Who are the best music journalists currently/ever?

luka

Well-known member
I think she's pretty boring. pure facts and opinions, no overarching theory. perfect for todays day and age where not having ideological commitments is held up as somehow radical.

Yeah that's what they're all like now its really really depressing
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Yeah that's what they're all like now its really really depressing

yeah, i don't really care what Clair Lobenfeld or Mark Richardson like...

This is why i love discogs reviews compared to journalists

"I've played and straight up watched munted ravers legitimately freaking out on the floor scared out of their wits with Suffering Souls. Freddy was a genius. It's good shit."
 

Woebot

Well-known member
See how it is described as the music Caberet Voltaire tried to make but couldn't. That's exactly what I was saying in the collage thread.

that was simon @blissblogger argument always

 

luka

Well-known member
That's not as good. That sounds more like he's trying to dignify hardcore by making the comparison.
 

luka

Well-known member
Whereas what I heard, drunk, the other night, listening to the WYHs thread was music in search of hardcore, randomly pressing the buttons, hoping to find the correct sequence, and failing. Then it comes thrillingly into focus once you hit the early 90s
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
I can't stand that post-Brooker style of hyperbole you get in a lot of modern writing where people mistake personality for rants. All that "this is so bad it makes me want to chop off my balls" Or "this is so good I feel like I'm on air and gas" - totally devoid of personality and nuance, and really easy to produce once you've conjured up a few graphic similes.

My ideal critic is someone who has taste, but also linguistic flair and the ability to place things in a broader context of scenes and perspective.
 

luka

Well-known member
Brooker is a blight but there's a danger in the other direction too reasonable let's not get carried away modest domesticated writing.

There has to be inflation. There has to be an ideal of music as peak experience, not a cosy cup of tea and a Mr Kipling
 

luka

Well-known member
There has to be a sense of music as the most important thing in the world and the most intense and electrifying experience. The sense that it all matters, life and death, vital signs of the health or sickness of humanity itself
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
That's how I wrote. You could feel the existential stakes reading one of my mixtape reviews in the Wire. You left each review a changed person, a person more intensely alive to the exquisite violence of life.
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
Oh there definitely needs to be a passion there. But there's a difference between the giddy rush of enthusiasm that feels sincere and the grand posturing of performative (anti/)fandom
 

luka

Well-known member
A sense that you have no right to expect more from life, these are the rewards, savour their modest pleasures without putting too much weight on them.
 
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