Idolator

I think its impossible to approach an album completely objectively if you read something about it beforehand. And I think that all music should be taken in objectively, at least the first time. It's a writer's job not only to take the music at face value (its catchy, it's drab and uninspired, whatever) but also to present it in a larger context. Its that larger context that often ruins your first listen of an album, as you take whatever preconceptions, comparisons, etc that you read and apply them as you listen, whether you try to or not. Context isn't a bad thing, and I think that you should read reviews and take what they say seriously. But on your first listen, it should just be you and the music. I do the same thing when I read classic literature. I read the book first, without looking at any analysis of themes, implications, historical context, etc. Then once I've formed my own opinions, I go back and read what has already been written about it. Then I can go back to the source material and apply the contextual stuff to a text that I'm already familiar with on a emotional/stylistic/storyline level. I try to do the same thing with music, but it doesn't happen as often. Its usually impossible to escape music criticism, as the album and its reviews now come out simultaneously.

@SomeSound-MostlyFury: Plus there's the other level of simply approaching an album as "its good" or "its bad" based on the review. If you listen to an album with bad reviews, you are going to listen for the bad stuff. Same thing for a good review. I feel like that's pretty unavoidable. Doesn't mean it will necessarily change how you would feel naturally about an album, but it will affect your listening attitude.

There are things that get hyped to pieces that I like a lot (Yelle, say), but my favorite things to listen to--at least on first listen--are the CDs that more or less anonymously come into the radio station I work at. Which is why I've been so into Silje Nes and Scary Mansion this year. But I wonder if reading about music changes your opinion in a different way than looking at the cover art, or even knowing what label it's on (something I've noticed with, say, things that come out on Kranky)?

To each his or her own, I say. If reading too much about music alters what you're hearing, then it certainly is best to save the reading for last. But for my own part I don't find that reading about a band prior to listening does much specifically to color the listening experience ("this IS good," or "there's the Beatles! Right there! Code cracked!"). At the same time I try not to read stuff that is purely prescriptive, telling me what to do and how to receive music. I try very hard not to write in that form either (and I feel blessed to almost never have to give anything stupid stars or whatever), because I don't think that's the use of music writing. At its best you should be able to read a longform review or a feature on an album or band and be MORE interested to listen yourself and dig through the to heart of the matter, engage with the issues discussed, rather than left with the impression that all the touchpoints have been spoiled.
And since this conversation is leaning in that direction, I'll put out there that I don't think there's such a thing as "pure" listening, just like there's no "automatic" writing. If the band sounds so much fresher because you didn't see what label it was on or read what some Pitchforker thought it sounded like, perhaps the value of the music has been misplaced somewhere along the line in favor of notions of fashion and trend.

This might only be tangentially relevant, but I've been thinking about this subject a little bit lately, and one record in particular has been on my mind: Bon Iver's "For Emma Forever Ago."

I think it's a decent album, although I haven't really had the urge to listen to it much after the first couple spins. But something I noticed in just about all the reviews I've seen of it is just how "rustic" sounding it is. Now, I guess you could say it's a guy and an acoustic guitar, so there's naturally something "rustic" about it, but I don't really hear that. But when Bon Iver's bio points out how he moved out into some cabin in the woods of Wisconsin to record the album, suddenly that becomes a major signifier of what the music sounds like. We can only wonder how often words like "rustic" and "rural" would be used if no one knew it was recorded in a cabin in the woods. Or to take it one more step, would he still be as popular if he was just another guy from Brooklyn with a guitar and some songs?

@jetsetjunta: I said it before during Rhythm Nation-Gate last month, the real value in criticism is that it can act as an adversary, whether or not you agree with the ultimate thumbs up/thumbs down judgment. A good use of critical writing for me is to use it to illuminate by contrast why I like or dislike something, helping me find more things I like or dislike. It takes a certain amount of ego to do this, however, as you have to read with the basic assumption that your opinions are as good as whatever critic you're reading. Take Jim DeRogatis, for example, whom I regularly read and likely has more than a few favorite records as I, in my opinion, he is too into rockstar poses for me to just take his readings of bands and make them, mine. And that's someone I largely agree with!

I will say band interviews will ruin a band for me. Take the Gossip, they shouldn't be my favorite band, but I should like them. Beth Ditto reminds me of a precocious freshman and makes me hate them. Mustaine nearly ruined Megadeth for me back in 5th grade.

@Marth: Well said.

The past three years or so, i've started to link success of a band on the internet or the amount of hype they have with the quality of the bands bio...which is usually NOT being read by the reader, but by the reviewer. The reviewer in turn takes that info and listens to the music in the way that the bands bio wanted them to. One of the bands that comes to mind is The Black Lips. I had the opportunity to go see them at the Tijuana show during which their live album was recorded. I had never heard of them, so I went to their myspace page and checked them out. They were OK, just a garage band basically, plenty of those around, but they definitely weren't bad. Then I read their bio and I almost started laughing at all the hyperbole and congratulations that was contained in that long paragraph. They even made up the term "flower punk", and all of a sudden I saw the formula. Make up a genre name/label, make an image, describe raucous shows, etc. Lo and behold it was only a matter of time before everybody was on their jock, but only basically saying the same things from the bio. A band I like, but also does the same thing, is Kings of Leon. Ever read a review that didn't talk about how they are cousins and come from an evangelical/tent show rivalist background? I read that before I had really heard them, and no matter what I couldn't help but to have that somehow make me hear the music/words a bit differently than I would've had I never read a single word about them.

I think that for better or worse, the written word does influence ones perception of music. I loathe Pitchfork reviews, because I can read them over and over again, and still not really know what the band sounds like or what kind of music they play. In that case, I just have to listen, because there have been many times when I sleep on something because i've only read stuff about them and it didn't sound interesting, only to find that when I finally do hear said band, not only do I dig it, but it sounds nothing like I read...to me at least. Conversely, if I read reviews on TinyMixTapes, or Vice maybe, where the critique is either shorter and to the point or it's right there in bold what the reviewer thinks the band sounds like, turns out there's a good chance even that will steer me wrong or come to an entirely different conclusion than I would've on my own.

The good news is that I realized this and am now only concerned with hearing, not reading the blogs. If I see a band in a magazine or online, I just take time to go listen to them. Plus i'm tired of reading the words "psych", "folk" or "psych-folk".

I am a creature of habit. I like pop music. I'll stick with an artist "til the wheels fall off" if the music stays good and consistent, and I'll let an innocuous track invade my brain if I hear it enough and it has one or two good parts to re-sing along to everytime forever and ever, amen. But I am also a curious soul with a curious mind, and enjoy the hunt for something new. That's where the blogs, and the mags, and the promo spots come in. If there is enough chatter and/or favorable reviews stacked behind an artist's work, then I'll try to take it in, go "hmm" and give it a shot. This of course, leads to the all important sampling step. Now this is truly make or break time. If you can't win me over in a 30 second iTunes/Amazon/full length website and/or blog stream, then sorry we're done. No amount of favorable words can save you then.

If it's a new album by an established band then anything I read before hearing it is unlikely to have much impact on whether or not I like it (or even listen to it).

It's a lot tougher with new bands. Because I'm an idiot I often expect the name of the band and/or the song to be some sort of clue as to what they'll sound like. I'm almost invariably disappointed. I'll look at what people are saying online but with the view that my taste may vary wildly from those of the writer. I've found pretty consistently that if everyone on Idolator hates it I'll probably like it, though the converse is not always true.

Music recommendation tools (Pandora, Amazon, etc) have track records in the high (low?) negatives with me so far so I'm mostly informed by blog posts and podcasts. Indiefeed, KCRW, Popcast88, and NPR, have done well by me.

@Marth: "We can only wonder how often words like 'rustic' and 'rural' would be used if no one knew it was recorded in a cabin in the woods. Or to take it one more step, would he still be as popular if he was just another guy from Brooklyn with a guitar and some songs?"

I think so. For me, there's an inherent intimacy--more intimate than, say, an Iron & Wine album--to the record that, to my ears at least, was a pretty big signal that it was recorded in a non-traditional space. Now, that doesn't necessarily lead one to the conclusion of "CABIN!", but I do think that that there's a startling simplicity there that would be hard to attain in a city setting.

To be fair, I don't even know what "rustic" and "rural" would sound like either (and those are odd buzzwords, consider Justin Vernon, AKA Bon Iver, is from Eau Claire, WI, which is a budding college town--not the city, but not even close to bumblefuck nowherestown that I imagine most non-midwesterners make it out to be), but I think that those descriptors could come into play w/o knowing the backstory.

I believe that Vernon addressed this somewhat in an AV Club interview.

Also @MayhemintheHood. What are your thoughts about "post-folk"? That's the first thing I thought of when I listened to Bon Iver (w/o reading anything in advance). Then I saw that many other people beat me to it, review-wise :(

I think that a lot of the way modern bands get hyped is by how much they hype themselves. How successful would Sufjan Stevens be without announcing his "50 states" project? How much would Zach Braff get called the definitive voice of his generation if he didn't call himself that so often. In a world where there are too many bands to possibly give all of them thorough treatment, self-aggrandizement is rewarded heavily.

That said, we have heard a lot lately debunking Chris Anderson's long tail theory. In the indie world, that means a certain few sources--Pitchfork, NME, Spin--get the final word on what's cool, and let the others consider it on their own end with significantly less authority. Sometimes I listen to bands Pitchfork hypes and wonder how worthless they'd be perceived it they didn't get an 8.0+ (and imagine the difference in popularity and unheard of band gets between a 7.9 and 8.0 rating). At the same time, these sources promote quality bands more often than not, but it's hard to escape the preconceived notions of good or bad.

I like reading about music/film before the fact. The whole thing about needing a "Tabula Rasa" perception of everything is Hippy Dippy bullshit. Fuck, I've had plenty of albums that I didn't end up loving until the right combination of words and drugs revealed something about them that I hadn't picked up on before. Conversely, I've seen fatal flaws in things I love revealed in print and had to either contend with them or ignore them. Having an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas surrounding art is, to me, what makes it interesting and what serves as a way to genuineley share something. In some ways, I feel like the whole "zero hype, zero interference" approach makes things more disposable because it's an ideology that doesn't require you to anchor a given work toanything outside of moment to moment enjoyment. However, if you love something and it comes up a couple times a week, then it becomes an ideological marker, a signpost to organize ideas around, and a genuine part of your life and development; which, to me, is vastly prefferable to some "return to the hypeless garden" bullshit.

Well, you can't forget that music writers are just that: writers. Which brings in the more obvious fact that writers are affected by writing (i.e. bios & promo & whatnot).

On another note, does anyone remember back in the 90s when everything good was {insert X genre} played with "punk rock enthusiasm?" That eventually died down.

@graeffufighting: "post" anything always confused me...I remember when I first started seeing "post-rock" being said about some bands, like Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky, and I wondered what the heck that mean. Then I heard them and said "Oh. You mean jam band." Coming up with genres can be fun though, so if you came up with post-folk all on your own, then i'd say that's a good one. I bought the second Black Heart Procession album the week it came out, and told my friend it was "horror-folk". I thought it was funny.

@DumpDolan: I am not familiar with that theory, but it sounds interesting.

It immediately makes me think of Black Kids. It's strange that a site can lift an obscure Florida band up into the world of showcase shows and label deals, and then totally admit they got it wrong. In baseball, umpires are taught to never admit they're wrong on a call, because then they'll not only get verbally blasted by coaches/players right there on the spot, but all future close plays you call are going to be questioned and protested heavily. The same should go for blogs or Pitchfork. They should've just ignored the album or not reviewed. I think a lot of people on here knew Black Kids weren't that great to begin with, but now in the future, if when I see something P-fork is clamoring about, or is "On Repeat", I laugh and think "Oh, like Black Kids?"

@janine: Your comment was written with punk rock enthusiasm.

@janine:

"On another note, does anyone remember back in the 90s when everything good was {insert X genre} played with "punk rock enthusiasm?" That eventually died down."

Ah yes. Guilty as charged. Also makes me think of my affinity for the words "power pop."

@MayhemintheHood: I hear ya on the post-rock thing. If you think about it in the most literal sense, everything is post-rock. If you think of post-rock on its own terms, you realize that the only post-rock albums are Metal Machine Music, Kid A, and perhaps the first Tortoise record.

Re: horror-folk. You know what needs to make a comeback? Horrorcore: [en.wikipedia.org] :)

I think the problem with adherence to music writing is that so many people take their advice from monolithic entities like Pitchfork, Spin, etc. There's particular writers from those websites (and others) who I have a lot of faith in (Rollie Pemberton, the old Pitchfork rap critic comes to mind), but just assuming that a stamp of approval from a large entity means that it's worthwhile is pretty myopic.

I also think that negative Amazon reviews are rather helpful when figuring out the core of an album. Turning people onto "Exile on Main Street" is always easier when you go to Amazon and show that all the of the 1 and 2 star reviews compare it unfavorably to either "Tattoo You" or "Abbey Road". No amount of essays talking about the mood, or the rhythm can communicate what cowardly hating from boring people can do. It's the opposite of the big tent approach, I guess.

Can we have a "The definitive bands of made-up genres" post? Pretty please?

There was a wine study done a while ago where increasing the supposed cost of the bottle resulted in more favorable judgements concerning the wines tasted. I have to believe something similar could occur with respect to music. Of course, there are many explanations that might be offered for the judgements in question so I it doesn't follow that what one reads can actually cause the music to sound 'better' (or 'worse').

I read a lot less music writing these days, and not coincidentally, I listen to a lot less music. As much as I'd like to think of myself as an iconoclastic, adventurous listener, I pretty much need someone to hand me a piece of music and tell me exactly what they like about it before I can appreciate it. Well, unless it sounds like certain things I have an automatic affinity for (europop, pop-punk, disco, etc.). But in the main, I need the kind of music writing you generally don't get on MP3blogs these days--someone saying, here is a song, here is a band, here is what I hear in them that makes me like them. And then I myself can hear that. And then, if it's something I like, I like the band, and I will listen to them more. But I need someone to point at it first. Bios and one-sheets generally don't do that, or at least don't do it well, maybe because they can't get away with saying "basically, this album has two great songs, and the rest are crap, but OMG HOW GOOD ARE THOSE TWO SONGS." I'm really bad at finding usic on my own, but I'm a prety open listener. I just need good writing to point me towards things.

@graeffufighting: Ha. I remember the first time I heard Brotha Lynch Hung. My friend and I were in the back of a car on the way back from a party, and some guy giving us a ride home was bumping it. Afterwards we both talked about it, and admitted it scared us. Keep in mind we were both into hip hop already, and were even coming from seeing Jeru the Damaja. Horrorcore indeed.

@LAKingsin2009: I've heard of those studies. Years ago I worked at a little market that had fine wines and cheeses, and i'd joke to the customer "It's so expensive, now you HAVE to like it." Just now thinking about this, i've thought about times where I see an album gets great reviews, but I just can't get into it. But the good reviews start to bug me, so i'll give the band multiple tries over the course of a few months, because I can't help that feeling of "Wait, it got an 8.2...what the hell am I missing?!?" So maybe that study could totally translate to music writing/reviews.

@SomeSound-MostlyFury: that would be a fun and hilarious read.

music writing has always made me enjoy My Life less, to say nothing of the music. from today's hipster runoff (THE ONLY BLOG THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME WANT TO VOMIT):

If NME wants to help America get a better image, they need to start at the ground level. They need to get kids portable hypemachine players to replace their iPods/satellite radios. Our generation is lost. We just need to work for the future, and focus on alt-lectro education. That's the only way to win THE WAR ON lofi/garage/cockrock/fggtcore/meaningfulcore/underwhelming-indie TERROR.

this is writing i believe in. b/c it is true!

Reading other people's views about music does affect my perceptions, and not always in a good way. Sometimes a reviewer will single out some element on an album for criticism and blow it way out of proportion. For example, at least one reviewer that I've read has taken The Hold Steady to task for using a harpischord on one track from the new album. Well, I've listened to that track, and guess what? It wasn't any big deal. But as I was listening, I was wasting my energies comparing my own perceptions against those of the reviewer - rather than what I should have been doing, which was simply to enjoy the album for its entertainment value.

"Our generation is lost."

Puh-leaaase!

It's true. Thinking about culture can be such a waste of valuable leisure time.