All Shook Down
Wanted to share a piece of hate mail with all of you. This stems from AP's less-than-posi review of a disc by hair-farming outfit Tokio Hotel. I can't even call out the person who wrote it, because the hermaphrodite didn't sign it. I left it the way we received it to prove to our President how some children are, in fact, left behind. Anyway:
Okay, listen, I'm far too pissed off to be writing this "professionally", but then again, you don't deserve that kind of respect.
I don't know who the fuck y'all think you are, but I don't really see any of you busting your ass to learn another language entirely to try and expand your (non existant) fanbase for your (non existant) band, and since you have no idea how hard that is, your extreme ignorance and bias towards Tokio Hotel is dismissed.
However, for the SECOND TIME (the first being your review for Scream), you've managed to infuriate half the world with your overly critical opinion of a band who's worth a hell of a lot more than all of you. You're losing subscribers. No one wants to hear that their favourite band, who've spent half their lives working towards making a name for themselves in North America, is complete shit. You guys are so fuckdamn lucky that this isn't available in Europe, where their fans are twice as fucking insane about Tokio Hotel as I am and therefore eighty thousand times more likely to fly to Cleveland, kick your door down and give you an opinion like this to your faces.
It seems to me, and everyone else in their, oh, WORLDWIDE FUCKING FAN BASE, that all you've managed to do was show how completely immature you fuckwads are when it comes to speaking about something/someone you don't particularly like. Sure, I hate a lot of bands and artists. If I had the power to critique them to the extent you guys do, I still wouldn't have gone as far.
Whether any of this directly concerns you or not, I expect you to take it up with whoever it does concern.
Now I can go off on a number of different tangents about this letter-writer, some that involve Shania Twain (who made plenty of sacrifices in her twenties in order to raise her brothers after their parents died tragically, although I don't know if learning a new language was one of them); how the mob mentality of some band's fanbases borders on puppy fascism (like "puppy love," but you know, more impenetrable); and whether irate transcontinental Tok' fans would like to come to the AP office and learn about Ohio's conceal and carry law firsthand. Instead, I'll just shrug and hit "delete."
But this has got me wondering why music fans read magazines in the first place. Do readers really want to hear an opinion that might differ from their own, or do they merely want their culture publicly reaffirmed? We live in a world of chatrooms, fan sites, message boards and invitations from Amazon to write our own reviews. The internet allows us to forward a personal agenda so easily, so why do people carp about a bad review like it was responsible for a rape or a murder?
I'm thinking that most of you read music magazines for the same reasons I do: To learn about new bands and perhaps discs you didn't know existed (Damn, that Pogues box set is schweet). In addition, I read bad reviews because if the person doing the hating has some sort of bias toward the kind of stuff I dig (yet has a collection of 56 Coldplay t-shirts), I'm gonna learn about something cool in a reverse-osmosis kind of way. There have been points in AP's history where we weren't able to review an album in time to make a publication date. Yet despite a record being released months after the fact (where listeners have either bought it or pinched it from the net), we'd still get mail telling us we suck because a select group of readers have been waiting for that review for two months. Dude! Girlfennn! You already know what it sounds like! Isn't your mind made up, awreddy?
So let me warn you right now: There will be no review of the new All-American Rejects disc in the pages of AP. No, Tyson didn't bed my wife and Nick didn't relieve himself in my office after some bad Mexican food. The label simply can't get us the music in time to make our print schedule. (It'll probably end up on altpress.com.) But by the time we can review it in the mag, will you be over it that fast? Or if the review doesn't parallel your mindset, am I going to get a beatdown similar to one I'd receive in a Tokio Hotel moshpit?
And yes, I did make myself laugh typing the phrase "Tokio Hotel moshpit."
Okay, listen, I'm far too pissed off to be writing this "professionally", but then again, you don't deserve that kind of respect.
I don't know who the fuck y'all think you are, but I don't really see any of you busting your ass to learn another language entirely to try and expand your (non existant) fanbase for your (non existant) band, and since you have no idea how hard that is, your extreme ignorance and bias towards Tokio Hotel is dismissed.
However, for the SECOND TIME (the first being your review for Scream), you've managed to infuriate half the world with your overly critical opinion of a band who's worth a hell of a lot more than all of you. You're losing subscribers. No one wants to hear that their favourite band, who've spent half their lives working towards making a name for themselves in North America, is complete shit. You guys are so fuckdamn lucky that this isn't available in Europe, where their fans are twice as fucking insane about Tokio Hotel as I am and therefore eighty thousand times more likely to fly to Cleveland, kick your door down and give you an opinion like this to your faces.
It seems to me, and everyone else in their, oh, WORLDWIDE FUCKING FAN BASE, that all you've managed to do was show how completely immature you fuckwads are when it comes to speaking about something/someone you don't particularly like. Sure, I hate a lot of bands and artists. If I had the power to critique them to the extent you guys do, I still wouldn't have gone as far.
Whether any of this directly concerns you or not, I expect you to take it up with whoever it does concern.
Now I can go off on a number of different tangents about this letter-writer, some that involve Shania Twain (who made plenty of sacrifices in her twenties in order to raise her brothers after their parents died tragically, although I don't know if learning a new language was one of them); how the mob mentality of some band's fanbases borders on puppy fascism (like "puppy love," but you know, more impenetrable); and whether irate transcontinental Tok' fans would like to come to the AP office and learn about Ohio's conceal and carry law firsthand. Instead, I'll just shrug and hit "delete."
But this has got me wondering why music fans read magazines in the first place. Do readers really want to hear an opinion that might differ from their own, or do they merely want their culture publicly reaffirmed? We live in a world of chatrooms, fan sites, message boards and invitations from Amazon to write our own reviews. The internet allows us to forward a personal agenda so easily, so why do people carp about a bad review like it was responsible for a rape or a murder?
I'm thinking that most of you read music magazines for the same reasons I do: To learn about new bands and perhaps discs you didn't know existed (Damn, that Pogues box set is schweet). In addition, I read bad reviews because if the person doing the hating has some sort of bias toward the kind of stuff I dig (yet has a collection of 56 Coldplay t-shirts), I'm gonna learn about something cool in a reverse-osmosis kind of way. There have been points in AP's history where we weren't able to review an album in time to make a publication date. Yet despite a record being released months after the fact (where listeners have either bought it or pinched it from the net), we'd still get mail telling us we suck because a select group of readers have been waiting for that review for two months. Dude! Girlfennn! You already know what it sounds like! Isn't your mind made up, awreddy?
So let me warn you right now: There will be no review of the new All-American Rejects disc in the pages of AP. No, Tyson didn't bed my wife and Nick didn't relieve himself in my office after some bad Mexican food. The label simply can't get us the music in time to make our print schedule. (It'll probably end up on altpress.com.) But by the time we can review it in the mag, will you be over it that fast? Or if the review doesn't parallel your mindset, am I going to get a beatdown similar to one I'd receive in a Tokio Hotel moshpit?
And yes, I did make myself laugh typing the phrase "Tokio Hotel moshpit."
posted by Jason Pettigrew at
12:38 PM
5 Comments:
I read an album review in order to gain a different perspective of an artist or album. Whether it differs greatly from mine, or very little at all, It's important that I can derive something from the article that will change/enhance my prespective.
But its when a review takes "shots, hits, jabs" at an artist, and never bothers to really point out what their problem with the album is. For example, the review for Framing Hanley's album lacked anything even remotely close to being a review. It went something along the lines of " Modern Rock for Radio Stations With Metallica Barbecues." This does nothing to describe the sound of the album, the depth of the lyrics, or the paticular reason this band should be lumped in with the likes of Three Days Grace, Daughtry, Nickelback, etc. That kind of review lacks any constructive criticism, and just leaves me feeling empty.
So, I can deal with my favorite band getting a low score, thats fine. Just as long as the review makes sure to say something of value. Otherwise I get the feeling its an outright dislike for the band, and that no actual time was spent listening and reviewing.
(Ps.Cant wait to listen to the newest ap show tommorow. You guys never dissappoint, keep up the good work.)
So what, because a band worked hard you have to give them a good review?
Lots of crappy bands have worked hard, but that doesn't make them less crappy.
I read music magazines to find new artists also. I read the reviews of my favorite bands and if the review is good it only encourages me more to buy the album. If the review is bad, I'll consider what the reviewer said but might see for myself. Getting mad at someone for doing their job is rediculous. Telling someone how to write a review and giving them standards creates bias' it doesn't get rid of them. If you don't want to know the truth of how much Tokio Hotel sucks don't read the review. It's simple.
Now I have to listen to Tokio Hotel to see if they really are as bad as you guys said. I honestly hadn't even heard of them until I read AP's review of "Scream", and I've wanted to listen to them ever since. Not because I'm all like "well if AP hates it then it must be awesome" but because I have a masochistic personality and I take pleasure from listening to music that's painfully bad. Actually that's not true either. I just wanted to hear what an album that got half a star sounds like.
This just in from DW-World.de: "Angsty German teen pop band Tokio Hotel won the best newcomer award at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday Sep. 7 for their post-apocalyptic style music video for the song "Ready, Set, Go!"
What, the Scorpions weren't nominated for anything this year?
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