Kieron Gillen's workblog

 
             

   
 
 

11/29/2003

 
Comic Writers, writing columns.

There is an answer to that question, though. The first priority of a review is entertainment. The first priority of criticism is illumination. Which isn't to say criticism can't be entertaining – entertainment is in the eye of the beholder – or reviews can't be illuminating. I'm not suggesting the two disciplines never overlap; they overlap all the time. I'm not suggesting that "reviewers" are second class citizens, or "critics" exist on some elevated intellectual plane. It's just a simple fact: reviews and criticism aren't the same beast, even though we often like to pretend they are.

Steven Grant making some important distinctions that people tend to forget.

"New spectator sport: the sheer, horrible desperation of the music business. As American labels float a call for artists to put fewer songs on a CD (which, as someone pointed out to me, is an excellent way to reduce royalty payments to artists), the British business is now anointing a new Next Big Thing every single week. This week it's Razorlight, a bunch of pale insipidities who would sound like the worst Strokes song you ever heard, if the Strokes had forgotten what little they learned about making a song from their rich daddies' record collections. "Rip It Up" is an embarrassing two-minute lurch from pillar to post, four bladdered pub kids who sound like they forgot what the song was halfway through. Scrubbed clean to within an inch of its life by Steve Lillywhite, it's safe guitar music for the Pop Idol generation. Have a fucking ringtone."

Warren Ellis kicking against the pricks. And name-checking me, which is always a good thing, y'all.


 

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