Phil, this is why we need your blog back!

I think the intelligentsia/blogerati overt love of the most mainstream pop is simply over-compensation for years of being seen as depressed indie-nerds or something. Nothing wrong with that, except when it leads to long-winded defenses of the most commercially-succesful music around.

However, it is quite clear that your own plans to occupy a niche in which your actions are effective stem simply from a desire to feel special. Nothing wrong with that either, as I have the same plan and desire myself.

But isn't talking about pop on Bagatellen a bit pointless? I don't get the impression that the Bags readers (at least, the ones that post comments) navigate the musical blogosphere that much.

Of course, I have absolutely nothing on which to base that last comment.

John Butcher told me he thinks good reviews are irrelevant to how well a record sells (in his experience), and I'm still trying to decide whether I agree with him. in my world, at least, I don't think there are always links between rave reviews and increased sales, no matter where those reviews are. Marcello Carlin and Rob Young both chose Marcus Schmickler's Pluramon CD as their single favorite release of 2003, and wrote long raves about it, but if Karaoke Kalk can't get good distribution for it, those don't matter so much.

I keep an eye on the blogosphere and ILM, once in a while chiming in on the latter. I'll agree that we definitely need Phil's blog back, even if sometimes I can't believe how much I disagree with him.

John (and Jon) has a point. David Keenan's rave review of the album I did with Arthur Doyle, and Tom Djll's nice words about "Metro Pre St Gervais" seemed not to make a blind bit of difference. I sometimes end up reviews with lines like "buy now or you'll regret it", but I'm not sure anybody does (though I think James Coleman rushed out & bought the Quatuor Accorde album after reading one such exhortation).
Hmm, that Pluramon.. I bought it yesterday (yep, still BUY discs from time to time :)), having read Rob Young's Wire rave. It's nice, well done, but hardly as exciting imho as Cornelius' "Point" the year before. It sounds a bit like Cocteau Twins with glitches. Nice studio work though. Hats off to Schmickler.

Like I've said a million times, why should we care whether a reviewer loves something unless we already know we generally agree with that reviewer? To give a recent example, I'm ordering the Leimgruber/Muller cd Brian just reviewed here, and not IN SPITE of his piece, but based on it--even though it's pretty clear he didn't exactly love it. Purchasing choices are, IMHO, a bit more complicated than people just buying stuff because somebody wrote somewhere that it's phenomenal.

Phil -- would you say that really well-written, damning criticism of pop consumer product is as useless as the kind of (pseudo-)intellectual capitulation you're describing here? Can it make a difference?

Mass media in America really has become a hell of self-reflectivity. I have to wonder just how much qualitative difference, if any, there is between coverage of the Madonna-Britney kiss, the "Bennifer" break-up, mad cow scares, and Howard Dean's Iowa concession rant.

>it is quite clear that your own plans to occupy a niche in which your actions are effective stem simply from a desire to feel special.

Coming, as I do, from something of an outsider perspective (metal kid "discovers" out jazz), I have a massive inferiority complex about my own writing, and indeed about the validity of my opinions. Particularly since my reading/listening is still so limited compared with the vast bulk of what's out there, I'm forever looking over my own figurative shoulder when writing, thinking "What record have I not heard, what article/book have I not read, that someone is going to claim invalidates my whole thesis, once this is published?" At the same time, I'm convinced that reviews can change things, at least when it comes to small-scale/indie/underground/fringe music, because they did for me. I would never have bought a Borbetomagus album had I not read Byron Coley's write-up on them in Spin back in 1988 or whenever. So I keep going, anticipating ridicule each time.

>would you say that really well-written, damning criticism of pop consumer product is as useless as the kind of (pseudo-)intellectual capitulation you're describing here? Can it make a difference?

I don't think it can. Which is why it's so important for writers to defend/fortify the underground, an arena in which debate is not only important, but necessary. Like I said above, "the pop edifice remains impassive, impenetrable. The pop industry is as indifferent to its sycophants as it is to its would-be assassins...Pop doesn’t care whether critics like it or not. Its power is in its omnipresence, in its irresistibility (irresistible like a tank through the front door, not like a chocolate truffle on the tongue). Pop is about control." Pop isn't about entertainment, it's about capitalism, and one of the core principles of large-scale capitalism is crushing the competition in order to increase one's own sales.

I'm not opposed to capitalism, obviously; I agree with Samuel Johnson's line that "none but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." But the imperialism of pop is disturbing, especially since it seems like a shoddier and shoddier product is created each season, while making that product's advertising more inescapable and smug each time, too.

It seems to me, though, that when you're operating on a smaller scale, critics can actually make a difference. And there's no point in doing something, unless there's the chance of making a difference in the attempt.

> I agree with Samuel Johnson's line that "none but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

Then you're talking to a whole lot of blockheads here...... ;)

You can write about popular musics for the same reason you may write about politics: not because you think it likely you'll make an enormous impact, but because trying to make sense of the world around you is a necessary act.

To return to the Sasha Frere-Jones piece for a second, I thought it was pretty funny that he levelled the "you don't like it (Justin Timberlake) because the kids like it." Seems like a decades-old argument (Elvis Presley, swing music, even) to trot out as if JT was uncovering a new demographic.

To extend the "consumer guide" approach, wouldn't it be logical to scrap the traditional stars rating system and go for something more reflective of today's consumer logic? I suggest:

Ignore it
Stream it
Download it
Buy it

"Buy it" being, of course, the highest praise available, as it is the most expensive.

As for Phil's middle name, I'm dissappointed it doesn't start with C. Then I could have guessed Phil Crying Freeman.

since you cite Too Beautiful To Burn in your piece, it's interesting to note that the NY Times will run a review of this tomorrow. I expect it to have little if any noticeable impact on sales (previous Times pieces haven't done much, seemingly), but who knows, we'll see.

When I said that people here don't seem to visit the blogosphere, I wasn't thinking of the IHM posters.

What damning criticism of pop music I've seen seems to exhort the record companies to produce better pop music - some combination of nostalgia and frustration.Similarly anti-pop records (the very few that I've heard), usually trying to make some kind of statement against mass produced music, often use a poor-man's version of the same technology, and simply caricature music that's already comedically poor. Both kinds of criticism serve only to reinforce the strength of these products, since they exist only in opposition (if you can call it that) to mainstream pop music. If you talk, write and sing about how bad pop music is, at the end of the day, you're still talking writing and singing about pop-music. To critique something properly, you have to offer an alternative - to place pop music in the context of something else you can recommend either due to its musical content, means of production or both.

Pop writers aren:t justifying Timberlake albums by comparing them positively to the latest improvised music in Japan release - just a single negative mention would probably reach more readership than every review written about that or any other experimental music label for a year or so. As Phil points out, pop's success is due to its success in locking out sale or discourse about anything else, so talking about it only serves to divert much needed attention from the other music that needs it.

Are we talking pop as a "genre" of sorts or as whatever sells more than X units?

The opposite point of view:

"The snobbery -- for that's what it is -- stuck around. And so music critics laud bands of which few have even heard, implying that the bands' lack of success is a mark of genius. Literary critics tout neglected masterpieces, expressing contempt for the works of authors who have somehow managed to hoodwink a vast chunk of the population by selling spectacularly well. Film critics revel in the championing of unsung independent movies that only a brilliant sliver of observers are savvy enough to appreciate."

"Literary critics tout neglected masterpieces, expressing contempt for the works of authors who have somehow managed to hoodwink a vast chunk of the population by selling spectacularly well."

You know, it really is possible to do one without the other.

getting back to the original post, and the Sasha Frere-Jones piece Phil linked to...

Phil, I agree with Sasha's taste even less than I do yours these days, but he wrote the first article anywhere on Erstwhile (Time Out New York, April 2000, a combined review of 004, 005 and 006). he used to have a great column in the NY Post, where he wrote about experimental music every Wednesday (I think). I definitely learned about some stuff from him, I even tried to get him higher-profile jobs a couple of places (before I'd even met him). now he has a family to support, and people will pay considerably more to write about pop music, more power to him. he's still very entertaining to read, even if you don't care at all about the music he talks about.

also, as a side point, critics can make a difference in pop music sales, at least they could a few years ago. I worked at Time for ten years, and the nincompoop critic there (Chris Farley, not the large dead comedian) occasionally championed slightly different things. for instance, he really helped break Green Day big, and I think he helped the Fugees and their side projects a lot also.

with experimental art, most people stop trying as hard to push themselves at some point along the way, musicians, critics, listeners. if you're not one of those people in some regard, then just keep doing what you're doing, and try to minimize whining about the people who have. I think what frustrates you (Phil) sometimes is that you want to be an expert on every area of music, and no one can be.

Jon,

Interesting to learn about Sasha's background. Reading the end-of-year music club group discussion on Slate, the topics and albums/singles covered were almost laughably Top 40-bound.

yeah, that's what he's into these days, he can listen with his kids and his wife.

Sasha also was/is a member of the band Ui, who among other things, contributed a track to the Tom Ze remix CD. and when he was running his own label, Bingo, he commissioned and assembled one of Derek Bailey's most interesting projects of the past decade, Playbacks.

Maybe this quote sums up the POV PDF is arguing against:

"This is of course true; and it would be absurd to deny that you can find great records in every year, if you look hard enough. But it's precisely that notion of having to search out greatness that for me marks out a down period in Pop."
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/001432.html

Interesting piece there. This is the part I reacted to most strongly:

"Partly what I find unsatisfying in Popism is its divorcing of Pop from social energy...What is the dominance of Celebreality if not an isolating of Pop(ism)'s purest features - glitz, glamour and the Song - all eerily separated from any supporting social trends. No bands, groups, packs: only consumer apotheosis, the telematic auto-domination of the silent majorities, passively driving the whole process from their/ our armchairs. "

Perhaps its also a question of Status versus Contract. I mean, attenuated though they may be, we are talking here about social interactions.

I feel that what Phil is advocating is that critics and artists establish a contract -- better, compact -- with their audiences, one in which the terms are rather transparent. The idea that any given pop star or critics wields power in his / her role as Arbiter and Oracle is dangerous only so far as people recognize and thus continue to validate the idea of Status as such. Lester Bangs wrote often about this difficulty, if I think about it, especially in his early essays on The Stooges (and their apparent "amatuerism") and in that famous piece where he describes getting up onstage with the J. Geils Band to "jam" on his typewriter... But people still seem psychologically attached to Status, and it is worth remembering that contracts can codify abnd enforce inequities as much as anything else.

Not that I think you're advocating, that, Phil. I find much to admire in your position. And I wouldn't say it is "elitist", not even in an attempt to be ironic. I would say, however, that is is disciplined.

A little off-topic but just wanted to say I liked the layout of the site