Don't Sweat The Critique

'If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.'

Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

Music criticism is an unavoidable part of music culture. Aristotle noted the effect of the ancient melodies on listeners' emotions, Debussy wrote under the critical alias, Monsieur Croche, and The Source dished out five mics for rapping prowess. Yet criticism, both constructive and destructive, are frequently being overlooked. Too many album reviews either read too much into the music or just give some vague description on how the music made the reviewer feel. At some point the music has to be evaluated. Or maybe not... 


The artist, Kreayshawn, which as Wikipedia highlights is a play on the word "creation", had her song "Gucci Gucci" in Pitchfork's top songs of the year. Obviously the gimmicky hook is catchy enough to warrant the millions and millions of views she got on YouTube, but there was a mistake in letting her talk about the kreayshawn of the video - its a play on the word "creation."

"Everything that happened was just like, that's how it happened." 


This is the phrase that stands out, and it seems most people dont mind this unabated madness. There is a general disregard of criticism by a lot of  recent pop artists and their fans. As far as they're concerned criticism is just "hating". No one likes a hater, just let things happen no matter how bad you think they are. In the equally terrible pop song by Cher Lloyd, "Swagger Jagger", the chorus runs: 


"Swagger Jagger, Swagger Jagger 
You should get some of your own
Count the money, get your game up
You're a hater just let it go."


The thing is, hatred of these songs could be linked to the love of music. If you love music, if you love Hip Hop, or used to love H.E.R., you will be more protective of the values and messages certain songs of that genre send out. Mindlessly writing off critics as haters only reveals how mindless many of the songs are. Pretentious intellectualism isn't the answer, but neither is hash-tagging every nay sayer a hater. Rakim warned against skill getting in the way of the music, 


'It's cool when you freak to the beat,
but don't sweat the technique.'

But in this modern music is there any technique at all?

"Everything that happened was just like, that's how it happened."