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I don't really see critics as trying to "force their will" on me at all. I just read these things to find out about what's going on out there. Critics have helped me find my way to some of the best sounds I know, as well as pointing me in the direction of several "rabbit holes" to go down in terms of extended musical family trees. Once you find a music journalist whose writing you enjoy and whose taste you can more or less trust, it is a valuable resource with a personal touch.
Before easy-to-scour MP3s came into existence, these people were unbelievably helpful to me. Byron Coley, Phil McMullen, Tony Dale, Colin Hill, Enrico Ramunni, Jud Cost and a host of others are people to whom I am eternally grateful for their valuable guidance.
There are plenty of people who have good jobs writing about music who are indeed clueless hacks, but to write them all off is dismissive and silly. Just ignore the morons; it's pretty easy to figure out who they are.
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