Thanks for this piece, John, and for the last one, too. I like "against the algorithm" as a battle-cry. We still need critics with particular tastes. Like many others, it's one of the reasons I'm here, reading you.
Yes entirely to Christgau, who I discovered much later. For me in the formative years, it was Ira Robbins and the Trouser Record Press, which I found in early college in the late 1980s. I was struck by his taste and also by his prose. I was in Botson when I first read Robbins, and it helped a great deal that there were several great used record stores that I could frequent. Every week, I could come home with three for about $10, and I often did.
I think Lindsay Zoladz is doing exciting work against the algorithm in her column, The Amplifier. I'm impressed by her taste and her range. She's written terrific pieces about Gram Parsons, The Replacements, and just this week, Sleater-Kinney.
You've given me a lot to think about as always. Firstly, the financialization you mention is a key piece here. The U.S. and generally much of the global economy has shifted more under the control of global finance, which to me means a shift away from people who actually produce things for a living. Especially MBAs and consultants seem to seek out the chokepoints where they can sit as middlemen to gain from other's work without doing much themselves (the eventual downfall of many platforms).
I read some time ago about putting the elements of creativity in order from consumption -> critique -> curation -> creation. There is so much incentive to consume that it can be hard to move to the next steps.
Also, if you never critique what you consume, it's hard to develop your own viewpoint and you end up relying solely on the opinions of others. I think this may be more broadly connected to interacting on the internet and the ease with which people are insincere. The first time you get piled on in the comments section, it's easy for a lot of people to pretend they were kidding and go with the crowd. Over time that has developed into a constant sarcasm where you can always deny what you said online is real unless it gets a lot of positive interactions.
You're so right about a good piece of criticism being a creative thing in it's own right, and I don't know when I last read such a thing in a long format, the closest being this newsletter, Austin Kleon's newsletter, and Catherynne M Valente's occasional essays, all on Substack, for as she says, "Twitter doesn't do nuance." (Neither does Trump, as various people have noted.)
I had problems trying to find things I had chosen with my own taste on Instagram, they constantly being pushed aside by the algorithm. It's interesting to note that some of my book recs come from people on Insta who do something else but also read books, and why I keep hunting down despite the algorithm.
I looked at some of Christgau's work and it reminded me how much I hate rock music criticism, which I feel like is all about people letting you know how superior they are to the music they're criticizing. But I guess I just relate to music on a more emotional level. (His explanation of the letter ratings is hilarious, though. I'm sure I'd love to read him on any band I don't care about, or who I dislike.)
You are always hating on Wilco here, but I'll mention nonetheless that Jeff Tweedy writes wonderfully about being a music fan in the '80s in his memoir, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back), and how he would learn about bands from magazines long before ever hearing them, and have a sense of what they sounded like from the descriptions. Your comments reminded me of that. Also the idea of having to buy a whole album not knowing what you would get--seems so strange to me now that I used to do that in the pre-Spotify days! (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was my best-ever purchase based only on having read about it :-)
Posting a second comment on a totally different topic--I was just listening to David Leonhardt on The Daily talking about how standardized tests, for all their imperfections, are still a more equitable way of getting a diverse student body than the alternatives. I very much agree with you that the SAT doesn't measure anything meaningful (or didn't, back when I took it 30 years ago) but yet I wondered about the practicalities of dropping it. Just curious what you would have to say about that, as someone who I know has thought deeply about these issues (and has been critical of David Leonhardt in the past). Short of overhauling all the inequities in our society, that is, which seems rather unlikely to happen in a timely fashion.
Excellent take on the apparent demise of Pitchfork and the structural limits of Substack. Yes, criticism is a form unto itself that may be enjoyed as such (in addition to Christgau I’d highlight Pitchfork’s Sunday retrospective album reviews). But fundamentally criticism is a service and that service is simply of less financial value now - both to the publisher and the consumer - due to the reasons you state. That said, because streaming has made music timeless (Fats Domino and Tyler the Creator are now direct competitors) I’d argue music criticism is even more essential in helping us decide where to devote our time and listening energies. But that’s a non-financial consideration these days and therefore an agency most people are happy to farm out to the algorithm.
Unfortunately, Pitchfork has been a shambling corpse for years now. They primarily cover mainstream artists and follow the crowd on albums and artists they give the most accolades to. We lost them half a decade ago or more.
Great one, John. Your piece, along with another, have me thinking. It's undebatable that good critics add to the experience of finding and enjoying art. And yet, the fact is, the profession of "critic," the venues where they operate, and their importance in culture are spiraling downward.
Why?
I think it has to do with, as you say, alternative methods of discovery (social media, algorithms, etc.). For the layman, a critic isn't needed. But what about those who really do care about finding/discovering great, great stuff? I think it has to do with the complete and utter failure of critics today to deliver work that feels honest, authentic, *actually* critical or different. Rather, it's all become very predictable, and sad. You walk away with the sense of: eh, I'll take my chances on my own selections / explorations / research.
So often, it seems, critics are completely out of step with tastes, which sounds suspiciously familiar to a common gripe when it comes to political ideologies. Wherever a mainstream critique or opinion can be found, it feels mainstream, completely missing the whole point of critique/curation. Maybe this is caused by a vicious cycle of 1) the writer trying to do whatever they need to do to keep their job and thus 2) their work being crappy because the inauthenticity is perceivable. I don't know.
If you have them, I ask you to put aside your preconceived notions of Freddie de Boer and read this piece if you haven't (I wonder what you think): https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/what-weve-lost-in-music-criticism). While sprinkled with some other... stuff, I think the main idea is there, and the diagnosis is accurate.
"In practice poptimism amounts to the constant valorization of that which is already popular, in our culture industries, and a corresponding disdain for that which is not. And this flips the most sacred duty of a music critic on its head: the most important thing music criticism has done, among other virtues, has been to elevate precisely those artists and albums and songs that were insufficiently known and underappreciated."
Some form of this plagues the dying - or dead - industry of critique in all mediums. For music, it was poptimism. For movies and TV (and maybe books), it's almost the opposite, a preference for things that portray the political ideals of the moment, rather than what's, you know, just plain good / under the radar / or simply an authentic, raw reaction to a person's encounter with a work of art.
THE FEAST OF LOVE was a book that both Meg and I had on our shelves when we met in college. We went to see Charles Baxter read a few years later, we were probably 22. We got him to sign our copy and told him our story, about how we read it to each other out loud before bed, and he was completely unimpressed. "Oh, yeah," he said, "people read it at their weddings.” LOL it was so great.
Thanks for this piece, John, and for the last one, too. I like "against the algorithm" as a battle-cry. We still need critics with particular tastes. Like many others, it's one of the reasons I'm here, reading you.
Yes entirely to Christgau, who I discovered much later. For me in the formative years, it was Ira Robbins and the Trouser Record Press, which I found in early college in the late 1980s. I was struck by his taste and also by his prose. I was in Botson when I first read Robbins, and it helped a great deal that there were several great used record stores that I could frequent. Every week, I could come home with three for about $10, and I often did.
I think Lindsay Zoladz is doing exciting work against the algorithm in her column, The Amplifier. I'm impressed by her taste and her range. She's written terrific pieces about Gram Parsons, The Replacements, and just this week, Sleater-Kinney.
You've given me a lot to think about as always. Firstly, the financialization you mention is a key piece here. The U.S. and generally much of the global economy has shifted more under the control of global finance, which to me means a shift away from people who actually produce things for a living. Especially MBAs and consultants seem to seek out the chokepoints where they can sit as middlemen to gain from other's work without doing much themselves (the eventual downfall of many platforms).
I read some time ago about putting the elements of creativity in order from consumption -> critique -> curation -> creation. There is so much incentive to consume that it can be hard to move to the next steps.
Also, if you never critique what you consume, it's hard to develop your own viewpoint and you end up relying solely on the opinions of others. I think this may be more broadly connected to interacting on the internet and the ease with which people are insincere. The first time you get piled on in the comments section, it's easy for a lot of people to pretend they were kidding and go with the crowd. Over time that has developed into a constant sarcasm where you can always deny what you said online is real unless it gets a lot of positive interactions.
You're so right about a good piece of criticism being a creative thing in it's own right, and I don't know when I last read such a thing in a long format, the closest being this newsletter, Austin Kleon's newsletter, and Catherynne M Valente's occasional essays, all on Substack, for as she says, "Twitter doesn't do nuance." (Neither does Trump, as various people have noted.)
I had problems trying to find things I had chosen with my own taste on Instagram, they constantly being pushed aside by the algorithm. It's interesting to note that some of my book recs come from people on Insta who do something else but also read books, and why I keep hunting down despite the algorithm.
I looked at some of Christgau's work and it reminded me how much I hate rock music criticism, which I feel like is all about people letting you know how superior they are to the music they're criticizing. But I guess I just relate to music on a more emotional level. (His explanation of the letter ratings is hilarious, though. I'm sure I'd love to read him on any band I don't care about, or who I dislike.)
You are always hating on Wilco here, but I'll mention nonetheless that Jeff Tweedy writes wonderfully about being a music fan in the '80s in his memoir, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back), and how he would learn about bands from magazines long before ever hearing them, and have a sense of what they sounded like from the descriptions. Your comments reminded me of that. Also the idea of having to buy a whole album not knowing what you would get--seems so strange to me now that I used to do that in the pre-Spotify days! (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was my best-ever purchase based only on having read about it :-)
Posting a second comment on a totally different topic--I was just listening to David Leonhardt on The Daily talking about how standardized tests, for all their imperfections, are still a more equitable way of getting a diverse student body than the alternatives. I very much agree with you that the SAT doesn't measure anything meaningful (or didn't, back when I took it 30 years ago) but yet I wondered about the practicalities of dropping it. Just curious what you would have to say about that, as someone who I know has thought deeply about these issues (and has been critical of David Leonhardt in the past). Short of overhauling all the inequities in our society, that is, which seems rather unlikely to happen in a timely fashion.
Excellent take on the apparent demise of Pitchfork and the structural limits of Substack. Yes, criticism is a form unto itself that may be enjoyed as such (in addition to Christgau I’d highlight Pitchfork’s Sunday retrospective album reviews). But fundamentally criticism is a service and that service is simply of less financial value now - both to the publisher and the consumer - due to the reasons you state. That said, because streaming has made music timeless (Fats Domino and Tyler the Creator are now direct competitors) I’d argue music criticism is even more essential in helping us decide where to devote our time and listening energies. But that’s a non-financial consideration these days and therefore an agency most people are happy to farm out to the algorithm.
Unfortunately, Pitchfork has been a shambling corpse for years now. They primarily cover mainstream artists and follow the crowd on albums and artists they give the most accolades to. We lost them half a decade ago or more.
Great one, John. Your piece, along with another, have me thinking. It's undebatable that good critics add to the experience of finding and enjoying art. And yet, the fact is, the profession of "critic," the venues where they operate, and their importance in culture are spiraling downward.
Why?
I think it has to do with, as you say, alternative methods of discovery (social media, algorithms, etc.). For the layman, a critic isn't needed. But what about those who really do care about finding/discovering great, great stuff? I think it has to do with the complete and utter failure of critics today to deliver work that feels honest, authentic, *actually* critical or different. Rather, it's all become very predictable, and sad. You walk away with the sense of: eh, I'll take my chances on my own selections / explorations / research.
So often, it seems, critics are completely out of step with tastes, which sounds suspiciously familiar to a common gripe when it comes to political ideologies. Wherever a mainstream critique or opinion can be found, it feels mainstream, completely missing the whole point of critique/curation. Maybe this is caused by a vicious cycle of 1) the writer trying to do whatever they need to do to keep their job and thus 2) their work being crappy because the inauthenticity is perceivable. I don't know.
If you have them, I ask you to put aside your preconceived notions of Freddie de Boer and read this piece if you haven't (I wonder what you think): https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/what-weve-lost-in-music-criticism). While sprinkled with some other... stuff, I think the main idea is there, and the diagnosis is accurate.
"In practice poptimism amounts to the constant valorization of that which is already popular, in our culture industries, and a corresponding disdain for that which is not. And this flips the most sacred duty of a music critic on its head: the most important thing music criticism has done, among other virtues, has been to elevate precisely those artists and albums and songs that were insufficiently known and underappreciated."
Some form of this plagues the dying - or dead - industry of critique in all mediums. For music, it was poptimism. For movies and TV (and maybe books), it's almost the opposite, a preference for things that portray the political ideals of the moment, rather than what's, you know, just plain good / under the radar / or simply an authentic, raw reaction to a person's encounter with a work of art.
THE FEAST OF LOVE was a book that both Meg and I had on our shelves when we met in college. We went to see Charles Baxter read a few years later, we were probably 22. We got him to sign our copy and told him our story, about how we read it to each other out loud before bed, and he was completely unimpressed. "Oh, yeah," he said, "people read it at their weddings.” LOL it was so great.
Substack has always been hyped as the answer, the savior, the future, but I don't quite think it is, except for a handful:
https://sassone.wordpress.com/2023/09/28/we-need-to-talk-about-substack/