| Knyte wrote: |
| Let's just all agree to disagree, and quit playing this 3rd grade game of "You suck becuase you don't like the same music as me!" |
It was just a weird year for music. I don't think I'd hate his picks as much if I had actually heard of more of the bands. I like the Arcade Fire album.
I do tend to hate music critics, which is a rather hypocritical thing to say, as my last article was music-based, but eh. Actually, I guess hate professional music critics. You can read Spin, Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, the Village Voice, or Robert the Radish and they all say essentially the same thing. And it's not hard to figure out how these things go:
If Springsteen puts out an album, it's automatically on the list.
If Radiohead puts out an album, it's automatically on the list.
If U2 puts out an album, it's automatically on the list.
If REM puts out an album, it's automatically on the list.
If Bob Dylan puts out an album, it's automatically on the list.
If Tom Petty puts out an album, it's automatically on the list.
I dont' have have any particular dislike for most of these artists, but Christ, not everything Bob Dylan does is fucking gold.
I think my hatred of music critics stems from Stephen Thomas Erlewine, a worthless cocksucker who writes for AllMusic.com. He did retroactive reviews of the Use Your Illusion albums in the late 90s and he bashed the hell out of both of them. Now, the UYIs were incredibly well-received at the time of the their release, but GN'R had disappeared by the time this guy reviewed the albums and he used that opportunity as excuse to use the reviews to promote his personal dislike of the band. He criticizes for the albums for being too diverse and "pretentious", which is highly suspect, as critics love bands like Radiohead and U2 when they do the same things. But since Axl is a tempermental hellraiser instead of a self-righteous dork like Bono, Erlewine doesn't like his music.
And yet, despite his negative reviews, both albums currently have 4.5 stars out of 5 from user votes. I actually started an e-mail campaign at one point to get AllMusic.com to change the reviews to reflect the album's user ratings. It was successful in getting them to the review for UYI2 to a much more favorable one. Unfortunately, the success was shortlived; Erlewine used his senior staff position to have it changed back a few months later.
