re: Why does it seem so many people hate Coldplay?

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Has anyone noticed that people who say they hate music critics seem to care far more about what critics say than anyone else? I enjoy a well-reasoned argument, though I wouldn't substitute critical opinion for my own.

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Exception: me

But I hate music critics only because others don't find them to be as useless as a perky rack on a nun, which they clearly are. So I don't hate music critics -- I pay them no mind -- but I hate that others haven't adopted a stance similar to my own. Because mine is the correct one.

Music critics == perky rack on a num == useless

#fact

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What's there to hate about a music critic? I read some, but never has one deterred me from buying a record... Over the years, there are a few that I would say are on my wave length...

I have used reviews of bands I didnt know to purchase records... some hits, some misses...

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I find album reviews to be completely useless. Not helpful. Talking about things I'm not concerned with. Saying that the my least favorite tracks are the best tracks on the album. Giving way too much consideration to the lyrics, and not enough to whether the songs sound good. Giving way too much consideration to whether the artist is doing something unique musically, rather than simply asking if the songs sound good or sound terrible. Using adjectives that, if I ever used, I would expect to get punched in the face for using. Or..because it took me one google search and then 30 seconds to find this sentence:

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All these rich sounds serve as an alternate take on anticipating technological encroachment, that humanity and technology aren't necessarily at war

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And I could find sentences even more nonsensical at the rate of one per minute if I were to attempt such an endeavour.

I read the quoted sentence, and all I see are words words words.

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What's there to hate about a music critic? I read some, but never has one deterred me from buying a record... Over the years, there are a few that I would say are on my wave length...

I have used reviews of bands I didnt know to purchase records... some hits, some misses...

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There is one less-known critic that I follow regularly and he has turned me onto some really fantastic bands through the years: Cloud Cult, Deastro, Fair to Midland, The Sound of Animals Fighting, Mew. The list goes on. Without his blog, I would not listen to half of what I do now.

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I wont claim to read every review or critic out there... but i find value....

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Value?


luxuriant, moody ballads

sleek, alabaster sound

latticework melodies

a universe of serious, apocalyptic music

splashes of synth color

ghostly melodies and hooks

ultimately stunning torrent of maximalist musical ideas

Stevie-style keyboard breeziness

90s bap&B

mystic psych rock

crunching 8-bit funk

softness replaces gaudy slurp

airless but inhabitable

slick but not retro

DIIV's compelling debut album is a gorgeous and unusually melodic dream-pop record built around verses and choruses but these are unusually fluid and intuitive. The Brooklyn band's original name of "Dive" was, according to Zachary Cole Smith, touring guitarist for Beach Fossils, a tribute to the Nirvana song and/or an acknowledgment of how each member has a "water" astrological sign. And the experience of Oshin is undeniably aqueous: DIIV's songs work within macro structures of verse/chorus implication, but are internally more fluid and intuitive, almost post-rock in miniature. DIIV appear to be at a place where bands like Real Estate and the War On Drugs were after their debut full-lengths; similarly good albums which blurred instrumentals and songcraft, evocation and statement.

On this record, Segall's impulsiveness yields to a holistic aesthetic-- he's described it as "evil space rock" in interviews, but Slaughterhouse feels more subterranean and animalistic

Instead of being cloudy or wistful, her throwback moves are the opposite-- intrusive, corporeal.

an emotional blast and also a sonic blur

the album's sound has the misty-but-tactile, feeling of a sense memory

Inscrutable and transfixing, plainspoken and unknowable, it feels like a collection of secrets Elverum has cupped in his palm to pour directly, and privately, into your ear alone, a rich meditation on the many meanings of the word "home."



The above took about four minutes to compile. I'm stopping. I could go on.



"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture"
--Elvis Costello

I don't much care for record reviews, but I do rather like music criticism -- which is rather large distinction. Chuck Klosterman rarely writes record reviews, but he's one of the best music critics out there (and one with whom I rarely agree -- he's a great conversation starter and often gets me to think about things in a new way). Lester Bangs is the grand champion of great music critics who didn't really write reviews.

I really like Stephen Hyden, who is now writing for Grantland, especially his historical pieces he did for the AV Club. whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? was an outstanding series.

To tie this back to Coldplay, I have no real dog in this fight. I'm largely indifferent to them. But I do find it funny how people are so insistent they SOUND NOTHING LIKE RADIOHEAD. When the comparison is made all the time by a wide swath of people. It's not some obscure rock-crit theory. The bands sound a lot alike. I love the Cloud Nothings. They sound like Fugazi. I don't think pointing out a band sounds like another band is some sort of terrible insult.

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The bands sound a lot alike.

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Out of curiosity, can you produce an example? I've never mistaken one for the other and I dont know their songs really...

I just don't know any Radiohead because I've never tried to. I know and respect their worth and talent, but I just don't care about them. Same with Pink Floyd.

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I don't much care for record reviews, but I do rather like music criticism -- which is rather large distinction. Chuck Klosterman rarely writes record reviews, but he's one of the best music critics out there (and one with whom I rarely agree -- he's a great conversation starter and often gets me to think about things in a new way). Lester Bangs is the grand champion of great music critics who didn't really write reviews

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I agree with all of this.

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Harry Caray

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You don't care for Pink Floyd?

because their music is lame