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 this is a subgenre of music journalism: the singles review column done by a guest pop star or indie cult figure.
It's amazing how bitchy and dismissive the comments can get.
Sometimes they are written up and other times they are transcribed from a chat hosted by a journalist from the paper. Usually the magazine 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 one or two exceptions).
Amazing how nasty the musician-on-musician swipes can be. Surprising too, because after all these musicians surely knew that it was quite likely 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 meal at a restaurant or a movie on the screen.
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.
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. 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.
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bonus musicians reviewing shit
Not a musician.... but not a professional reviewer either
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
