Quantifying criticism

Critics are guilty of devaluing their craft, by falling into the 21st Century malaise of wanting to reduce argument to a numeral, seduced by its certainty (cf Garry Mulholland’s The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk And Disco). Pitchfork grade albums, according to some obscure mathematical formula that utilises the Dewey System, thus treating criticism on quantitative terms – but how are they able to categorise a work such as Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation as a ‘perfect’ 10? This not only assumes a positivist approach – now seen as incomplete when it comes to determining much of human emotion – but also a perfect conflagration of events during which the listening experience must have taken place – ie: the weather outside, the quality of coffee drank beforehand, the sound quality of the recording system, the friends on hand for reassurance, and so on.

The first post

The idea behind this blog is to create dialogue (argument, discussion, comment, rancour) around my ongoing PhD topic - "Is there anything left to say about music?". The idea is to run a blog in parallel with a blog being set up by a group of QUT students, helmed by myself. I would like a uniformity of design, and to regularly update this page, otherwise I feel it lacks validity. The design needs to include hypertext links, visuals, audio. The uniformity should spread to the written entries. The blog will be used to test out ideas and theories, hopefully to shoot every last one down in flames. The blog will be based in and around Brisbane, but is not intended to be limited by any boundaries - real or imagined - imposed by my location within this fair city. The blog is intended to add colour, not lessen texture.