Rock Critic Law

by Michael Azerrad

  Epigraph

  Clichés can be quite fun.

  That’s how they got to be clichés.

  —Alan Bennett, The History Boys

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  The Laws

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  Years ago, I was on a journalism panel at a major music convention, and an earnest fellow in the audience asked, “How do you keep it fresh?” In a fit of snark, I shot back, “Wrap it in plastic!” People laughed, but I’ve regretted that comment ever since—the poor guy was asking a good question. Thankfully, my colleague Gina Arnold chimed in with some of the best advice for music critics I’ve ever heard: “Read fiction.” I’d guess that most of what Rock Critics read is other Rock Critics. And if Rock Criticism is all you read, then, in a sense, Rock Criticism is likely all you’re going to write. Such an incestuous, cannibalistic literary diet probably goes a long way toward explaining the ubiquitous, seemingly indestructible clichés that I call Rock Critic Laws. Now, with blogs and podcasts and social media and all the other available internet platforms, everybody can be a Rock Critic.

  Lately, it’s also a symptom of economics. With per-word rates plummeting, Rock Critics need to crank out more pieces than ever if they want to make something resembling a living, and it’s more difficult to conjure le mot juste when it’s 2 A.M. and you’re banging out your third record review that day. Budget-slashing also means that your editor is probably too overworked to nip that “sophomore effort” or “stinging blues licks” before it hits the stands.

  The thing is, Rock Critics mainly get over with insight or eloquence or wit or a big personality or just the contagious passion of the fan (or the caustic allure of the hater). We have to, because many of us don’t know a lot of things that could come in very handy when writing about music. A lot of us have never performed music to large crowds, or written a song, or played take after take while the engineer and the rest of the band peer at us through double-pane glass. But maybe that’s OK—as the great New Yorker journalist A.J. Liebling once wrote, “To understand a cockfight, you don’t have to know how to crow like a rooster.” Still, many of us haven’t studied journalism or writing; many of us don’t know the difference between a chord change and a key change, or between Little Anthony and Little Richard. That’s a big reason why everyone loves to poke fun at Rock Critics—even, and especially, other Rock Critics. (Musicians also like to pile on: Frank Zappa infamously called rock journalists “people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”)

  So sometimes Rock Critics feel a little insecure. And, like most insecure people, they try to compensate. One way is to jump on the bandwagon and echo what peers or more established critics are saying. Another is to faithfully lionize the accepted canon of artists. This way, they can feel as if they belong to a club that they’re not 100 percent sure they deserve to be in. But the best way to gain entrance is to know the password. Jargon is a shibboleth, proof of membership. Using it can make a writer feel authoritative—and it can also fool some readers into thinking the writer is authoritative. That impulse is hardly unique to Rock Criticism—it’s in writing about sports, food, wine, philosophy, visual art, technology, politics, and any other subject in which wielding expertise is a blood sport. But only Rock Criticism abuses the word “seminal.”

  Many Rock Critic Laws date back decades, having endured through metal, glam, prog, folk-rock, singer-songwriter music, new wave, alt-rock, Britpop, emo, neo-post-punk, and all the rest, and passed down through several generations of Rock Critics. From Paul Williams’s, uh, seminal Crawdaddy! and on through publications such as NME, Melody Maker, Circus, Creem, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, Musician, Spin, Blender, Mojo, Paste, and Pitchfork, a shorthand developed. Writers parroted a litany of rote phrases until it became a universally accepted lexicon, rarely remarked upon, much less censured. Until now.

  * * *

  A while back, I was reading some Rock Criticism and became peeved by a piece of boilerplate I’d seen countless times before, which can be summarized thusly: “When musician A plays on musician B’s album, and then musician B plays on musician A’s album, musician B is ‘returning the favor.’” Naturally, I had to share this devastating pearl of editorial insight with the world, in much the same way as when you find something incredibly stinky and say to your friend, “Hey, smell this!”

  So I tweeted it with the hashtag #RockCriticLaw. And then a few more of these hackneyed tropes occurred to me, constructions that anyone who’s read a thousand rock music articles has read, oh, about a thousand times. And I tweeted those out too, with the hashtag #RockCriticLaw. More and more kept coming to me, and so there were tweets about “dueling lead guitars” and “sprawling double albums” and, perhaps most dreadful of all, the word “moniker.” Colleagues, musicians and music fans not only started “liking” and retweeting these things, they started sending me Rock Critic Laws of their own, and so did various musicians. (Some of which are included in this book, with my deep gratitude.) Among my esteemed peers, it became a guilty pleasure to look down the list of Rock Critic Laws and see which ones they had committed. (As stated, Rock Critics are pretty insecure.)

  After I’d tweeted out a few dozen Rock Critic Laws, people started saying, “You should do a book!”

  “Ridiculous!” I thought, indignantly. “I refuse to be one of those people who does a book of their tweets.” Then again, it was kind of a funny idea . . .

  A reporter from the New York Observer emailed me—he wanted to write a piece about my popular Rock Critic Law tweets. I answered all his questions—then, at the end, I impetuously added, “Oh, and by the way, there’s a book in the works.” I was bluffing, but what the hell, I said it. And the writer seemed skeptical about it, but nonetheless he played along, bless him. And so the headline of the article read: MICHAEL AZERRAD IS TURNING HIS #ROCKCRITICLAWS INTO A BOOK. Me and my big mouth.

  I sent the article to my agent, who told me, “Ha, ha. Now you have to do it!”

  And here we are.

  I figured I had to do 101 Laws. One hundred is a really big number, but 101 is one more than that—“that extra push over the cliff,” in the words of legendary English rocker Nigel Tufnel, whose amplifiers go to 11. At the time, I actually had fewer than fifty Rock Critic Laws, but it wasn’t difficult to get to 101. In fact, I have some to spare.

  Next step: illustrations. One of the first people I met when I went to Seattle in February 1992, on assignment for Rolling Stone, was Edwin Fotheringham. Ed was a key scenester and even “sang”—I’m sure he’d approve of the quotation marks—in a band all too fittingly called the Thrown-Ups. (Pick hit: “Eat My Dump.”) He was hosting a party at his house and all the guys from Mudhoney were there. In the ensuing years, Ed went from creating album covers for OG Seattle bands such as Mudhoney, the Fall-Outs, Love Battery, and Flop to becoming a widely acclaimed illustrator, a high-class type whose work has appeared in swanky joints like the New Yorker and Vanity Fair and on covers for Verve Records. So I asked him if he’d be up for creating 101 illustrations for Rock Critic Law, and not only did he accept the challenge, he devised really ingenious solutions for Laws I thought would be impossible to express visually. Ed is a smart guy and he draws real good.

  Some of the illustrations feature the book’s mascot, Rocky the Rock Critic. Rock Critics used to be a pretty homogeneous bunch—we all tended, as David Lee Roth once pointed out, to look like Elvis Costello—but that’s not true anymore, and so, by design, Rocky is gender-neutral. Rock C
ritic Laws have become an equal-opportunity employer, but that might be changing, and as the Rock Critic pool happily becomes more and more diverse, I bet that the new, varied points of view will vanquish a lot of the stock phrases immortalized between these covers.

  * * *

  If you write about music, odds are you love music, which is one of the few unqualifiedly good things in this world. If you’ve got music—any ol’ kinda music—your life is significantly better than it would be otherwise.

  But writing about music is hard. How to corral its unruly, ineffable qualities into mere words on a page? How to describe one mode of communication by using another? How to sum up someone else’s year of blood, sweat, and tears in 150 words or so? It’s impossible. As the hoary old saying goes—and the credit goes to the brilliant comedian (and musician) Martin Mull—writing about music is like dancing about architecture. The thing is, it could be amazing to see someone dance about architecture: Sometimes incredible things happen when people try to do the impossible. That’s why the best music criticism is an act of creativity, with the same beauty as anything else that transcends its limitations.

  But it’s still impossible. If you try to describe music, you are, on some level, destined to fail. And if you’re a Rock Critic, that failure, however noble and well crafted, is available for public consumption and appraisal. Anyone who works up the nerve to write about music and then show it to even one other person deserves a certain baseline respect.

  The Village Voice ran a piece about Rock Critic Law with the headline MICHAEL AZERRAD DOES NOT CARE FOR THIS HORRIBLE MUSIC WRITING YOU ROCK CRITICS CRANK OUT. Which just goes to show, once again, that you can’t believe everything you read. Obviously, you don’t notice 101 Rock Critic Laws unless you read a lot of Rock Criticism, and you don’t read a lot of Rock Criticism if you don’t care for it. So this book is as much a (tough) love letter as a good-natured scolding. It’s a challenge—not just to all of us who have built careers upon this thing we love, but to anyone who writes about music, whether it’s in a blog, a post, or a tweet: c’mon, think a little harder!

  These are specifically rock-centric Laws. You won’t see many of them in writing about other genres, like hip-hop or electronic music or country. And while declaring “rock is dead” at least once in one’s career has long been the solemn obligation of any self-respecting Rock Critic, rock does finally seem to be starting a slow, grudging slide to niche status, and so a lot of these inviolable guidelines may soon become quaint, nearly obsolete. Which will, of course, make this book a collector’s item. So be sure to buy at least two copies.

  The Laws

  Be sure to say a band “tackles” a cover version of a song, as if it were a criminal who needs to be wrestled to the ground.

  Although there was surely a range of opinion, feel free to say a record was “universally” loved or loathed.

  If you like some songs on the record but not others, then the record is “uneven.”

  Please do call a musician an “act,” because they really are just like a trained seal or a plate-spinner.

  A pop star does not have management; they have a “camp.”

  You are prohibited from saying anything bad about the following: Michael Jackson, the Beatles, the Ramones, Wu-Tang Clan, Björk, Radiohead, Taylor Swift, Talking Heads, Fugazi, and Abba.

  If you don’t want to say “trio” or “quartet,” you can say “three-piece outfit” or “four-piece outfit.”

  During the interview, if a musician is sitting down, they are “seated comfortably.”

  If multiple good musicians come from the same place, you MUST say “there must be something in the water.”

  Feel free to call something “an instant classic” even though, by definition, only time can tell if something is classic.

  If it’s underrated, it’s “criminally underrated.” Because anyone who underrates things should be in jail.

  If two guitars play a melodic line in harmony, you MUST say they are “twin lead guitars.”

  You MUST use the word “moniker” even though you would never say that word out loud.

  If a man’s music is sexual, it’s sexual. If a woman’s music is sexual, it’s “sex-positive.”

  When talking about violent rap lyrics you MUST cite Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”: “Shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” Or Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.”

  A musician who has played with a lot of other notable musicians has an “impressive résumé.”

  By all means say that the rhythm section “anchors” the music even though their job is actually to propel it.

  If the band is from a historically industrial town such as Detroit, Sheffield, or Birmingham, their music MUST be influenced by the sound of machines in a factory.

  By all means say “honing in on” and not “homing in on.” Because words no longer have meaning.

  If you’ve said “drummer” a little too often you can say “sticksman” or “tub-thumper.”

  No one sings on someone’s else’s record—instead, they “lend their vocals.”

  If an aging musician is still active, you MUST say they “show no signs of slowing down.”

  You MUST use the word “plangent.”

  You MUST refer to a series of descending arpeggios as “cascading.”

  All fan bases are either “devoted,” “dedicated,” or “loyal.”

  Quickly strummed guitar chords with a lot of distortion MUST be compared to “a buzz saw.”

  The only album that can be stunning is the first one, as in the “stunning debut.”

  When interviewing a fellow Rock Critic about their book, you MUST ask them what was the most surprising thing they learned.

  Remember: any French female singer is a “chanteuse.”

  When writing about the Replacements, it is required that you use the word “shambolic.”

  When Musician A plays on Musician B’s album, then vice versa, you MUST say Musician B “returned the favor.”

  Second albums are a “sophomore effort,” NEVER a “sophomore album.” And an effort can never be freshman, junior, or senior.

  Do NOT look up the words “coruscating” or “galvanic.” It’s better if you don’t know what they mean.

  A singer with a raspy voice has been gargling with broken glass, whiskey, gravel, cigarette butts, or some combination thereof.

  If a performer moves across a stage, they are “prowling.”

  Any drum beat that uses only tom-toms is “tribal.”

  You may ONLY compare a musician to other musicians of the same gender. (Except Prince and Joni Mitchell; that’s hip.)

  Undistorted guitars in a major key MUST be “chiming,” “ringing,” or “jangling.” Especially if it’s a Rickenbacker guitar.

  It is ALWAYS the Year of the Woman. Don’t worry, people will forget you said it last year.

  Years after the fact, you can still write about vinyl’s comeback. Even though it’s only a tiny percentage of the market.

  The sound quality of vinyl and analog recordings is “warm.” No other adjective is permitted.

  Bass players are the only musicians who can be “nimble.”

  When reviewing an album by a revered but fading musician you MUST say “It’s their best since [their last actually good record].”

  Whenever citing post-punk, you MUST describe it with at least one of the following: “spiky,” “angular,” or “arty.”

  You MUST use the word “rollicking” even though you would never say that word out loud.

  Although albums aren’t generally written or recorded in sequence, feel free to claim that the band transforms through the course of the record.

  If a musician tries a new sound and fails, it’s a “transitional album.” If they succeed, it’s a “reinvention.”

  There is no middle ground with intensity: either it’s “raw” or it’s “burning.”

  You can always use a variation on the phrase “pop will eat itse
lf.”

  You can always allude to the 1978 Talking Heads album title and say, “more songs about [x] and [y].” IT NEVER GETS OLD.

  By all means refer to albums as CDs even though CDs are a rapidly fading data-storage format and not an art form.

  If a new group includes at least two former members of a now-defunct band, then it is “formed from the ashes” of that band.

  A band never leaves a label; it “parts ways.”

  If a band pioneered something, you MUST say they are “seminal.” That is the Seminal Law of Rock Criticism.