The ever insightful Kat of Kat's Korner is someone we highlight periodically here. We gladly steal from the best and Kat's probably the finest music critic in years. When we asked her to say a few words about her review of Tori Amos's The Beekeeper we found out she actually had a lot more to talk about.
We understand that you're not happy with this review and we're surprised because we really love it?
Well it is what it is, you know? And with that review, I felt I was responding and not being active. It is what it is and that's what it is. But I hope I don't end up writing more reviews like that.
Well what do you think the problem is?
I'm responding to the sexist pricks and prickettes who want to hold Tori up to some standard that's a male-defined standard of what a woman should be. Which reminds me of a Tori lyric from "Playboy Mommy.""I never was the fantasy/ of what you want/ wanted me to be." That's exactly the problem. Too many don't want to deal with what Tori is, just what they want her to be. Evaluate the album. You can love it or hate it. But stop trying to force her to fit into your notion of how a woman should be captured on a compact disc.
So I start out responding and that's fine. But I think if I'd thought about the review a little more, I would have done the second section, the actual review, differently. I'm not someone who feels the need to tick off songs to prove I listened. I'm trying to address the total vision or mood or theme. And I would've preferred to concentrate on one or two songs. Now maybe because there are 18 songs, I'm mentioning more. But I feel like after refuting their sexist mannerisms, I fell into their own thought process of what a review should be.
I never want to write their standard type of review because that's not me and that's not what I respond to. I got a lot of e-mail on this so maybe it works and I'm being overly harsh. I know that normally I wouldn't have mentioned so many songs but where I did mention them, I've gotten e-mail saying things like "Oh, I caught that too!" or "I wouldn't have caught that this was a response to or a continuation of that song." So I know people enjoyed it.
But I just feel like there were things in that, moments, passages, in the actual review, where I was responding in a manner or format not unlike the template they'd use. Which is mention as many song titles and move quickly. I'd rather look at the big picture. I'm not sure I did that, honestly. I think it's an amazing album but I'm not sure I got that across.
So give us a sneak peak on what you'll be reviewing next?
I'm going through the Beatles albums. Eli (Common Ills community member) loves music and he's over-seventy and actually went out and bought The Beekeeper based on the review. That's really incredible to me. He rocks. But he'd asked awhile back if I'd be reviewing older albums and I have meant to do that. I asked for a list from him and there were a lot of Beatles albums on it. So I thought "Great, I know the Beatles. This will be a piece of cake."
And they're great albums but I'm looking for something to say that hasn't been said a million times before. And back then, they actually wrote reviews worth reading. These days, the reviews come off like ad-copy put out by hacks. If I can't find a way to write about those albums, which are great albums, in a way that's offering something, I'll move on to something else on his list.
What about Ani DiFranco's latest album?
I've got it. I bought it. I like it. But I always take awhile to respond to Ani and I haven't yet.
And that's a larger problem, if we've got the time for it.
All the time you want.
What is the deal with The New York Times and this attitude of "I must be the first out of the gate with a review on the day it's released or a few days before?" This isn't a movie debut.
I think the reviews are rushed for deadlines. I think hacks churn out anything to meet deadlines and the reviews suffer. Your average person isn't buying on the day an album's released. They're buying a week later or a month later. Now a fan of a certain artist who is really devoted will go buy the album the day it comes out. But a review won't change that.
Reviews should be about explaining why this is worth a listen or not. So you're dealing with people who aren't die hard fans rushing out. That's your audience for a review. When I did the first review, Greenday had dropped on the charts. Big deal, because it shot back up. That's the reality of music.
And these insta-analysis reviews that focus on what's come out or is about to and are just pure hackery are damaging to music. I am so disgusted that even Rolling Stone has fallen into the trap. Spin's snide and snotty but they usually get at feeling for the album they are reviewing into the actual review. I put Rolling Stone reviews higher than The Times but they should be a lot better.
But there's not an "opening day" for music. And there shouldn't be. That attitude has gone a long way towards destroying the movie business now that a film can't build and find it's audience. I'd hate to see that attitude completely overtake the music business.
The Times would serve their readership better by making their writers live with an album a bit before reviewing it. These are idiotic reviews and that's partly because they're rushed. So you're writing the first thing that pops into your mind as quickly as you can.
I'm not arguing that they should work from a formal outline or note cards. Write in the moment, it'll bring passion to your writing. But you need to know the album to do that and a quick listen or two won't do that. I know of one writer who puts the CD on and writes a sentence after one listen to each track. If you're sitting there during a track thinking, "What am I going to write when this song is over!" then you're missing how it fits into the total theme of the album -- if it fits! These aren't album reviews, what they are is, "here's a song" and "there's a song." For anyone who loves music, these reviews are not just irritating, they're harmful.
And I wish everyone would drop the "historical perspective" from their generic template because they don't know what they're talking about. They've looked up a quick factoid and they include it in the review because it will make them look smart and knowledgable. But they've pulled a fact (which may or may not be true) and have missed the overall picture that the fact fits into. It makes for a segmented history at best and a distorted one at worst. Which pretty much sums up the music reviews.
I realize that the majority of the big releases are pure and utter crap. That's fine. That's always been the case. For every Justin Timberlake, you've had a Fabian or a Frankie Avalon come before. That's reality. But even there they can be a bit more probing of the album. However, when it comes to someone really attempting to use the artform of music, these snap reviews are just insulting.
Reviews used to be powerful and they'd let you know why this album was to be avoided and this one was to be noticed. Now they're all treated the same. Some American Idol kid making a fool of themselves is treated with the same coverage as someone really attempting to say something.
It's insulting to the artists and insulting to anyone who truly cares about music.
You've been writing about two album reviews a month [for The Common Ills].
Yeah. I'd thought, well one a month. But it's probably up to that. And I write about music from time to time without it being about a specific album. If I had the time, I would write more. I've been wanting to write about Bright Eyes but there's just no time. And the next thing I write has to be something from Eli's list because I stated in the first thing I wrote that we'd focus on older albums and not just recently released things.
And I think that's especially important now when you have so many writing "history" in their weekly reviews that's not historical. I also worry about the power of myth. I'm thinking of the reaction to [Bob] Dylan's book which I glanced at and was the most self-serving piece of mythology. It's like, "Does anyone not know that, like Madonna, Dylan carefully crafted an image from day one?" I read these reviews calling it "frank" and "full of truth telling" and I realize I'm dealing with bitty boys who jerked off once to often to mythology but never knew much about the music. I have no problem with Dylan's music or Madonna's. But let's not pass off myth as fact even if they put their names to it.
What are your thoughts on Paul McCartney's half-time show?
I didn't see it. I have no interest in vegging on the couch in front of a television. Paul's also looked like that old, unmarried aunt who's living alone with her cat for about the last 15 years. Only now he's started acting like her. It's really sad. I'd give anything to hear an album from Ringo Starr right now. It wouldn't have to be art, it could be goofy, just something high energy that showed there was still some life there. Paul McCartney's gone through the motions for so long that you really start to appreciate the Rolling Stones. He's also gone a little too heavy on the flag waving for another country, our country, and that's made him look pretty silly. Uber American Patriot doesn't play well on Paul McCartney.
But it gets him on TV at a time when his peers who are doing strong work can't get on. John Fogerty made a really strong album and it seems to have been released and then disappeared which is a real shame.
You've written about sampling.
Yeah and I think a few people misunderstood that. I'm talking about the hook of a song. Taking someone's hook and just using it in between some dopey "hate woman fuck her over good" rap.
You haven't done anything but degrade yourself and who ever agreed to let you sample. But sampling can be art. There was a time when it was. But there was a time when rap was about something real. Something political, something personal.
Now it's all just play acting, if it makes it onto corporate radio, and we're seeing a lot of recording artists get burned by the play acting. But when you present a myth as fact, you can be forced to live it. And I don't shed a lot of tears for them because the damage really is done to the people who listen. Most of whom will never be cruising in limos or sipping the latest trendy drink. It's an escape. And the music that has lasted or touched us historically has been something that was real.
Instead it's like "brand music" where they name check products. I have no use for it. I never listened to a song to figure out what to buy. I did turn to music, and still do, to make sense of my own life, my own struggles. And there was a time when rap did that and truly was poetry. And that rap, that kind of rap, is still out there. But it's drowned out by the nonsense about you are what you wear and you purchase. And this message that you are only as good as what you consume will prove very damaging to kids who grow up and find out that when Mommy & Daddy aren't footing the bills and you've got the electric company expecting to be paid and you've got the telephone company wanting money, there's not going to be a great deal left for living that ghetto fabulous life you've been car dancing to all through high school.
Those kids are going to hit a wall. And they're going to either internalize the message that they're failures for not meeting the standards of ghetto fabulous or they're going to have to figure out a new sense of values. It just really bothers me. But if you're stealing Sting or whomever's hook and that's the only thing anyone remembers about "your" song, you obviously haven't written a song. If however, you're building on something someone else has done or somethings others have done, you are creating.
We're not seeing a lot of creating.
And blame it on radio which is totally corporate and a lot happier playing "songs" that are actually plugs for products. The whole listening hour can be turned into one long commercial.
And that's what we're seeing more and more. You date or fuck as a side story in the song, but you make your purchases first and foremost and then sport them because you're apparently only as good as your brands. The days of introspection are postponed when your Air Jordans or whatever instantly tell the world you've got it.
I can remember when there were actual songs about actual real life events on the radio. I don't hear them on the radio that continues to push the Disney Kids at the expense of real artists.
Are there any albums you are asked to review that you end up thinking, "Oh, they so do not get it?"
Most of the choices are fine. I did get told that I really needed to listen to Minnie Driver because she was making actual music by three people in e-mails. So I borrowed the album from a friend and listened. It's not a bad album. She can sing. She's got a real band backing her. She has a nice turn of phrase as a writer. But I wasn't blown away. If it was on the radio right now and I heard it, I'd be glad that some actual music was making it on the air and I wouldn't object if it came on at a party but I didn't see the point in writing about it. I've still got the album and listen to it from time to time. If it starts speaking to me, I'll return it to Iwan and buy my own copy. But if something's not exciting enough to me to make me go purchase it, it's not anything I need to be reviewing. I cringed the first few times I heard her version of Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" but it's grown on me.
And I liked the review that you did of Anais Mitchell. I'd gotten e-mails about that but hadn't had time to go out and get it. And I don't buy online. I'm someone who has to go to the store, has to hold it in my hands, carry it to the counter and pay for it. I want it when I want it, not a few days after I decided to get it. But I read your review and I thought, "Okay, I've got to get this album." So I did and I'm really enjoying it. She's a very vivid writer.
I also think your review proves you can convey the mood of an album in a non-essay because that was a fairly short entry for you but it conveyed what made the album special.
Kat liked our interview! Okay everybody, we can stop writing now. We've accomplished something.
Seriously, I did enjoy it.
So if we were there hunting around your CD player what CD cases would we find right now?
Hold on and I'll look. I've got ten laying out right now. I had friends over and this was what they'd picked out: Maria McKee Live in Hamburg; the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club; Love's Forever Changes; Anais Mitchell's Hymns for the Exiled; Pearl Jam's Oct. 22 2003; Green Day's American Idiot; Tori Amos's The Beekeeper; Bright Eyes's I'm Wide Awake It's Morning; Joan Baez's Gone From Danger; and U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. If you'd called at another time, you'd have gotten a different answer.