There are days when, professionally at least, I ask myself “what’s the $@#% point!” I doubt that my musings, noodlings and efforts to help people understand the intersection of culture and faith aren’t making a bit of difference. Even worse, I live in fear that people think of me as a windbag and, even worse, a poseur. [Ed. if you're worried about people thinking you're a poseur, stop putting it in italics. And, while you're at it, stop using phrases like "the intersection of culture and faith".]
It could be worse. I could be certain of my irrelevance and pretentiousness — I could be a rock critic. Case in point: today’s broadcast of NPR’s Fresh Air. In it, Entertainment Weekly‘s Ken Tucker reviewed “Whatever People Say That I Am, That’s What I’m Not” by the Arctic Monkeys and “Amber” by Clearlake. Now, I’d never heard of the latter and all I knew about the former was what I read in Time: one, the Brits are ga-ga about them and, two, their music isn’t for old flatulents like me.
Still, I was unprepared for Tucker’s review, which was accompanied by clips from both albums. I thought that it was a clever parody of rock criticsm, a kind of performance art intended to illustrate its utter pointlessness. Tucker didn’t think much of the Arctic Monkeys, who sound like a four-chord garage band singing songs about breaking up with their girlfriends and sneaking into bars.
But Clearlake was a different story: Tucker was taken with with the “bursting clarity,” “crisp imagery and sentiments” and the “spine-tingling precision” of its music. Tucker was left all verklempt by the line “I feel fine in your company even when we sit silently” in one of the band’s songs.
But the depth of Tucker’s performance art can only be appreciated by following the link above and listening to the review. (The site prefers Real Audio.) Then you’ll get the joke: both bands sound alike. Sure there are subtle differences but that’s what they are: subtle. It’s easy to imagine each band doing the other one’s song. Yet, one crappy band gets the take-down it deserves while the other somewhat-less-crappy band is hailed for it’s “bursting clarity.” Not competence, mind you, but “spine-tingling precision.”
At the risk of seeming really old, what’s spine-tinglingly precise is this, this and especially this.
It’s unlikely that rock criticism makes a difference in the marketplace, which is okay since sales aren’t necessarily an indicator of artistic merit. But “reviews” like this one reinforce my belief that rock criticism has sucuumbed to a fatal case of “Rock Snob” syndrome in which esotericism trumps not only aesthetics but even listenability, which can only render it even less relevant than I am.
I feel better, so if you’ll excuse me
Got two reasons why I cry away each lonely night,
The first one’s named sweet anne marie, and she’s my hearts delight.
The second one is prison, babe, the sheriff’s on my trail,
And if he catches up with me, I’ll spend my life in jail.
