Christopher Nosnibor's Blog

Just Step Sideways: The Benefits of Hindsight and How Reviews and the Music Industry Get it so Wrong

posted January 31, 2010, 10:21 am | Log In To Post Comments | view comments (3)
Tags: Joy Division, Duran Duran, Finlay Quaye, Corrine Bailey Rae, A-Ha, Rio, Hunting High and Low, Reviews, classic albums, fashion, trend, zeitgeist

How many times have you bought an album after several friends have excitedly recommended it to you? Or because you've read a legion of rave reviews... only to be massively disappointed on finally hearing this set that's been so hyped? Sometimes, you’ll suspect that it’s because nothing could actually live up to the level of expectation that's been built around it. Others, you will quite likely simply conclude that the world has gone mad, and that the CD (or record, if you're that bit older, as I am becoming) is without doubt, complete and utter crap, and wholly without redeeming points. The chances are that it’s happened to you, and that it’s by no means been a one-off.

Similarly, have there been occasions in your life when you've bought and album, played it to death for weeks and even months on end, got to know the songs backwards and forwards, inside and out and wondered how you ever lived without this, the most amazing album ever recorded, only to at some point move on, forget about it, and return to it some years later only to be appalled by how shamefully bad it is? If the answer is yes, don't worry, you're perfectly normal.

People change, for starters. Their tastes evolve. Music is rather like food (indeed, it is the food of love): few ten year olds like blue cheese, just as few ten year olds dig The Fall. But sometimes... well, there’s simply no excuse, and the reasons why a record appealed at a certain point in one’s life are simply inexplicable.

I absolutely believe that reviewers are as much (ir)responsible for the success of mediocre, even poor albums as record labels. And once there’s a tide of hype generated by endless airplay and a slew of reviews that insist that this band are the next big thing, it becomes hard to ignore. And it's often hard to avoid the latest trends. When you're younger, if you're not hip to the now, you’re a square and ridiculed without mercy by your peers. When you're older, if you're not down with the kids, you're officially on your way to middle age and a slow, sad death as an old bastard: your cool years are behind you.

But maybe, just maybe, the way these things are geared is all wrong. There are as many great albums that have been entirely overlooked, and a large number that have been (re)discovered only years after he fact. The God Machine, for example, weren’t exactly successful in their time, in the early 90s when grunge and Britpop were all the rage. I remember picking up both of their albums for a couple of quid apiece in the bargain boxes or dealers at record fairs. Now they're going for at least thirty on eBay. And as neo-prog is emerging, and bands like Oceansize and Isis are building significant followings, the God Machine are finally beginning to garner recognition.

As it is, labels release records (ok, CDs and downloads) and send out promo copies to reviewers and radio stations. And it’s a difficult thing to time: too early, and everyone’s sick of it a month before release date. Too late, and no-one knows it’s even being released. And buzz is all-important. Week of release sales and first-week, mid-week chart figures are all important. It’s all about marketing now, right?

And so reviewers are pressed to make snap judgements and throw the review out like yesterday. They're generally incredibly busy and pressed for time, too, so will base half of the review on the press release and the other half on a cursory play or two (if that). If the release is by a major act, it’ll be all over the radio, and the DJs will be (coerced into) putting it on their playlist and babbling abut how great it is, and before long, you've heard and read from a thousand different sources how amazing this new release is, and even though you hate it the first dozen times, it eventually grows on you and hey, if you hear something often enough you can’t help but believe it.

Sometimes, one could be forgiven for thinking it's a conspiracy. The latest U2 album has been universally hailed as a return to form. But is it really all that special? Not to my ears, that’s for sure. But judging by the reviews, which are essentially unanimous in their praise, there’s been an agreement made that under no circumstances must this release be slated. It is a return to form, it’s a fact and it's not open for debate.

Imagine how different things would be if albums were given time to bed in before the reviews were written. I'm not talking about reviewers having a month or so to listen to a CD and then make their judgement: I'm thinking in terms of several months, even a year. Or three. It happens in the world of publishing: for an academic monograph to receive reviews two years after publication is quite normal. Adopting such an approach to music reviewing would ensure that an album isn't just a flash in the pan, that it does stand up to repeat listening, doesn't date horribly within a matter of weeks, that it really is a decent album and not just this week's Corinne Bailey Rae or Filnay Quaye. Or, worse still, that the hotly-tipped next big thing in terms of scenes isn’t the next New Wave of New Wave or Romo.

Of course, history is often distorted. Consider, for example, the back-catalogues of 80s icons Duran Duran and A-ha. 'Rio' and 'The Reflex' remain common radio and 'best hits of the 80s' countdown fodder, and you may occasionally see / hear 'Girls on Film' but what about 'Union of the Snake' and 'New Moon on Monday'? Or even 'Ordinary World,' 'Come Undone' and 'A View to a Kill'? All classic tracks and monster hits in their time, but largely forgotten now. Similarly, 'Take on Me' has a ubiquity that misrepresents A-ha's success as a singles band. Ok, so 'Cry Wolf' is best forgotten, but 'The Sun Always Shines on TV,' 'I've been Losing You,' 'Manhattan Skyline' and the title track from their debut album, 'Hunting High and Low' are infinitely better than, say, 'Karma Chameleon' (which in turn wasn't nearly as good as 'The War Song'). Bands' outputs are unfairly boiled down to just a couple of songs and they’re not even always representative. Let's face it, 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' hardly encapsulates the entirety of Joy Division's recorded work.

But Joy Division provide an interesting example of a band who have been simultaneously misremembered (they weren't nearly as huge as the documentaries and all the current coverage would have you believe) and also re-evaluated – the former perhaps leading to the latter, but at least they are at last getting the recognition they surely deserve in terms of their influence and the sheer quality of their music. Perhaps the lethargy of record labels, who are always happy to reissue, reissue repackage the back-catalogues of bands they’ve already made their money from is the primary factor in this kind of false historicisation.  

I don't expect for a second that my idea of retroactive reviewing will take off. The press aren't really going to start running columns on last year's albums, just as record labels aren’t about to release an album and then promote it eighteen months later, and bands aren't going to be too excited about touring the last album when the next one's already all over iTunes. But I do think there are as many - if not more - lost gems out there as there are crap records that have somehow attained the status of classics. Ultimately, simply remember this: don't believe the hype.

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