"everyone a critic"

There's a post on the Plan B forum, made by the magazine's publisher Frances Morgan, that I want to reprint. I agree with an enormous amount of what she has to say here. (I've also reprinted the posting on my other blog, because I think it's directly relevant to both. It continues a conversation that we were having when we first discussed the possibility of Plan B shutting.)

Quote:
Quick question - any chance of the mag continuing in on-line form, a la Pfork, The Quietus or Good.is?

I just wanted to answer this question. For me, the answer is no. This is not to slight the sterling work of the above websites, because they're great examples of how web publishing can work. However, I feel very committed to print as a medium. There are many reasons for this, a lot of which can be picked apart and thrown aside as luddite, fetishistic, elitist, or just plain old-fashioned, and you're welcome to do so...but it's a commitment that I can't switch off just because making this particular print product is no longer viable.

It is not that I'm decrying the web for making "everyone a critic". I don't think the web has killed criticism, not at all. It's not that I am bemoaning the loss of "authority" of the critic - fuck authority, it's that which has kept music criticism entrenched in such narrow gender, race and class strictures for so long (and I'd argue, actually, that the web has done less than it should to change this, but the potential is there for sure). I like a plurality of voices, wherever it occurs, although I do think that plurality often results in a lack of space to think and consider and to reflect; it seems to have generated this need for a quick response, an instant appraisal or commentary.

One thing I like about print criticism is that there is an unavoidable temporal gap between writing and print. This may not suit everyone, but I think it suits me and it suits the music I am interested in, and actually it probably suits most music. I do sometimes wonder if there is more of a connection between the music that gets reviewed and the style of reviewing than we actually acknowledge. Bit of unformulated thought, that, but I'd like to ponder it a little.

Although it might not always seem like it, we do edit things at Plan B. If you've written something for us, it will go through a few hands and past a few pairs of eyes before it appears on the page. If there's time, we ask for rewrites and clarification. I like to have a little shout at everyone about punctuation. We have to stick to certain word lengths. I'm not saying web editors don't do this too, but often more content is required at a greater speed. Put simply, it's just different, and while I'd certainly work for online publications as a freelance writer, there's no way I'd have busted my ass for five years on a very, very low wage to set up and maintain a web magazine. That's not to say one shouldn't, or that others at Plan B won't. But it's not for me. It never has been.

The other big factor is the visual side of Plan B, which is so important to us. The web - and again, this is my opinion - is not the right place for all those amazing photos and illustrations and layouts that go into making up an issue of Plan B. They belong on paper, decent paper at that. Photographers deserve good post-production work (which Cat and Sarah should be enormously praised for); illustrators deserve to have similar care taken with their work (ditto Andrew).

Those are my thoughts on the matter at this point - they're not representative of Plan B as a whole. We are talking about archiving back issues online, because I think they're a great resource for everyone.

tightrope walking

Just to make this explicit...

I do not think the "slow death of Everett True" has anything to do with the babble of voices in hyperspace. That is down to other (outside) factors (e.g. I am now a postgraduate student, a dad, a Queenslander - none of which seem to be particularly conducive to being a critic). There are plenty of platforms where "Everett True" could exist right now and continue to exert influence, if he chose to do so. Indeed, one could argue that the opportunities for Everett True to be Everett True to be a tightrope walker, performing for those impressed by such feats of dexterity, have increased exponentially since the advent of web 2.0. Are they devalued because the opportunities for Sam Citizen Critic to be Sam Citizen Critic have equally increased? I don't think so. The playing fields haven't been levelled, not at all. That's simply wishful thinking.

Here's a quote for today: "For all the supposed emancipation implicit in the pronouncement 'we're all critics now', the loss of critical authority...diminishes the agency and choice of the reader. It plays into the hands of the monopolies who pedal fewer and fewer choices and whose primary interest is always the bottom line." (McDonald, Ronan, The Death Of The Critic, 2007, Continuum Books)

residual value (pt 2)

I was going to write a post on residual value, then realised that I was plagiarising - badly, and without much thought - from post-structuralists I don't even have names for. All I wanted to know is this: does a work of art have any residual value, beyond that invested in it by the reader/observer. If not, then what's the purpose of the critic. If so, then surely that value is a construct, artificial - no better and no worse than a popularity contest.

One reason I dislike the perfect '10' that Pitchfork gave Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation is the unspoken arrogance implicit in such an action, for - if we can all be agreed upon the fact that the merit of a work of art needs to judged upon both the author and reader's roles - not only does this assume that the work of art is the most 'perfect', flawless ever but also that the judgment passed upon it is from the most 'perfect', flawless critic the world has ever witnessed. The relationship is inter-dependent.

Like most of the western world, I prefer to read an interpretation rather than the 'original' (if it exists). The individual voice becomes all-important in Web 2.0, and how it relates to your paradigm.

It takes a panel of six peers to recognise an expert. Otherwise that expert does not exist. I sometimes feel this can be applied to my own role as music 'critic' and Australia.

residual value

I have long since doubted the power of my words - that any residual impact they may have fully lies within the meaning charged them by my readers, the fondness they have for this persona 'Everett True'. The notion of myself being the creator seems foolhardy at best. And what has my entire life as a critic been if not some sort of stance against the notion of critic as 'authority', from my first tentative steps at NME where I was unable to even construct sentences properly and my notion of a well-reasoned argument was the number of exclamation marks applied.

When I was in my late teens and attending gigs, I would grade them all accordingly (doubtless, in some sort of throwback to my strong mathematical inclinations) - but not in a straightforward, NME/Pitchfork/Q/Mojo way, rather as a form of numerical shorthand. One mark for 'performance' and one mark for 'enjoyment', thus unconsciously ackowledging the relationship between author and reader, the inter-dependency of both in the 'value' of art. Yet you could equally argue that I was setting myself up for a fall by separating the two values, 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity', that they cannot be separated anyhow.

authority

Does anyone out there believe I have any authority? Why?