I’ve got a blank space baby. And I’ll write your name
Taylor Swift
Yes. Jazz list season. We have various offerings, full disclosure. It’s all “so far.”
The interesting thing when it comes to criticism is to nail your colours to the mast. Ranking and rating is what criticism is about. It’s like giving someone a mark for an essay, you pass the exam or you don’t. Someone moderates the list – in my case it’s basically listening and relistening and often changing my mind. There aren’t prizes. *There isn’t really an exam.*
You need an arm’s length body. Musicians are not in a position to do what a critic does. But of course there is nothing stopping jazzers giving it a go. And I don’t mean criticising the critics. I mean reviewing records. But that is why a critic is important in a way, to give a non musician’s perspective. You need somebody to blame for pointing out inconvenient truths at the very least.
If a musician does do critiques then mitigation has to be made in a different way to the mitigation needed for critics.
In the musician’s case it is conflict of interest, professional rivalry and bias if particularly doctrinaire as often happens.
In the critic’s case the mitigation is extent or lack of knowledge, type of criticism levelled (is it valid in other words) and ability to give a perspective based on jazz history and insight into things like innovation, technical ability and a knack at spotting what is genuinely fresh and what isn’t.
Pop and rock lists – yep, wait for the deluge. But when next year comes around what happens then? Somehow criticism finds a consensus but not always through lists. I believe people aren’t mugs and they know which critics to believe and then they make up their own minds. That’s the key point, lists are helpful when you haven’t been paying attention and want to catch up. It’s fun reading reactions and sometimes insightful. But we all still go out and hear acts who haven’t got top of the list records. It’s not just about ouput after all but stuff the critics are raving over doesn’t harm trying to get a few bums on seats down the Tumble and Weed.
