lolling stone review

[keltoi]

Rolling Stone stays alive for the following reasons:

 

1. They publish excellent left-wing political and social commentary articles from freelance and guest writers. For example they ran the FOB Ramrod "Kill Team" story. It's oddly juxtaposed to their entertainment industry news content.

2. Their early reputation from the first decade they existed. It has been enough to keep readers when they began losing relevance in the late 70s when Hunter S Thompson left and when they ignored hip-hop and metal.

3. The general public just assumes they're like the NYT or Time magazine because they were first (same with pitchfork and their early existence online) so they buy it casually at newsstands or subscribe friends and family to the magazine.

 

did you see the observer review? the reviewer gets ripped on too, read the comments and her explanation... lolling stone's target audience isn't going to know or care who BoC are either..

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jun/09/boards-canada-tomorrows-harvest-review

 

 

I'm guessing you are all BOC fans.

Re-reading, I guess I see your point about the lack of 'this is the greatest BOC album ever'-type statements, or 'wow, this album sucks' type statements. I take that on board.

The bit that I guess I ought to explain is, I write for a Sunday newspaper, with a generalist audience, not a music specialist audience, or even a specialist BOC fan audience. I need to justify why I am writing a long review with a still fairly obscure Scottish electronic duo, so I need to make some claim about the fact that BOC preceded the album with all the vinyl clues etc. I need to inform casual readers who these guys are, and what they are about. I think those explanations make clear that I am seriously approving of their music and their methods.

All this contextualising uses up a lot of word count. I know the internet is infinite, but we hacks are still writing for paper as well. We have word counts. There isn't room to extensively critique every song. The most important thing is to give a flavour of the album.

I'm pretty confident I've got a handle on the future-dread that I heard in this record, but also felt it was important to stress that BOC remain tantalisingly vague themselves. Is it dawn? Is it a nuclear explosion? It very much depends on the baggage you bring to their music.

It is a three star review because it's a very good album, very welcome after so long, but didn't utterly knock my socks off in the same way MHTRTC and Geogaddi did.

[Guest jasondonervan]

 

Rolling Stone stays alive for the following reasons:

 

1. They publish excellent left-wing political and social commentary articles from freelance and guest writers. For example they ran the FOB Ramrod "Kill Team" story. It's oddly juxtaposed to their entertainment industry news content.

2. Their early reputation from the first decade they existed. It has been enough to keep readers when they began losing relevance in the late 70s when Hunter S Thompson left and when they ignored hip-hop and metal.

3. The general public just assumes they're like the NYT or Time magazine because they were first (same with pitchfork and their early existence online) so they buy it casually at newsstands or subscribe friends and family to the magazine.

 

did you see the observer review? the reviewer gets ripped on too, read the comments and her explanation... lolling stone's target audience isn't going to know or care who BoC are either..

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jun/09/boards-canada-tomorrows-harvest-review

 

 

I'm guessing you are all BOC fans.

Re-reading, I guess I see your point about the lack of 'this is the greatest BOC album ever'-type statements, or 'wow, this album sucks' type statements. I take that on board.

The bit that I guess I ought to explain is, I write for a Sunday newspaper, with a generalist audience, not a music specialist audience, or even a specialist BOC fan audience. I need to justify why I am writing a long review with a still fairly obscure Scottish electronic duo, so I need to make some claim about the fact that BOC preceded the album with all the vinyl clues etc.

 

Makes sense

 

[Npoess]

Most useless things on the planet:

 

1. Airplane seat belts

 

2. Books on how to read

 

3. Solar-powered flashlights

 

4. The portable watermelon cooler

 

 

5. Music reviews

[keltoi]

 

 

Rolling Stone stays alive for the following reasons:

 

1. They publish excellent left-wing political and social commentary articles from freelance and guest writers. For example they ran the FOB Ramrod "Kill Team" story. It's oddly juxtaposed to their entertainment industry news content.

2. Their early reputation from the first decade they existed. It has been enough to keep readers when they began losing relevance in the late 70s when Hunter S Thompson left and when they ignored hip-hop and metal.

3. The general public just assumes they're like the NYT or Time magazine because they were first (same with pitchfork and their early existence online) so they buy it casually at newsstands or subscribe friends and family to the magazine.

 

did you see the observer review? the reviewer gets ripped on too, read the comments and her explanation... lolling stone's target audience isn't going to know or care who BoC are either..

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jun/09/boards-canada-tomorrows-harvest-review

 

 

I'm guessing you are all BOC fans.

Re-reading, I guess I see your point about the lack of 'this is the greatest BOC album ever'-type statements, or 'wow, this album sucks' type statements. I take that on board.

The bit that I guess I ought to explain is, I write for a Sunday newspaper, with a generalist audience, not a music specialist audience, or even a specialist BOC fan audience. I need to justify why I am writing a long review with a still fairly obscure Scottish electronic duo, so I need to make some claim about the fact that BOC preceded the album with all the vinyl clues etc.

 

Makes sense

 

 

 

lol.

 

top 10 electronic album still makes it fairly obscure in normaldom though... as far as i can see it's not even in the top100 album chart.

[Guest jasondonervan]

Yeah, I admit I was being mildly facetious. The problem is that it's difficult to get a rational word in the guy's ear while trying to cut through the radio chatter of raged-up BoCliebers, who expect nothing less than critical acclaim for their prodigal Hexagon Sons.

[Npoess]

he sounds like he's speaking in-between bong hits.

 

lol

[Lianne]

I don't like most music reviews much at all either, but what's even more disturbing is the reactions of some BoC fans to criticism. Most of these fans don't seem to be able to explain anything of any substance or value in response to reviews they don't like - they simply slag off the reviewer with badly-written single-statement retorts. For example, I don't think Anthony Fantano warranted some of the responses he got at all, whether you agree with him or not.

[manmower]

That portable watermelon cooler looks somewhat useful.

[Guest jasondonervan]

I don't like most music reviews much at all either, but what's even more disturbing is the reactions of some BoC fans to criticism. Most of these fans don't seem to be able to explain anything of any substance or value in response to reviews they don't like - they simply slag off the reviewer with badly-written single-statement retorts. For example, I don't think Anthony Fantano warranted some of the responses he got at all, whether you agree with him or not.

 

Unhinged fans are a given, regardless of the artist under the microscope. Give 'em enough rope/comments box and they'll always attempt to hang the reviewer if they don't like what they see.

 

With his appearance and the standing he's attained within the online world, Fantano is an easy target. I'll joke about some of the things he says, but let's face it - when trying to audibly review a piece of music, some of it is always going to come off sounding a little goofy. To echo some statements of other folks in the dedicated thread, he does at least talk about what he's heard rather than tell everyone what an artist should have done, and he's far from being a rampant fanboy of any given artist, which couldn't be said for the bulk of the youtube commenters found below every video he does.

[Guest murphythecat8]

Fuck reviewers. They dont know shit about music, no serisouly I would love to confront their taste, in public. I think I never liked any reviewer ever. whos the good reviewers? they are all posers trying to proove how smart they are and how cool they are. Motherfucker,s never even understood jazz. Fuck'em.

 

smart people dont try to impress with their words and taste.

[keltoi]

i have a friend who reviews films and he always refers to the same small list of films which he knows inside out... even if the film bears no relation he'll shoe-horn in a reference.

 

i rip him about it.

 

quite rightly too, these people are supposed to be telling stupid people what they think.

[zkom]

I don't see what's the point of music reviews is any more. Back in the day when you had to sometimes buy the record before hearing it the review could give you some hint what it will sound like but now you can just pre-listen it on the internet. Within the same amount of time it takes to read a review I can skim through the whole album and decide if it's worth to buy or not.

[blos]

That portable watermelon cooler looks somewhat useful.

I guess we'll have to wait for the reviews.

[Npoess]

I sometimes enjoy reading a review after an album has been released, just to read some other peoples opinions. But people that use music reviews as a indicator to what is good music and what isn't, that is just silly.

[joshuatxuk]

 

Rolling Stone stays alive for the following reasons:

 

1. They publish excellent left-wing political and social commentary articles from freelance and guest writers. For example they ran the FOB Ramrod "Kill Team" story. It's oddly juxtaposed to their entertainment industry news content.

2. Their early reputation from the first decade they existed. It has been enough to keep readers when they began losing relevance in the late 70s when Hunter S Thompson left and when they ignored hip-hop and metal.

3. The general public just assumes they're like the NYT or Time magazine because they were first (same with pitchfork and their early existence online) so they buy it casually at newsstands or subscribe friends and family to the magazine.

 

did you see the observer review? the reviewer gets ripped on too, read the comments and her explanation... lolling stone's target audience isn't going to know or care who BoC are either..

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jun/09/boards-canada-tomorrows-harvest-review

 

 

I'm guessing you are all BOC fans.

Re-reading, I guess I see your point about the lack of 'this is the greatest BOC album ever'-type statements, or 'wow, this album sucks' type statements. I take that on board.

The bit that I guess I ought to explain is, I write for a Sunday newspaper, with a generalist audience, not a music specialist audience, or even a specialist BOC fan audience. I need to justify why I am writing a long review with a still fairly obscure Scottish electronic duo, so I need to make some claim about the fact that BOC preceded the album with all the vinyl clues etc. I need to inform casual readers who these guys are, and what they are about. I think those explanations make clear that I am seriously approving of their music and their methods.

All this contextualising uses up a lot of word count. I know the internet is infinite, but we hacks are still writing for paper as well. We have word counts. There isn't room to extensively critique every song. The most important thing is to give a flavour of the album.

I'm pretty confident I've got a handle on the future-dread that I heard in this record, but also felt it was important to stress that BOC remain tantalisingly vague themselves. Is it dawn? Is it a nuclear explosion? It very much depends on the baggage you bring to their music.

It is a three star review because it's a very good album, very welcome after so long, but didn't utterly knock my socks off in the same way MHTRTC and Geogaddi did.

 

 

Thanks for linking that, I think I overlooked it because I thought I already read that (the Observer and Guardian webpages are essentially identical). Good explanation on her part.

 

The problem with criticizing and calling out poor reviews is that most of your peers are simply butthurt fans. I would of been just as baffled and miffed by the lollingstone review if it gave the album a 4 or 4 and half star review. Likewise some of the best reviews I've read were 6/10 (or 3 stars, but I suppose some people think 6/10 seems better than 3/5)

 

The mark of a good review for me? One that effectively tells me whether an album is worth checking out. I've discovered some great albums and artists from informative and well-written reviews, and more often than not they had mediocre scores.