Popcorn Noises

B Michael Tumblr: It's Not For You

I’ve had some really good conversations on Twitter today, which really foregrounded a problem with criticism. The idea of a critic landing a cross-genre shot, contre-pied’ing our expectations (think: David Wallace on Terminator 2) is delightful. But it has to be done extremely well, drawn from a decent amount of knowledge and even more empathy.

Most times, when a critic of one type deals with an unfamiliar topic, he enters parlous territory. Think: Chuck Klosterman on Tune-Yards.

The bigger point, then, is that sometimes something’s not for you. It’s a challenging presumption. Eve Barlow treated it in a piece on criticism and Rihanna:
I’ve seen it time and again – people reviewing artists outwith their comfort zone. The reviews may as well write themselves. Alexis Petridis wrote the Rihanna live review recently for The Guardian. Why?! What is the point of Alexis, a highly esteemed writer but someone who blatantly doesn’t want to embrace Rihanna’s Grace Jones-indebted pop shtick, writing that review? I don’t want to assume too much about you. If it is the case that you are a relentless pop junkie like me and await the next of Sean Rowley’s Guilty Pleasures nights with enormous glee then please let me know. I’d love to go out clubbing and bend your ear about all the tricks of the trade. It’s just that reading your review of Rihanna’s album, I can’t help but get the sense that you’re not enjoying yourself and you’ve missed the point.
A big pop release? Please, I’d love to read Jonathan Bogart on it. Death metal (or whatever I’m to call it)? Brandon Stousy, definitely. The latest King Louie tape? Get me David Drake. People have wheelhouses, sets of knowledge, and most importantly, appreciation for different things. Those are the people who should be working on those things. That doesn’t mean those things would only get positively reviewed. In fact, the opposite. The more into something, and the more you know about it, the easier it is to find its faults and identify where it’s gone astray…

Please do click through and read the rest of this because it covers some important things to think about. I realize, especially in terms of the subject matter being covered here, that the world probably doesn’t need another white-male perspective like mine on it, but this first bit about critics having ‘wheelhouses’ hits home pretty hard. Is it better to keep writing about what you know in order to perpetuate well-read/well-listened discussion of art (and cut down on the ignorance factor explained above) or is it better to branch out—slowly, first with your ears then much later with your words—to try to gain a new, possibly wider point of view? For instance: the few times I’ve written about pop, R&B, and hip-hop (especially of the commercially successful variety) I’ve struggled to articulate what I hope/wish were my well-reasoned thoughts on it. This stuff usually ends up reading very shallow and inexperienced—hey big surprise!—and I decide to crawl sheepishly back to my comfort zone. In the last month, the best things I’ve written have been about The Mountain Goats, Sleigh Bells, and The Shins; a decent encapsulation of an indie-pop/rock centric taste, wouldn’t you agree? I’d be lying if I said my interest in other genres, though spurred mostly by earnest musical fascination, wasn’t also fueled in part by an ugly anxiety, a sudden sense of smallness and ignorance that comes from reading other people who know backwards and forwards things I’m clueless about. I’m glad that awesome criticism pushes me to want to be better and more knowledgeable, but it’s tough to know where to channel that energy.

Source: bmichael