Slam! Music Reviews That PWN
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Johnny Hates Jazz
Turn Back the Clock
British popsters Johnny Hates Jazz opened up their copy of Rolling Stone to read David Wild’s one sentence review, “David hates Johnny Hates Jazz.”
Spin said the band was "satisfied to have reached page three of their MIDI handbook, and figuring they now know everything there is to know about their new synths. This is evident from the first note. So everything has a basic beat and it’s all in synch, and so what?"
Never liked that band. The review pretty much sums it up.
Johnny Hates Jazz
Turn Back the Clock
British popsters Johnny Hates Jazz opened up their copy of Rolling Stone to read David Wild’s one sentence review, “David hates Johnny Hates Jazz.”
Spin said the band was "satisfied to have reached page three of their MIDI handbook, and figuring they now know everything there is to know about their new synths. This is evident from the first note. So everything has a basic beat and it’s all in synch, and so what?"
Musician Magazine's 'short review' section by JD Considine.
Nelson - Because We Can
Review: "Still, I wish they wouldn't."
Eagles - One of These Nights [Asylum, 1975] by Robert Christgau
Put on your neckboots and wade through the slickshit and you may get a kick from the lyrics--these boys like lotsa malaise with their mayonnaise. But in rock and roll the difference between tragedy and soap opera is usually the acting, here so completely immersed in stringing sings that even the aptest phrases are reduced to the clichés they restate. C+
Some pretty harsh reviews of Steely Dan:
“Dangerously close to the Valium-jazz that has enervated so much of today’s pop music,” wrote the L.A. Times.
“They describe their music as junk sculpture and I won’t argue with that,” opined Let It Rock.
“Sounds like it was recorded in a hospital ward,” quipped a New York Times critic.
Unsourced:
“hippie Muzak”
“exemplarily well-crafted schlock”
“[a] brain without a body”
“Dangerously close to the Valium-jazz that has enervated so much of today’s pop music,” wrote the L.A. Times.
“They describe their music as junk sculpture and I won’t argue with that,” opined Let It Rock.
“Sounds like it was recorded in a hospital ward,” quipped a New York Times critic.
Unsourced:
“hippie Muzak”
“exemplarily well-crafted schlock”
“[a] brain without a body”
See, here's the thing. Oddly enough, I've found that Steely Dan is somewhat of a polarizing artist. I believe that's because they have a following of fans who think their music is genius; brilliant chord structures, great composition, perfect melding of rock, jazz, and blues, and witty lyrics; all put together in an intelligently subtle way. Also, they employ really talented musicians for their studio recordings.
So naturally, when you have some people claiming genius, that makes them a target for others to aim at. I know a few people who can't understand what the big deal is about them. However, the job of a music critic is to meet the music where it's at, and then evaluate it in that context. But don't assign a critic to review a genre of music they already don't like. That's just stupid.
In 1986, The LA Times picked "Party All The Time" as the worst music video of 1985. Their three word review of the track was: "Gumby goes disco."
Stereolab
Cobra and Phases
Well, you have to admit they're good at what they do. But then so was Hitler. As egghead dilettantes par excellence, Stereolab have dabbled in drum'n'bass, post-rock, Krautrock, '60s girl-group harmony pop, jazz and world music over the past decade, but have still managed to seal everything in their bubble of insipid designer-beige aesthetics and make all their records sound the same. The only difference being that they dispensed with the idea of writing decent pop tunes in 1993, in case it might encourage the working classes to breed or something.
Stereolab now make lame, impotent test-card muzak for muzos. And this album is a sexless, emotionless, witless, cripplingly self-indulgent, pompously self-satisfied, intellectually hollow, achingly pretentious, stultifyingly bland, spiritually bereft, ideologically bankrupt, aesthetically repugnant, culturally pointless, musically sterile heap of shit.
That made me go to Youtube to listen to it.
It'll take a while to listen to it all.
I HAVE to know.
I feel the same way. I think they've gotten airplay on the indie stations, but I don't recall any of their stuff.
That made me go to Youtube to listen to it.
It'll take a while to listen to it all.
I HAVE to know.
But I have to say a few things about that review. For one thing, no music (or nearly anything else) deserves that level of vitriol. That's a "bring in the guys with the straight jackets" level of hyperbole.
Also, it appears from the get-go that the reviewer loathes the music of this band. So it's not like the letdown of a super fan could've unleashed such feelings of disgust. It's more like "dude, why do you even care? It's just some innocuous music".
But I really want to know who wrote the review, and whether he's still in the business.
An estimated 73,000,000 Americans watched the Beatles' February 9 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. At the time, it was the most-watched television program in history. One of those viewers was Hugo Keesing, who wrote this review in the February 24 issue of Newsweek:
“Visually they are a nightmare: tight, dandified, Edwardian-beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair. Musically they are a near-disaster: guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony and melody. Their lyrics (punctuated by nutty shouts of 'yeah, yeah, yeah!') are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments."
“Visually they are a nightmare: tight, dandified, Edwardian-beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair. Musically they are a near-disaster: guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony and melody. Their lyrics (punctuated by nutty shouts of 'yeah, yeah, yeah!') are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments."
All I know is it was NME