The Internet has turned everyone into journalists, art critics and social commentators. But do we run the risk of destroying the voices of those actually trained to write informed opinions?
The Internet isn’t just slowly killing many traditional forms of mass media, but it is also slowly killing art criticism. It’s doing so by making the art critic’s voice seem less relevant in a world populated by so many opinions.
Having many opinions isn’t fundamentally wrong; after all, it is the basis of democracy. The problem comes in when people fail to differentiate between an informed criticism and mere ranting, which is rampant on the Internet.
When opinions can’t be justified by solid logical judgment, we run into a big problem. We find ourselves in a dilemma, when we see great bastions of journalism like Vibe magazine, Blender and Scratch falling victim to bad times owing to low readership and a general disinterest in magazines as a way of gaining in-depth appreciation for our music.
We prefer the gossip blogs or the opinion music blog. These sites are crawling with information that can at best be described as misinformation disguised as reporting. Twitter has become the trend setting forum of our times. It is used by people as a way of gauging everything from how good Jay-Z’s ‘Blueprint 3’ was to how good Raekwon’s album is.
People are slowly giving up on reading critics wonderful historical insight into cultural trends in music and art. Critics introduce and open the reader’s mind to new types of music and new ways of appreciating music. The power of sites like Twitter and Facebook is so immediate that it defeats the magazines in timeliness and frequency.
This is something that we are all guilty of – a need for information provided quickly, accurate or not. The same goes for our appreciation of the music critic. We get our albums leaked early and get our criticism by checking our best friend’s Facebook page for what it says about the album.
Why bother saving the critic when he is just another person with an opinion like anyone else? The critic doesn’t deal in trying to prove metaphysical truths. He specializes in providing an opinion and using very specific, well-honed techniques to argue his opinion, as opposed to my buddy David just saying Beyonce sucks. A critic will elaborate on why he feels she sucks by giving a background on her musical evolution and other artists in her genre.
Critiquing music is a fine art and a professional endeavor in the same vein as journalism, equal parts training and experience. Great music critics like jazz critic Stanley Crouch or Village Voice critic Robert Christgau weren’t made in days, but were the product of training and lots of man hours.
The average blogger is someone with a burning desire to be heard, which is good. But should this be taken as genuine critiquing? Blogging and Twitter are important because, like me with this column, it is all about expressing opinion. Yet there is a huge difference between opinion and genuine critiquing of an art form.
Art critiquing has subjective undertones to it, but it requires a steady understanding of the artform one is critiquing. In order to appreciate the critic and his importance, it’s important to go to the era before the Internet and TV, an era when the music fan relied on radio and music publications to inform him on what’s new and what’s the best stuff to listen to.
Critiquing is an old art form. For as long as the written word has existed we have criticized and discussed it, whether it’s critiquing the true meaning of a Biblical passage or trying to decipher the cryptic undertones of Dante’s ‘Inferno.’
Critiquing is a genuine artistic pursuit that has evolved over the centuries and been divided into numerous categories. Music critics are a community of interpreters who share strategies for ascribing meaning to objects. The critique describes, classifies and interprets an object; in this case music.
The Internet hasn’t completely killed the genuine art critiquing. It has also acted as a cheap forum for exceptional music journalism. Great Web sites like Pitchfork.com and okayplayer.com are bastions of great music criticism online. They may not be as timely as Twitter or Facebook, but they will keep you updated in a matter of hours and will provide a good read while they’re at it.
The role of the critic slowly losing importance should never be taken for granted. I think it’s more important now than ever in a world filled with perspectives on issues, each perspective fighting for precedence over the other.
We have to be careful who we trust to assist us in making decisions about great art and music. The danger lies in the fact that we could find ourselves collectively losing out on great music because we relied on the wrong perspective.
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