In Defense of Schlock Music:

[Bruce]

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/jody-ros ... music.html

[Luke JR68]

Thanks for posting Bruce, that was a rather enjoyable article

[Bruce]

Thanks for posting Bruce, that was a rather enjoyable article

Yes, I thought it was funny. My girlfriend found it in the magazine while waiting in the doctor's office today. I tweeted the writer to let him know that his #42 schlock song (Sweet Bitter Love - Aretha Franklin) was first done by her in 1964 on Columbia. He listed her 1985 version.

It just shows you that critics are often wrong initially and later on they change their tune to get in line with songs that prove to be great like "Don't Stop Believin'."

I'd still like to find some 1967 reviews of the first VU album.

[Nick]

I'd still like to find some 1967 reviews of the first VU album.

You should read the first reviews of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Critics HATED them.

[Bruce]

I'd still like to find some 1967 reviews of the first VU album.

You should read the first reviews of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Critics HATED them.

That's what I'm trying to tell you guys. Critics don't have any better taste than anybody else. They often get things wrong and then change their opinion when the act becomes popular. The critics absolutely hated Cream when they first started. These all time lists that they do are NOT so much about their own personal taste as much as they are about trying to somewhat objectively list the music that has proven to be significant over time.

[DaveC]

Listening to the schlockingly good Arrival by Abba this morning, I was compelled to move it to #2 on my 1976 list - in my case, that is above Stevie Wonder. I did feel ashamed, I feel slightly better now, but still embarrassed. Darn that 'good taste' demon sitting on my shoulder.

[Bruce]

Found the original Village Voice review of the Velvet Underground's debut album. The schmuck who wrote the review did not even know that "Hitch Hike" was done by Marvin Gaye before the Rolling Stones did a version

Richard Goldstein's review in full from April 13, 1967.

The Velvet Underground is not an easy group to like. Some of the cuts on their album are blatant copies: I refer specifically to the progression lifted from the Rolling Stones "Hitchhike" in "There She Goes Again." The lead vocal on other songs sound distressingly like early Dylan. Some of the mterial [sic] is dull and repetitive. And the last two cuts, "Black Angel's Death Song" and "European Son" are pretentious to the point of misery.

But the Velvets are an important group, and this album has some major work behind that erect banana on the cover. "I'm Waiting for the Man" is an impressively understated vignette about scoring in Harlem. "Venus in Furs" is fine electronic mood-manifesting. "Femme Fatale" is an unearthly ballad subtly fuzzed-up to drive you mad fiddling with bass and treble switches. Nico's voice is harrowing in its pallor, but chic, very chic.

Most important is the recorded version of "Heroin," which is more compressed, more restrained than live performances I have seen. But it's also a more realized work. The tempo fluctuates wildly and finally breaks into a series of utterly terrifying squeals, like the death rattle of a suffocating violin. "Heroin" is seven minutes of genuine 12-tone rock 'n' roll.

- Richard Goldstein

[Bruce]

Here's an interesting take on the VU:

http://starling.rinet.ru/music/temp/velvets.html

[Live in Phoenix]

Of the songs I recognize on the list, I like most every one. I'm fairly easy to please. (Several times I thought, "Oh......is that a schlock song?")

[Jirin]

I find this article kind of pretentious.

It finds one example of a song shunned and later accepted by critics and props it up as the standard. At best this article is a valid critique that critics often unfairly judge good songs for being too similar to he bad songs coming out around the same time. But the whole thing comes off as seeking validation for every song they like that critics don't, passive aggressively implying some conspiracy of people who disagree with to lie about what they actually like to seem more sophisticated.

For every critic underrating a song because it's too similar to other genuinely bad songs there are ten thousand people unwilling to listen to anything that doesn't sound identical to the things all their friends like. Critics don't have better taste than anyone else, but I'd take the opinion of a person who listens to everything and likes a little bit of everything over a person who only listens to what their friends are listening to. That includes the folks at this site and also includes critics.

[Bruce]

I find this article kind of pretentious.

It finds one example of a song shunned and later accepted by critics and props it up as the standard. At best this article is a valid critique that critics often unfairly judge good songs for being too similar to he bad songs coming out around the same time. But the whole thing comes off as seeking validation for every song they like that critics don't, passive aggressively implying some conspiracy of people who disagree with to lie about what they actually like to seem more sophisticated.

For every critic underrating a song because it's too similar to other genuinely bad songs there are ten thousand people unwilling to listen to anything that doesn't sound identical to the things all their friends like. Critics don't have better taste than anyone else, but I'd take the opinion of a person who listens to everything and likes a little bit of everything over a person who only listens to what their friends are listening to. That includes the folks at this site and also includes critics.

The article was written by a pretty big time music critic.

[Jirin]

Let me rephrase my criticism of the article then, I believe the article is written on false premises and faulty logic. The critic states that Don't Stop Believin was savaged by critics when it came out, and now it's considered a pop standard. This song happens to be a very melodramatic song. The critic then reasons from this that all melodramatic songs hated by critics are actually great songs which critics only say they don't like because it wouldn't be cool. This is the leap of logic that I find ridiculous. Of course there are going to be songs that critics hate when they come out then later are considered great, that's the nature of taste. It does not however only apply to 'Uncool' songs. The Beatles were trashed by the critics at the beginning. It's just like 'The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions', it's just as hard to get a culture to warm up to a new type of music as it is to convince people the world is round. It is not at all specific to 'Uncool' music.

And many of the songs on her 'Schlock canon' actually are terrible. I Believe I Can Fly tormented me for years when I worked a job where I spent most of my work time at CVSes and grocery stores being subjected to schlock radio 24/7. Among these schlocky songs there were great ones like Suspicious Minds, and there were torturous awful ones like all Michael Buble and John Mayer songs.

Don't Stop Believin is a good song, that was of a style not quite popular yet when it came out, which happens to fit the writer's definition of 'Schlock'. And modern 'Schlock' songs that are actually good have a much easier time finding critical acceptance.

[DaveC]

it's just as hard to get a culture to warm up to a new type of music as it is to convince people the world is round.

Off topic... but while Kuhn used the Copernican revolution as an example, I doubt that he ever referred to flat-earth believers. Such beliefs were much less common and much further back in antiquity than is commonly thought.