What can criticism do for you?

On arguing as praxis and reconceptualizing the basic purpose of the critic

Hi Everyone!

Our most recent episode returns to one of the very earliest topics we covered in the podcast—the challenges to (and promises of) criticism in the age of digital surplus.

We approach the topic from two angles. One one side, via the all-metrics-all-the-time chaos of Spotify’s “Billions” playlist, which just collects all of the tracks which hit that milestone. What’s remarkable about the ever-changing list (and we’d definitely recommend you check it out—it’s a trip) is not just the VARIETY of different paths towards it there seem to be, but how clear so many of them were.

To be totally honest, our expectation was that most of the tracks would either be current mega-hits like “Ordinary” by Alex Warren (rough) or bizarre gotta-be-the-algorithm-who-needs-ai-when-we-have-this selections such as “Someone to You” by Banners (definitely, desperately, rougher, although unfortunately also extremely catchy).

Instead, we got fascinating diversity, everything from long-burning cult classics (“Clint Eastwood” by the Gorillaz) to rap radio smashes (“3005” by Childish Gambino) or last-days-of-rock alternative (Slipknot’s “Duality”). How each of those songs got to a billion plays is an entirely rational, entirely different story. Given that manifest diversity, crafting a critical, single state-of-the-field narrative around this doesn’t seem possible, or…maybe even a goal worth pushing for?

This leads us to the recent discussion of whether music critics have become “too nice” kicked off by Kelefa Sanneh’s recent piece for the New Yorker. While we’re always up for some good old fashioned negativity, we felt that much of the conversation has missed the mark—aesthetic standards, even those of Poptimism, were related to specific industry structures that rendered them legible and (more or less) socially “legitimate.” In the world of the billion’s club, who is to say what’s good or what’s not? Or given the atemporal activity of today’s media landscape, who’s to say what today’s pop music is like…at all? Considering that pop music was, to a large extent, birthed by the intentional introduction of consumer-oriented and fashion-organized temporality into the song writing industry, this is…a pretty big deal.

Shocking no one, our response is that criticism has to include the means of production. But…it might not have to end there. New media forms—and the complex networks that serve them to us—are emerging, developing, changing, seemingly constantly. And it’s just not clear that we, as a society, have developed anything like a critical language with which to engage them. What makes a good Tik Tok account? Or…more importantly…what makes a BAD Tik Tok account? And what could you do to make it better? The obvious answer is “how many people watch, like, subscribe.” Which is obviously true at many levels. (Its politics is the other commonly proposed version). But accepting either as those as the be-all-and-end-all of evaluation feels like a remarkable reduction of the vast scope of cultural production, and a cheapening of the long-standing reception traditions of American media.

And here, it might be possible to re-conceptualize the basic purpose of the critic—to create a role that simultaneously honors the explosive potential embedded in the critique of the “guys’n’guitars” aesthetics that structured music writing for so long without abandoning the usefully oppositional tendencies that this older tradition supported. Yes, the musical landscape is now far too vast for aesthetic judgements from on high to carry much weight (as if they were ever really able to grasp the full sweep of our multi-ethnic, multi-racial culture, anyway). Your culture is just no longer my culture. The overlap has basically ceased to exist.

In the face of this, what critics can still do is to model engagement—to demonstrate the style of questions, the modes of consideration, the kind of context, necessary to critically engage with a piece of culture. So that means thinking through what (from the perspective of the critic) is good and bad about it, and then to ask the culture to do more. You might not agree with the conclusions, but with the best criticism, you don’t have to—reading or listening to it, you learn how to think about art (and…getting a bit weepy…the world more generally). And in our contemporary, algorithm addled moment, that necessarily includes a sharp-elbowed consideration of how art + culture —as well as the delivery vectors through which it is delivered—are related to the structures of contemporary capitalism.

One time, walking around Staten Island, I saw (and, to be honest, stole) an amazing poster for a Karate studio that claimed it would allow parents to “BULLY PROOF YOUR CHILD!” Criticism, we’re suggesting, can allow you to bully proof your mind. And if, given our world, that seems like a tradition that’s worth maintaining, the next question is—how do we build the institutions and discourses, that will bring criticism to the brave new world of our contemporary internet? But that, dear reader, is a challenge for another day.

DEPARTMENT OF ACTUAL MUSIC:

Saxon: “Recently revisited the anomaly that is and was The Streets. I can’t help but wonder what his mates said when they heard his first demos. “Hm. Not sure about this, bruv.” And yet….

Sam: “I LOVED this first album, and had precisely ZERO culture context for it.

Sam: New York hardcore that sounds like the classics (and references Limp Bizkit) in the best possible way. Let’s gooooooo.

LUV,

Saxon & Sam