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One goal of this site is to engender better listeners and readers. (Whether it succeeds is another matter.) By “better”, I mean more “more aware” in terms of listening and reading between the lines. In the same way that one should be able to detect biases in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, one should be able to see through the marketing that music listeners undergo – even at the underground level. Just because it’s pressed on 180g black vinyl doesn’t mean it’s good; just because it’s on a big label doesn’t mean it’s bad. If more listeners actively questioned what they listened to, mediocrity wouldn’t thrive in the marketplace.
Christopher Weingarten came at this issue from the music critic side in a recent talk called “Twitter & The Death of Rock Criticism II: Music Is Math”. (Music critics are fond of colons in their talks.) He’s talking mostly about indie rock, but his arguments definitely apply to metal. His basic point is that the Internet is ruining music criticism by emphasizing quantity over quality. Three salient quotes:
When clicks are your lifeblood, it doesn’t matter if the writing is any good, and that fucking sucks.
Good writing dies at the hands of search engine optimization.
Don’t click on things that look like they just exist for you to click on them.
Now, it’s disingenuous for Weingarten to make these arguments, since last year he undertook a highly publicized campaign to review 1000 albums on Twitter. Reducing albums to 140-character assessments doesn’t do music criticism any favors.
But ad hominem objections aside, he makes good points. I’ve been guilty of the sins he identifies. It’s tough negotiating these issues; for every post that I put up, I have to wear multiple hats. At some point, I put down my writer hat and put on my “site manager” hat. I have to worry about graphics, layout, and timing of posts.
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These things matter. The best writing in the world doesn’t matter if no one reads it. And, sadly, getting people to read things requires snappy headlines and eye-catching graphics. It doesn’t help that people prefer to read about things with which they’re already familiar (which skews coverage to music with the most marketing behind it). And it doesn’t help that analytics show that the number of readers of this site is basically in direct proportion to the number of posts I put up daily. The more frequently I post, the more readers I get – and the worse my writing gets.
“More readers” isn’t a goal so much as a means for this site. If a band deserves exposure, it should be exposed to as many eyeballs as possible. This site is really just a fancy venue for saying, “Check this band out”. That’s marketing, too – and you should be as skeptical of it as you are with any media outlet. I’m not sure if music criticism is worth defending (one of Weingarten’s implicit assumptions). I get a lot more out of music itself. But if it does its job as an antidote to marketing, music criticism can be worthwhile. It’s a two-way street. It needs smart readers and listeners as much as it needs smart writers.
Thanks to Chunklet for the tip
The reason I love this blog is the quality of the writing. While I may not be into some of the music , it’s refreshing to read reviews that don’t degenerate into heaviosity metaphors from the first line.
To be fair, I’ve found that many of Weingarten’s bite-sized Twitter reviews have been cleverly written, and represented clearly formed thoughts. Saying one can’t condense a review to a tweet is basically the same as saying one can’t condense a complex thought to a haiku — it’s a challenge to be sure, but not impossible. On the other hand, there were plenty of clunky name-drop-as-review tweets, too. So I’m on the fence as to the validity of 140-character reviews.
You can put this one under “whining hook”.
I write/blog about music because I want to tell people about it. It’s because I’m a music geek – it comes with the territory. The more people I can get my message out to the better (I don’t discount ego from this equation either, I like people to listen to me, it helps my self esteem). I try to do things that will help me get more readers, but also try not to do so at the expense of good content or writing. I’m an SEO professional for my day job (among other things) and this invariably leaks out to my bloglife, usually to positive effect – I don’t think I write SEO prose, although I make no particular claim to writing good prose by any other standard.
I think it’s a worthy endevour as long as it’s on your own terms and people care enough to read it, I can’t see that anything else matters. If you choose to write about Attack Attack! then great, as long as you really care about what you’re writing.
At the end of the day the public will vote with their feet. If you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, or you suck then people will not come. But some of the best blogs out there are poorly presented and lo-fi, but the authors really love what they’re doing, so everything else is irrelevant.
I think your quality of writing outweighs the need for the flashy banners and pictures.
Your site was far more interesting, even with few posts and the old layout that wasn’t much of a layout at all, than say, Metal Sucks which is all flashing layout and adverstisements. About the only time they create an interesting thought is when it’s a link back to your articles.
I also have a music blog (mostly local from Raleigh), and I’ve had to fight the quantity over quality urge too. I realized that if I don’t feel like writing for some reason, then I should hold off until I’m more inspired. I also recently decided to delete all ads from from my blog because the little cash I was making just wasn’t worth the effort, and they were just plain ugly. I agree with Alex that you need to do it on your own terms.
I’m glad to see you considering these issues. When I watched that clip yesterday I was thinking about Invisible Oranges at some points too.
“I’m not sure if music criticism is worth defending (one of Weingarten’s implicit assumptions). I get a lot more out of music itself. But if it does its job as an antidote to marketing, music criticism can be worthwhile.”
Music criticism is certainly worth defending the more it becomes like literary criticism and the less like a buyer guide. Weingarten says ‘listen to a random band [because that's better than being fed hype]‘. I posit that listening to something random is as worthless as listening to the hits that are being fed to you if you’re not engaging with the art critically to begin with, if you’re not asking yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing and what you’re getting from it. Pandora playlists can’t solve this. The man says ‘I may write an amazing piece on the latest video Beyonce makes…’ and I say if that’s ‘rock journalism’ it can go fuck itself. We need ART CRITICISM, not ‘rock journalism’ in HM.
People listen to ‘taste-makers’ because they’d rather not think about their consumption habits. Weingarten is a proponent of consumerism either way, just like the machines he criticizes. His is a capitalist apologia. As if listening to a few more bands is going to make any of us better people. It’s not. Reflecting on art will. In order to reflect on art, you need to slow down and consider less art for longer periods of time and in relation to your actual life. Art is not an escape from life. Criticism is invaluable for both artists and audience because it justifies that time spent reflecting. ‘Talking about music’ is important because it’s effectively ‘talking about humanity’. For people to become stronger, better, they need to understand everything they are.
Many years ago I stumbled on the web/print zine ‘Lamentations of the Flame Princess’ and especially on one of its giant ‘One Hundred Questions’ interviews for a band. Which band it was doesn’t matter now, nor do its answers particularly. The questions though, they made me start thinking about HM in a different way. They were stuff like “what is the difference between HM and jazz or progressive rock?” and “what are the aesthetic characteristics of HM that keep you listening to it?”. Keep in mind that I was a HM listener for quite a few years before I was confronted with these questions. I found that my internal answers were a mess, they were contradictory and confusing, I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. I sat down and wrote as clearly as I could answers to these One Hundred Questions and from this process I came out more aware of my own desires and tendencies as an artist and a listener. That stuff set me on a path that I’ve been following ever since and it has enhanced my life. I’ve revised the resultant opinions a million times, but at least now I somewhat know why I am engaging with art.
Note that what did it for me wasn’t a 300 word review about an inconsequential band of the week, it was lucid, pertinent questions about the nature of the genre found in a deep, huge piece. I didn’t come out of that thinking ‘I need to buy this record!’ I came out thinking ‘why do I buy records?’.
Now, Invisible Oranges has an advantage that LotFP doesn’t have: it’s sizable, vocal and courteous reader base. You’ve built a great house, Cosmo. The comment space is the best I’ve found online. The climate is good, I rarely if ever see fighting and insults and feedback is plenty. There are a *lot* of reviews on IO that do not do anything else than mildly characterize the music and give the listener an idea on whether or not they should investigate further. That’s fine if that’s not all there is here. A lot read like ‘writing practice’ too. Rarely a thought-provoking piece is posted. There’s also a *lot* of coverage of ‘metal fashion’ and generally a social look from inside or outside of the ‘metal lifestyle’ and that’s fine too as long as it acts as an excuse to get people talking. What’s most important is not the ‘metal lifestyle’ but the metal LIFE. How do you engage with people in that level? The band or live show or t-shirt in these cases is the excuse to go deeper, deeper in what people do and why.
If you’re worried about what you’re leaving behind with IO and if it’s contributing to the criticism of the medium, Cosmo, you’ll need to reevaluate the negative byproducts of how often you post, how little you have to say about the artists you feature and especially on how the overall composite picture of the site reflects on the nature of HM. I’ve been reading this site since you started and what I’ve noticed is that there’s a confusion on what HM is and especially what it should be. The former is a matter of research and you’ve been plugging holes in your historical knowledge of the medium since the day you started and that’s great. You still are wide open in proto-metal and NWOBHM and generally the 1980-84 period which is the meat of the metal chronology. HM didn’t start with Napalm Death. I suggest instead of listening to a thousand promos this year you go back and chronologically check out all the archetypal metal bands and the NWOBHM one-hit-wonders and everything in between, not just the music, reviews, articles, old magazines, interviews. You’ll learn more about what HM is from when it was in its naive infancy rather than by trying to muddle through second-generation self-aware often ironic hipsters that just happen to like double-bass and chunky riffs too.
From there you will come to realize more what HM is for you, and from there what it should be. Be brave with broadcasting it. I expect you to say that you’re not that kind of guy that makes prescriptive statements about the nature of things but in the end you do! Everyone does! Every writer that loves something has opinions on it, it might start with “I don’t like keyboards in metal” or “I don’t like polished productions” and if you ask yourself why you say these things you’ll inch towards a more fundamental thing than ‘it sounds bad’. Is it about masculinity? Is it about the desire for HM to be savage? Do you want HM to be anti-commercial in its approach to sound? Do you value distinct personality in HM more than you value chops and capacity? Why do you keep listening to HM? Does weakness and ambiguity have a place in HM? Does HM have an ethical responsibility? Does HM benefit from the scenester mentality? Did you get into HM to make friends? In what ways has HM influenced your personal philosophy?
You’re a great writer. When you’ve began to answer these things you can put them in your reviews and features using your formidable writing skills and that’s what will elevate the writing here from mere ‘content’ that just pulls readers to criticism that makes them reflect.
One more thing that occurs to me while reading these comments is that from my point of view, IO seems to have been more about a journey for you. It’s not the finished product, and in may ways it’s a public display of you learning curve – about metal, about writing, about blogging, about the web, about people. I’m on a similar trajectory (albeit at a more nascent stage) and already I’ve met loads of fantastic people that I wouldn’t otherwise have met, discovered whole areas of music I didn’t even know existed, and got better at writing and my day job. All because I started writing a blog. For me this has been an amazing journey and it’s only been a year. Other than having kids it’s the most exciting thing I’ve done in 2 decades. THIS is what matters to me and why I write a blog. What actually happens on the blog pales in comparison.
“If more listeners actively questioned what they listened to, mediocrity wouldn’t thrive in the marketplace.”
As much as I feel like this is a hopeless battle, I love that you’re fighting it.
@Karen – I’ll have to check out your blog… I’m getting ready to move to the Raleigh area shortly!
Helm. well done. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and I don’t want to seem like a traitor but I’ve definitely noticed that with the increase in post frequency has come a drop in quality. who cares that Rob Halford went to an award show, or that Jungle Rot band you basically throw out there saying “this band sounds kind of OK, should I look into it more?” fuck no you shouldn’t. I don’t even know that band but I don’t ever investigate just OK bands. christ how many passable metal bands are out there now?
Helm is correct you are a really good writer, but I’d be mindful of turning this site into Metalsucks.net I never and I mean never go there for recommendations or tips on new bands. they’re good for the occasional fart joke or video of Dave Mustaine being a jerk but that’s it. the excessive volume and poor quality of the bands they champion means they’ve lost their ability to act as taste-maker. on the other hand I guess is Left Hand Path where they post whenever they feel like it, and it’s not a money making thing. so I guess it comes down to your commercial ambitions. is more traffic on this site an end in itself or does it help to pay your rent? I’d never fault you for trying to find more ways to make a living off writing about metal, but if it becomes like metal sucks and you start sponsoring tours and all that I might lose interest. I already don’t check out all the bands you post on, whereas with the old site I used to at least listen to the band you put up that day. these are important questions so it’s good that you consider them. also…I’m a crank and getting crankier (and older) every day though so take it for what it’s worth.
Helm should write for this site.
he basically does no?
This is all good commentary – I appreciate it.
Part of the problem is that I see many holes for metal coverage (news, resources, writing) out there, and I’ve been trying to plug them all. That’s physically (or at least monetarily) impossible at this point. If others were stepping up and doing what I believe should be done, I wouldn’t try to do it, too.
To analogize to urban planning, mixed-use zoning has worked for this site. Some people prefer huge think pieces; some prefer news blurbs. Like most people, I don’t live entirely in the deep or shallow ends, but move between them. Keeping the site that way is more dynamic and brings more people in contact with each other.
Helm – Huge think pieces are nice to do, but I only have one in me every once in a while. Building this house, as you put it, requires that I post something every day. That is a fact. I’m also not much of a philosopher, and also reluctant to be “the last word” on a subject. I’d rather be the first word, and let people do the exploring themselves. That’s what I’d want as a reader/listener, anyway. Hence “here is a good band, go check them out”. People know what to do with good music. I’m not dictating that journey for them.
It almost sounds like you’re trying to most things to most people, which is never going to work. Do what you do best, and what interests/stimulates you. If you’re building a house, then get the foundations down properly before trying to put up any walls.
To be honest, IO V1 was a site/blog that knew what is was. V2 seems to be trying to evolve, but hasn’t quite found itself again yet. That’s OK, evolution takes time and is never free of ‘unwanted mutations’. But back to the building analogies – one building block at a time. You may be able to picture the whole house, but if you use shoddy brickwork trying to build it, then it’ll just fall down.
Getting lost in all the analogies now. What were we talking about?
I absolutely do not think you should post only (huge or otherwise) think pieces, even gigantic nerds like me can get fed up with them and just want to click on an embedded mp3 of a band they haven’t heard of before and read solid descriptive brief prose once in a while. It’s just that the concerns you voice are answered only by going deeper. You sometimes seem to be in the fence as far as metal goes, an outside commentator. If you want to know what it means to you for real you’ll have to go deeper.
Invisible Oranges will continue to grow as long as you post content but if you want its influence to have a lasting impact, like what you were discussing in the ‘what will I make that outlasts me?’ piece, then you’ll have to go deeper eventually.
I just think this dude is bummed because no one cares about the opinions of the publications he works for…Rolling Stone, Spin, and the Village Voice have earned what they are getting now…talk about the lowest common denominator!
Folks need to focus on what gets them excited, that genuine interest in new and good things is usually contagious…to cheaply channel a disembodied voice in a corn field “if you build it, they will come”.
Comparing music criticism to literary criticism is rather insulting to literary criticism. Especially in terms of metal, where lyrical content is puerile at best.
I read IO for the bigger pieces and for the comments. I have my own ways of discovering new music (to me) so I’m not much into the band hyping and album reviews unless they are written well enough to reveal something about the music I can’t necessary notice with my own ears at first listens. I’d say IO does both. Some music reviews have been meaningful for me and others not. Generally I don’t mind quick write-ups as long as there’s going to be some food for thought every once in a while. I feel that the bigger pieces wouldn’t suffer from going a bit further sometimes though. I kind of like the pieces where you engage your readers by asking us questions and making us share something about ourself in the comments. It’s nice to read the stories about how music has affected the lives of others
‘You sometimes seem to be in the fence as far as metal goes, an outside commentator’
That’s one of the reasons that make this site unique: Cosmo’s view from the outside. Some of the best posts here reflect this unusual standponit and I don’t think that they could have occurred otherwise.
I like to read your posts Helm, most of the time, but it feels like there’s a thesaurus right in front of your nose every time. I know we have our own styles, but this asshole thinks you’d do well to cut the fat.
“I’m not sure if music criticism is worth defending”
Definitely not! All criticism is based off the critic right? In most cases there is an agenda hidden in there and usually it’s because the critic is getting a paycheck. Personal blogs tend to be the opposite, which in this case isn’t very personal. I’m not alone in disliking the music critic world with all their opinions and really, in this age, there’s no reason a person needs a music critic to describe to them why they believe the music is worthwhile or total dogshit. It’s true we form our own opinions against others’ and not everyone wants to do the work of knowing what they want. Even then, who knows what the hell you want. Most people just want it given to them. There’s a paradox, because how the hell is someone supposed to know if an album might be right for them in the sea of music and usually they read a nice review of it, or the “for fans of:” blurbs.
Helm there’s something you mentioned about “hits” being fed to you and random music being “worthless.” I’ve got a feeling you’re not a musician yourself, or maybe you play jazz, because it’s the only way you could come up with something this elitist/ignorant/what have you. It doesn’t take any thinking to appreciate music or art. You mention all this about reflection and art journalism being “good” but how about actually playing the music? That’s the best kind of reflection to me. The more you play and more accustomed you get to the music you listen to, it will come across in the way you play. Sometimes this is overt, much more of the time it is subtle. There are art people who go a gallery and stare at a piece thinking about how this piece relates to them and what it does to their thinking and existence. They figure it out and they let people know about it, and they tell people what they “need.” Whereas the rest of us pass that painting and think, “this is a good painting” or “this painting isn’t very good” and wondering what’s with the dude in the felt cap stroking his chin? It’s nice to think that art is everything and the world is full of it, but the world is full of trash and hatred and art will always remain a personal endeavor. Exceptions of course are made with well-known art, and you might admit yourself that art is always in the eye of the artist. Someone puts out a piece of music or a painting and then the people who encounter it form their opinions on what it means to them or what it means to the artist. Here’s where I think those who only think about the art and don’t partake in any of it are full of shit. The artist alone knows (or doesn’t) what his art means to him. The fact that his art affects others is secondary, and you could argue that is art of itself, in the same way a simple sentence by an author can mean the world to you and be a throwaway for the author. There’s always what it truly is, and then the perception everyone makes about it. Every one else is just drawing straws.
Education is not something to be ashamed of. Neither is a healthy vocabulary. To walk past a painting (or listen to music) without bothering to educate one’s self as to how and why it developed is to miss out on a large part of what the art is about. Knowledge of this kind can only deepen one’s personal experience of the art. If you are intimidated by this process and choose to confine yourself to vague, unconsidered judgments like GOOD or BAD, it is your loss.
I’ve rarely read anything on this site, even since from the get-go, because it’s seems like the writing bears the same literary weight of gossip, so i’m genuinely confused by the opening line of this article. How exactly are you guys going about the process of engendering better listeners? The writing itself is perfunctory and declamatory but there’s never any explanations and the only discussions are in the comments field, and often the only response from the writer is also perfunctory, declamatory and often off-base. Every time I come here the only artistic statement that I see from its creators is a resounding “SOMEONE SPONSOR ME.”
Garson Cross – You’re misreading what I said. I think he uses too many big words out of the right context, doesn’t mean I think he’s stupid. What I can’t stand is your tone sir, like you know something greater or that I’m “missing out” on something. The good/bad painting was an example. It is not my loss if I decide not to give myself to a specific art, as much as it is my gain to understand everything that happened during the creation of an album. What is with art folks and trying to get through to people? Everyone is sick of being looked down on like they have a smaller brain because you personally can respect the art.
I don’t use a thesaurus. Sometimes I might choose Greek-sounding words because that’s my native language, so, sorry if I misuse some terms.
Trimming the fat is difficult when writing a comment because my priority isn’t to be succinct but to get my point across while minimizing the posibility for misunderstandings. The thing I hate the most on comment-spaces on the internet is those blase offhand one-liners that can be taken every which way, I don’t want to do that I don’t think it contributes anything to the discussion. Problem is the longer my comment gets the less time I have to devote to properly editing it so it’s tight because I’m not writing a book here or anything, I have other stuff that I need to be doing too, heh. Bottom line if someone skips my comments because they’re too long, they’re probably better off anyway, scroll scroll, no harm done.
As to your hypothesis, I play Heavy Metal music. It means a lot to me. I’m not championing criticism because of some jealousy due to being unable to be the artist myself. I also do comics and computer graphics and I’m as critical there as with metal.
I also think that art is in the eye of the beholder (be they the artist or not) and do not care to engage in ‘IS THIS OR ISN’T IT ART??’ debates though I’m always interested in hearing what people got from the art they liked – or sometimes, fervently disliked, be them the artists or not.
Calling anything worthless was bad form, I’m sorry. People will find value in everything and they don’t like it when you insult them for it. A practical bare definition of any one “thing” is “it has value for someone” actually, so fair enough, let me take the long way around a rephrasal:
One always thinks. Experiencing art (or anything else really) is neither just a low level nor just a high level process, it’s both at once and everything in between. Dualist assumptions between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ when a human being experiences something impactful are epistemologically puerile and even dangerous (especially in discourse). A human’s not a group of disparate machines, it’s a single thing. There’s no ‘emotion/logic’ distinction not because these concepts are meaningless but because they’re allegories, useful sometimes but not factual. The factual ‘experience of living’ cannot be scrutinized by getting it chopped down to simpler systems which are inspected one-by-one like Aristotle would have liked. One doesn’t feel first and think second. Everything interfaces with everything at the same time, all the time. The curse of sentience!
Your example of the chinstroker with the felt cap as the ‘intellectualizer of art’ is a straw-man. Not saying these impressions of people are baseless but they’re not me and I don’t think what they’re doing with art in your gallery example even begins at the same place as my desire for art criticsm in Heavy Metal. It is exactly because my desire for analysis and critique comes quite after the actual experience of listening that I value it as an end in itself. I’m not a person that listens to something and talks about it while he listens to it or any of that crap. In fact I’ve been a proponent for people slowing down with the music talk, not reviewing stuff that just came out, giving it years sometimes before they have something important to say about great art. But that’s just the thing, you know? If you listen to a record for a decade and it still resonates, it has probably created ideas in your mind and it’s good to let those out, discuss them. It’s the opposite of what Weingarten is a proponent of above, which is give me something, anything music related and I’ll write you a brilliant writer piece on it and that makes me a great rock journalist and better than the people with their blogs.
So, everything that appeals to you is filtered constantly and builds towards something, everything you experience and say you now ‘like’ has relevance to your personality and experience. Your aesthetic considerations are the result of complex interfaces, they’re not (just) a social facade. Even if nobody asks you why you like whatever you liked, your brain is trying to figure it out (and continues on while your consciousness might be busy with other stuff) how the art you experienced fits inside your worldview and what use it has for your survival. Art is a tool.
The use of art criticism is to actually ask you to formulate these instinctual reactions from art, into expressive dialogue. It’s imperative because it teaches us about ourselves through the paradigm of other people, it doesn’t have to be combative argumentation. Talk about art is talk about humanity. Talk about humanity is talk about oneself. Art is a tool is a mirror. If one looks at a mirror sideways it’s still beautiful and it still shows a reflection of something interesting or useful. If one looks at their reflection head-on though, they might begin to notice much, not all beautiful. All of what one finds there is worth noting down, reconsidering, expressing and challenging.
I find the idea that most people look at a painting, feel a base emotion and just go “that’s nice” and are done with it, to be a myth. It’s perpetuated because it’s a useful myth, there’s a lot to gain in specific social situations by pretending to be an anti-intellectual. Being a ‘feeler’ is a point of pride for many because in our post-modern, hypercommercialized society, ideas and concepts have been widely abused by hostile forces. It’s tough to turn someone’s vague feelings against them, but people can turn ideas some might have endorsed against them, they do it all the time. Or worse, they use these ideas to try to sell people shit. Hence all this “it’s just music, brah” stuff, I think it’s a reaction to that mostly. It’s not go-nowhere, there’s positive aspects to it for sure, but if you’ve let music shimmer in you for decades you might as well tell people what you’ve come up with, you know? I’ve talked about art with people who were uncultured and slow and when they feel comfortable to reflect they might make the most lucid observations. Art isn’t anything more special than human expression and I don’t hold artists to a higher standard than non-artists because non-artists also express themselves, just not always in media that are traditionally considered high art. The thing is that artistic expression is just as complex as humans are. It can withstand to a lot of scrutiny and many useful things can come of that so why not? Playing music is great and thinking about what art does can be great too. If you don’t want to engage in the latter that’s fine but Cosmo obviously does and has so we’re discussing how the IO format can arrive to more significant contributions than ‘band of the week’ stuff.
Also about people’s tone and stuff, if you don’t mind my advice, don’t read too much into tone on the internet. I try to do this as an experiment, every time I read something online thatseems preachy or sanctimonious, I re-read it thinking of it as if spoken by a friend, I see him smiling and trying to do good while saying these things and most often the tone reads completely different even if I still disagree. Even if in reality is somewhere in the middle it still pays off if it helps you consider points of view you wouldn’t have because of someone’s tone.
Dude I can’t handle all this you’ve just laid down because most of it is things I already know so this is a teacher going over a lesson for the third time and I’m the bored stupid. And really I don’t want to read about what art is an all this different things because I’m tired of that and I’m just burnt out on people talking about art, plain and simple. Call me stupid but I can’t read everything there because it’s all such a big runaround. That’s what I think and it doesn’t change, that I’d understand you better if you were more succinct. I mean, you read like an art student writing his thesis and I can’t handle that.
What you’ve gotten into is philosophy and from reading your view on the world I can say it’s very, very different than mine. This is good to see another side but every other sentence I shake my head because I don’t understand how one comes to these conclusions. What annoys me most about this post and Garson Cross is the attempt to elucidate for me which is arrogance on both your parts because the other, in this case me, needs to figure it out for themselves without the sermon. I don’t like reading a “you” when it’s obvious that it is a “they” or a greater whole you’re talking about, not me personally. Bludgeoning is all that you’re doing and it makes me tired. Tone can be inferred through text. I know you read books!
This whole thing makes me want to draw a big “who cares” in the sky above us. For both our sakes.
I’m with my man Conduit here…there’s an SSD song that relates to this very topic, if you don’t think all that hardcore punk shit died in 1985!
Also, I try to replicate my speech in a comment because I know I’m not writing a book. Sometimes it feels like you’re writing an article when I just want to get an answer out of you!
Cool it, guys, or take it outside. Just be glad you’re not the same person.
It’s not like we’re fighting, I just know when I’m being looked down on. I realize the last comments might have come off harsh, but they’re true. Tired of art and tired of art critiques! Mostly I’m trying to figure out what just what exactly Mr. Helm is saying.
I only offer this because I represent just one part of the readers you have. I’m in it for the music and stay away from the discussions most of the time, so it’s strange to be commenting on a post about the readers. The cynic in me says who the fuck cares about your visitor count, which I’m sure you agree with to a point while wearing one of the hats, but the other needs them to further develop the website. I can imagine running a blog can feel hopeless at times. A greater audience probably changes the way you present writing to them. I’d say metalsucks.com declined considerably when more and more folks were reading. I think you said that, I’m going to stop now.
Sorry Cosmo…it’s interesting for a while but taking six paragraphs to repeat your simple point and disagreements is a little trying when folks make blanket statements like the one I paraphrased…just sayin’!
Ultimately though, the whole “I blame the internet” thing is pretty cheap and tawdry, there are a zillion Job For A Cowboy’s now because of the internet superwhatever and subsequently, there’s tenfold the amount of folks with a Blogger account who want to complain about them for their tiny piece of whatever pie they are aspiring to. It’s also very condescending to assume that folks can’t judge or discern crap from gold and that everyone needs a good taste shepherd to lead them to the light. I read a tiny handful of music bloggers, mostly people who seem to have a genuine across the board, genuine interest in (oh my god, I’m gonna say it) heavy music and not the footwear of a band, and one or two (I bet you can’t guess) to have a chuckle at and occasionally mock. Ultimately it’s a much more interesting and rewarding experience at my age to feel like I’ve discovered something new and great thanks to people who work a lot harder at this than I do! The rest is just tepid, jaded bullshit.
I must also admit that Helm’s viewpoint is very different to my own, but, I very much appreciate your posts, Helm. If I can say two things about your postings; they emanate from a consistent mindset, and they’re painstakingly expressed. Both of which I appreciate, even when I disagree or lose the thread whilst reading them
Matt, thanks.
Conduit, I don’t look down on you, I’m not calling you stupid (you’re quite the opposite). Sorry if I sound patronizing, I don’t do it on purpose, you just addressed some issues and I in turn tried to work methodically through them and find the common thread. That’s how I talk about *anything* with anyone, that is my voice. I’m also sorry if we can’t come to an understanding in the end but I can’t do anything if you’re tired of art critique and anyone who engages in it, it’s not really to do with my argumentation, it’s just your point of view. Why engage with me at all if that’s how you feel?
Helm sometimes I wish I had the patience and serenity to craft responses like that to online disagreements. then again I worry I’d never get any work done at my job. either way glad you’re out there helping to make the case for thoughtful critique and anti-anti intellectualism. this one quote seems especially pertinent to me and I hope people don’t ignore it.
“In fact I’ve been a proponent for people slowing down with the music talk, not reviewing stuff that just came out, giving it years sometimes before they have something important to say about great art. But that’s just the thing, you know? If you listen to a record for a decade and it still resonates, it has probably created ideas in your mind and it’s good to let those out, discuss them. ”
it seems to me that what you’re advocating is a ground up re-imagining of music creation/production/consumption/criticism. one that would totally do away with the current apparatus/cycle of distribution, release dates, press, tours, shit like that. and more importantly would radically alter the way people engage with music in their lives. the way they approach making it, and how they approach listening to it. how do you imagine that new model’s financial components/incentives? are there any? I’m not being glib here, it’s an honest question.
I don’t expect the ’slower’ model to be the mainstream model, ever. Music criticism will always be primarily a trojan horse for marketing just like most of art will primarily be made with the intention of being sold as a product. Even if IO in the future becomes the biggest mainstream source for metal information and buyer reviews and whatever, I’m just hoping there’ll still be some space devoted to examination of great art regardless of release date and ‘relevance’. Cosmo already does this with some classics with the excuse of their release date anniversaries, I’m just hoping for more of that and deeper examination and without any excuse at all. Just put a record review of something that came out twenty years ago right next to something that came out last week. People that are thirsty for new music now now now can be catered for too. The issue is of balance. Right now on the onus of “something must be posted every day” I fear the scales are turned way too much towards the one side.
Helm – It started out a different conversation. I may be tired of it all, but I still want to see what others think about it. Even if every time I remember how boring it is for me, it’s better I understand where you’re coming from than not at all. Change is inevitable, so I was attempting to get that change going now rather than later.
Helm you should investigate more about your comic you’ve been creating,it’s not even a fraction of what you can give us and achieve.C’mon you are greek and you have more to offerfrom your cultural nest than that nebulous hybrid manga pop thingie that you are exploring.
The same questions/reflexions that you inquired Cosmo about heavy metal/Art, you should ask about YOUR comics.
You got talent and work hard in your comics…but it’s simply so fucking generic.
Needs to go deeper,needs to find your own true voice.
study Primitivism,Alex Toth,Flavio Colin,Swamp Thing,Jano,greek art, etcetera.
I dont want no reply just self reflection.
cheers and care more about your life, than with problems and questions that got no true answer.
I’ll keep your advice under consideration, thanks.
Someone should interview the mothers and fathers of these CEOs and find out what they taught their offspring about manners (and, subsequent questions should ferret out their lessons on hoarding, lying, cheating, stealing and general senses of entitlemen-t).latest news health