The internet: the only place to find good rock reviews
Somewhere along the line, rock criticism became a gigantic load of bullshit that exceeds even the “90% of everything is crap” rule. I think I read an entirely solid and knowledgeable rock review in a legitimate, respected publication about as often as I wear that tie-dye shirt my parents brought me back from San Francisco because they thought it was so cool. That is, very fucking rarely.
We all know that Rolling Stone has been a huge joke for a long time now, giving 5 star reviews to shitty records by washed up old farts and hyping stupid rappers and/or bad rock bands (sometimes both simultaneously! Linkin Park, anyone?) while letting their credibility fall by the wayside. And I don’t hate Pitchfork as much as some people do (like ‘em or not, they do know their stuff, whereas to read any kind of review in Rolling Stone is to wonder if they actually bothered listening to any of the music at all), put they’re certainly guilty of hyping tuneless indie drivel whilst putting down good bands for the sake of cred.
The main problem with all these reviewers? They take themselves way too seriously. They think what they write will actually make a difference in what the artists and fans will do, when in fact their role is simply to inform the public about the nature of the music. Get excited about it if it’s good, tell us if it’s bad, and do it creatively, but don’t think your opinion actually makes a difference to anyone. It’s sort of like Fox News. If you turn it on, you might expect to get a news report. Instead, you get a bunch of blowhards attempting to make themselves the news, screaming at each other about out of touch bullshit. Such is rock criticism.
But fear not, for there is hope. Over the last 15 or so years, the internet has given rise to a new brand of rock criticism that probably resembles what it should’ve been all along. Online record review sites constitute a large portion of my time spend on the interwebs, not only because of the knowledge and passion they exhibit-why start a review site for no profit if you don’t love to do it-but because of their irreverence, humor, and complete and utter lack of pretension. Of course, all the site are managed and written in different ways, but in general, if they love a record, they will eloquently discuss what about the music makes it good without going on a bunch of irrelevant tangents, and if they hate a record, instead of making a bunch of snide, hipsterly remarks that do nothing but piss me off, they’ll make funny jokes and say things like “this record blows gigantic donkey balls” or something like that. Through in a few amusing anecdotes and jokes and you’ve got yourself a review.
As far as anyone can tell, the first record review website was Wilson & Alroy (warr.org), who are still around. Ironically enough, they are more like snobby, snide, old world record reviewers with bad taste than any actual paid journalists; their reviews are usually only a few sentences long, they never give good reviews, they write about a lot of really bad bargain bin dance music and other bad shit for some reason, and they often care more about who plays on the album than, you know, what it sounds like. But since the arrival of Mark Prindle onto the scene in 1996, the internet has been a good place for rock reviews. Here are a few of my favorites (and thus favorite rock writers, oddly enough):
Mark Prindle's Record Reviews (www.markprindle.com): The blueprint for all who came after, and ultimately the best at what he does. When reading some of his early reviews, it might be easy to mistake him for a 12 year old, what with the abundance of fart jokes, amateurish tone, and bizarre, often hysterical tangents. But that was part of the genius of it- to be antithesis of stuck up, pretentious rock critics (that is, actual rock critics). Over the years, he has matured (not without losing his penchant for weird, amateurish stuff) into an obviously knowledgeable and interesting music writer. Since our tastes match less often than they do, I find his best moments come in jokes and off topic rants, so I’ll sometimes just read his pages of bands I’ve never heard of to see what kind of weird stories he’s hidden there. He still updates once a week or so. He also has a neat section of interviews he’s done with musicians over the years. A couple of pretty big names in there, actually.
Specializes in: obscure and not-so-obscure punk and hardcore, but he’s accrued a massive catalog of reviews, so he’s got pretty much all the classic rock and other famous rock bands you’d want to see. His favorite bands are The Fall and The Ramones.
Best review: most agree it’s his review of Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising in which he recounts his minute by minute memories of 9/11, but I’m personally partial to his anti-religion tirade in his review of Lou Reed’s Rock ‘N Roll Heart. But there’s gold all over that site- the Neil Young page is nonstop goodness, for instance. His trashing of Joni Mitchell is hysterical, and his intentionally disrespectful Miles Davis reviews are legendary for pissing off snobby jazz fans.
Capn Marvel's Rock Record Review Bonanza (capnmusic.org): My personal favorite web reviewer, because he’s by far the best writer in the web reviewing community, and I think we have pretty much the exact same taste in music. Tragically, he hasn’t updated his site since December 2006, but he still built up a solid collection of highly intelligent, funny, and engaging material. He’s really what rock writing should have been, I think.
Specializes in: classic rock. I really wish he’d continued on so I could’ve read his opinions on some newer, more obscure stuff (though he does have characteristically great pages on somewhat more contemporary bands, though no one really after the Flaming Lips). His favorite bands are the Stones and the Grateful Dead (who definitely aren’t my other favorite band, I promise).
Best review: he might be best known for his denunciation of Neil Young’s Harvest, but it’s not my favorite. His takedowns of records he doesn’t like are virulent but usually so well argued you almost can’t help but agree with him. However, I think his best moments come when he’s reviewing his very favorite records, those A+ albums. He writes about them with such reverence and awe (but still with a sense of grit and common sense, we’re not talking about Jann Wenner masturbating to an embarrassing Jagger solo record here) that he makes me love them too (though I usually already do love them as much as he does). See his reviews of Tonight’s The Night, Exile, Marquee Moon, and Layla, among others, for examples of this.
Only Solitaire: George Starostin’s Music Reviews (http://newstar.rinet.ru/music/index.htm): the least irreverent and most, erm, scientific of this collection, must if actual record reviewers wrote with the same level of logic and precision as George Starostin, I wouldn’t hate them so much. He’s also stopped updating, but he’s written about everybody, so no complaints. He reviews less from the heart and more from the brain, I guess, as he uses a system in which he grades each artist on a 1 to 5 scale in 5 criteria (listenability, resonance, originality, adequacy, and diversity), and then uses their average score for that to put the artist in a letter graded “class,” which allows the artist a weighted grade for each of their albums. I think it’s kind of dumb, but his reviews are always articulate and informed, if reserved.
Specializes in: everything. Seriously, fucking everything. His favorite bands are pretty much the Beatles, Stones, and Dylan. Big surprise.
Best review: Hmmm, dunno. They’re all kind of the same.
Brad’s Completely Useless Record Reviews (geocities.com/bradreviews): a young upstart who started the site while he was in college, Brad is now in grad school and thus updates very sporadically. However, his writing is always very funny, full of funny insults, jokes about the band he’s reviewing, personal anecdotes, and left-wing political sentiment; it makes me want to hang out with him, basically.
Specializes in: classic rock and 90’s rock. He has a much smaller catalog of reviews than the other three reviewers, I’ve mentioned, but he’s got a solid foundation of artists in all eras of rock. His favorite bands are Zeppelin and Dylan, but he came of age in the 90’s so he has a soft spot for the Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana.
Best review: I think his best moments, by far, are when he trashes albums he hates. They’re always funny. Just click around anywhere and look for albums he gives a 2, 3, or a 4 to.