I blame Cameron Crowe
Not only was he a crap rock critic he also romantices the game and all the other rock crits took themselves EVEN MORE SERIOUSLY.
And now there is a huge delegation of pompous asses lead by the wankers at alternaboredom Pitchfork assessing in unison like one of those giant hives on Star Trek: Next Generation: “Black Eyed Peas bad, Animal Collective, don’t cry for me Alex Chilton.” Hey rock crits, Chilton hated you more than I did.
Back in the day the freelance rock crit (my job) was low man in the pecking order. Knocking back bokshi booze, selling off “Promotional Copies” for a dollar a holla, writing a 250 word review for a portion of BBQ wings. Yeah, real romantic stuff.
Bloggers are lower.
And music bloggers are lower than that.
And I’m lower than they are.
Rock nyc knows nobody anything, no advertisers, no money, minimum access (none to the majors).
And that’s fine by me.
Costello said he only understood revenge and guilt. Me? Loss and betrayal. And that’s perfect for a writer and better for a blogger. Besides the people who ride by my sides, I trust nobody at all and that’s where the music blog belongs. We are neither or nor; we are irrelevant losers on the outside looking in. Nobody fights us because, we don’t join together because we are loner nerds. We aren’t loved and we aren’t respected. We can’t spell and our grammer sucks.
Rock critics aren’t real writers and bloggers aren’t really rock critics.
There are two things going on when you are a blogger like helen and I: 1) You are writing almost literally from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. 2) You get to change your mind. 3) You get to return to people you like as often as you want to.
I can’t express the freedom not being shackled to your opinion at any given time gives me. My opinions are quantum not quantitive, they change, they emerge, they depend upon mood, and format and time. I can live with an album for months before I can settle on my feelings for it. And if I can fall out of love with a woman I’ve marriedI can sure as hell fall out of love with a rock band EVEN IF THE ROCK BAND HASN’T CHANGED SO MUCH BUT I HAVE.
And I can do that as a blogger, on the outskirts of the outskirts of society. Scruffy, scrappy and in need of a spell check, we are the unknown.