicitly said in the lyrics or contained in the music? One doesn't ask, "What is Ian Curtis pleading for?" Instead, one asks, "What could 'Don't walk away in silence' mean?" recognizing that the answer you give will reflect more about your experience than the singer's. In providing the interpretation I did, I certainly did not mean to be arguing that this is how it must be heard (and certainly nothing about authorial intent), but only that this is a way of hearing a song that does not perhaps have a determinate meaning, and perhaps (this is what I am suggesting now, which is not explicit in the previous post) that this way of hearing it is a reason for listening, and listening carefully. And, furthermore, I meant to re-create the context of my own listening for my reader, to guide her own listening and to hopefully bring about a shared appreciation, for the song and for the idea that it represents to me, if not for the thought that this very song should express this very idea.
This reason for listening will perhaps only be a reason for someone who wants to be able to see in the song precisely what I do. This is why I remarked that this kind of introduction to a song may not be suitable for a large and anonymous audience. I guess I vainly suppose that those few individuals who might read this will perhaps find my interest in something sufficient reason for their own.
Also, I don't want people to post anonymously, because then how can I keep track of who is saying what?
Do not think that by using some random letters as your name that you can conceal your identity just as well.
Hmm. On re-reading my post, "Two love songs," I have decided that I clearly suggest there that the Joy Division song is superior because the subtlety and moral maturity of the particular response to heartbreak it suggests to me is superior to that of the other. But this is unfair, since I admit that none of that may actually be present in the song, exactly. I should say instead just that I like it better because it suggests this to me. (I think this is not the only reason I like it better, and some reasons are probably more objective, but I do not discuss those.)
Also, I am not thoroughly convinced that this response to heartbreak is the better one. But that is another topic.
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