Separating Wheat from Chaff
-
Artist:
-
Album:
-
Track:
Different strokes, and all that crap. But sometimes I’ll read or hear someone’s take on something, and it’ll just make me shake my head or roll my eyes or utter the random vulgarity.Everybody’s got a right to express an opinion, no matter how ill-informed. And there are those who actually have a public forum for their ignorance. I don’t mean a blog either. I’ll admit it. I’ve been paid to critique stuff all my adult life – in newspapers and magazines, online, over the airwaves. I’m sure I've infuriated my share of readers and listeners. Still, I’ve always tried to be evenhanded and informed when I type up some drivel or shoot off my mouth. And I’ve got a built-in lameness detector. A number of my colleagues in the press? Not so much.Anyway, I’m sitting at the café in my usual spot near the electrical sockets. (If I feel fatigued, I just stick a fork in, and I brighten right up.) The computer is downloading a big .pdf file, and I’m waiting. I’ve already read the entire New York Times and the sports section of the San Francisco Chronicle. I’m sipping my coffee, and then, I do it. I pick up the entertainment section of the McPaper. Yep. USA Today. My first mistake.I notice that it’s the day when their pop-music “experts” (note loose terminology) review new CDs. Since it’s USA Today, that would normally be meaningless to me. But my interest is piqued when I see that there’s a review of singer-songwriter Feist’s charmingly catchy and inventive new album The Reminder.Sadly, reviewer Elysa Gardner is clue-free, smirking that “Leslie Feist is a Canadian indie-rock darling who, judging by the radio-resistant tunes on this latest album, isn’t likely to transcend that cult status anytime soon.” Radio-resistant? Has she even listened to the incredibly engaging, sophisticated, romantic, hook-studded “1 2 3 4” or “My Moon My Man” – both high-points of an album flush with snappy wordplay and dreamy, insinuating melodies that range from Brill Building slick to high-prairie lonesome? Apparently not, because she mentions neither song in the review, and suggests that the artist makes “elevator music for hip people,” meaning “cultists.” (I must remember to sacrifice some back-bacon on my Feist altar tonight.)Then, Gardner gives The Reminder two-and-a-half stars – the exact same rating she gives to the latest bland, trivial, throw-away recording by an “American Idol” reject - Paris Bennett, last year’s fifth-place finisher in the embarrassing, lowest-common-denominator TV talent show.Gardner calls Bennett “adorable” and says that she may “cling to tried-and-true contemporary pop-R&B formulas…” but “the album offers enough homespun charm to leave you rooting for the plucky upstart.” What?!?So an “American Idol” apologist dislikes Feist. I don’t know whether to sneer or be happy. If Gardner had even mentioned one of the impact tracks on the Feist recording, or acknowledged its pop craft, I might be less disgusted. Instead, I remain hip to the end – and hip to the M.O.R. dumbing-down of popular culture that Gardner helps foster by giving any credence to the offal produced by “American Idol.”It’s a sad sitch when anyone with a national platform encourages the same old twaddle, while deriding a fresh, unique artist. But that’s just my opinion. Take it or leave it.Oh yeah. Here’s the video for the jazzy/cool “My Moon My Man”:
Comments (29)
It's tough trying to filter out what to read these days when the subject matter is an album review. The McPaper (USA Today), Entertainment Weekly and even Rolling Stone have fallen off my radar. I subscribed to Entertainment Weekly with it's first issue and in less than three months I got the impression that every review was written by a twenty year old. I was in my twenties and was thrown off by this approach. It didn't matter if it was a movie, an album or a television show. It felt like a generation that grew up watching the Disney Channel were now in charge and if it wasn't "youthful" enough or mass appeal - the review was usually bad. Every few years since the publication started, friends will put me on a gift subscription list, which results in the magazine getting tossed. I open it to double check that I may have misjudged the magazine only to be disheartened that it is still stuck in the same mold that turned me off in the first place.