Every once in a while, a critic will usher in an entirely new paradigm for approaching the subject of their criticism. This article is an example of same. I'm torn between admiration and a fit of the giggles.
I think more records should be reviewed by fifth-graders armed with Sharpies and large pads of blank white paper. My favorite excerpt from the article is this: "One kid starts scrawling a guitar; the girl next to him immediately begins copying -- an apt metaphor for music criticism."
The author's snarkiness aside, the drawings actually suggest that Radiohead's music has achieved the goals it apparently sets for itself: several of the drawings do seem to reflect the emotional timbre of Radiohead's music. If that music can convey its mood to an audience decidedly outside its targeted demographic, one almost wholly untrained in its vernacular, that's a substantial triumph, I'd think.
The snide will argue that, no, it's just that Thom Yorke is essentially a whiny fifth-grader...
No comments:
Post a Comment