First off, this one is for the NERDS. This is for people who care about CRITICAL VOICE and ALBUM REVIEWS and THE SHADOW OF OBJECTIVITY as it LOOMS over the MUSIC WRITING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. Basically if you don’t care about that stuff, you’re probably going to be asking why any of this even matters. And if that’s the case, I totally get it. If it’s not your thing, don’t read it. Or do. Get weirdly uptight about how other people write about music. It’s your funeral. Here’s a link to an album I really enjoy that a lot of people don’t talk about: Burnpile by Seattle’s New Gods. SNG were a neo-grunge band, I guess? Its closest comparison is Jesus Lizard, I guess, but if you like the first few Militarie Gun EPs, you’ll like this. Ian Shelton is even drumming on it! Wow! Subculture sure is a small world!
I was skimming twitter before I watched the Nuggets-Knicks game on Saturday and saw this thread as it raised some hubbub in Music Journo world but the topic at hand is something I’ve definitely struggled with. I’m not supposed to write about my friends’ art, but I’m also not doing the best thing with my platform if I don’t talk about my friends’ art. For one, my friends are good at making art! I am friends with quite a few very talented people whose expression and ideals align with my own. I am fortunate to have them in my life and while what they might make might not always be my new favorite record/podcast/book/artwork, I largely enjoy what my friends produce. This is a newsletter largely about things that I enjoy, and definitely about the art I consume, so why wouldn’t I write about them?
In journalism school, I remember being taught to remain objective. Hell, I’m breaking a rule right now by writing in the first person. A third-person point of view takes its hand off of the subject and observations are presented as facts, or facts are presented as observations depending on what’s being written. There’s an idea, especially in criticism, that the critic should remain objective and present points of argument for or against a thesis as that’s what would win the debate. In this form of criticism, the writer chooses to make their argument an academic one rather than an emotional one. Points are counterpointed, views are expounded upon, work is shown.
Arts criticism from places like Pitchfork, for all its faults, presents an authoritative voice. Pitchfork calls itself The Most Trusted Voice In Music. The byline varies, but the Pitchfork Voice is the Voice that is Trusted by 9/10 music fans or whatever. It’s the judge and jury but rarely the executioner. A 5.2 from P4k won’t force an artist to quit making music but it might convince a prospective listener to not listen to the record. I couldn’t tell you if a bad P4k review has ever contributed to bad sales and I’m not sure that the correlation proves causation here but you get what I’m saying. I think that authority lends some air of respect to the casual reader, and it’s definitely something that I thought made P4k different when I was growing up, but I’m not sure we should all strive for it.
Objectivity, to some philosophers, is impossible. What is always true to you may not be true to me, given that you and I likely have different backgrounds. Honestly, being a philosopher sounds great. I’m not sure where the money is in philosophy, but I’d love to hang out with the gang and say stuff like, “The world is nothing but a chain of appearances and nothing is ever factual,” before a long afternoon sesh at the opium den. That seems like a great job. Anyway, Kant’s belief on objectivity is that it can only be said of things that are true in every possible world. This means that inverting the statement would make it incoherent. I’ll steal from the wikipedia article here because it’s a great example: “All bachelors are unmarried” is universally true because the inversion, “some bachelors are married,” doesn’t make sense. A condition of being a bachelor is being unmarried.
Why does any of this matter? I dunno. I guess what a lot of people find “objective,” I find sterile. If art is supposed to make me react, then why can I not write about my personal reaction?
With regards to writing this newsletter, I am not trying to sell the reader on a cult of personality. I could absolutely do that, but it’s not what I want to do. I’m not looking to be instructional or authoritative. If punk rock has taught me how to do one thing in my life, it’s questioning authority. I may not be butting heads with everything I see, but I’m likely asking myself why a particular creative choice was made whenever I consume art. I have my own view of the world and while it’s always subject to change through experience, I still might have an opinion on why I do or don’t like something. If nothing but fact is objective, then why should I refrain from subjectivity? I tend to think that if I’m going to fail, I might as well fail with aplomb.
Kant refers to “Enlightenment,” as “Man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.” To skip to the point of what I’ve read: Progress and revolution is made by people who think for themselves, people who are enlightened. Immaturity is caused by believing what other people say and not doing for self. Experience grants maturity.
A while back, I was going to get on stage and do three minutes of standup comedy at an open mic. I was very much ready to go and the people I went with said, “Don’t do it tonight, it’s the final night of this open mic and I’m not sure that the crowd will be receptive to a newcomer.” I believed them and I didn’t go up. Nevertheless, two or three other people mentioned that it was their first time doing standup that night. That could’ve been me! Nobody cared! The jokes were fine and it was an uneventful night in the life of your dear author. I stayed immature in that moment and still haven’t found it in me to get back up and do standup comedy. Part of that is because I don’t think it’s really “My Lane,” but what if I got up there, crushed, and found myself addicted to the rush of Telling Jokes? It could be a completely different world for me today.
Anyway back to the big topic: Why don’t we talk about our friends? Why do we attempt to remain objective in a realm that is inherently subjective? I think there are a lot of good reasons in terms of self-preservation and preservation of relationships. I couldn’t give my friends a bad review, so why review them at all? I might even understand the art on a deeper level than another person due to my proximity to the artist. Does that taint my critical eye? Maybe not, but I might make concessions to choices that I personally don’t agree with because of it.
That’s not to say that I think it’s wrong to write about your friends. If anything, I think more of us should. I’d love to hear about something weird and new that your friends did. I think that if critics aren’t friends or friendly with artists on some level, they’re not doing their job correctly. You engage with new art by learning about it from other people close to it, and that’s usually an artist. For years, I would learn about new and new-to-me artists by looking at liner notes and trying to see what a band might crib from another band. Why would you take an idea from another band? Probably because it resonated with you emotionally!
I think that when it comes down to it, the critical voice that I and other critics can share should be a little more subjective. I find it more interesting when I can see why other people think the way that they think. The music writing I love the most is done by people who feel a strong connection to the piece rather than someone who has to have an opinion immediately because the record released two days ago. If you don’t find a particular electronic artist interesting, I’d love to hear about the trauma a critic faced at the hands of a Roland TR-808 rather than see the same “It’s pretty good!” from 10 other critics on staff. If facts are objective, then why make them the focus of personal expression? If it’s something that we all share, then what can an undeniable truth actually tell me about the person who’s relaying it to me? Not as much as I’d like to know.