The truth shall set you free
This is a topic I've talked and written to several people about, most recently Dan from the Boudin Dance, the impression or actuality of being honest, discerning and sometimes "negative" with reviews, particularly CD reviews, versus seeming to be an all the time booster or "everything is beautiful" writer/critic.
Having written for publications (not counting college) for 20 years, I, like many music writers, have reviewed music that I liked, disliked, loved, hated, had no strong feelings about, requested, was specifically assigned to write about and simply had no choice but to write about because there was nothing else to write about. Of course, over the thousands of reviews I've written, I have written positive, negative, middling and still not certain reviews, and I have always believed in being as honest about whatever music I was writing about as possible, and having as strong an opinion as I honestly could. Yes, I have had fun with negative reviews (although not too often with those forms that did not actively seek out my opinion), and have been mean with some, but I never changed my actual opinion for a "good" laugh or insult.
But having a web site that my wife Val and I control the content and frequency of new articles and photographs appearing in, negative reviews, mainly of CDs, have all but disappeared, not because I don't want to write anything negative (just check some of my comments in the Music Is Art 2004 and 2005 articles), but I really don't have the time or inclination to listen to a bad or boring CD enough to write an intelligent, accurate review of any more. If a release by a major or a favorite artist comes out that is simply horrible or very disappointing, I will certainly consider writing a negative review, but the two most recent opportunities I had, of the newest releases by Tom Waits and Sonic Youth, I just didn't then and still don't now want to go back and listen to them again to write about.
I'd love to hear how any of you writers out there handle this situation.
Having written for publications (not counting college) for 20 years, I, like many music writers, have reviewed music that I liked, disliked, loved, hated, had no strong feelings about, requested, was specifically assigned to write about and simply had no choice but to write about because there was nothing else to write about. Of course, over the thousands of reviews I've written, I have written positive, negative, middling and still not certain reviews, and I have always believed in being as honest about whatever music I was writing about as possible, and having as strong an opinion as I honestly could. Yes, I have had fun with negative reviews (although not too often with those forms that did not actively seek out my opinion), and have been mean with some, but I never changed my actual opinion for a "good" laugh or insult.
But having a web site that my wife Val and I control the content and frequency of new articles and photographs appearing in, negative reviews, mainly of CDs, have all but disappeared, not because I don't want to write anything negative (just check some of my comments in the Music Is Art 2004 and 2005 articles), but I really don't have the time or inclination to listen to a bad or boring CD enough to write an intelligent, accurate review of any more. If a release by a major or a favorite artist comes out that is simply horrible or very disappointing, I will certainly consider writing a negative review, but the two most recent opportunities I had, of the newest releases by Tom Waits and Sonic Youth, I just didn't then and still don't now want to go back and listen to them again to write about.
I'd love to hear how any of you writers out there handle this situation.
posted by val at 10:21 PM
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