The Rhapsody music service has an association with Robert Christgau. They include some of his short album reviews when you search for music, and they feature an occasional "Dynamic Playlist" of songs Christgau has recently included in his Consumer Guide. I was visiting the Rhapsody support forums today ... while it is the best streaming music service around, its software is buggy and its customer service mostly non-existent, so your best bet when a problem surfaces is to ask other users ... and I noticed someone had started a thread on Christgau. The initial post set the tone:
Robert Christgau is the worst critic to ever write about ANY type of entertainment. His reviews have always shown him to be a pompous fool who believes that anything he doesn't like is garbage and anyone who likes what he doesn't has no taste. I'm an educated person but I still can't figure out what he's saying in half of his reviews. Please don't put his inanities on this website anymore. I really enjoy my Rhapsody but if I see one more of his scathing reviews of an album I really like I'm afraid I will put my fist through my computer screen.
As of this writing, the thread has grown to four pages. Almost every comment has been anti-Christgau. OK, he's an idiosyncratic writer, I'll give you that, although his ability to compress words in such a way that a few dozen of them result in an insightful analysis is pretty remarkable. But the venom is quite intense, as the above post shows.
As you read through the messages, it becomes clear that it's not just Xgau that the writers hate. They hate the very idea of criticism. Note the problem described above: what gets the writer's ire is that Christgau dares to give bad reviews to albums the writer liked. Apparently, the sole function of a music writer should be to list the tracks on the album and then get out of the way.
I think this relates to the growth of artificial intelligence software that predicts our taste preferences. These programs don't exist to help you appreciate art ... they exist to help you find the stuff that already agrees with your tastes. They assume that the listener doesn't want to be challenged. The rhetoric suggests otherwise, of course ... they always claim that their method is the best way to discover "new" music. But by "new" they mean "things that are like all the other stuff you already like, only you haven't heard it yet."
This holds true no matter what method is used to offer recommendations. Some rely on a vast database of music, collated against your declared tastes and the tastes of other like you. These programs ascertain that you like X and Y, and find X and Y songs you haven't heard. Pandora uses a different model, in that they have music experts categorizing music by breaking songs down to their components, so that Song X isn't a ballad by Y but is instead a song with a certain number of beats per minute, played in a certain key, with a certain kind of vocal. If you like that song, they will give you more songs with similar beats, keys, vocals. Since their criteria are outside the social aspect of music listening, Pandora will at times cough up a song by an artist you hate, but their logic is that you should get over the hate, because the truth is, you'll like this song. Whatever the method, the point of Pandora, like all the rest, is to identify music that matches your already-existing tastes, and to make recommendations based on that. There is no room here for negativity ... these systems don't tell what not to listen to, but what you will enjoy listening to. Nor is there any attempt at critical analysis ... it doesn't matter what the socio-political context is, or how a song fits into an artist's career, or anything like that. All that matters is that it makes you feel good because it's like what you already know.
MOG goes about this a bit differently, in that they allow you to decide which MOG users you trust. Then MOG tells you what those trusted users are listening to, the idea being if you trust Joe or Jane and Joe or Jane likes Song X, you will give it a try based on your trust of their opinion. This is a bit of an improvement, I suppose, in that you pick your own taste-makers instead of just letting the software do it. But the results are the same yet again: MOG recommendations lead you to music you will like, rather than warn you off of music you won't like.
MOG's format does allow for a more varied recommendation list, though. You might decide you trust Jane, who likes EuroDisco, and so you'll give a listen to a song she likes even though you don't care for EuroDisco yourself. MOG also allows for critical analysis, via the blog portion of the MOG experience. You can read a lot of intelligent commentary about music when you wander around MOG. My guess is people like the Rhapsody subscriber at the top of this post wouldn't much care for MOG, where people have opinions and are willing to state them.
That's what it comes down to, in the end. People like the Christgau haters want a world where everyone has an opinion and no one listens to anyone else's thoughts. No one ever says a bad thing about any piece of music, because it might hurt the feelings not just of the artist but of the person who likes the song. It's like all those Carpenters fans who tell me to shut up ... what they are really saying is "how dare you say something negative about a thing I love?" They are rejecting the notion of criticism.
My Trusted MOGs
The willful, self-centered, disinformed dumbing-down of America continues. I blame the interwebs. My own angry post will probably follow.
My Trusted MOGs
As an artist I believe there is nothing more valuable then criticism. I rely on it to (hopefully) flush out ideas that are being developed and make them more coherent. No man is an island and those who are offended by simple criticism and want to live with their heads in the clouds thinking that work is created in a vacuum, free from influence or objective thought, will have a very nice life in blissful ignorance. I guess we can only envy them for their lives free of offense.
I personally believe there is nothing more freeing then being able to talk about, the good ,the bad, and intention behind things. It's freeing and let's us not put those we admire on too much of a pedestal.
My Trusted MOGs
Brilliant post, Masoo! We live in a very strange and discomforting time where all ideas are immediately marginalized and co-opted into products to be marketed to niche demographics. Social and Artistic arenas haven't been spared. Regardless of the issue, opposing camps are immediately weighing in based solely on their predispositions and established platforms; Red v. Blue, Religion v. Secularism, Rich v. Poor, etc... When we ignore, ostracize, and eliminate criticism as a living breathing entity, we fall into a dangerous trap where "reviews" are nothing more than press releases and sales pitches. I've been reading Christgau since the Creem days of the 70's and I've disagreed with him plenty of times. But he's made me consider perspectives that I may not have considered. We all know what we like, and I think it's more interesting to read a review that I disagree with because sometimes the best way to come to conclusions about "what is" is to consider what someone else thinks "it's not."
Thinking really isn't such a bad thing! Thanks again, and I really enjoy your posts.
My Trusted MOGs
Xgau taught me how to write - he was my Pop Culture professor at Cal Arts - so I read this post with interest. I'm interested in the 'thread' comment you post because while I haven't read him for a long time and his ego was always healthy, I was always struck by how even he could be. He really hated The Eagles but gave pretty even evaluations of them. I think the trouble with most readers is they don't get past the first rush of words to read what is actually being written and when you diss a favourite band then you're attacking them personally as well.Most people just aren't confident enough in their own taste to ignore negative criticism. In my pro writing days I started cultivating hate mail just to know I was getting through. It was a lot of fun.