THE ROCK REVIEWERS
&
U.S. Maple
The world of the rock writer is a conservative one where change and inconsistency are bad, as is being difficult to understand, or rather failing to be easy to understand. Breaking out of the confines of form is bad, or even "hostile." A group must worry whether its music will be seen as genuine or not, or sincere or not, since the rock reviewer often concerns himself with "revealing" these things. It is worry in vain however because the value of these, and other, aspects as positive or negative varies from one reviewer to the next.
Thus the rock reviewer creates a paradox -- applying rigid systems of thought (including the arbitrary qualitative assessments just mentioned) to evaluate a type of music much of which is constantly changing or evolving, and specifically operating outside approved systems and the "proper" way of doing things.
We will examine here some of the work of a few rock reviewers. The record in question is "Purple On Time" by the band US Maple.
There are some foreseeable defenses to comment on. One could say that it's possible some individuals were writing from the press releases they'd received, but we find this not an excuse and this possibility will not be investigated here. It could be said too that the high volume of music products being cranked out requires media outlets to practically pull people off the street to write about this stuff, but we don't accept this excuse either. We also realize there is a distinction to be made between a reviewer and a critic and what constitutes each, but that too is an argument for elsewhere.
All reviews were culled from the Internet and some being from weeklies have been in print in as well, though no special privilege was given to print; the most understanding review was a partial interview found in Cincinnati's Citybeat, the most inept in The San Francisco Weekly, and the most completely off in the way only a rock reviewer can be was from the apparently respected Pitchforkmedia.com.
Another charge might be made, that picking on rock reviewers is like taunting the kids who are stepping off the special little yellow school bus. It is easy, true, but the rock reviewers have put their writing out there for the whole world, have put themselves forward as some kinds of authority, and it's to that authority we respond.
The rock reviewers are the following:
Charlie Wilmoth (Dusted Magazine)
Chris Dahlen (Pitchforkmedia.com)
Todd Lamb (San Francisco Weekly)
Brian Baker (Citybeat: Cincinnati's news & entertainment weekly)
D. Shawn Bosler (The Village Voice)
Lee Chung Horn (Betamusic.com)The band's music is often described as some kind of "deconstruction." In response to that, Charlie Wilmoth was the sole reviewer here to make this observation: "...the band's music...can't be viewed as just a deconstruction, but rather a construction in its own right." And in the end he even finishes on an indecisive note, saying the band's music is "puzzling" and "full of contradictions". But, good ending aside, in the bulk of the review there are some problems starting with Wilmoth's response to singer Al Johnson's comments about the band.
"We then set out to devise a working method for reorganizing the [sic] Rock & Roll, keeping what we feel are its most important core elements." Wait -- so do rock's "most important core elements" include US Maple-style stuttering non-grooves, carpal-tunneled guitar chords and jumbled, pathetic come-ons? Sorry, Al, that's not even close!
The misunderstanding of usage -- Wilmoth inserting the "sic" -- is ironic, hinting as it does that the band member is more literate than the rock writer, but the main problem here is the writer asking the musician to do his job for him, to describe in words what is going on in the music. Unless writing their own press releases there's no reason for a band to need to "explain" themselves, though many musicians may be good at that -- and Brian Baker's review/interview does make good use of allowing US Maple to explain things in their own words. Even if a group can express in words what they're doing, why expect them to do it in an immediate and concise way just like the rock reviewer can, or at least is supposed to.
Wilmoth says, "The lyrics are still streams of confused non-sequiturs (example: "Make your teeth sit down")."
There is this bad idea that lyrics should "make sense", should be easy to grasp, non-abstract. Maybe all lyrics should tell a story or describe things in a way that the average person can quickly understand what they're about. Maybe a song like Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock n Roll" should be the standard against which lyrics are judged.
Todd Lamb also seems ignorant of where to start when it comes to the band's approach. Comparing it to punk rock's amateurism, he says, "Go ahead, pick up a guitar, twang around, and cough into the mike. Voila! You can be as successful as US Maple." And he too scratches his head about the record's worth: "Is it a piece of shit? Well, it's hard to say". At least there's no pretending to competence.
More interesting is how his review completely counters some of the others. Some assessments of the record's opening track "My L'il Shocker":
Lamb: "'My L'il Shocker,' is a relatively cohesive song that builds and then releases into a raspy, incomprehensible, psychotically cool-sounding series of grunts."
Chris Dahlen: "'My L'il Shocker' kicks off with a melody. And there's a steady guitar line. And the drums play a beat! And then Al Johnson's singing verses!! What?! You're hearing it right: US Maple are actually rocking."
Lee Chung Horn: "Opening track 'My L'il Shocker' lives up to its moniker not because it spits in the face of momentum or melody but because there's a tune, and a discernible drum line, and - verses!"
Aside from Lamb, the consensus is that this record is the band's "most normal":
Lamb: "The sporadic instrumentation is far more unpredictable than on earlier albums like 1995's noisy classic Long Hair in Three Stages."
Dahlen: "US Maple's fifth disc is indeed their most conventional since their first...it's ridiculously straightforward."
Lamb: "The rest of the pieces on Purple On Time are far too avant-garde to be talked about as rock songs..."
Horn: "...Purple on Time is the Maple's most accessible record."
D. Shawn Bosler: "US Maple seem comfortable settling into normalcy..."
A group that doesn't stick within the confines of form can't expect a nice welcome from the critics. Horn cannot warm up to the band, with everything they've put out being, "wilful and unfriendly to a fault". Oddly then, the band's being more melodic or straightforward this time around, "...is why Purple on Time is such a violent, hostile slap." There is of course ambivalence over change, even though it is in a more melodic, critic-friendly direction: "I have no answers why the band has decided to change its tune in this stage of its career," he writes. Dahlen too can comment on their work as "..so many years of non-statements and hostility."
The ability of the rock reviewer to detect sincerity or the lack of it is nearly magical. Horn says that Johnson is now singing "...in a manner that goes beyond meaningfulness and approaches sincerity." And in his voice, "you sense a suspicious, new vulnerability." Bosler is also concerned with sincerity, saying Johnson's singing now "shows flickers of warmth," and the "nonsense lyrics...sound earnest," which leads the reviewer to conclude "stylings have matured."
Whether from laziness or some other reason it's hard to tell, but category misfilings abound to fool the unwary. Bosler places Captain Beefheart in the "history of deconstructive rock," [the band wasn't deconstructive rock], and Horn ends his review with "Punks! Inverted punks!", when US Maple has nothing to do with punk music. Adherence to the punk category is so strong with some critics that just about anything can be thrown in there [The formula usually goes -- if it is something the reviewer likes, then it is named punk or somehow tied to punk].
Setting two reviews beside one another can be instructive. For this album US Maple was working with a new drummer -- the person who had drummed for them from the beginning had quit. There's no way something like that could not affect a band, especially a band like this. Brian Baker, in a not-bad piece done for Cincinnati's Citybeat, very simply conveys this: "The drummer's departure was a serious blow to the intricately woven sound, as his jazz-flared chops were US Maple's irregular heartbeat." Compare this to what's said by Chris Dahlen in his review for pitchforkmedia.com:
[Referring to how this album sounds] It's hard to guess why the band made this change. You could point to new drummer Adam Vida, who's here on loan from run-of-the-mill alt-country act Central Falls -- he plays the way you'd want, say, some dude in Wilco to play, a solid timekeeper that can handle occasional disruptions, awkward silences, and abrupt returns -- but he could just as easily have come on board after the decision to switch things up...was made.
A little hostility aside -- referring to a drummer as "that" -- there are several things here that are typical rock reviewer. We get change is bad, whether it was in connection to the new drummer's appearance/contribution or not. There is failure to understand how replacing a band member, especially a drummer, can alter a band's sound, as well as a failure to understand that a musician may have other interests playing-wise aside from those reflected in his or her current gig (which may be something the person is only minimally interested in). Dahlen apparently thinks the drummer's former band was bad and therefore anyone coming from that group must not be good. If Adam Vida is however a crappy drummer then Baker's account of his audition for US Maple must be some kind of fiction: "he stretched the pair of songs he was asked to learn into seven perfectly rendered gems. He was hired on the spot."
Dahlen, not surprisingly, also has the ability to divine sincerity: "The most obvious difference is a newfound sincerity, which you can hear in Johnson's singing. He remains indecipherable...but there's more sentiment leaking out around the edges: sometimes...he also sounds vulnerable..." Dahlen lays it on like an empath, but he's not done: "I swear Johnson's drawl sounds heartfelt, even when he's gibbering. This is a US. Maple that's clearly changed their emphasis -- using their damaged syntax to sound honest, sad, and vaguely unreliable..."
Also among Dahlen's powers is the ability to tell the real from the fake with certainty: "There's no question that this is their most genuine and (let's get it out of the way) 'accessible' record to date..." It may be news to the band members that their previous work -- four albums, years of making music -- was not genuine and that now that they've finally produced something genuine, it is not very good. Notable here too is the "let's get it out of the way" phrase, a common rock reviewer qualifier to remind the audience the reviewer is smart and of course aware he's using a cliché with "accessible" but that he's gonna use it anyway, etc..
Dahlen begins the review with requisite rock reviewer observation, relating that the band is inconsistent, change of course being bad -- "I used to know what to expect from US Maple..." and manages to throw in a nonsensical phrase too within that first sentence -- "...they'd become ironically predictable." If a reviewer is uncertain he can always throw in terms like "irony" to anchor himself for the reader and appear to know what he's talking about; don't let that upper hand slip. But oddly -- or not, in the topsy-turvy rock writer world -- that paragraph ends with a cliché: "...grind to a halt."
And grind to a halt most music lovers will after reading a few sentences of the typical rock reviewer. In the reviews above there was some relief in the interview done by Baker, who mostly turns things over to U.S. Maple to speak.
Though Baker relies maybe too much on letting the band tell it all in their own words, this method does at least yield a most logical quote about the band, from Johnson. He says of the music, "It's not deconstruction."
Unfortunately most rock criticism is.
A last resort which should be the first, Dept.
To judge for yourself...
US MAPLE RECORDS TO DATE:
Purple on Time - 2003
Acre Thrills - 2001
Talker - 1999
Sang Phat Editor - 1997
Long Hair in Three Stages - 1995
Contents copyright 2005 Rat Blood Soup
