qualification when talking about anything aesthetic is a huge no no. never do it.
everything has to be the greatest thing that ever happened or the shittest. nothing inbetween
i once believed in that as an article of faith (when i was reviews editor at Spin for a year, i tried to make it so that review grades were either 10s and 9s or and 1s and 0s- ie. just like in the UK music press - my thinking being that if something is a 6 it might as well be a 0 really if you think about it - although the editor in chief was initially attracted by the idea of bipolar reviewing, a dynamic range from gush to snark-sneer.... ultimately this didn't go down well with my employers, who favored the measured New Yorker-aspiring tone. Things got tense and in the end I quit - second-best decision of my life)
however in reality, the truth is there's lots of things in music or whatever that are neither amazing nor reprehensible... there's the aesthetic equivalent of mixed emotions in terms of response to them - movies or records that have some things going for them, but major failings or flaws, wonderful aspects but also off-putting elements
art, like life, is not necessarily black-and-white
so nowadays i quite like the ambivalent, conflicted, attracted-yet-repelled, weighing-it-up approach to criticism
but perhaps i've just mellowed with age. succumbed to stolidity...
It has long been my view that 7/10 music is, on the whole, more enjoyable to listen to than 9/10 or 10/10. A lot of the more rarefied stuff is the kind of thing you only need to listen to once in a blue moon.
ReplyDeleteWell I am with you in the sense that 9 or 10 is often granted to Masterpieces - records that are self-consciously attempting to be Masterpieces, major statements, bold and brave. Whereas things of modest ambition tend to get a lower sort of grade. And I am ever more masterpiece-averse. I would rather listen to Migos say, rather than Kendrick Lamar. I find Bjork's records of the 21st Century impressive but exhausting.
DeleteThere is a whole category of album that is Listen Once. Like a really harrowing film that you need to see, probably - 120 Days of Sodom - but it's not rewatchable. Scott Walker's latterday albums like Tilt and The Drift and Bish Bosch are like that - 'wow!' avant! - but you can't actually play them in everyday life.
My favourite example of this is The Marble Index - an absolutely brilliant record, but one I listen to about every ten years.
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