His continuing influence is perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to rock criticism.
Lester Bangs was a genius.…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
The Curse of Lester Bangs' Influence - Comments Page 2
His continuing influence is perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to rock criticism.
Lester Bangs was a genius.…
Article comments
26 - Ray Ellis
It's probably even more true with jazz, Chris. But, yeah, you're right--music is a symbiotic experience. To try to divorce ourselves from the personal experience in favor of getting into dissertations of theory is ludicrous. It's equally ridiculous to attempt to write an "objective" review. No matter how you phrase it, and no matter how much you avoid personal pronouns, you can't deny the core fact you're writing about the music from the viewpoint of personal experience. The trick is to embrace that, and convey it in a manner that's easily digestible, but still has an air of authority. In that regard, "I" can be your best friend.
27 - Pico
So sez Marc, the Pitchfork dude:
"Wait, actually "OTM" apparently IS hard to Google nowadays, sorry. It means "on the money" or "on the mark" and was common Internet music-geek slang at the time."
No no no..."OTM" stands for One Track Mind. Sheesh.
And Michael, just as I predicted, you wrote another thought-provoking, informative article. I'm having a hard time reconciling two of the points you made, though. How can a critic follow a certain set of rules, such as avoiding the use of self-references, and write in the style that comes most naturally to them if their natural style breaks the rules? Not trying to give you a hard time, just trying to make sense out of what appears to be two conflicting tenets.
28 - Christopher Rose
Pico, I hadn't seen the OTM acronym before reading it above but only "on the money" makes sense in the context of the quote. Nice self promotion though ;-)
29 - Elvira Black
I think Tom Wolfe (sp?) would be another prime example of the New Journalism gurus for sure.
Personally, my def of a good review or critique is: does it stand on its own as an entertaining, informative, even enlightening/inspiring piece of writing--even if you're not familiar with the artist being reviewed?
30 - Christopher Rose
Elvira! Great to see you here again. As always, you are as wise as you are beautiful!
31 - Pico
Thanks for fixing my link, Christopher. As a token of my gratitude, I will promote your favorite site, too:
Robot of the week
:&)
32 - Christopher Rose
That's kind of you, Pico, but it isn't actually my favourite site yet, not by a long way. It's just a little idea I'm developing for fun and also as a way to polish up some of my limited technical skills.
33 - JC Mosquito
It's just after 5 AM and I'm stuck on a hotel guest computer so I'm just catching up:
Because we're all human beings with different experiences and different ways of internalizing information, of course there's an element of subjectivity in anything people write. And there is no government agency or other "powers that be" that impose a set of critical "rules" that one must follow.
But if we don't have some common ground we can never hope to communicate with each other.
That's what's meant by critical "rules." I have no beef with anyone's personal taste, but if it's all about the subjective experience of music (or anything else), I can't have any kind of dialogue with anyone that goes any deeper than, "I like this - I don't like that." "How about that! - I feel differently." Which is nice enough, but doesn't give me much further insight into the subject at hand. Even citing the reason you feel that way only gives me a glimmer into how you yourself process things - and if I don't know you well, then I'm back to square one.
Interestingly, we've been through variations of this discussion before, and usually know where many of the bc regulars stand on this issue. Maybe this is part of the modern internet age - perhaps because the majority of us will never meet each other in person, the essence of our personalities are distilled in or writing, and we really can learn from someone simply expressing his or her feelings about something withot having to fit a proscribed critical format.
But I like my Strunk and White - and my Sheridan Baker (The Practical Stylist) and my Northrop Frye (Anatomy of Criticsm).
Oh, and my Saint Lester.
Skeeter.
34 - Christopher Rose
skeeter, I get what you're saying but, to my way of thinking, you and the other members of the "dispassionate" school have it entirely backwards.
Yes, we all have our own perceptions but there is far more to say about music and the experience of music than the two tragic examples you put forth. For example, if we were talking together and you told me you loved some band, that would probably be a jumping off point for a whole wide-ranging conversation, rather like when one of the Blogcritics comments streams goes off all over the place, and we'd forge our own common ground and have a great time.
However, if you simply tried to place them in some artificial hierarchy of "good" and "bad" music based on some dull abstract theories of criticism, I'd tell you not to be a boring old fart!
My way, we'd have a really deep multi-facted conversation; your way we would be struggling to stay awake from boredom.
35 - JC Mosquito
Christopher,
Well, I guess I wouldn't use dull abstract theories - I hope we would be using current, vibrant ones and forging new ones at the same time.
As I've said on other occasions, in my real life "dispassionate" is about the last thing anyone who knows me would say about myself and my relation to all things artsy, but in particular, music. Maybe I'm just not making myself very clear.
G2G - the hotel concierge is looking at me funny.
Sk.
36 - Temple Stark
On this, M. West is much more right than almost anyone here cares to acknowledge. That's natural. What's been overlooked is his point about talent. Talent is not overrated.
Writers can self-pleasure themselves all day long and be true to their own vision and "write what comes naturally." But "naturally" in most cases is complete shit. More people need to hear that. The worst habits can be removed and a person's writing can be improved but only to a certain point.
And that's just talking about the writing.
A critic has a job, to impart their opinions about the sounds in their ears. Readers get to trust certain critics, in part because of shared tastes. If someone has completely different tastes reading that person is not going to be a regular thing. The exception is the talent of strong writing where all elements of timing, phrasing, and tangents with a purpose come together, if you can't do the job of critical thinking,
In the realm of music criticism, I don't read anyone regularly anywhere. I read music criticism but there isn't a lot of talent out there. And talent is often being willing or able to put in hard work, not solely just what comes naturally. I read a lot about bands I don't know and there ARE certain shortcuts that trigger useful information for the reader. For example, comparisons to other bands, while not always a pleasant tool, do in fact work. They DO THE JOB. The rest is music writing. It's icing, It separates the bang from the bore, washed up on the shore, wishing no more.
Doesn't anyone else think once Bangs found what works for him that he only continued because people liked it and realized he had an ability to get music criticism across? That was his job. If people didn't like it, no one would know his name today.
Don't let anyone tell you blogging is new journalism either. (In my mind art criticism and punditry isn't journalism but I know I'm in the minority in this view.) That's illusionary and makes no sense whatsoever. If we're talking about writing the only differences are, write shorter and add links. Knowing your audience is true no matter your medium. Certain basic rules of writing DO apply. That doesn't mean follow them all the time, but it does mean if you try and fail, you've failed and need to try something else. Failure is a part of becoming better but some people are destined to always fail and should be told this by readers (plural) and not encouraged insincerely by people just trying to be nice. That's often subjective but not always, so caution ahead. Don't be jerk just to be a jerk either.
Anyway, good writers realize that if very few understand what they're saying, they are the problem. If more people are bored than excited by what you're producing, then that should, at least, start a self-examination.
As a side note, any effort to ramble on about formulaic writing misses the points being made here. Of course it sucks. It's obvious so shut up, already. We're talking about what makes and breaks the formula.
Talent.
Talent.
Talent.
Writing for an audience - which is the only reason art criticism exists - is not merely about doing what comes naturally. There are certain things you need to do so other people want to read what you're typing. If you can. That's what West is on about.
temple
37 - Michael J. West
[Insert Temple's entire comment here]
Quoted for truth.
38 - JC Mosquito
Must be some serendipity goin' on here - I just got a copy of Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader (ed. John Morthland) as a withdrawn item from the public library. It's in great shape - but apparently no one takes it out much, so it was cut from the catalogue. Maybe Lester Bangs is less of an influence on rock journalism than any of us thinks he is?
And yes, it's a great read, too.