The bad influence of good music criticism

Michael J. West, a jazz music reviewer over at Blogcritics.org waxes well on the nature of music criticism and the dearth of great writing. And he points to inspiration as the cause.

His main point about talent was mostly overlooked by the - temporarily - hapless comments that followed. So I did my best to inject the talent topic back in. Go there and read, and then, well read my comment there or here.

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

Now I missed a few things I wanted to include and at least one point there can happily be debated and disagreements could still both be correct, but ...