I wanted to take a slightly different approach to this assignment; when I read the prompt the first thing I wondered was how personal opinions come into play when doing a meta-critique. The meta-critique, as far as I understand it, is not the place for bracketing out personal preferences. Adversely, it is where personal opinions come into play, and whether you as the reader feels that the critique has done the work justice or not, whether it has given enough information, and whether the information given has been the right kind. It occurred to me that - "not knowing any better" - an audience reading a review without being familiar with the piece under review could very well have an entirely different impression of how effective the critique was, as opposed to the point of view of an audience who knew the piece.
Wanting to see the difference, I found two album reviews from Slant Magazine - the first being Nickel Creek's 2005 Why Should the Fire Die? and the second Chris Thile's new venture Punch with his new band The Punch Brothers. I chose these specifically because Chris Thile is one of my favorite artists, a musician I hold in rather high esteem but at the same time I'm not always partial to everything he does. I am incredibly familiar with Why Should the Fire Die? and having spent lots of time with it, I have my own ideas about the album. Punch, on the other hand, I've never heard before. I saw his new group perform when they were still backing Thile on his 2006 solo album and later when they were playing around under the name "The Tensions Mountain Boys," but not being familiar with them as a cohesive unit nor their new sound, I feel I'm sufficiently in the dark to read the review as a member of an objective and merely interested readership.
The entire review glows, and only a near-throwaway comment near the end sheds light onto why the album recieved only 4 out of 5 stars. Are their standards that high? "Still, as accomplished and compelling as Why Should the Fire Die? ultimately is, the lasting impression it gives is one of a record that's destined to become a "transitional album" in the catalogue of the most innovative, exciting artists in popular music." With all these great things to say about the album, are we really to be satisfied when told, "yeah, well, this album is freakin' fantastic and their next one is sure to be better, but it's because this isn't as good as their potential future work that we're not giving it all the credit it's due?" Even if it didn't turn out that this was Nickel Creek's final album (they broke up in 2006 to pursue independent musical interests), I'd still answer No, I don't think so.
In his review for Punch, however (both albums were reviewed by the same critic), he cites strengths and weaknesses of the pieces and the album as a whole in a way that makes me inclined to believe him without having heard the album myself. This review is also highly referential, but throws in more specificities regarding Thile's (and fellow members') virtuosity and how it plays into their songwriting. Much appreciated, considering that his sheer brilliance (my words) in composition is what has earned him so much respect and acclaim. I understand that this is a review for an internet entertainment magazine, but in a critique that dug a little deeper I'd love to be shown more syntactical information: concrete examples of cool things done with the music. God knows there are enough of them.
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteI very rarely have the opportunity to receive this type of in-depth, academic commentary on my work. As someone who finds critical theory fascinating and who tends to aspire to bring "serious" critical engagement into discussions of popular music at a time when many other writers are more focused on writing "consumer reviews," this was a true pleasure to read.
The Nickel Creek review is one of the first I had published, and I certainly feel that I have learned more about what I value as a music critic and why I write the way I do in the three-plus years since writing that particular review. While I will respectfully disagree that the review's final sentence is a "near throw-away comment"-- I'd argue that it's an attempt to place, albeit speculatively, an album that was an aesthetic departure for its artist in a broader context of how such albums often come to be viewed when looking back on an entire career-- it was interesting to re-read that review in contrast to the review of Punch and to take notice of their respective referential qualities.
As for the issue of a star rating, I've discussed with my editor at length that I believe they are anathema to efforts at criticism because the majority of readers emphasize the importance of a quantitative "value judgment" moreso than the qualitative evaluation of the work. I'd prefer not to use them, though I know that most other writers would disagree with me on that point. But, just to respond to your comment about why I rated the album as I did, I tend to distribute star ratings using something of a "bell curve" model: the majority of the albums I review receive 3 or 3.5 stars, with very few albums receiving 1 star or lower or a full 5 stars. That's simply a matter of personal discretion, not an editorial policy for Slant.
Your point about syntactical information is entirely fair. Having 10 years of classical piano training under my belt, I feel that I could bring more specificity to that aspect of my writing. But a key part of writing album reviews for a magazine with a broad readership is writing for an audience, and, in my experience, readers tend to be more interested in the referential and historical/ontological aspects of reviews of "pop" music. From reading your other blog entries here, it seems that the "eclectic" model of music criticism proposed by Dr. Ferrera is geared more specifically toward classical music, but I could be wrong about that. In either case, I plan to read more about this model to determine if it is something that I feel would work for me as someone who writes about popular music.
Best of luck in your studies and thanks for reading.
- Jonathan -
COMMENTS:
ReplyDelete- OUTSTANDING, LAUREN!
- A VERY ORIGINAL APPROACH TO THE ASSIGNMENT THAT HAS YIELDED MANY FASCINATING INSIGHTS - THE FEEDBACK YOU RECEIVED FROM MR. KEEFE BEARS THIS OUT.
- GRADE: A