We Interrupt this Introspection With A Rant About...
Fucking Music Reviews.
I don't think there has ever been a more aped, pretentious form of writing in this universe. Aside from being ridiculously verbose and unneccessarily glib (as I just was) most of them make no goddamned sense and tell me NOTHING about what the album actually sounds like.
BEHOLD!
Amazon.com Reviews of The Raconteurs' debut album Broken Boy Soldiers. These reviews were chosen due to yesterday's equally inane and nonsensical review in The Onion. Also, I couldn't steal 'em from itunes. And THOSE were the ones that drove me over the edge. Anyway...
OK, let's start with the Editorial review from Amazon:
"Smothered by the indulgence of his rock star ranking, Jack White steps into the eccentricities of the supergroup, and at first glance, this seems to be a band where White's imposing presence could overshadow the rest. Not the case with these Raconteurs. Teaming with fellow Detroit songwriter Brendan Benson and Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler, the rhythm section from Cincinnati band the Greenhornes, White exhales a bit, deferring enough to his mates to make Broken Boy Soldiers play like a team effort. Following the Benson blueprint, "Steady as She Goes," which opens as a slice of 1960's radio pop, the record steers away from pigeonholing the rest of the way. White's in a Middle Eastern mood for the title track as he pulls off a wicked Robert Plant howl, while Lawrence and Keeler excel on the chorus-strong "Intimate Secretary" and the optimistic acoustic rocker "Yellow Sun." Like so many all-star bands before them, The Raconteurs could be one and done. But don't place the blame on this fertile and genuine debut."
So, basically, what this tells me is that Jack White is in a new band. It doesn't sound like the White Stripes. The beginning of Steady As She Goes sounds like an oldie and he rips off Robert Plant at one point but it's cool because it doesn't suck. Also, there's a catchy song and a happy folk thing. ...right?
I have no idea what the fuck the last sentence means.
But some of them are just plain obnoxious. Below we have the last paragraph from a USER review and you'd think he knew the band personally.
"...In fact Jack sound's (and in publicity snippets he looks) as if he's having a ball and is a lot looser himself than the Jack White of late who broods onstage with the Stripe's. Maybe it's that he has freed himself from the self imposed white and red constraints of the Stripes, maybe it's because he like's hanging out with the boys for a change. He certainly seems to be invigorated and this can only bode well for future albums wether they be Stripes, Raconteurs or Saboteurs."
This reminds me of a Con I went to a couple years ago. It was a DC panel, if I remember correctly, and the moderator had such a hard-on for the artists and kept referrring to them by their first and sometimes shortened names and acting like he knew all kinds of in-jokes.
The panelists just looked at him like every character looks at poor Meg Griffin.
And more than likely stuffed him in a garbage can later.
My point is, that while I appreciate that writing about music is difficult, one need not be a total douche about it. Like this asshole:
"The title says it all...John Anthony Gillis, better known as Jack White, is not only the president, CEO, AND vice president of the new movement of rock and roll that, while remaining a relatively underground movement to the left of that Atlantic, has swept our brethren over in the great country of England; he is the greatest musician of our generation. I'd even venture to say he's the most genius musician since Frank Black Francis Charcoal Franky Dark Franklin, or whatever moniker combining variations of the name Frank and the color black the former Pixies frontman is going by these days."
THAT IS ALL ONE SENTENCE! And Tits, dude! You know all their real names! Sweet.
Now go outside and get a goddamned girlfriend.
Or this handjob:
"Terrific album; this generation's Traveling Wilburys"
Enough f-ing said.
I don't think there has ever been a more aped, pretentious form of writing in this universe. Aside from being ridiculously verbose and unneccessarily glib (as I just was) most of them make no goddamned sense and tell me NOTHING about what the album actually sounds like.
BEHOLD!
Amazon.com Reviews of The Raconteurs' debut album Broken Boy Soldiers. These reviews were chosen due to yesterday's equally inane and nonsensical review in The Onion. Also, I couldn't steal 'em from itunes. And THOSE were the ones that drove me over the edge. Anyway...
OK, let's start with the Editorial review from Amazon:
"Smothered by the indulgence of his rock star ranking, Jack White steps into the eccentricities of the supergroup, and at first glance, this seems to be a band where White's imposing presence could overshadow the rest. Not the case with these Raconteurs. Teaming with fellow Detroit songwriter Brendan Benson and Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler, the rhythm section from Cincinnati band the Greenhornes, White exhales a bit, deferring enough to his mates to make Broken Boy Soldiers play like a team effort. Following the Benson blueprint, "Steady as She Goes," which opens as a slice of 1960's radio pop, the record steers away from pigeonholing the rest of the way. White's in a Middle Eastern mood for the title track as he pulls off a wicked Robert Plant howl, while Lawrence and Keeler excel on the chorus-strong "Intimate Secretary" and the optimistic acoustic rocker "Yellow Sun." Like so many all-star bands before them, The Raconteurs could be one and done. But don't place the blame on this fertile and genuine debut."
So, basically, what this tells me is that Jack White is in a new band. It doesn't sound like the White Stripes. The beginning of Steady As She Goes sounds like an oldie and he rips off Robert Plant at one point but it's cool because it doesn't suck. Also, there's a catchy song and a happy folk thing. ...right?
I have no idea what the fuck the last sentence means.
But some of them are just plain obnoxious. Below we have the last paragraph from a USER review and you'd think he knew the band personally.
"...In fact Jack sound's (and in publicity snippets he looks) as if he's having a ball and is a lot looser himself than the Jack White of late who broods onstage with the Stripe's. Maybe it's that he has freed himself from the self imposed white and red constraints of the Stripes, maybe it's because he like's hanging out with the boys for a change. He certainly seems to be invigorated and this can only bode well for future albums wether they be Stripes, Raconteurs or Saboteurs."
This reminds me of a Con I went to a couple years ago. It was a DC panel, if I remember correctly, and the moderator had such a hard-on for the artists and kept referrring to them by their first and sometimes shortened names and acting like he knew all kinds of in-jokes.
The panelists just looked at him like every character looks at poor Meg Griffin.
And more than likely stuffed him in a garbage can later.
My point is, that while I appreciate that writing about music is difficult, one need not be a total douche about it. Like this asshole:
"The title says it all...John Anthony Gillis, better known as Jack White, is not only the president, CEO, AND vice president of the new movement of rock and roll that, while remaining a relatively underground movement to the left of that Atlantic, has swept our brethren over in the great country of England; he is the greatest musician of our generation. I'd even venture to say he's the most genius musician since Frank Black Francis Charcoal Franky Dark Franklin, or whatever moniker combining variations of the name Frank and the color black the former Pixies frontman is going by these days."
THAT IS ALL ONE SENTENCE! And Tits, dude! You know all their real names! Sweet.
Now go outside and get a goddamned girlfriend.
Or this handjob:
"Terrific album; this generation's Traveling Wilburys"
Enough f-ing said.
posted by LC Greenwood at 3:21 PM
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