My State Of "State Of Music Criticism Thinkpieces" Address

a.k.a. Click The Link For Once You Might Learn Something

I always feel remorseful whenever I wade into “state of music criticism” discourse. As a paid professional dispenser of popular music takes, I’m obviously interested in the subject. But talking about it publicly strikes me as self-indulgent. Think of it this way: When I go to the grocery store, I don’t want to hear the checkout clerk complain about the store’s management or the vagaries of the fresh-fruit industry. I just want to pay for my food and be on my way. The music-writing business is no different. The customer wants opinions, not inside-baseball on the mechanics of the opinion profession.

And yet here I am, sticking my foot into “state of music criticism” discourse. What can I say? Sometimes, the self simply must be indulged.

On Tuesday, Defector published an article by Dan Brooks called “Culture Needs More Jerks” that addressed the alleged shortcomings of modern music writers. If you are familiar at all with this sort of thinkpiece, you can probably guess what the gist is. In Brooks’ view, critics are too nice to pop stars. Also: poptimism was a good idea in the beginning (because it halted the hegemony of “rockist” critics) until it was a bad idea (when it supposedly became synonymous with rubber-stamping whatever crap happens to be popular). The solution (in the parlance of the headline) is encouraging writers to be antagonistic “jerks” that challenge the consensus.

This passage sums up the article’s thesis:

The music writers of 2024 have achieved a remarkable synchrony with consumers, such that, for the first time in living memory, the most popular musicians in the world also happen to be making the best music. Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny: we all agree that these chart-topping millionaires are just as good as everyone says they are. And this consensus is doing bad things to the psychology of the otherwise intensely normal people who love them—people who always wanted to be part of something big, but are now part of something so big that it risks becoming nothing, like wearing socks or drinking coffee.

Before we continue, I want to briefly explain a tenet of persuasive writing that I like to call the “real” vs. “feigned” ignorance ratio. It refers to any information that the writer does not acknowledge which may undermine his argument. Sometimes, this information is unknowingly overlooked, i.e. “real” ignorance. But other times, it is deliberately left out, i.e. “feigned” ignorance. “Real” ignorance is sloppy and possibly lazy but it is not insincere, whereas “feigned” ignorance can be skillfully executed and even entertaining but is essentially dishonest. Neither kind of ignorance is good, exactly, but “real” ignorance at least can lead to a teachable moment. (See Shaq’s “I owe you an apology, I wasn’t really familiar with your game” meme.) “Feigned” ignorance, meanwhile, can be pernicious and intractable. (See pretty much every bad-faith interaction take unfolds on social media.)

At the start of the Defector article, two stories are referenced as evidence for Brooks’ case — the first is a worshipful review of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter from the New York Post, and the second is a New Yorker piece claiming that “normal” album reviews should not apply to Taylor Swift. And this is an effective tactic, as both articles are (in their own ways) pretty bad. But it is also a bait and switch. The New York Post is known for many things — conservative politics, punny headlines, etc. — but music criticism is not one of them. And the New Yorker article isn’t an album review at all, but rather another thinkpiece about the state of music criticism (only it’s focused on one particular artist).

Are these articles really representative of our blessed “state of music criticism”? Brooks asserts that the “two difficult aspects of doing criticism” are “thinking about how a work of art functions on its own terms, and pissing people off.” I agree with him. But he’s stacking the deck in his own article by not citing actual album reviews. I find it curious that he didn’t acknowledge the numerous middling write-ups given to Taylor Swift’s most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, from high-profile outlets such as the New York Times, Pitchfork, Stereogum and Paste. The album currently has a so-so Metacritic score of 76, which is identical to the most recent (and swiftly memory-holed) Kings Of Leon LP. Hardly a litany of mindless huzzahs, I would suggest.

Brooks could have also mentioned Pitchfork’s critical review of the latest Billie Eilish record, which so incensed Eilish’s brother and artistic collaborator Finneas O’Connell that he accused the site of having a “whole hater-ass bag.” Seems like one of the most celebrated bastions for music criticism still has the power to antagonize superstar musicians, no? (I could also point to Halsey’s 9/11 joke in response to a bad Pitchfork review, but I’ll keep this to 2024.)

I want to point out something else Brooks did not consider. Here are two screenshots from Pitchfork showing six recent albums that the site literally called the “best new music.”

As you can see, Cowboy Carter is in the mix. And you might recognize the latest from Vampire Weekend, one of the more famous rock bands of the last 20 years. But how about the rest? You have Cindy Lee, whose Diamond Jubilee is Pitchfork’s highest rated album since 2020. That record was released exclusively, sans record label or PR support, via a Geocities site. A casual music fan might recognize the name, but only because of Pitchfork’s rave, which gave the record a much bigger platform than it would have had otherwise. Then you have Empress Of, who is kinda sorta indie-famous but hardly a household name. As for the British post-punk outfit Still House Plants or the indie-pop act 1010Benja, it’s fair to assume that 99.9 percent of the population has no clue who they are. That makes roughly 33 percent, at best, of acclaimed albums that the typical normie would recognize.

If you think I’m cherry-picking records to make a point, feel free to peruse Pitchfork’s “Best New Music” albums section. I cover music for a living, and there are plenty of records there I know virtually nothing about. Of the ones I do know, only a tiny fraction qualify as work made by celebrities.

I picked Pitchfork because of its prominence, but there are dozens of lesser known outlets (websites, YouTube critics, social media influencers, etc.) that go much deeper into underground music. This stuff is out there. And it’s not even hard to find. (Unless you’re writing an article where this information is rhetorically inconvenient.)

Brooks is a sharp writer whose work I have enjoyed in the past. (His 2020 essay on how Donald Trump ruined political comedy is brilliant.) My sense is that the ignorance here is mostly real, as it is the kind of ignorance that’s very common among “state of music criticism” thinkpiecers. Writers like this always end up proving the exact opposite point that they’re trying to make. He’s trying to argue that music critics only care about big pop stars. But what he actually proves, once again, is a sad fact that all music critics already know: Most readers will not click on reviews of artists they have never heard of, no matter how acclaimed they are. Still House Plants might get the same BNM tag as Beyoncé, but only one of those reviews will be widely shared on social media.

The thinkpiece writers pretend to care about the media dominance of pop behemoths. But they are just as guilty of not-clicking on reviews of obscure albums as anyone else. The truth is that the vast majority of record reviews are written about artists that will never come close to ranking among the most streamed superstars. But the thinkpiecers (along with most other people) ignore reviews of non-famous artists so thoroughly that they convince themselves those reviews aren’t actually being written. They are part of the very problem that they are pontificating about, and they don’t even know it!

(Philip Seymour Hoffman, still he most recognizable music critic in America since 2000.)

For all of my issues with Brooks’ article I appreciate that he was at least trying to be fair-minded and thoughtful. I can’t say the same for the worst “state of music criticism” thinkpiece of 2024 (so far!). It was published five months ago, which is about as often as these articles seem to come out. (It’s probably not a coincidence that Taylor Swift seems to put out new music every five or six months these days.)

Titled “What We’ve Lost In Music Criticism,” it was written by Freddie DeBoer, an academic and popular Substack writer who typically opines about politics but occasionally goes viral with his hyperbolic media criticism. In January, around the time that Pitchfork laid off a significant number of staff members, DeBoer gleefully declared the site “dead” and set about dancing on the grave, blaming (you guessed it) poptimism for their so-called downfall.

Here is the most pertinent passage:

What is “indie”? Which acts are indie acts? What is being referred to, here? Indie rock no longer exists, in 2024. There is no scene. Williamsburg at this point is like a neighborhood-sized artisan coffee shop where the napkins are ethically sourced and the labor non-union. There are no cool clubs anywhere keeping the flame burning, not sufficiently to produce albums that people actually listen to, anyway. No remotely plugged-in person under the age of 50 who’d like to be perceived as fuckable would openly claim to like “indie records.” In the mid-2020s that’s like saying that you’re a fan of the Confederacy. 

I see what he’s doing here, and can even appreciate it on some (sub-mental) level. DeBoer has a way with invective, and there are some decent zingers here, even if the targets are a bit stale. (“Williamsburg as a signifier of hipsterism” jokes expired about 15 years ago.) And he knows his readers (who I’m guessing stopped reading Pitchfork once they stopped caring about new music after college) won’t call him out on his reductive caricatures.

But speaking as someone who does follow these things for a living: This passage is so fraudulent (and incredibly stupid) that I refuse to believe that DeBoer — who otherwise seems like a decently smart guy on many subjects not related to culture criticism — actually believes it. I can believe that he is not personally aware of any current indie bands, but only a pathological narcissist would assert that something he is not personally aware of must not really exist. I don’t buy it. Freddie is feigning up a storm here. Take this passage where he paints himself as a victim of discourse to which he is barely paying attention:

I am a particular type of aging dude; I like metal; I think Electric Wizard’s music is superior to that of Blackpink. For most of the history of music appreciation, this would be taken as the most uncontroversial statement of personal taste possible. Today, it’s treated as something like a hate crime.

A hate crime! For liking Electric Wizard! Can someone put this snowflake back in the freezer? He’s melting before our very eyes! 

Trust me, as “a particular type of aging dude” who writes articles and books about rock bands: Nobody will cancel you for doing this. They will, in fact, give you enough money to support a family. Crazy, I know. But it’s true.

I wish these people would just say what they really mean, which (I think) is this: “The way that super-famous musicians are written about is very annoying. The breathless coverage afforded to these people in some circles of the celebrity-oriented press is devoid of any insight or intelligence. And having it rammed down your throat by algorithms is extremely tiresome. This is not indicative of music criticism on the whole — many times it’s not music criticism at all — but it is a major problem nonetheless.” You know who would agree with that? Every single music critic I have ever interacted with! They hate this stuff more than you do!

Unfortunately for Freddie DeBoer — and happily for people who aren’t feigning interest in music criticism — the reports of Pitchfork’s demise were premature. Here are two more screenshots covering albums that the site reviewed this past week.

I wonder how many of these records Freddie DeBoer has heard of. I’m guessing not many! Maybe Vince Staples? Though, again, he’s hardly a Beyoncé-level superstar. The new BNMs were granted to Gastr del Sol — the legendary avant-rock act led by David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke — and the Pakistani singer-songwriter Arooj Aftab. Personally, I have never heard of Mike Shabb or James Devane. But I’m intrigued! And all I have to do is click in order to learn more. “Click the link” is an activity I recommend to all the “state of music criticism” thinkpiecers. You might learn something.

Self-Promotion Time

Speaking of clicking links: My new book There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The U.S.A.” And The End Of The Heartland came out on Tuesday. You can buy it wherever you buy books! It’s available in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook (read by me!) I had a great book launch the following day at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn with my pal Brian Fallon. My next event is June 11 at Book Soup in Los Angeles. I’ll be announcing more events soon! Stay tuned!