Idolator

Am I allowed to agree just because it's Dave Navarro and not, let's say...Rob Thomas?

Good to see Dave has recovered from Monday's night's guest-DJ gig at the Vancouver Holt Renfrew opening in time to reshape music criticism before the weekend. Even God took Sunday off, Dave. Be careful out there.

Is Navarro actually a good guitar player? I wasn't into Jane's Addiction, but from what I remember the guitar playing wasn't horrible. Not outstanding, but not horrible.

Dave strikes me more of celebrity than a musician -- & by celebrity I mean in the Paris Hilton way, not the recognized-for-your-talents way.

@Riprock: Well, my friends always thought that Dave totally shreds, but when Jane's took off, it was just before the era when your guitarist wasn't supposed to shred. So I think a lot of people ended up liking Jane's despite its shredding guitarist.

Great! Now Bob Pollard can have something to occupy his time since Guided By Voices broke up.

@Riprock: Navarro definitely embraced the "eccentric celebrity" mold - but listen to Jane's Addiction. He was an amazing guitar player.

Hell, I think Red Hot Chili Peppers "One Hot Minute" was their best album - which I guess is supposedly some sort of blasphemy.

GAWD...navarro is an egomaniac...perry must be spinning in his grave.

wait...what?

This really annoys the crap out of me. The future paradigm of music reviews is that they be written with the same depth and in the same tone as an eighth grade book report?

The worst part is that I SORT OF think I know what he's getting at: reviewers often spend too much time on the extracurricular behavior of the artist and not on the formal aspects of the art. This is the number one artist complaint about reviews and it has SOME legitamacy. However, the solution is not "Good rhythms. Not sure if the melody is the best, but the vocal delivery is great." This tells me nothing, Dave. You could be talking about Young Jeezy, The Happy Mondays, or my elementary school choir's performance of "Let's Go Band."

The thing that artists never get is that music is impossible to formally describe and reviews that attempt to do so are mainly boring and unhelpful (how many of you have recently read something that goes like: "The first track, 'Party Nights,' starts with a clanging rhythm, then segues into a piercing, wobbling lead guitar riff. Suddenly, out of left field, lead singer Blank McBlanken's blazing falsetto hammers into focus. The third track kicks off with a glistening piano crescendo..."). After the fifth adjective my eyes glaze over and I'm filled with the compulsion to flip back six pages and look at Au Revoire Simon's cheekbones again.

So yes, Dave Navarro, I agree that it is annoying to read music reviews that center almost exclusively around the fact that so-and-so said something arrogant in an interview or had sex with his girlfriend on film. But rekanize that it's not as simple as writing "Drums good."

Sorry for this rant guys. Bad day/week at work.

The dude was a friggin' JUDGE at the Miss Universe competition!

To quote The Real World, Boston season, "WHORE WHORE WHORE!!!"

@loudersoft: I also agree with Navarro... in theory. But the cold reality is that "information about music [coming from] musicians" is only of interest to other musicians. Any road, it's been done before... & no-one cared.

It pains me to admit it, but music commentary is best left to the university-educated, obsessive nerds who've never struck a single power-chord in their lives. They bridge the gap between player & listener... an interpreter, if you will -- a neccessary evil, if you'd rather.

Dave Navarro HAS gone off the deep end lately, but I have to say I understand what he's saying. Yes, there's the review focus on extracurricular activities as gregcoff noted above, but I think more of what Navarro is talking about is how reviewers love to decide what an artist was "trying to do" with a particular piece, or what he was going for.

This drives me crazy... reviewers have NO IDEA what the artist was trying to achieve. If the guys in Good Charlotte are trying to make straight forward, simple pop-punk, then hey, that's what they're trying to do -- they're not "selling out," "chasing a trend" or insert-whatever-worn-cliche here -- if they actually love that type of music then hey, more power to them. I personally don't -- but if they do, it's their art, so whatever suits them. Reviewers shouldn't go around saying it sucks, or is any less artistically worthwhile. Instead they should just say "I don't like this." As a music reviewer myself, I try to stick to this as much as possible... except in the case of Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit!

@tfox3737: Yeah, perhaps I will revisit Jane. I recall thinking that Navarro's playing was above average in an era where actual musical skill was considered a liablilty.

Literal description and committing the intentional fallacy both suck, but what really bothers me about reviews lately (wherever you read them, no matter who wrote them) is the headgame the reviewer is in with respect to real or imagined power--and more importantly, the point--of a review.

Two Pitchfork examples before I take the nap I need. One is stories (true or not) of how the super-low rating for Travis Morrison's first solo record killed sales. The idea of this reduces music criticism to a kind of "Buy!"/"Don't Buy!" problem wherein readers, probably incorrectly, start thinking you may have some sort of hidden agenda.

Example number two is conversation here a few months ago about how Pitchfork, which had hyped the Arcade Fire endlessly, would be forced by complex unwritten laws of indie-dom to give the album around an 8.3--and sure enough, yes.

And because these problems cancel each other out, you Rolling Stones-esque Three Stars problems that render reviews both non-descriptive and useless.

All of this is why I like the internets. If I could find "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" somewhere I could decide whether I like it or not.

Okay, one more time, you people are ignoring me, HE WAS A FUCKIHNG MISS UNIVERSE JUDGE. Hello????

when's he gonna review that "Satellite Party" miscarriage?

BTW, Steely Dan in concert....Mind-blowing!!

It's all wrong Mr. Navarro, because many musicians don't know how to listen to a music at listeners' sight. So a listener's opinion is always important. If he thinks musicians should review other musicians, then they should listen their own music too. Why don't they try to reach more people? Becuase they need the opinions on their music.

Vince, you're dead on

@Riprock:

I feel the need to remind you all of the immortal words of Frank Zappa who wrote:

"Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read."

Navarro and his brother used to write pretty insightful and fun reviews back in the day for Bikini Magazine. I actually used to look forward to them.