Critical Mass

Mark Edwards opines in the Sunday Times about the oft-noted gulf between what music critics regard good music and mass taste. His core argument:

"Music critics are assessing music using different criteria than the rest of the world. Or, perhaps more accurately, we’re using roughly the same criteria, but giving greater weight to some of them. Critics are particularly keen on authenticity, innovation, great lyrics and - most of all - a direct and identifiable connection between the emotions of the songwriter and the finished work. We’re looking for the musical equivalent of a Jackson Pollock - it doesn’t have to be pretty, but it must be genuine. If you take a look at the list of (the criteria used by regular music consumers), you’ll note the almost complete absence of these qualities, in favour of attributes that critics often downweight – melody, entertainment value, immediacy, escapism, image."

I gave up music criticism in favor of reportorial music writing and the other stuff I do in part because I always felt a bit phony setting myself up as more qualified to pass judgement on music than any other knowledgeable fan....

Reviewing records was something I'd always wanted to try, and I think by and large I was good at it. But I realized over nearly four years at the Tennessean that the expectations of critics are out of step with what good critics are or ought to be doing. The industry seemed to view reviews as some kind of god-given right and a marketing tool. It aggrieved the Music Row publicists to no end that I and my colleague Peter thought it was more of a service to review really good records from the periphery of the business than really bland ones at the center. When I did review mainstream country albums, I found myself more or less handicapping them, as if to say, well, this was pretty good for an album that was produced in order to get on country radio, when it was really just a pretty bad album by any other measure. Publicists also seemed to regard reviews as relevant to album sales, when I don't think they play much role at all. I think record reviews are more of a piece of entertaining and informative writing than a consumer's guide. There are 1,000 albums from the history of recorded music more worthy of purchase than even the three and a half star albums I reviewed at the paper. But it was like a news piece with color, hopefully good for an insightful read. But not any kind of definitive ruling on the quality of a disc. So many record reviews come off as pronouncements, and when I felt like I was veering in that direction, I just said let's leave it to the bloggers.

Another factor was the explosion in the quantity of albums that were released, even during my relatively short career as a music writer. The DIY movement and the internet meant that we were getting hundreds of respectable albums per year across many genres. One thing that is fair to ask of a working critic is that they be listening to all of the serious contender albums in the genres in which they work. For a time I found that almost possible for country and bluegrass, but in rock, forget about it. And as time passed, I found myself growing really skewed by cramming my days and nights full of new CD after new CD, giving each a couple passes at best before a third confirming and careful listen for a review. Eventually I realized I wanted to listen to my record collection, to old stuff, to stuff way off my "beat." I still follow bluegrass albums and try to listen to as many new releases as possible because I work in that field, and I love the music and the community. But my relief of not having to keep up with four or five genres and gorging on new music is very real.

Finally, there's the explosion of the blogosphere. I'm supposed to be resentful that music bloggers are destroying my former living and I am upset about the continued struggles of music magazines and the feeble coverage of music by most newspapers. But I actually find the collapse of the music critic as oracular tastemaker a good thing for music. Everyone's a critic now, and it's not hard by reading a few words of any given on-line review, post or comment who's smart and who's not. Music fans are not lacking critical voices and music news sources. And if they want to add their voice to a vast conversation about a record, a genre or music in general, they can. On balance, it's a good thing.