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Music fanboyism

“Only a critic that submits to fanboyism can match his readers’ earnestness, grasping the pinnacles and depths experienced by us, the fans ditching school to camp out for concert tickets, the people who listen to music for fun.” —Making the Case for Music Fanboyism, Orr Shtuhl, The Morning News Some

Music fanboyism

“Only a critic that submits to fanboyism can match his readers’ earnestness, grasping the pinnacles and depths experienced by us, the fans ditching school to camp out for concert tickets, the people who listen to music for fun.”

—Making the Case for Music Fanboyism, Orr Shtuhl, The Morning News

Some quick, jumbled thoughts on this old piece:

Later in the essay, Shtuhl concludes that the only way to compromise between distance and unabashed fanboyism is the takedown, the piece where you write about how your fav band’s disappointed you. It’s strange though, because the takedowns I remember, ones that people talk about, have mostly come from Pitchfork. And when these takedowns happen, the main reader criticism is that the author must not have been a fan, they must have been asking as Pitchfork critic first (for some reason, people always refer to reviews as from Pitchfork, as if from a giant machine instead of from individual writers. which is also why people seem to freak out when a track review contradicts the LP review). Readers send emails that say things like: “they obviously never listened to their last album, Pitchfork just hates things other people like (there’s the all-encompassing SITE VOICE again), they don’t know what they’re talking about because they didn’t know that [obsure band fact].”

And not being a fanboy is fine, preferable I think. Disappointment is a result of fanboyism: you had expectations, personal expectations, and they weren’t met, so you were let down. But if this was the result of true fanboyism, then, as I’ve said earlier, I think you’d be obligated to work through it, make excuses, and move on. And obviously those are all things critics shouldn’t do.

Also, the main example Orr uses throughout the piece is Radiohead (and Pitchfork’s steady fanboyism of), but I feel like so many more examples exist in hip hop criticism (Clipse, Lil Wayne most recently).

Finally, while looking up some old reviews, I noticed Marc Hogan wrote a lot of the most contentious takedowns…and his blog is now invite-only. Coincidence? If you grabbed a slice of pizza with Marc, as I have, you’d find out he’s one of the nicest dudes around.

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What I'm reading: July 9

What I’m reading: July 9: * Why we need movie critics. – Slate Magazine – Will someone make a similar argument for music critics? I don’t think they can, just for the simple economics of what’s being critiqued. Now, when new movies ‘leak,’ when it becomes just as easy to

What I'm reading: July 9

What I’m reading: July 9:

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What I'm reading: June 26

What I’m reading: June 26: * Up All Night With Amy Winehouse : Rolling Stone – Still horrifying, fascinating, etc. * Book Review – ‘American Nerd,’ by Benjamin Nugent – NYTimes.com – Not a good review, which sucks, I was looking forward to this. Also, no mention of Nugent’s girlfriend, who’s not a

What I’m reading: June 26:

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In the liner notes

A couple weeks ago I logged into 43Things, a goal-tracking website, for the first time in a year or so. I was happy to see I had achieved some of the goals I wrote down then, happy to see others (try the world’s hottest hot sauce? I’ve tried

In the liner notes

A couple weeks ago I logged into 43Things, a goal-tracking website, for the first time in a year or so. I was happy to see I had achieved some of the goals I wrote down then, happy to see others (try the world’s hottest hot sauce? I’ve tried the 7th hottest, thanks Arizona), and surprised to see this one: “get a credit or thank you on an album’s liner notes.”

I am not sure why this goal was so important to me two years ago. I think then I was still in fan mode, excited to talk to bands, eager to have them acknowledge me. When I wrote for the college paper in Tucson, people I interviewed would invite me to ‘say hello’ at the show, and I would. I used to love doing this. The intervening two years have really driven this out of me, because it’s a job now, etc. etc., and having to interview a few people a week really drives the excitement out of it.

Anyway I did ‘achieve’ this ‘goal’ this year, Man Man thanked me (and 100+ other people) on their CD. I’ve talked, at too much length, about how much I like them. And I like their new CD actually better than the last now, so that helps as well.

Next up is world’s hottest hot sauce, which is probably around 6,000,000 Scovilles. That’s the same heat as eating pepper spray. I once convinced a kid to touch a tiny chili from our home garden, then touch his eye when I was in elementary school. His eye turned bright red and he cried. So I’ll probably deserve whatever pain 6,000,000 Scolville units causes.

[audio:https://jessicasuarez.com/audio/man_man-top_drawer.mp3|titles=Top Drawer|artists=Man Man]

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No Age in Paper Magazine

My review of No Age’s Nouns is in Paper Magazine this month, and up on the site as well. I am realizing that deciding to only post MP3s labels/bands have said are okay to post is quite difficult when it’s not the song you want to talk

No Age in Paper Magazine

My review of No Age’s Nouns is in Paper Magazine this month, and up on the site as well. I am realizing that deciding to only post MP3s labels/bands have said are okay to post is quite difficult when it’s not the song you want to talk about, and when it’s your personal blog and not Forkcast or Paper Thin Walls. Well.

[audio:https://jessicasuarez.com/audio/no_age_eraser.mp3|titles=Eraser|artists=No Age]

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What I'm reading: June 23

What I’m reading: June 23: * The New Republic: Postcards from Nowhere * David Foster Wallace – Commencement Speech at Kenyon University – Oddly sweet. * The Great Lil Wayne Debate: Is Tha Carter III A Classic? – I think this done, completed thing that has been released can be willed into classic-status, though the

What I’m reading: June 23:

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Paste Magazine review - Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville reissue

My first longer, featured review for Paste is in mailboxes and available via the digital version of the magazine. “Ant In Alaska” was one of the bonus tracks I wrote about, and it’s the most interesting of those unreleased bits. (courtesy of Stereogum). I tend to approach albums lyrics-first,

Paste Magazine review - Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville reissue

My first longer, featured review for Paste is in mailboxes and available via the digital version of the magazine.

“Ant In Alaska” was one of the bonus tracks I wrote about, and it’s the most interesting of those unreleased bits. (courtesy of Stereogum). I tend to approach albums lyrics-first, a good approach when it comes to Guyville especially, and I love Phair’s sparse, but deadly seriousness here.

[audio:https://jessicasuarez.com/audio/liz_phair-ant_in_alaska.mp3|titles=Ant In Alaska|artists=Liz Phair]

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I just want more of the same

Yesterday I paid the last $20 of my library fine. I didn’t have anything new to pick up since my fine stopped me from reserving books. I tried browsing at the New York Ottendorfer Library branch, an easy/difficult thing to do since their fiction section is entirely contained

I just want more of the same

Yesterday I paid the last $20 of my library fine. I didn’t have anything new to pick up since my fine stopped me from reserving books. I tried browsing at the New York Ottendorfer Library branch, an easy/difficult thing to do since their fiction section is entirely contained within a dozen small shelves. There were two Edith Wharton books, neither of which I wanted. No copies of “Confederacy of Dunces.” But I did noticed a large number of mystery novels (three shelves’ worth), books that no one reads but everyone reads. Mark mentioned a friend who used to proof(listen) mystery audiobooks. He’d check the audio against the book, feeling for certain the reader had misread, but more often it was a grammar/plot mistake in the book. He was given two days per audiobook. That’s the kind of quality control they put into mystery novels, and it makes sense. They’re obviously segregated by genre because readers care about the genre, the ingredients, more than they care who’s cooking.

My favorite example of this is the “The Cat Who” series. I guess it’s easy to make fun of the housewives this series is directed toward, the people who like mysteries and cats so much that they had to read about them together. This fan site for the author (Lilian Jackson-Braun, who is in her seventies and lives with her husband and two cats), doesn’t help: there are links to fan fiction, a broken message board, and ‘your daily horoscope.’ The author also has a link to a page about her ‘hubby,’ along with the dates he left the military and went to a WWF matchup.

I think being a fan necessarily means accepting that you’ll like someone or something regardless of diminishing quality, so I guess being a fan is necessarily lowbrow. I don’t think you can be a fan of a static thing: you can’t be a fan of a single TV episode, a single book, or film. You’ve got to be a fan of the author, series, characters, actor and then hope for the best, though quality always diminishes. Maybe it’s the lowbrow-ness that makes being a fan of something uncool, more than the fan-ness itself. Taste, an aspect of being cool, means discernment, fandom means no-discernment. You can’t qualify, you can’t say you like Weezer, but only the first two albums and maybe Make Believe, Simpsons but only the first five seasons, Star Wars but only the last three episodes. You’ve got to embrace it all.

On another note, the lady with the Lilian Jackson-Braun fansite also put up a Jim Carrey fan page. As someone who made her dad drive 10 people to the opening night of the Mask, who still has every word of Ace Ventura memorized, and who wrote Jim Carrey a fan letter every week for a year, I, uh, agree/approve. This has had its ups and downs: down, quite a bit, when The Majestic came out; back up for Eternal Sunshine, back down since.

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I have a track review on PTW, of a pretty bad Architecture In Helsinki track. It reminded me of the similar, but much better Scottish twee band Bearsuit. I’ve been meaning to occasionally post (legal!) MP3s I’ve been listening to, once in a while. Here’s one.

[audio:https://jessicasuarez.com/audio/bearsuit-itsuko_got_married.mp3]

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Tim Russert

I am in Las Vegas visiting my family this weekend, so Mark had to call to tell me Tim Russert had passed. That call would have been unnecessary if I was at home, since, as I’ve mentioned lots of times, I’m addicted to MSNBC and I leave it

Tim Russert

I am in Las Vegas visiting my family this weekend, so Mark had to call to tell me Tim Russert had passed. That call would have been unnecessary if I was at home, since, as I’ve mentioned lots of times, I’m addicted to MSNBC and I leave it on in the background all the time. Keith Olberman, once my favorite anchor, has become more red-faced and quick-tempered, a sort of Bill O’Reilly for the left. So I appreciated Russert’s measured election commentary, and his overall air of oldschool-ness and seriousness (the best image of that being his election-night white board). Twenty-four hour news is irrelevant for a lot of people,, I think; Meet The Press is glacial next to Twitter and hitting refresh on Google News, though his insider-ness often meant softball questions and an easy in for the administration. So I think all the attention paid to Russert’s death by his collegues and politians is partially because it does seem like an end to that news era, good and bad.

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It's funny because it's true

A Slate reprint of an article on David Sedaris and his ‘imaginary’ nonfiction was interesting to me because it asked if readers would accept the same reasoning– that making stuff up allows Sedaris to ‘suggest larger truths’–from hard news reporters: Jayson Blair, etc. But then, asks the writer, doesn’

It's funny because it's true

A Slate reprint of an article on David Sedaris and his ‘imaginary’ nonfiction was interesting to me because it asked if readers would accept the same reasoning– that making stuff up allows Sedaris to ‘suggest larger truths’–from hard news reporters: Jayson Blair, etc. But then, asks the writer, doesn’t fiction allow you to suggest larger truths just as easily?

I think about this sometimes in relation to reviews and little posts. On Paper Thin Walls I sometimes use ‘we’ when I mean just me, or I’ll make up the second part of the link to wrap up the joke I’m on. It’s grafting but obvious grafting, and something I don’t feel like I could pull off in a review. In my Tegan and Sara review I briefly referred to Death Cab For Cutie as ‘fellow Lesbian band’ Death Cab For Cutie. Obviously not. But judging by the quality of mail I receive @ my Pitchfork address, a lot of people would have factchecked that, not taken it as a joke, and been angry at the little lie.

Anyway two different things, I guess, except the article talks about nonfictional humor being given a special pass because it’s humor. As for defiantly calling it nonfiction just for the audiences’ sake: I would like to mention my own mother, who won’t go see a movie unless it’s based on a true story. We had to tell her “I Am Legend” was a true story to get her to go. There’s no way she believed this, but she suspended her disbelief, just so she could sit through it.

Sedaris has a new book out, which is why the article was reprinted. Mark observed the season’s first case of Sedaris smugness this week, the look on someone’s face when they’ve pulled out a Sedaris book on the subway, as if you can’t get “Me Talk Pretty One Day” out of the book dispenser at the airport as well. As if, if you expect everyone to know what you’re reading it can’t be worth being smug about anyway.