Music Criticism

Musicians who are lower-profile or just getting their start in the music world can easily be made or broken by a music review on their work. Unfortunately, music critics don't always even listen to the music they're criticizing (an example is given in the artcle by Brennan, where a news post reviewed a record twice... the first time they had not had time to listen to the record, so they wrote an awful review and still published it, rather than just delaying the article. The second time, a few years later, they listened to the same record and gave it glowing reviews. Obviously, the public reacted better to the band the second time because this critic had given his thumbs-up for it).
This isn't right. Professional groups, such as a news team, shouldn't run a story that they know nothing about. Not many people are going to go out and buy the tracks of an artist who got bad reviews, mainly because they believe that music critics know what they're talking about so if a professional found it bad, obviously they will too. Conversely, in class we talked about how some people actually AVOID popular music. Songs that are on the Top 40 Charts may actually be listened to less because people feel that they are simply being listened to because it's the typical thing to do and don't actually have any substance. Sometimes music is about popularity and listening to a song just because everyone is (seriously, how else did the Macarena get popular?) but recently we've been entering a stage where people find their identity in being different than the mainstream, sometimes even being completely turned off to the idea of listening to music on the radio because "it's what everyone listens to."
It's a weird and relatively difficult to define process, especially because some people find sites like Pandora helpful (when they show bands that a certain band "sounds like") and think that it can help them filter the huge amount of music down to what they might actually like, but others think that it is limiting to reference similar bands-- if someone just plain doesn't like one of those bands, he or she will most likely skip the one that Pandora deemed "similar."
Kaminsky overviewed some of the ways that music critics analyze the music then did his own analysis of Sting's song "Lithium Sunrise." He said that there are four different views of music (the composer/performer, listener, cultural and/or commercial issues, and the music itself) and that for the best music review, the critic will center himself amongst these four points and identify with all of them. Typically, they will choose one or two and only give the perspective of those. Also, he stressed that popular music CANNOT be analyzed merely using the tools of musicology-- it requires many more angles and perspectives. Music critics must balance themselves between the two extremes of sounds way too formal in their review and sounding as though they are just guessing at what the artist was aiming for. Studying music is an "interdisciplinary matter" and it must be studied from more than just a few angles to actually understand the full intention.
Music criticism can be very helpful and enlightening, but it can also limit people to what they might try listening to. If a music critic doesn't like a style of music, he or she can't give it the same chance to if it were in a genre they love. The media can skew people's perceptions and opinions simply by the light which they cast musicians in.

--This was a partial summary of the below articles, along with additional information based on my own opinions and issues discussed in the May 13th class--

Brennan, Matt The rough guide to critics: musicians discuss the role of the music press Popular Music, Volume 25, Issue 02, May 2006, pp 221-234 Full text available in Cambridge Journals Online.

Kaminsky, Peter M. “Revenge of the Boomers: Notes on the Analysis of Rock Music.” Music Theory Online 6/3 (2000). http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.00.6.3/mto.00.6.3.kaminsky.html