A Statement of Purpose

"...if the aesthetics and criticism of music are ever to move out of the realm of whim, fancy, and prejudice, and if the analysis of music is ever to go beyond description which employs a special jargon, then some account of the meaning, content and communication of music more adequate than at present available must be given."
--Leonard Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music, p. viii.

Yeah, another music blog. But I want to try to approach it in a slightly different way.

The main reason is that, nearly sixty years after the quote above was published, I don't feel like I have the "more adequate" account Meyer is referring to. I love music, and I listen to a lot of it, and I think I have the ability to make credible judgments of whether a certain piece of music is good or bad or somewhere in between. But I don't feel like I can articulate why I make the judgments I do as effectively as I want.

Obviously, there's plenty of music criticism that's designed to make those judgments. And a lot of it does a good job, in a particular way. After nearly 15 years of being a serious music listener, I'm very confident that reviews can give me an understanding of how, in general, a song or album sounds, how it compares to other music I'm familiar with, how it compares to the artist's other work. I've also read enough from certain reviewers or websites to know that when they rate an album as good, bad, or somewhere in between, there's a good chance I'll agree with them.

I find those reviews valuable. I first learned of the vast majority of the artists I like from reviews, and I don't know how easily I would have found out about them otherwise. Considering how much music I buy, reviews also deserve a lot of credit for helping me spend efficiently. (Those of you who know what a cheapskate I am know how much that means to me.) And if the writing I do here simply does the same for a few other readers, that alone will make it worth the time I've put in.

Still, even when I read the good reviews, I feel like there's something more that can be said. Many reviews have good musical description, and many have grades or ratings I consider reliable, but the language I have to connect the two isn't quite there.

When addressing exactly why an album deserves four stars rather than three and a half, or why an artist stands out within a familiar genre, the best tools that seem available to me (and to the reviewers I read) include descriptions of how the music feels, comparisons to other albums, or simple proclamations of an album's quality. Each of these tools has their value, because each of them often makes intuitive sense. I genuinely think that the Tallest Man on Earth "is so natural a songwriter that his tracks feel predetermined," that Wolf Parade songs have a special, "fervent intensity" I don't hear in similar bands, that Max Tundra songs are so "sui generis" to sound like nothing else I've heard, and that that's why I think each creates good, even great music. And I'm glad reviews with those statements existed to lead me to seek out those artists, and to help articulate and affirm what I like about them.

But I'm not sure I really know what any of those statements mean, or how to explain why each is true. At least I can't without falling back on basic descriptions or attempts at creative adjectives or general praise, and hoping we're on the same intuitive wavelength. And if we're not, then I may have lost an opportunity to explain things in a way that helps someone find a different way to connect to the same music, or to find a language that allows us to constructively disagree about music without devolving into the sniping and snark I see even in relatively friendly music discussions.

I'd like to see if I can do more: to listen to music more closely and see if I can develop a way of talking about it that makes sense even to someone who doesn't share my taste, and that better defines why I may like something you don't or vice versa. This may involve approaching my writing in a different way than the structure of a traditional album or track review; perhaps some broader posts trying to unpack my general standards for good music, or some focused posts trying to hone in on some specific, concrete characteristics that lead me to endorse more general statements such as the linked ones above. It may involve analyzing other reviews along with writing my own, especially those that make perfect intuitive sense to me, or make no intuitive sense at all. Or maybe I'll come up with other approaches as I'm just trying to explain what I want to articulate.

This is an experiment, to be sure. My attempts may not communicate any better than the existing reviews, or they may turn out unbearably dry and dull to read, or they may just lead me to appreciate why traditional reviews are written as they are. But I'd like to put my taste to the test and see if I can find a more precise and more constructive way to explain my musical opinions.