The criticism of musician and music critic John Robb by Drowned in Sound’s incredibly verbal community has led me to attempt to sketch out what it is about being a ‘critic’ that leads to such heated debate. Obviously, the DiS community at large happily disrespect anything, believing they have higher standards, better tastes and greater moral leanings than anyone else, ever; but the site is so frequently plagued by argument, it could be renamed ‘Drowned in Rows’. Of course, a comment like that would be spat on by a fervent DiSser, and rightly so. The problem arises when the anonymous DiSser or DiSsee arises from their seated computer position, naked, defacetes into their hands and begins to hurl excrement at the screen howling “YOU DON’T GET IT! I HATE YOU! I LOVE THIS RECORD! YOU’RE THE IDIOT! IT’S YOU! YOU, YOU CUNT!”
I can picture this. You can see it happening on the boards. In the UK, DiS is undoubtedly one of the largest and most popular music sites on the internet and with good reason. It’s got a clear identity and is plain about what it likes and doesn’t like. In other words, you know where you stand with DiS. It’s faithful: like a harem.
But the strength of a site like DiS is also its downfall. The powerfully minded community have things to say and they have the ability to estrange, isolate and negate with strong bullying tactics. That’s not anyone’s fault; like Bruce Hornsby said, “That’s just the way it is”.
Nevertheless, DiS has a strong agenda. It’s never shirked from its love of bands like Sonic Youth and is responsible for propelling bands it has loved out of obscurity to relative fame; the Kaiser Chiefs being just one example. Publications thrive on a strong editorial line, a determined editor can and will manipulate content to serve the publication so it is seen to retain its integrity, vision and, more importantly, following.
So when a fellow writer was asked by a major publication to write 500 words on an artist (who was awarded album of the month) he didn’t personally believe in, or like, he was vilified and eventually made to feel that he had to leave his post for this non-compliance. Madness. It is absolutely fair to say that there are rarely major music reviews available that have never been tampered with and that are often tempered. I say this as someone who is skirting the music industry occasionally dipping my head into this shark-infested pond.
Critics are cunts. There’s no escaping that. What would make a person want to criticise someone’s art, someone else’s hard work? An industry, sadly. There are too many artists; too many sources of information and a vicious bureaucratic, marketing division that seem to govern what ‘makes it’ and what dies. There’s no two ways about it. As Lemmy says in the recent and brilliant film Anvil, “If you’re not in the right place at the right time, you’ll never make it”. And that is the truth. How did Oasis manage it? Alan McGee. How did The Beatles? Brian Epstein.
Though music itself has little to do with the immediate, it has everything to do with the sustainable. It’s easy enough to make people buy a record, there are techniques for that. But to fall in love with a band, to want to see them live, to continue to buy their records? Well, that takes more than complex marketing.
As a music ‘critic’, I’ve spent a great deal of my time buying and making music; spent years trying to ‘make it’, to get heard and to create something magical. It hasn’t happened – not in any meaningful way, but I’m OK with that. I see my place as to not simply act as a filter; finding the next best thing and tweeting about them – polarising fans and haters in the process. I see it as a duty to bring recognition to the records that don’t get picked up; the ones that no writer will pick from the list; it’s like picking the asthmatic, fat kid at school that no-one will pick for basketball but actually has the will and love to play. That was me.
What am I saying? Does anyone even care? Maybe. Probably not. It’s just an opinion and we all have them. You may hate the new Bibio record but I just so happen to love it. I love The Beatles – you love The Rolling Stones. So fucking what? It doesn’t make either of us less of a person – it’s just music. No, don’t get precious over it – it is just music. Like John Lennon himself said when The Beatles split, “We were just a band that made it very, very big, that’s all…you’ve still got the records!”
Music criticism is a vacuous occupation inherited by the obsessed and socially inarticulate. We can rarely function in social situations and shirk our duties as meaningful contributors to society. We are plagued by doubt, or should be, and I take what I say personally and feel bad when I dislike a record. But that’s not my fault. It’s the fucking artist’s.