The Voice's Jerky "Pazz and Jop" Poll Proves That Rock Critics Are Just Failed Writers

If you happen to be one of the 590 or so rock critics who voted in the Voice's "27th or 28th" annual "Pazz and Jop" poll, I would like to take a moment to stress what a jerk you are. You are just about as definitively jerky as a jerk can be. In the guise of a love of music, you've taken the most beautifully nebulous form of human expression, squeezed it through an asinine points-scoring system specially cooked up for this pointless perennial, and forced it into this baffling, heinous chart system. As if the cold reality of the sales-based Billboard charts weren't harsh enough, some insecurity drives you to think your opinions worthless unless musical quality can be quantified with a chart, too. What the fuck? This is incredibly offensive to me. It is wholly, grossly, patently unmusical.

If you happen to be a talented young person who loves music and knows a lot about it, you may at some point be offered a steady gig writing record reviews. Which is great, right? Money? Free CDs? Being able to write and get your words out to the world every week? It's a slippery slope, my friend. You may have read Robert Christgau's essay at the top of the Pazz and Jop section, in which he beamingly fawns over the "Year of the Rock Critic." This assessment is based on two movies: High Fidelity, which is basically an ode to the inherent geekiness of mentally organizing music in lists, and Almost Famous, which is the tale of Cameron Crowe's early years as a roving Rolling Stone correspondent. A great movie. And an inspiring story. What's inspiring about it is that young Cameron learned a lot out there, then grew up to make really wonderful movies about people, and feelings, and life. Rather than dedicating his life to documenting what he thinks about the records he hears. The latter is what Robert Christgau did with his life.

Now, I think Robert Christgau is a really good writer. As a musician who's actually been reviewed by him, I've found him to be pretty smart and insightful, even if he hasn't always loved the music I've made. But let's face facts here?what Robert Christgau does is basically write about his mail. He gets CDs in the mail and he tells us what he thinks about them. If you are a young, talented person who has something to offer the world, I'm sure that a gig as a rock writer can be great fun for a little while, but please, please, eventually go out into the world and write about real stuff. Don't channel your gifts into a life spent writing about your mail.

Looking at that list of 590 or so names, I really should feel bad for these people. Or, better, I should wonder what tiny percentage of them are young writers on their way to writing about real stuff, and be glad that they're in there somewhere. But I'm just angry. Working in the music business, I can't help but occasionally feel like mine is the lowest station of the entertainment hierarchy. After all, sportswriters know about the business of the sports world, and entertainment journalists (if not necessarily movie reviewers) are pretty well-versed in the technical and business sides of the fields they cover. This makes for interesting reading. But in music?which at this moment in history is grappling with incredibly interesting and complex issues of songwriting, sampling, copyright and more?we have a bunch of would-be poets going through the motions for a check. There are a couple of sources of informed reporting?Rolling Stone is generally fair and sometimes excellent, MTV news is consistently really good?but for the most part, all music's got is this gaggle of half-assed interpretive dancers.

Their ignorance is so fucking annoying to me. In Pazz and Jop, Chris Norris condemns Dr. Dre for using "high-powered lawyers to quash a democratic movement." He means Napster, which, curiously for a democratic movement, has retained a number of high-powered lawyers, including David Boies, of Microsoft and Gore fame, and Allen Grubman, who is the epitome of the old-school, super-high-powered, music-industry lawyer. Also on the subject of Napster, Alec Foege suggests we continue to stick it to The Man and his record companies by downloading the music of "a band or artist you've never heard before" but insists we "buy a t-shirt," thus amply compensating the band for their hard work. This is clearly the suggestion of a guy who doesn't know how fucked a band can be if they print too many t-shirts for a tour, or too little, and exactly how much room boxes of shirts take up in a van, how one often has to get somebody to FedEx boxes of shirts to motels out on the road so they can have room for amps and band members in said van, and how often this results in chasing a lost FedEx via 800 number from motel to motel across the country. What a nightmare if that's your only source of income!

Jane Dark says that Radiohead's first two records were "genre fare which were pretty successful in [their] homeland and stiffed elsewhere." Maybe Jane doesn't know Radiohead are English?their first record, Pablo Honey, went platinum over here. So did the second, The Bends. Next time, go to RIAA.com, click on Gold and Platinum Database Search, Jane bay-bee.

I really should try harder to feel bad for these guys. The musicians they write about?who despise them, having generally had their hearts trounced by one or two of these guys because they didn't happen to dig what they do, and the critic had to file his copy and get his check?always say that they're failed musicians. Which isn't precisely true. Many of them are, but even more so, they're failed writers. Many truly have a gift, and most of them have used this gift to engage a world no larger than the walk to the mailbox, then to the stereo, then back to the laptop. It's amazing to me that a guy like, for instance, Rob Sheffield, who can come up with a really funny line, primarily uses his talent to write record reviews. Maybe he pulls down a nice check. Maybe if he's really lucky he can get a sideline as one of those VH1 on-camera pundits. It still seems sad to me.

The critic's frustrated mind-set is summed up by Chris Norris, in what he appears to think is the most damning charge against Dr. Dre. "He doesn't seem emotionally involved in anything he does," says Norris, and quotes Dre saying, "I really don't take music that seriously." Listening to his tracks, it's obvious that in the mixing process Dre is quite deeply involved?I don't know the guy, but I bet it really makes him feel alive. Chris Norris, on the other hand, has just barely missed a really important and instructive lesson about how to just be happy and live your life. And that is truly a pity.