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In which the worlds of three returning guests collide to discuss 1) is there (or should there be) a common starting point for all critiques of art and 2) the world of rock criticism generally – what’s the purpose and where does it go wrong?
Dr. Allison Bumsted is a popular music scholar, specializing in teen magazines (Teen Set in particular) and has written extensively on rock criticism on the 60s and 70s. She appeared on SATB here and here.
Kyle Driscoll is a writer for Medium.com and this article is where the conversation began:
https://medium.com/@kpdriscoll33/the-art-of-quantifying-art-663729c02c89
https://medium.com/@kpdriscoll33/the-art-of-quantifying-art-663729c02c89
He was on SATB here.
Bill Wyman has been writing and reviewing art and music for 30 years for outlets ranging from the Chicago Reader to NPR, EW, WSJ and currently with New York and Vulture.com His ranking of The Beatles list can be found here.
Listening to Wyman, a rockist of the first order, deny the existence of rockism is pretty rich stuff. Rockism doesn’t exist but popism does? What hogwash. Two thirds of what came out his mouth was rockist tropes. Also, if when he’s writing about The Beatles, he doesn’t “care about the Beatles” then I don’t give a fuck about anything he has to say. He’s merely a writer in love with the sound of his own voice.
Also, “I never heard any male rock writers belittle women”? Perhaps he needs to be reminded of when Rolling Stone published a piece about all the men that Joni Mitchell fucked.
Also, I read plenty of negative reviews of Reveal and Up. And any of the other records he mentioned that supposedly didn’t get bad reviews. As for the Stones, they’ve been pilloried for decades for their albums. And, Some Girls was panned so badly in Rolling Stone when it came out that Wenner panicked and wrote a personal retraction. That’s when I stopped paying attention to rock critics.And btw, Some Girls is hugely overrated. It seemed a lot of what Wyman said came from a position on nostalgia. (New PJ Harvey bad, old Harvey good—on what ducking basis. Because you were YOUNG when you heard her first album and you’re nostalgic about it)
Anyway, this notion of rock criticism’s importance is inflated. I didn’t get into Love because of a list of a review or a feature. I got into Love because a friend heard them and turned me on to them. I got into Nirvana because a musician friend turned me on to them. I got into The Beatles in 1963 because my sister bought “She Loves You”. I bought Goat’s World Music album because I heard it in a record store. I got into Liz Phair because I saw her on Letterman. (Someone needs to do a PHD thesis on the importance of RECORD STORES!!) I got into the Replacements because a friend brought two of their albums into the pub I worked at at university and I played them. I don’t think I read ANY reviews of Replacements albums until their last one, when they’d already broken up. I watched MuchMusic in Canada in the 80’s and 90’s, a Canadian music video station that was better, less dumbed down and more diverse than MTV. By mid-90’s I got my first job in a record store. That’s how I found out about the various music scenes. Not from some opinionated jaded, wholly biased rock critic.
Red Rose Speedway is unlistenable. That’s fucking #1 on my fucking rockist critic bingo card. The usual McCartney bullshit. I’d like to hear Wyman on One Sweet Dream or Another Kind Of Mind. Those women would make mince of him.
Thank god, Allison was there.
As to lists? Good luck. I used to make them myself in my 20’s. Then I realized how useless they are. Whenever I see those Top 50 Beatles songs or Top 500 songs etc. I pass on those magazines now. It won’t build a canon. Music doesn’t work that way.
Listening to Wyman, a rockist of the first order, deny the existence of rockism is pretty rich stuff. Rockism doesn’t exist but popism does? What hogwash. Two thirds of what came out his mouth was rockist tropes. Also, if when he’s writing about The Beatles, he doesn’t “care about the Beatles” then I don’t give a fuck about anything he has to say. He’s merely a writer in love with the sound of his own voice.
Also, “I never heard any male rock writers belittle women”? Perhaps he needs to be reminded of when Rolling Stone published a piece about all the men that Joni Mitchell fucked.
Also, I read plenty of negative reviews of Reveal and Up. And any of the other records he mentioned that supposedly didn’t get bad reviews. As for the Stones, they’ve been pilloried for decades for their albums. And, Some Girls was panned so badly in Rolling Stone when it came out that Wenner panicked and wrote a personal retraction. That’s when I stopped paying attention to rock critics.And btw, Some Girls is hugely overrated. It seemed a lot of what Wyman said came from a position on nostalgia. (New PJ Harvey bad, old Harvey good—on what ducking basis. Because you were YOUNG when you heard her first album and you’re nostalgic about it)
Anyway, this notion of rock criticism’s importance is inflated. I didn’t get into Love because of a list of a review or a feature. I got into Love because a friend heard them and turned me on to them. I got into Nirvana because a musician friend turned me on to them. I got into The Beatles in 1963 because my sister bought “She Loves You”. I bought Goat’s World Music album because I heard it in a record store. I got into Liz Phair because I saw her on Letterman. (Someone needs to do a PHD thesis on the importance of RECORD STORES!!) I got into the Replacements because a friend brought two of their albums into the pub I worked at at university and I played them. I don’t think I read ANY reviews of Replacements albums until their last one, when they’d already broken up. I watched MuchMusic in Canada in the 80’s and 90’s, a Canadian music video station that was better, less dumbed down and more diverse than MTV. By mid-90’s I got my first job in a record store. That’s how I found out about the various music scenes. Not from some opinionated jaded, wholly biased rock critic.
Red Rose Speedway is unlistenable. That’s fucking #1 on my fucking rockist critic bingo card. The usual McCartney bullshit. I’d like to hear Wyman on One Sweet Dream or Another Kind Of Mind. Those women would make mince of him.
Thank god, Allison was there.
As to lists? Good luck. I used to make them myself in my 20’s. Then I realized how useless they are. Whenever I see those Top 50 Beatles songs or Top 500 songs etc. I pass on those magazines now. It won’t build a canon. Music doesn’t work that way.
Red Rose Speedway is a great album if you permanently remove the first two songs and start the album with “Get On The Right Thing” – that’s what I used to do in the 70s when I played it. Put the needle down on the record at the third track.
I have never forgiven Paul for contributing to the destruction of English grammar by singing “My Love does it GOOOOOOOOOOD” instead of “My Love does it “WELLLLLL.” What’s wrong with that? I’d like to know. I think at some point in Get Back Paul asks someone if he’s using correct grammar in one of his songs – {might have been The Long And Winding Road), and only a few years later, he goes and writes one of his worst, sappiest songs, and permanently ingrains the incorrect usage of “good” instead of “well” into modern language. Thanks Paul. You done real good.
Red Rose Speedway is a great album if you permanently remove the first two songs and start the album with “Get On The Right Thing” – that’s what I used to do in the 70s when I played it. Put the needle down on the record at the third track.
I have never forgiven Paul for contributing to the destruction of English grammar by singing “My Love does it GOOOOOOOOOOD” instead of “My Love does it “WELLLLLL.” What’s wrong with that? I’d like to know. I think at some point in Get Back Paul asks someone if he’s using correct grammar in one of his songs – {might have been The Long And Winding Road), and only a few years later, he goes and writes one of his worst, sappiest songs, and permanently ingrains the incorrect usage of “good” instead of “well” into modern language. Thanks Paul. You done real good.
Yeah the comments above me said it better. but yeah Red Rose Speedway comments were trigger inducing, and it isn’t even a favorite of mine.
It was a ridiculous comment to make, like he was a final arbiter of what’s good music. Sorry dude but yous seem to think artists are always reaching for another SGT PEPPER but in reality Jagger, Dylan and Mccartney are just doing what turns them on a the the moment. They have earned that right by their catalog and music sales, not by what you decide.
The entire podcasts reminded me of 3 reasonable people trying to walk out a bull in a china shop…
Yeah the comments above me said it better. but yeah Red Rose Speedway comments were trigger inducing, and it isn’t even a favorite of mine.
It was a ridiculous comment to make, like he was a final arbiter of what’s good music. Sorry dude but yous seem to think artists are always reaching for another SGT PEPPER but in reality Jagger, Dylan and Mccartney are just doing what turns them on a the the moment. They have earned that right by their catalog and music sales, not by what you decide.
The entire podcasts reminded me of 3 reasonable people trying to walk out a bull in a china shop…
You were right when you said glib.
You were right when you said glib.