The good and the bad

Good: Closer -The lights go on for The xx by Sasha Frere-Jones
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2010/01/25/100125crmu_music_frerejones?currentPage=1

The New Yorker’s review of The xx’s live show in a small Lower East Side venue and their self-titled debut album hit the nail on the head. It was indeed spot on. The review was a success as Frere-Jones expressed his dissatisfaction in their live show and used it to transition into a convincing review of their January 2010 album.

Starting with the bands lackluster and awkward live show, Frere-Jones set the scene as a member of the crowd, standing before the London-based group as they avoided eye contact with anyone in the venue. And although the writer was disappointed, he didn’t give up on them as a band. Instead he consciously listened to the album again and used his experience as a way to better understand them and why they aren’t as successful as a live group. “The xx (the album)”, though incredibly intimate, is as simplistic as it could be. It’s sensual and incredibly personal and like the writer said the music is meant to be whispered into someone’s ear in the dark, not exploited on a stage in front of hundreds. Frere-Jones used good details and examples of not only lyrics, but also sound riffs and emotions of the tracks on the album.

The review was a holistic approach and it was successful because he used a scene-setting opener, in which you thought it was going to be a bad review and turned it into a clear, valid point about not only this album and live shows, but from other bands in general.


Bad: Pitchfork Sia “We are born” by Liz Colville
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14296-we-are-born/

Colville’s review of Sia’s latest album didn’t work for a couple of reasons. The most obvious one is that Colville spent a majority of the review giving readers background information on the artist. Sia has been around for almost a decade, if not more. There is no point in wasting that much time giving the history of her music career. It could have been summed up in two brief sentences instead of two very long paragraphs.

Also, the review really didn’t tell readers much about the actual album. She gave some comparisons to songs sounding like ones off of a previous album. However, given the amount of space she used divulging in background information, one could assume the reader wouldn’t know what a song off of her old album sounded like. At one point in the review Colville said, “…the melodies are boring.” That is one of the most vague things you can say in a review. It is telling the audience nothing about the actual melodies or why they are even boring. There are no details about any of the tracks. There is no sense of what the writer was actually feeling when she listened to this album.

She then closes out the review by saying the sounds on the album don’t reach the electronic pop level of the big time names like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Ke$ha. I’m not quite sure why these artist would fall into a category with the music of Sia. For those who have seen her live and listened to her for a few years, they wouldn’t get the sense she was trying to be on a level with them either.