Comments on: A Response to the Guy Who Didn’t Like Something I Wrote

By: Esmerelda

Esmerelda — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:38:29 +0000

So I haven’t read all the comments but I just wanted to make one of my own. I actually like the site [ripfork] because although I don’t like a lot of music out there and I can see where a music critic can be good dare I say necessary, I also think music is an opinion. I’ve seen TOO many critics self righteously dismiss a piece of music they don’t like by saying “You get the feeling blah blah blah yada yada yada” I don’t necessarily get that feeling, the writer might, but why does he/she assume everyone reading will also. I very rarely choose an artist based on his/her review because music is such a deeply personal thing for me and I dont believe anyone can tell me what is good music, I decide that for myself. Very many times the very thing that they despise is what I love. Moreover the whole thing seems a bit cowardly if you ask me; its easy to harp on people from behind a computer. All that being said there is a LOT of bad music out there…I mean horrible but I don’t listen to that music and I definitely dont read the reviews.

By: Philip

Philip — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:08:13 +0000

I’m glad someone he “ripped” is standing up for themselves. That site’s writing annoys the hell out of me.

By: Ethan Stanislawski

Ethan Stanislawski — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:29:20 +0000

somewhere was a typo: I apologize.

By: Shaz

Shaz — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:56:01 +0000

I am sure what Eric does is very important for him and, perhaps, would even prove beneficial to future artists and others interested in the field.

But I think it is too easy to criticize this guy at Ripfork. As Alex above points out, this is a pastime for him and is most probably being done without any hope of commercial returns. Irrespective of that, I think anyone who supports and follows indie scene should also be supportive of independent criticism. It does not matter that his style is “snarky” or even, at times, (deliberately) rude. I think he writes well-enough and sometimes is very funny too.

But the most important thing for me is that, however, much I love to take a music critic’s opinion about what music to listen to, this guy does make some very valid points about the whole scene. I have been often struck by the horrible purple prose and pretentiously snaky sentences and silly invented phrases – all just to prove a critic’s validity about his/her opinion.

It’s not that I have stopped visiting Pitchfork or Drowned in Sound after reading this guy but he, at least, for me, has voiced something which I always doubted and couldn’t pin down.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:43:40 +0000

@jccalhoun

No where in

“What the hell are you going to be adding to society by furthering research in this field?” and “What I’m saying, if you catch my drift, is that maybe studying how Napster fertilized Radiohead’s internet base…should be something you do as a pastime.”

do I even see the implication that math/science is more important than humanities. Nowhere.

@Eric
“He seems smart enough: why not provide a real service “to society”?”
He’s doing it as a pastime, not professionally. The lack of ads on the site makes that abundantly clear, I would think. Although I agree with you in that his manner in addressing you is slightly douchey. But hey, that’s why idiocy like Jersey Shore is popular.

By: Amadeo

Amadeo — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:13:58 +0000

Great response, and it adresses a lot of topics I’ve come against as a fellow researcher in cultural studies (although in a vastly different country [Argentina] and field [visual arts in general and comic books in particular]) Those are questions I’ve often asked myself and haven’t come up with a more worthwhile answer that “It’s what I’m interested in doing and I hope some people find it good and interesting”.

Perhaps you would be interested in this excerpt from Louis Menand latest book, “The Marketplace of Ideas” which tackles the issue at the core of this post, who do we write for?, although with a much more critical and depressing answer: http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/11/professionalization-in-academy

Cheers!

By: marathonpacks

marathonpacks — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:54:12 +0000

Zach: no. That’s not what I’m doing. My post is meant to correct his completely inaccurate portrayal of what a lot of grad students do with their time (and lives!). Maybe scan through it again? Second, I think that a site like that can provide an invaluable service, no doubt. It’s just that I don’t think he’s doing all he can there. He’s got no angle, no method, no guidelines. It’s nihilistic, and done for cheap laughs/traffic. He seems smart enough: why not provide a real service “to society”?

By: Zach

Zach — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:34:41 +0000

C’mon dude. The guy rips music critics. It’s what he does. You’re not suggesting his work is unimportant, are you?

By: Amy

Amy — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:18:18 +0000

A fine, impassioned defense of the important (yes! no need to hedge) work you do, Eric. That guy’s dinged me a few times–the second time b/c, as he admits, my name is highly googleable and he’s all about the traffic. As someone else mentioned above, he hates music writing but spends the many hours it takes to run a frequently updated blog talking about hating music writing. That says more about him than any of his long posts.

By: maura

maura — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:14:48 +0000

straight ether, with a heaping side dish of useful background info. <3 u, eric harvey.