The fact that I used “it’s all good†in my last post – a phrase that should be used sparingly when sober – helped me realize that my post was muddled in general. And the post is muddled because I couldn’t clearly state my opinion on the review of Low’s album. And I couldn’t clearly state my opinion… Because the reviewer didn’t state his. And that’s what I didn’t like about the review.
And this got me to thinking. Why didn’t the reviewer state his opinion? In fact, why did he seem to take both sides? I’m thinking it has something to do with writing a review of one of Minnesota’s most “intellectual†bands in one of the state’s more prominent magazines. It reminds me of some of the papers I wrote for literature classes in college. His tone was mine, where I would try to sound intelligent without stating an opinion my professor, who obviously knew the right answer, would disagree with.
Having briefly joined the Low mailing list a few years ago, I was horrified by the type of discussion on it. Music snobs in the worst way. Hell, I worked in a record store briefly and felt music snobbery take over my persona somewhat when I was working there, but Low “fans†tend to be some of the biggest music assholes I’ve encountered. I unsubscribed to the list pretty quickly.
So, poor Chris Godsey gets stuck reviewing their new album. He figures if he slips up, he’s going to get a lot of hate mail, some of which might end up published in the Letters to the Editor page in The Rake, and which might make him look really stupid, or worse, uncool, to the incestuous Minnesota indie-scene.
As to not muddle this any more, I’ll close here. But I think I can see why the review was so… inaccessible.
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