The following article titled "Reviewing Reviewed" by Frank Bechhofer appeared in the July/August 2005 edition (issue 63) of magazine "The Living Tradition".
Foot Stompin' Celtic Music are grateful to The Living Tradition for their kind permission allowing them to reproduce "Reviewing Reviewed" on their website.
Reviewing Reviewed
The ‘folk scene’ has an immature attitude to music criticism and, for the good of us all, everyone needs to grow up, the reviewed, or at least those who take their side against critics, and the reviewers, too.
The overall standard of reviews is poor, those by a tiny number of professional and ‘amateur’ reviewers excepted. Far too many are badly written, ill-informed, and give the impression that all our geese are swans, and every performance and album a masterpiece. There is little appreciation, especially by consumers rather than performers, of the purpose of reviews. Some musicians (understandably) do take adverse criticism hard, even when it is merited and constructive, and a few take their reaction well beyond unhappiness. Some performers have fans who not only believe their hero or heroine can do no wrong but have been known to vilify or even threaten reviewers. Other cultural art forms would find this very strange. Folk music is a serious and important cultural form and needs to become more adult and take criticism seriously too.
These are strong views so let me make it clear where I’m coming from. I have been a long time consumer, reading reviews of theatre, ballet, books, and music of all kinds. I’ve also been active on both sides of this fence. Leave aside that in my day job as an academic, being subject to almost constant challenge and review came with the territory – I’m focusing solely on the arts here. I confess to having done a lot of reviewing over nearly fifty years, mainly of theatre but also of folk and related music. I almost certainly don’t do it well enough, but I do try and bear in mind the purpose of this much-reviled trade. I take trouble to write as informatively, constructively, readably and honestly as I can. But I’ve also been on the receiving end both as an actor and, more often, a theatre director. So I do know what it feels like to discover that someone is less than impressed by something on which one has expended a lot of effort, passion and hopefully a bit of talent.
A good review shares with the reader the experience of attending a gig. What did it feel like to be there and how was the music received by the audience? It must also describe and offer an honest assessment of the concert’s strengths and weaknesses. Done well, this enables readers to make up their own minds, especially about something unfamiliar. Would I have enjoyed this? Did I miss something really worthwhile or am I glad I missed it? Will I go and hear this band next time? Shall I rush out and buy this CD? Criticism must always be constructive because it may help to improve performances. Do not misunderstand me. Performers should not feel in any way obliged to take notice of reviews. Some actors and musicians are famed for never reading them. Others do, and if they trust the reviewer, may consider making changes.
This question of trust is crucial. Reviewing is not an objective science. It is always partly subjective, dependent on the tastes, experience and knowledge of the reviewer. Really good reviewers strive for a degree of objectivity, and readers come to trust their opinions. Certainly some things are not a matter of taste or opinion though audiences (and indeed reviewers) have varying degrees of tolerance of inaccurate tuning, erratic intonation, sloppy ensemble playing, bad programming, poor presentation and the like. But to write a review is to express an opinion. The reviewer has an obligation to make that opinion clear, perceptive and honest. If it is expressed economically, elegantly and wittily that’s a real bonus.
The technical standards of performance in Scottish music, and the originality and imagination of the best performers are up there with the best anywhere. There have been great changes for the better over the last thirty years, and a lot of what went on in the 1960s and 1970s would not pass today, though of course the best of that generation would have given most of the younger musicians of today a run for their money – and some still do! But performance and musical ideas must be judged by the standards of their time. There are a great many good young musicians playing folk and acoustic music. That does not mean that three or four have only to get together to produce a great band or CD, or that they are all equally talented. In every generation of professional musicians there will be a very few who are truly remarkable by any standards, a fair number who are very good indeed, and a lot of people who are extremely competent, playing music which may give some audiences considerable pleasure but is not in the same class. That matters not a whit; music is for playing and listening to. If it gives pleasure to players or audience, so be it. But if they are incapable of distinguishing between the best, the excellent, the worthy, and alas sometimes the downright dreadful, reviewers are doing us all a disservice. Some may be capable of making these distinctions but seem unwilling to do so in print. They just shouldn’t be writing reviews.
This is absolutely not a plea for harsh criticism, still less for cruel reviews. Just every now and again a pithy one liner is justified, but it isn’t constructive, and when applied to a young artist is unforgivable. Young artists should not be given unjustifiably glowing reviews either, just because they are young, a common practice alas, but any review should be as constructive and generous as possible. It’s true, to take one famous example of the wittily, accurately but savagely rude reviewer, that way back some of Ken Tynan’s theatre reviews made the reader wince as well as laugh, but he was an extraordinary talent and recognised as such. Let’s leave that kind of thing to the occasional genius amongst us. However, page after page of glowing reviews of gigs and albums described as faultless do no-one any favours.
Are things really that bad? Let’s leave the tiny number of full-time professional critics to one side. I’m sure everyone has their own views on who is reliable and who isn’t, who is more and who less knowledgeable, who writes directly and effectively. I do want to lay two ghosts to rest, though. Every now and then someone, maybe on the Foot Stompin’ website’s forum, runs with something along the lines of either ‘reviewers get all these freebies and just have a great time; I should be so lucky’, or ‘reviewers daren’t write really critical reviews because they and their newspapers depend on getting free tickets and the supply would dry up’. Think about it. It can be tough being a professional reviewer, maybe going to five or six gigs a week, not necessarily of your own choosing, and having to deliver precisely the right length of well written copy the following morning or even the same night. And then sometimes being cursed for it. As for the second accusation, all I can say is that I’ve never heard of such a case. There have been isolated incidents in the theatre of certain critics being banned from preview nights but these bans have never lasted long and didn’t achieve their objective. The critics just went to the first night instead and in a rather mean state of mind. But how good or bad are most folk music reviews?
Apologies to the editor for taking a recent (not the latest) issue of The Living Tradition at random and doing a bit of analysis. There were twenty-seven reviews. A small number are thoroughly informative and very much to the point, written by someone who seems to know a lot about the music under discussion. Many can best be described as stock, and one or two don’t go far beyond listing track titles with added adjectives. One, of a concept album, suggests the subject matter may not appeal. All the rest range from very favourable to ecstatic. The praise lavished on these albums is rarely qualified, and gushing is the word that comes to mind. The following phrases all come from different reviews: ‘simply the best’; ‘can’t do adequate justice to this CD’; ‘CD to savour’; ‘really excellent CD’; ‘personal favourite album’; ‘to be savoured like the best wine; ‘inspiring, beautiful recording’; ‘what more can you ask for’; ‘one of this year’s favourites’. I’m not suggesting that these reviewers are not being honest, but unless the albums were vetted in advance and selected by the editor for their exceptionally high standards, it all seems somewhat over the top. It’s just possible that all these albums offer a lot to enjoy, but it’s highly unlikely that they are as perfect as the reviews suggest. What I want from reviews is to get some sense of whether I would enjoy the album, what its strengths are and whether its weaknesses, for surely nearly everything has some, would reduce my enjoyment. The six live reviews are equally uncritical, although admittedly they were all of pretty classy acts. That said, it’s improbable that all six performances were flawless and, because most of us know that, we read the review and wonder just what to believe.
This is a review of reviewing and as such it’s subjective. Even my account of reviews in The Living Tradition is pseudo objective at best. Maybe I have just become a grudging old curmudgeon, though in truth I don’t think I’ve changed a lot, so maybe I always was. But I have offered reasons for my views and there is a thread of argument here. Discerning readers of this magazine may have noticed that, although coming from a different direction, it has something in common with a recent article suggesting that young musicians would be better served if they took things a little more slowly, paid a bit more attention to learning their craft and strove for higher standards in their early recordings. Reviewers who lavish the highest praise on less than brilliant recordings or suggest that every gig was a delight from end to end and not to be missed, are not furthering the cause of this music about which we are all, I presume, passionate. Folk and acoustic music in Scotland has come of age. We should be demanding more than competence, more indeed than modest enjoyment from CDs and live gigs. Reviewers should be celebrating and shouting from the rooftops the virtues of the small number of really outstanding musicians and performances, rather than hyping everything they hear, much of which, almost by definition, must be everyday at best.
Frank Bechhofer
The Living Tradition: http://www.folkmusic.net
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