Critical Critic Critique

Reading music reviews makes me want to obliterate things at random. Seriously, what kind of shit-slinging shister came up with the denouncement, 'They sound too much like themselves?' (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12926-swoon/) as justification for a poor review. The bastardo at Pitchfork who struck Silversun Pickup's new album with that critical gem can go tiddle himself in the back room to unapproachable hipster garbage noise all he wants. In Pitchfork's review of Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, they extol the album's various musical “strokes of brilliance”. “They've punctuated perfectly likable indie rock songs with bleating vocalizations. They've seeded pretty instrumentals with irritating noise. They've stayed on a single chord for 10 minutes.”

If I join a band and some reviewer has the gall to pen an article containing the words “bleating” and “irritating,” I swear to god he's getting icepicked in the dick, whether or not he gives my album a 9.6 of 10 (the rating for AC, Silversun clocked in at 5.3). How can those words possibly be used to describe music, much less anything experienced via ears, in a positive light? Now, I'm not saying Silversun Pickups should be taught in Music Theory 101 but man, I've heard animal collective live and close enough to smell the drugs oozing out of their eyeballs and can firmly say that “bleating” and “irritating” and “one chord for ten minutes” are pretty accurate descriptors. The only use for their auditory vomit would be as the soundtrack for an LSD sponsored teddy bear orgy.