Essential Albums: Trip-Hop

Ooohhhh. We're just going to have to agree to disagree here. If a critic wishes to point out important albums in the development of a genre, he or she should make a list for that. If a critic wants to praise great or essential albums, that's another list. I do not agree that a critic should factor in historical importance or influence when making quality assessments of an album. That's the historian's job, not the critic. Of course, one can be both, but one should also not confuse the two or try magically to mix the two in the same list. The two factors are entirely too often unconnected, and many critics use historical knowledge as a crutch when critical prowess fails them.

"Critical objectivity" is too often bowing to history rather than quality or giving too much wieght to the critical mainstream. The tempering you speak of is usually simply watering down one's personal assessments with the majority, and that serves little purpose. There are enough places to discover the critical mainstream, including my very own CC lists. A critic's job is much braver and tougher than that, and a critic should be learned and confident enough in his or her own skills not to rely on safety catches such as the critical mainstream or history.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

Hey hey . . . So I have on my "to do" list to reply to the "best vs. favorite" thread from another list. But as you know, I haven't. Every time I sit down to try, I realize that my own thoughts on the subject aren't clear enough to verbalize them. Also, I'm painting the outside of our house (a large, hellish job (even worse because I'm afraid of ladders)), and my Listology time has been sharply curtailed (I think I've whined about that before).

However, while I haven't posted much lately, I try to read everything, and I have found this discussion to be fascinating. It's hard to be passionate AND articulate, but you're both doing an admirable job so far. I hope you see it through; I'll feel deprived if you choose to continue it via e-mail instead of here. I'm sure I'm not the only one finding this educational. Of course, if you feel it's gotten too personal, I'd understand not wanted to continue the discussion publicly, so that's entirely up to you. I'll shut up now.

Johnny, the Doctor, and Jim have certainly given me plenty to respond to. I'll try to do that here. Just because my response is under Johnny's post, however, does not mean I am ignoring anybody else. I'm just putting everything here for the sake of being concise.

Johnny states that he feels I have rebutted minor points instead of major ones, and while I disagree, perhaps I should pull back a bit from individual posts and address everything at once by stating the job I believe a critic should perform.

First, some confusion has arisen because we have let two separate points become confused into one, two points which I feel should perhaps be addressed somewhat apart from one another. The two questions I see here are: 1) Should a critic factor in historical importance or influence when rating the quality of an album? and 2) what role, if any, should critical standards play when evaluating an album? Both Johnny and the Doctor have argued that criticism should incorporate one or the other with personal taste, and I will share why I disagree. I'll also clarify what I have meant when I used the terms 'personal taste,' and that may moves us a bit closer to each other than we now are. Perhaps not.

Let me also state that below I will discussing these two questions only. As far as what Johnny chooses to place on an essential list or not, I have already admitted that the list are his, and he can use whatever criteria he chooses in assembling these lists.

First, both Johnny and the Doctor have claimed that the historian is a critic, (1)choosing material to present and (2)creating interpretations or events based on personal values.

I agree that in the broadest sense, the historian is a critic, but he or she is not an art critic, which is the type of critic I am writing of. (1) A historian does select which material to present and to work with, but ideally these selections are using historical importance as a criteria, not artistic value. This is where I believe the historian / critic and the art critic differ. Historians can possibly be art critics, and many art critics are certainly historians in their field, but I see no use in confusing these two functions or trying to combine the two into a single process. Why? Hopefully, that will become clear as my post continues.

The Doctor argues that the historical context of a work is important, and I would not deny this. Art does not exist in a vacuum, and understanding the world and conventions a work comes from is at times essential to understanding the work. It is a huge leap, however, from admiting that a work's CONTEXT is important to arguing that a work's subsequent historical importance or influence is a factor in a work's quality. These are two separate statements, and I accept the first and reject the second. The Jazz Singer, with its innovative spoken dialogue, may well be the second or third most influential film in history, but I cringe at the idea of someone using that to help justify considering the work great, when it clearly is not in terms of quality.

(2) Addressing the fact that a historian will view history through his or her own values and viewpoints, I admit that this is true. I argue, however, that a good historian is constantly attempting to overcome this sad reality. A biased historian using his or her biases frankly has little value outside of propaganda and the occasional true facts that may surface through the glaze of bias (OK, they can also be excellent devil's advocates, but I doubt any historian wishes to reduce his or her work simply to that). A major part of being a good historian is attempting to overcome these biases, and while one never can entirely vanquish these foes, one can indeed strive for perfection, however elusive. The best historians block out bias to a rather impressive degree. Simply realizing that biases and viewpoints enter into the mix does not necessarily advocate their use. This has its parralels in art criticism, and I will address these below.

Now, on to the second matter (although much of what follows is important to understanding my view on the first matter). What role, if any, should critical standards play when evaluating an album?

This requires a clear idea of what an (art) critic's purpose and role in the world is.

I'll begin by paraphrasing several people in using two answers to the above question. I'll get into details soon.

A definition I have found and accept follows: An art critic helps (1) propose which art is worth the time of investigation and (2) helps explain how to view a work of art by explaining how it 'works.'

I'll betray some of my philosophical views here, but please, be patient.

As far as I am concerned, a work of art exists to create effects. These effects can be wildly varied, from attacking the wealthy, creating beauty, or even pointing out the silliness of seeking certain pre-ordained effects in art (for example, the classic experimental film Wavelength). Certain effects are sought, however, and the elements in a piece of art work toward achieving these effects.

As such, the primary concerns for an art critic are what are the effects aimed for, how well does the work of art accomplish these effects, and how does it do or not do this.

The first step, then, is to experience the work of art, hopefully several times. What is the work doing, and does it pull it off? At this stage, granted, these answers can be very personal and biased, but few can argue that these are almost necessarily the first steps when encountering a work of art. Music, for example, must be listened to. And while Johnny might scream ;), the first experience tends to be a simple one - Do I like this or not? What's it doing, and is it doing it well?

After some honest decisions to these last two or three questions have been made (I'll call these answers conclusions, short for quality conclusions), the critic has hardly started the real work of being a critic.

Now, the critic must ask the hard questions. The first is: Why do I feel about this work the way I do? During a brutal self-examination, the critic will likely discover some very personal prejudices that play into whether he or she likes a work. Previously, I have very inprecisely labeled these as sentimental values, but prejudices, while a harsher sounder word, is more accurate. Maybe I hate this work because I can't stand heavy metal. Maybe I like this work because the singer sounds like Bob Dylan, and I love Bob Dylan. Maybe I frist heard it on the first date with my wife and I now have great feelings associated with the song I can relive everytime I hear the song. Once these prejudices have hopefully been discovered, they must be discarded. Will anyone ever really rid themselves of all such prejudices? No, but a good critic will do an excellent job throwing most of them out.

Now a critic must experience the work again with fresh ears unburdened by prejudices. If the prejudices are too strong to overcome, the critic frankly should excuse his or herself. They will not be able to honestly complete the grueling work which is to follow.

Now, tossing out the prejudices, does the critic like the work? Is it effective?

I should add here that I am using the term 'like' extremely broadly, and it basically means asking if the work is pleasingly accomplishing its effects. No, you need not embrace a work or desire to listen to over and over again to 'like' it. Because of prejudices, you may choose never to hear a work you 'like' again because you really hate. But for this step, the critic must try to over-ride the prejudices which usually help dictate his or her every-day listening for the sake of honesty. You can 'like' and enjoy Schindler's List critically, even if we are using slightly different definitions for the words "like" and "enjoy" than most people use. Shedding prejudices, do you now like it? Is it working? Does it accomplish its effects?

Next comes the hardest and most important job a critic must do. How does does the art work or not work? Critical standards can help here, but must always be slaves to whether the art 'worked' or not. Critical standards are limited tools, and can HELP explain why a piece does or doesn't work, but they can only help so much, and they can often hurt. Johnny wrote, "You're right in saying that certain works are villified because they go against prevailing standards, but there are always far-sighted critics willing to hold up the new works and artists as great, e.g. Ruskin with the Pre-Raphaelites. And just because the critical mainstream sometimes gets it wrong, does that justify chucking the whole system? Absolutely not; that is throwing the baby out with the bathwater." This reads well, but I believe the logic is very flawed. If a work does not conform to current critical standards, and if critics are using critical standards for their appraisals, new works will never be recognized until the standards change. It is only the critic that uses as a tool but is not a slave to critical standards, a critic that is honest about the intial effect of a work divorced from critical standards, that will be able to claim the work as great, and only that critic will be able to start asking why the work is great, probably re-writing parts of the current critical standards in the process. These 'far-sighted critics' you wrote of are not judging based on critical standards. Critical standards are tools for understanding why a work works; they are not tools for judging if a work does work or not. Taking this view, I am not throwing out the baby with the bath water, I am simply not confusing the two. I love critical standards, but I see them for what I believe them to be - tools for understanding, not criteria for evaluating.

On the opposite side, a work can met every critical standard and still not work. One should never change one's mind about the work at this point. One must ask the hardest questions about WHY the work still does not achieve its effects. This is how critical standards are changed over time, and this does not allow them to perform the work the critic should be performing.

Whew.

Now, you notice this still leaves some room for personal judgments, but anyone who is honest must admit that criticism is not an exact science. However, I believe personal judgments probably enters the proper process less than some believe, and there is room for objective discussion after the criticism is over. Debate can help a critic realize he or she never really understood the effects aimed for, realize how a seemingly random element truly did work toward the total effects, and such. Even in a field with much subjective variables (as criticism must be), there is much room for subjective debate and discussion.

And even using the process explained above, there are still good and bad critics.

I never met to imply, Johnny, that you do not have a taste for experimental music. (My comments you mistook for this statement where a pre-emptive strike against the anticipated question, "Then you believe anybody could be a good critic?" and were not aimed at you personally at all. Please re-read that post with this in mind.) What I am implying is that you may be on to something nobody else is. If the work does 'work' for you, and if you are pretty sure you are clear of personal prejudices, you should start asking the questions of why it doesn't work for you.

Keep in mind that 'working' for you does not mean wishing to listen to the album over and over. Perhaps the work does work for you, and I have misunderstood you all along. However, I believe what I have interpreted as a slight dislike of the album (maybe!) might actually lead to new criticism that help those of use who do like the album understand it more. After all, I like the album quite a bit, but I also find it over-rated and inferior to the Velvet Underground's third album. It is not as unified, working on separate effects sometimes to detriment of others, and for the most part, it does not achieve the depth of feeling that the later work does.

So, Doctor, perhaps you can see why I refuse to admit that a work's historical importance should interfere with a critic's work determining a piece of art's artistic quality. I simply see no room for it. There is value in recognizing these factors, but they should be expressed separately from an evaluation of a work's artistic quality. They are simply separate variables, and the fact that every film in the future may copy Titanic to a tee does not for a second make Titanic a better film, only a more influential one.

This is entirely too long, but I hope I am forgiven. I'm not checking for typos (it is too long, and I am at work), but I hope this expresses my views better and perhaps focuses our discussion.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs