“F***, marry, kill! / Umm, an army of Furbies that won't stop chanting the Lord's prayer / (A can of rigatoni on the street) / Umm, going over to a friend's house for a sleepover for the first time / And their Dad wants them to pop a cyst on his back / But they're really squeamish and faint / But he's in a lot of pain so you have to do it / Papa / One, two, three, four!” (Dazey and the Scouts, 2017, track 7 on “Maggot”)
Critics using terms like textured or atmospheric abandon the reader. They now have to scour their brain for what they think is atmospheric when your review could’ve used its power to expand their perception of that idea, which can have a snowball effect on their perception of music in the future. Your opinion is merely an idea until you try and persuade it.
“A review is not about the reviewer,” Jon Pareles, a popular music critic for the New York Times states, said while giving review-writing advice. He explained that a writer's mood, contextual experience or life history adds no value for the reader, yet he thinks a review should change their perceptions. But how can a writer do that when you deflate the perceptions the writer themself has to offer because you, “don’t care”
There is responsibility and privilege in writing your opinion when it involves a creation made by a human being. Understanding the creator’s target audience, understanding the creator themselves and understanding the creation in perspective of the larger proportions of perspectives are all necessary for establishing yourself as a credible critic. But why can’t a review be about the reviewer when they are a part of the audience too?
I care about why you have the umbrella perspectives you do. Write about it.
I care about how you don’t know the meaning of the lyrics to even your favorite songs.
I care about how you listened to a girl punk album for the first time and felt impulsed to buy granny panties after. Or how you want to write a fiction piece exclusively with Car Seat Headrest lyrics.
Or how every word of an Alex G song is so purposeful and each phrase sticks out, making you remember those lines more than the one-word titles.
Or how years ago you watched Aurora in her NPR Tiny Desk Concert and it made you want to be an atheist, but it was a sin to put anyone over God, yet you wanted Aurora there so badly.
All of these are causes that will affect your future reactions to music: the next love song, the next soundtrack, the next artist, new or old.
Paying respects to the creator of the art you’re reviewing should be a present priority, but understanding how the ‘before,’ affects your ‘present’ and then the ‘after.’ These things shouldn’t be assumed as something a reader doesn’t care about. How can we try to persuade someone if we don’t recognize what has persuaded us to end up in our present mindsets?
Reviewers should use their experience to persuade through storytelling instead of leaving the reader with stand-alone ideas. Your ideas in a review should be accompanied by your experience otherwise it becomes interpretable instead of persuasive.
When I lip-sync to songs like “Nice Nice” by Dazey and the Scouts alone and with headphones on, I find myself unintentionally uttering noises because of the absurd, unexpected vocal inflections. It’s hard expressing my love for their album, “Maggot,” to other people because I’m like, “Nothing else compares! It would be so crazy to see them in concert!” Then they’ll start playing it in the car, and I contradict myself by remaining inappropriately still.
I love theatrical music because of this. With Kate Bush-like whispers and Tchotchke’s playful panting, accompanied by me pretending to fan myself or walking away from my mirror and then turning my head back to it, mouthing some lyrics that you would have no idea spawns this secret persona if the external context was a car and not me alone in my bedroom.
Thinking about how these details could be dismissed so easily as unimportant makes me grieve missed opportunities to expose untold stories that could persuade me to empathize with the writer, creator and creation so much more than the word ‘atmospheric’ ever could.
Ceci Brown is a sophomore studying media arts production at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Ceci know by emailing her at cb870820@ohio.edu.
