Comments on: Against music reviews

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:38:05 +0000

This is insane. Whatever happened to the intentional fallacy and the undead logic of the New Critics? Do you really think this Columbia educated band (a university entrenched in its education in practical readings) is not fully aware of themselves as ironists?

You know, we celebrate Baudelaire’s ironic flair of flaneury knowing he consumed the Parisian scenes just as much as he consumed a nice cutlet of beef in the petit-bourgeois cafes on the then-newly-created Haussmann byways that ran through the “old paris.” Why does history venerate one yet culture deplore the other when they both belong to same ironic coin? Do you really believe there is no rhetorical gesture in both the band’s music and their status as band? In both content AND structure? We’re talking self-consciousness here folks, and not on the level of Marxism, but on the level of language. Irony disorients all of us, and the fame game is the Matrix of Irony. The band knows its “role” so to speak; Ivy-league, cosmopolitan hipsters–the yuppie before the Yuppies–yet, it is within this knowledge that they escape the fatalistic terminus ad quem of all pop culture cogs. Even the slightest remove from the bitch-goddess of Irony and they enter into the abject safeguard of artifice; of language–just as one Charles Baudelaire. Thus all we have is the surface, the prima facie gaze, or, to put it so poetically, the music.

Stop with ideologizing. The political is only the endless receptacle of meaning devices appropriated incessently in the vacuum of non-meaning: Language.

Charles Baudelaire was a great poet. VW is a great band. And that’s a nice sweater too.

By: shane

shane — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:41:42 +0000

when your talking about marxist people or critcs u have to understand that they have a motive in there opinions,look at the film MILK it was lame but it won an oscar theres your proof right there,its all about anti-capitalisim ,and political slavery shouting down the voice of oposition to plant the seeds of unrest so that the few can get rich wile the rest of us starve AL Gore is the biggest rip off artist ever the UN reports on global warming have been dismised as lies people need to open there eyes to whats right in from of them and dont be suprised when cry baby bands ripping of the steal this book moto pop up left and right with the same motovation as everyone else to make lots of money for there selfs

By: Tatiana

Tatiana — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:07:48 +0000

Well, I feel the same feeling as you, about “marxist analysis” on music at these days… (not random my blog called, translating, “I’ve lived very well without Marx”). I am an enthusiastic about VW and I amreading lots of reviews about them. Thanks for your opinion.

By: marvin

marvin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:09:19 +0000

thank you! for fuck’s sake I want some MUSIC criticism. I am SO SICK of armchair sociology masturbation. what the hell happened??!?!?

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:09:18 +0000

I think Peli already addressed this point to an extent, but I think you’re wildly off the mark with your claims that poppiness is an automatic negative for today’s music intelligentsia — quite the opposite in fact for much of it. If that weren’t the case, in fact, we might not have VW debuting at #17 on billboard, because, let’s face it, they’re selling mainly to liberal arts college students and graduates — people who no doubt take their cues from critics and bloggers (making them unlike the majority of music listeners.)

The Village Voice con review was certainly a good example of a lazy, poorly written dismissal for sure, but the Voice is hardly the gold standard of music journalism since the most recent ownership change.