Intro
This blog has been a long-time coming. I first had the idea to create some sort of public-facing platform on which to share my thoughts on music—which I should probably state outright make no claim to sublime originality or groundbreaking insight—a few years ago at the start of my first graduate degree. I wanted a way to challenge myself: to test if I could synthesize and distill some of the myriad thoughts about music and listening that were arising within me as a result of my seminars, conversations with fellow students, exposure to new musical works and genres, and the intellectual struggles with my many readings. Ultimately, because I was—and to an embarrassing degree still am—lazy, that project fell flat. This blog-project, however, has more than just the idealistic goal of a first-year graduate student powering it. It has over four years (and counting) of experience in analyzing—with “music theory” as such, and other forms of analytical procedures borrowed from fields of study for which aesthetics is a major concern—researching, listening, playing, teaching, and most importantly, writing about music.
Although, I should confess, very little of the writing about music I’ve produced actually classifies as music criticism—which is, of course, the focus of this blog. I have of course read music criticism in my own studies, ranging from the 19th-century up into the present-day. However, in searching for contemporary articles discussing the state of music criticism now’a’days to prepare for this, my own first serious foray, I became somewhat dismayed and began to view my task as daunting. The general consensus of what I found inspired the title of this blog: “Not Another Music Critic!”
In my search I was bombarded by titles like those cited above that either question the contemporary relevancy or music criticism or decry the critical enterprise all-together. Again I am driven to admit—and if my confessionals scattered throughout this post are excessive, I apologize—I do not believe I am yet sufficiently armed to launch a convincing counterattack against such claims outright, claims with which I do decidedly disagree. Perhaps some of the idealism of that first-year graduate student version of myself still persists in me today when I propose that this blog itself will constitute a long-drawn answer to the question: what is the point of music criticism?
A lofty goal indeed; and as such, it needs to be grounded in and by some kind of aesthetic and critical position. The most immediate questions and concerns that I hope to address (if not sufficiently answer, dismiss, or debunk) that will both constitute and shape the elementary blocks of said position include: what is criticism—or rather, how does criticism function for me in this blog; what is the contemporary relevance of criticism (particularly in our digital age); the ostensible total subjectivity and thus total irrelevance and lack if importance of music criticism (think of statements like “Music is totally subjective; so a music critic is just giving their opinion); the particular methods I will employ in my critical venture; and the scope of the music I will consider.
On Criticism
So onto perhaps the most fundamental question: what precisely is criticism? I think in common parlance, a distinctly negative connotation is attached to criticism—“let me tell you what’s wrong with this.” Indeed, the very first definition of the word offered by the online Merriam-Webster dictionary explains it as “the act of criticizing[,] usually unfavorably.” Without going on too much of a historicist tangent, I offer the idea that this negative connotation is a rather recent phenomenon. In fact, I would argue that music criticism in 19th century Europe, for example, was less about making qualitative judgements—“this work is good; this work is bad”—and moreso about providing avenues into understanding a work of art. This leads us to my first proposition about criticism and its functioning on this blog:
Criticism does not seek to evaluate a piece of music primarily in terms of “good” or “bad,” but seeks rather to explain how it works as a piece of music and discover and develop ways by which the music can be understood.
Or, to reiterate my earlier point, criticism provides “average listeners” (those without some kind of assumed musical knowledge and vocabulary) a way of both understanding a piece of music—which can then go on to inform their own personal judgements—and a vocabulary with which they can articulate their own judgements.
Critics, arguably in excess of this most fundamental function, also often offer their own personal, “subjective” opinions about a work of music. This can sometimes be a good thing: it showcases the intimately positive response music can illicit in us as listeners (in the case of a good review), and can—if the taste of the critic in question is judged to be superior—act as a portent of poor quality or banal music (which very much does exist). But it’s a fine line between displays of intimate yet critical waxing and pure subjective reporting. I think this latter scenario—where critics emphasize how they feel about a music work to the detriment of how they (and we) can understand it—is one of the sources of animus directed at contemporary criticism, and the root of the argument that “music is totally subjective, and critics simply give their subjective opinions.” Well, I would argue that both when the critic’s subjectivity dominates their actual criticism, and even when the opposite in the case—when the critic is purely critical (whatever this means) and makes every claim to an “objective” reading of the work in the question—we are experiencing the critic’s subjectivity. In other, probably more clearer words, and the gist of the second proposition I offer about criticism:
Criticism is always subjective by virtue of it being processed and articulated from a particular subject position, by a particular subject, by a particular subjectivity—that of the critic.
Any music critic that claims to be objective should be treated with suspicion; for the very act of listening, thinking, and writing about music always already implicates one’s self in the endeavour. This is all to say that I make no promise that my criticism will be objective; and I fully own the subjectivity—the personal feelings, the memories elicited, etc.—that will seep through even the most basic analyses of works of music I intend to carry out. However, I do many every claim that my criticism will not devolve (and perhaps this verb is polemical) into reportage on my emotional states when listening to a piece of music. In other words, I do not intend to produce music reviews.
But why not? If I can glean from a music review whether an album is “good” or “bad,” what more do I really need? Why can’t I just figure out the album myself? Why is criticism useful? Well, I want to make clear that I am not intending to dismiss the value of music reviews. They can and often are very helpful at sifting through the inexhaustible stream of new music that’s produced around the world every second. But even despite this sifting, one perhaps craves more, a finer-tooth comb to filter through all this music and find albums that work, albums that are constructed well, albums that do interesting things greater than that which can be described by pithy statements such as “this album sounded incredible.” If music reviews are the shovel then music criticism is the trowel, adept at sifting through delicate piles and upturning the precious moments hidden beneath them. But in terms less quantitative, I think music criticism can—as per my first proposition—offer to readers and listeners a way of understanding a particular piece of music. Suppose, on a whim, you decide to listen to “Mars” from John Coltrane’s album Interstellar Space. If you’ve never heard this style of music, if you’ve never heard such freely moving improvisation, the work might likely sound like a dense cloud of wailing, of unintelligible sounds that furiously attack your ears and make you question the very nature of music and noise. That, of course, would be a totally valid (and not atypical) response. But suppose you steadfastly wanted to try to understand this music? Well, reading some (good) music criticism would be a smart place to start. To (admittedly rather clumsily) distill this all into a third proposition, I would say that:
Criticism is useful because it enables listeners to make better informed musical judgements and to better understand works of music.
From perhaps a more academic standpoint (which I don’t plan on really developing), music criticism can also tell us a lot about ourselves as listeners. If I make the claim that the Migos’ song “Stir Fry” is an excellently structured song because of interplay between the three rappers and the underlying beat, and you vehemently disagree with this point—well, that friction that arises between the difference of our opinions becomes a productive site for you to, even if for a fleeting moment, ponder on just what does make a rap song well constructed?
Methods
So what specifically will I do to analyze, discuss, and critique the various musical objects that I intend to submit to my burgeoning critical gaze? Perhaps the method that I am most eager to try-out, and the one whose absence in the majority of contemporary music criticism I find perplexing, is musical analysis. Now, bear with me; I’m well aware of the mystique and arcane status music theory has, even amongst practicing musicians! Any music theory I employ in my critiques will be there because of necessity, because visually representing sound is a very powerful tool in any critic’s toolbox. I naturally don’t assume any/much prior music theoretical knowledge on the part of you, my readers (although if you do possess this, wonderful). So any music theory, present out of necessity, will also be as complicated as needed. In fact, for previous academic papers, I’ve developed ad-hoc ways of visually representing music that was specific to the musical piece in question. These ways included graphs and line plots, abstract drawings, and even maps (to represent sound-happenings in a specific area). Music theory will be bolstered other “traditional methods,” such as context analysis—putting the “work in context,” biographical or otherwise—historicization—in other words, giving historical context to help explain the milieu out of which a particular work arose—and the critic’s bread-and-butter, hermeneutics—reading a musical work like a text, whose meanings can be extracted and discussed through careful analysis.
Scope
I intend to focus mainly on writing criticism about black music, this here simply meaning—without too-too much deference to the lively and vivid field of discourse theorizing black music—music produced by black musicians. “Black music,” as it operates for me in my criticism, is thus a kind of meta-genre. It can and does include musical genres commonly understood as black, such as jazz, blues, hip hop, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, dancehall; but it also includes the contributions by black musicians to genres not commonly understood as black such as rock, classical music, experimental music, metal, electronic (dance) music, etc. I can narrow down my purview even more: I will primarily focus on music produced within the western-hemisphere, and primarily on music produced in English (as it is the only language I am comfortable with to a sufficient degree to engage in this sort of venture).
Onward!
I hope, if nothing else, if none of my criticism convinces you and you disagree with me on every point, you’re at least able to gain something from the experience of a different way of thinking about music. This blog is primarily a personal venture; so I’m not trying to proselytize or be a radical or anything. I just want to write about music.
*One final note about this particular document. I intend for it to live on; that is to say, it’s something I’ll continue to come back to as my thoughts on criticism expand.
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Not Another Music Critic! 