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Originally Posted by Jyqm
I thought this article about the importance and purpose of criticism would make a good addition to this thread.
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Interesting article, Jyqm. Thanks for posting it.
I'd like to comment on this specific paragraph:
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Perhaps the best criticism... surmounts its lowly parasitic status in order to become a (nearly) self-standing work of art in its own right. Far from seeing this as an exception to the rule, we should see it as the template for criticism proper (public and personal).
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One of the biggest issues I have with rock critics, is that I've seen far too few genuinely thoughtful critics (I always cite our own David O. as the type of critic I respect), and far too many of the smug, "look how witty I am" variety.
One example that instantly comes to mind, is the one sentence review of 'Rock A Little' in Musician magazine, which basically said, "Yeah, rocks
very little." That's that. End of story.
I'm sure anyone who dislikes Stevie, or enjoys pithy reviews, would get a kick out of it... but it told me absolutely nothing about the album. All it told me was that the critic was self-important and thought himself to be funny.
The same is true of the Entertainment Weekly review of 'Time,' which I have referenced on here before ("who gives a
Tusk about a Fleetwood Mac album without Stevie Nicks").
Sure, it may have summed up a lot of people's feelings about that album... and I
can chuckle at it (though I certainly don't agree with it)... but it told me absolutely nothing about the
music contained therein.
I'm going to share one of my favorite reviews of a Stevie album. The critic's name is Robert Sheffield, but unfortunately I can't remember which magazine it was published in (hopefully someone else will recognize it). I was around 16 at the time, and back then I used to cut reviews and articles from various magazines in order to put them in a scrapbook... failing in many cases to note the publication. *slaps forehead*
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Stevie Nicks
The Other Side Of The Mirror
Modern/Atlantic
The new solo LP from Fleetwood Mac siren Stevie Nicks is called The Other Side Of The Mirror, like in her "Gypsy" video a few years back. Remember, she was swishing her skirts, dancing in the mirror, and then out in the rain and then leading all these white-clad vestals through the forests of Beulah . . . videos were cool then. Yeah, maybe that mirror, and all those lyrics about white-winged doves and Welsh witches drowning in the sea of love were a bit much. But hey, Stevie's vision of adolescent desire was as vibrant and real as Billy Squier's, wasn't it? She wasn't all boring and "rock" minded. I was down with Stevie.
So this new album brings her back to the mirror--except the Other Side. Most of these songs take place in the wreckage of Stevie's old mythology. Like "Rooms On Fire," in which she tells her elfin love-twerp that she's actually known his "magic" much longer than she's known him, or "Alice," where the gypsies kick her out (presumably for not owning any pants). Then there's the beatific ballad "Ooh My Love." Stevie's sitting at the loom with her white-winged crone-muse behind "castle walls" of adolescent girl-fantasy. She's growing up, and the walls are crumbling down. And she isn't sure whether to mourn or not, because there's this guy standing outside waiting for her. Stevie spends the album in the rubble of her castle, making us guess about her reaction. She keeps her visions to herself.
What she gives to us is the music, and the buzz of her unique throat. There's nothing folkish about her tunes anymore--they churn on uplifting synth tracks like her 1983 hit "If Any Falls [sic]." She builds tension by pitting aggressively strummed one-chord riffs against each other, the way John Waite's "Missing You" or the original Velvet's "Femme Fatale" did.
On some tunes Stevie comes off as stiff, but for most of Mirror her vocals get by on their terse emotion. As her timbre gets drier, her phrasing gets only more precise--on "Alice" and "Juliet" she shifts between song and speech and hits just the note of personal fragmentation the melodies are aching to reach. Her consistently soulful brogue, while not as nimble as it used to be, earns the mythic status she's always demanded. Stevie slurs like Mrs. Butterworth or trills like the Vermont Maid, but it's always sticky stuff.
--Robert Sheffield
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