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Originally Posted by Glice
I'm really enjoying your posts of late ni'k. I think there's a certain irony to people saying they don't like music journalism on a message board which has as its central nexus discussion about music.
I think it's a very conservative, antiquated aesthetics that wants to see music as a rarefied craft hermetically sealed off from external influences; often, there's so little going on in rock music that it's impossible to talk about anything but external influences. Writing like the above, while not entirely too my taste, definitely contributes more to our understanding (even if entirely negatively) than a vapid assertion of personal affection like 'oh, I just love it because it's good'. That's what 9-year-olds do.
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Who said they don't like music journalism? I must have missed that. I agree with the last couple sentences of your second paragraph, but sometimes I find 9 year olds more refreshing than people who take their personal tastes decided on a similar basis and justify them with pages of psuedo-post graduate justifications.
Journalism tells, recommends, uncovers, connects the dots. Critique, which is something entirely different, is not valueless either. But there is good and bad critique as well.
I love both Sonic Youth and the Fall. I've had more bad experiences with the Fall, including the one time I saw them live, but that seems to be the risk taking nature of what Mr. Smith is all about so I can't complain. SY seem to take their biggest risks in the SYRs and solo releases (which is why Thurston's noise albums are going to be hit and miss). As for comparisons between the two, both groups seem to have thought that was some combination of annoying and amusing back in '84-'86 and individually addressed it rather well at the time. Makes as much sense to me today as comparing the Sex Pistols and Ramones does.