RE: [microsound] Are all electronic music related writers bad writers?

[Adam Young <adam_young@xxxxxxxxx>]

Lots of great conversation here.

Well, rather than a specific example, the kind of thing I am asking  
about is where the reviews or articles, rather than continuing useful  
criticism or helpful information, it goes on for a paragraph of 2  
describing the album/piece/tracks in a manner like this "So and So's  
Super Album is an experience similar to riding a train in heaven with  
seats made of purple tigers while drinking a warm scotch that someone  
spilled pez candy in and making out with a supermodel that has two  
heads... a dream that swirls about in the air and distills an eerie  
foreboding complex element that dwells within all of us".

A bit silly, yes, but so much of what is out there follows this sort  
of "formula for nonsense" (cram as many abstract ideas as possible,  
bonus points for coming off sounding like some kind of futuristic  
hippie)... the whole article will be written like this without a  
shard of concrete writing. There is a time and place for a bit of  
nonsense, but so much of what is out there is like this. It fails to  
provide the reader with any useful information and more often find  
themselves even more in the dark about the music than when they began  
reading the article. In the case of reviews, it's getting really hard  
to determine if the reviewer is offering any criticism at all and if  
they are trying to say they liked it or not. Reviews in many places  
won't hand out anything less than a 4 stars these days too. That's a   
different story though perhaps.

I imagine a small fraction of what i've encountered have been bad  
english translations as well, but that doesn't answer for the majority.

There's also stuff like this... I am on the netaudio list and a  
release on some label had this under it's title: >> FILE UNDER:  
Mighty Techdub Lightnings

What does THAT mean? Really... Mighty can be stretched to explain  
something maybe.... but Lightnings?



On Sep 26, 2005, at 9:18 AM, microsound-digest-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 20:55:44 -0400
> To: microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From: "Douglas Wolf" <llc2985984@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: [microsound] Are all electronic music related writers  
> bad writers?
> Message-ID: <BAY101-F18C4C401101D21D14D7B129F880@xxxxxxx>
>
> Care to cite specific examples?
>
>
>> Has anyone else noticed how terribly articles and press materials and
>> things are written? Reviews, press, just about everything.. I'm no
>> professional myself but i've seen some pretty ridiculous stuff  
>> out  there.
>> The number one thing I see is convoluted run-ons full of 88%   
>> adjectives,
>> among other things.
>>
>> Anybody care to wager a guess why it's all so embarrassingly poor?
>>
>>
>>
>

adam young
www.direwires.com | www.tractile.net | www.adyo.info