Critically Speaking, A Second Opinion Never Hurt Anyone

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Author: Michael Darling

Two weeks ago, rock ‘n’ roll band The Raconteurs released a new album entitled Consolers of the Lonely. “But Michael,” you may say, “musicians release albums every week, why bring up this one?” Well, the band did an interesting thing with this album-they announced its release only a week before it hit stores.

Normally with an album release there’s all sorts of hoopla involved-singles are released to radio, interviews are given and advanced CDs are sent off to critics and reviewers. In the press release that the band sent out to announce the impending arrival of their new record, they said that they wanted to get the album to everyone at the same time. This was a pretty revolutionary thing for a band to do, especially one on a major label. There was much talk about this-and, as a possibly unforeseen consequence, a debate began as to what the role of the modern critic is.

Usually when a major new book, film, album, television show or game is released, reviewers will receive an advance copy or screening. This serves a dual purpose: it creates publicity for the product and also draws attention to the reviewer and wherever the review is published. In the end, it’s really all about advertisement. However, what does it say when the reviewer is not given an advanced look? Is it an affront to the critics?

In film, it’s not rare for some movies to bypass screening by critics. Often times this is because the movie is of very lowbrow fare, such as Epic Movie or the latest torture porn sequel. In these cases, the studio seems to know that the flick is horse manure and wants to make a few bucks before the general public learns that it’s the cinematic equivalent of Secretariat’s droppings. Conveniently, the audiences for these films are often illiterate and therefore don’t read reviews anyway. In fact, director Uwe Boll has made a living making bad movies and then mocking the critics as elitist snobs for not liking his latest work.

Oh, but how we need these “elitists.” In a world of ringtone rap and game shows masquerading as reality, we need someone to dig through the fool’s gold and show us what’s worth watching/reading/hearing. This has long been the job of the critic. Past Rolling Stone critic Jon Landau is widely credited with helping Bruce Springsteen rise in popularity when he wrote in a concert review, “I saw rock and roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” One could say that critical support was the main thing that kept Arrested Development on the air for three seasons. Besides, half of the fun of reviews is the pleasure of having someone respected for their opinions approve of the same things you like or, alternately, ragging on the same things you think aren’t worthy of buzz.

Sure there are many bad critics-some of whom actually are the elitist snobs that give criticism a bad name-but believe me, there’s nothing more fun than an overwrought review. There are many times when I’ve read Pitchfork reviews and laughed at its over-the-top attempts to be hipper than thou. After reading a few reviews, I started to make a little game out of guessing what score a record will be awarded. In case you’re wondering, if it’s a tribute album the highest score it can receive on Pitchfork is usually a 4.0 (out of ten).

So, in summary, we need critics. We are smart enough to make our own decisions, but sometimes we need someone to give us a little push in the right direction and tell us that we’d be better off listening to Nick Cave and Common than Limp Bizkit and Soulja Boy. It’s really no different from that friend of yours who says, “Hey, I hear you like that. Maybe you should check this out.” The only difference is that the critic offers these recommendations in written form. So next time, don’t just brush off their advice, saying, “They don’t know me”-seek out what these reviewers praise. You might even discover that the critics know what they’re talking about from time to time.

Michael Darling is a sophomore History major. He can be reached at mdarling@oxy.edu.

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