Musicians review the Singles!

Picking up on the "mean review" thing, as with the Tin Machine II beat-down...  it struck me that music journalism is much closer to real-life fan (or anti-fan) chat than it is to literary criticism or other forms of arts reviewing.  (Not that these are completely devoid of no-holds-barred, personally insulting take-downs). 

But rock writing is closer to vernacular shit-shooting of the kind that goes on in pubs, living rooms,  bedrooms, or any place where friends gather and talk about the things they are mutually into. And this kind of discourse - whether it's about music, or sports, or movies - is not particularly fair-minded. It's prone to overstatement and it rather often strays into ad hominem abuse. 

Think about the way you discuss performances and performers with your pals, or your partner, or in the family situation.  The commentary is not measured or fair-minded - precisely because you are looking to extract amusement out of the subject.  

This kind of talk has drifted into the public sphere with internet forums, social media, etc. 

But rather than point to any of the millions of forum threads and tweets out there, my evidence for  "critics are no meaner than anyone else" argument is a particular subgenre of music journalism: the singles review column done by a guest pop star or indie cult figure.  

It's startling how bitchy and dismissive the comments can get. 

“A man with two hernias screaming through sewage” - Lemmy, reviewing a single, 1984

Sometimes these guest singles pages are written up by the guest in writerly language. Mostly they seem to be transcribed and tidied from a chat hosted by a journalist from the paper in question. 

Usually the paper in question is Smash Hits or Record Mirror, although there was a period in the early 1980s when Melody Maker would get guests in to do the singles. Sounds had famous guests do it in the mid-1970s, including Eno. And back in the 1960s you might see George Harrison or Paul Macartney or Scott Walker doing the singles now and then. 

(For some reason, NME - at least after it stopped being a pop paper for teens - kept the singles review column as the preserve of the professional critic, with just a few exceptions: John Cooper Clarke, Ian Dury, Mark E. Smith - now all added to this selection).

"A drummer with gout, a guitarist with hiccups, and a singer who sounds like a thousand mice being garroted. The B-side is  better, but still awful" - Bruce Bruce (of Samson), reviewing a single, 1980

Amazing how nasty the musician-on-musician swipes can be. Surprising too, because you'd think these musicians would be more tactful and diplomatic: surely they knew there was a good chance they'd run into some of the people they'd slagged-off  eventually, backstage at Top of the Pops, or at some record industry event. And people have long memories for bad reviews, let me tell you. 

Knowing how hard it is to make a record, the work that goes into writing and recording a song, you might imagine the musicians would be less dismissive... Is there any compunction, any allowances made? Not at all. And nor should there be.... any more than I should pull my punches when reviewing a book, given my inside knowledge of the amount of effort it takes to bring a book into existence. 

The critic - like the consumer - responds to the finished object, whether it's a dish at a restaurant or a movie on the screen. 

“One does not wish to be deliberately cruel to quite obviously dedicated musicians, but in the interest of general public health, cruelty becomes necessary” - Morrissey, reviewing the singles, 1984

Here below are an enormous number of singles review columns done by musicians. I've frontloaded it with the bitchier examples. It's no surprise to see Morrissey appear multiple times here - although his warm feelings expressed for a Duran Duran single might widen your eyes.... Also unsurprising how caustic are the comments of Paddy Macaloon and the Prefabs and Green from Scritti, given how defined  and refined their aesthetics are, and how they've a way with words. 

"This is another good example - out of the Valley of the Dead Ears - of 'anonymous music'. I think the listener is not as stupid as these people think, and will not buy this rubbish any more" - Dieter Meier, reviewing a single, 1989

Later on in this selection, it gets to be a bit more kindly and even-handed.  Strangely gentle are the verdicts of Kevin Rowland, who you'd reckon to be scathing and scowling. (Of a Tiffany single, he says meekly "Not my cup of tea but that of millions of others" - a long way from that Dexys advert that railed against pop as foul-tasting bubblegum).  Ian Dury is not as prone to taking the piss as you'd expect.  

Sometimes the magazines seem to be scraping a bit with their guest reviewers. For instance there's an inordinate number of ones done by members of the Bluebells, and one by a Commotion rather than a Cole. 

Update 3/11 - bunch more added including Ian Dury and John Cooper Clarke from the NME. And a bunch in video form from the 1960s - George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul Macartney, Keith Relf, Tony Iommi, Ginger Baker, Keith Emerson, Roy Wood, Steve Winwood - courtesy of Yesterday's Papers YouTube channel.

Ginger Baker - now this should be truculent!

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This is around 1988, circa his first solo album The Wanderer,  when drugs and failure appear to have kicked the stuffing out of Kev. With his constructive comments here, he sounds like nothing so much as one of the judges on New Faces circa 1974.

C.f. the vitriol and invective of this advert

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bonus musicians reviewing stuff

Not musicians - but not professional reviewers either

Lovely Muriel not quite cutting the grade as a music journo - just a bit too arch in tone

in a category of its own

conceptually clever singles review column where the column itself acquires consciousness and reviews the singles without the need for human participation