Making things up in reviews: classic or dud?

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Sometimes I need something to illustrate what I'm talking about so I make up a song, or an event, or whatever to show. Sometimes I'm just playing with what music-writing reading-audience are expecting (kinda like Meltzer on Altamont). I say classic for blurring lines of fiction and reality; and dud for misinformation (Paul Morley's review of Luke Haines album last year in Uncut: "released a month after Haines died").

― Cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 18 January 2003 14:47 (twenty-three years ago)

(The Oliver Twist Manifesto, btw).

― Cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 18 January 2003 14:48 (twenty-three years ago)

"So: imaginary context. Context completely at odds with the sense of importance attached to the main event. The context of the context: readers (and publishers) looking for insight on tragic event. Meltzer's act: not to cooperate with their sense of what's important, not to cooperate with their sense of the subject matter."

- Frank Kogan.

― Cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 18 January 2003 14:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic! Especially Meltzer's Neil Young Live review!

― matt riedl (veal), Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I remember one live review where the drummer was praised as specifically good. Unfortunately the reviewer didn't know that not only didn't the band play, the drummer had died in a car accident on the way to the gig,

― , Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:25 (twenty-three years ago)

So, classic.

― Cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:43 (twenty-three years ago)

em@il, no you don't.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Sunday, 19 January 2003 21:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Making things up to improve threads - classic or dud?

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 19 January 2003 21:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom admitted last night that 95% of what he says on ILX is lies.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 January 2003 21:49 (twenty-three years ago)

(This could be a good thread.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 January 2003 21:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Alas Martin the percentage rises to 100% in pubs.

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 19 January 2003 21:55 (twenty-three years ago)

but if you're making things up, either you suck because you're plain ripping off the Meltz, or you're just a big liar, doing nobody nohow anything but a disservice.
If you have to make up a song to get your point across, then your point is probably off the mark.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 20 January 2003 04:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yknow, I don't think I've ever seen anyone try to rip off Meltzer (without making it obvious that they're paying homage to the original). It's kind of odd considering how many Bangs imitators there are out there. Maybe it's just too hard to pull off the Meltzer thing?

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 20 January 2003 05:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Pardon my ignorance, but who/what is Meltzer? Seriously.

― Charlie (Charlie), Monday, 20 January 2003 06:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Charlie -- Richard Meltzer: music critic and writer, American, great too -- do a Google, by a book of his

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Monday, 20 January 2003 06:45 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know abut great. I've always felt about Melzer essentially the way the article does -- a lot of work to get to very little of use. For instance, while he pisses on the sixties habitually, music from that period is the only kind he truly venerates. Ask him about Nirvana and he'll spit in your face. Who needs a rock writer who forgot about rock before most people on the planet were born?

― Kenan Hebert, Monday, 20 January 2003 07:16 (twenty-three years ago)

You may not "need him" as a rock writer, though, but I don't think that would make him any less worth reading. I'm glad his work isn't something so functional as rock writing. I was born after the 60's, also, but it doesn't mean that I can't appreciate entertaining the idea that rock music changed for the worse or even died somehow before I got here, much as I may not LIKE to hear that.

― tom (other), Monday, 20 January 2003 07:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Meltzer is great because of the strength and originality of his ideas and his writing. I may not AGREE with what he says some (or most) of the time, but that doesn't take away from him as a critic. I mean, I don't really care that Meltzer doesn't like Nirvana; if I want to hear about how great Nirvana were, I can go read (insert any other critic's name here except - yay! - Chuck Eddy). It's true that you've got to do a lot of work to get any value out of the early stuff, which is really where all his best, most original thinking is, and his later (better written) stuff is much less interesting thought-wise, so he's not perfect by any means. But hey, he's funny.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 20 January 2003 08:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I should probably say I have never done this.

― Cozen (Cozen), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Yet.

― Cozen (Cozen), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Meltzer thread.

― Cozen (Cozen), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Meltzer is a writer who happens to have written (a lot) about rock. I've seen lotsa people rip him off, though maybe they're ripping off Bangs who was ripping off Meltz.
How many other rock writers would be worth reading if they weren't writing about rock?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 20 January 2003 14:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Does anyone else find this idea a little dishonest and gimmicky? I haven't read Meltzer and maybe he does it fantastically but I'm not him and personally I think it's pretentious and shows a lack of respect for the reader and a bit too much self interest.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 20 January 2003 14:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I like making up things that should be true but aren't then disclaiming them. Not in reviews, but on ILX fersure. Absurdism is a great way to the truth.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 20 January 2003 17:05 (twenty-three years ago)

You need to know your audience, and their threshold for BS. Sometimes you can go off and say things that are blatantly (to you and your hipster friends) not real, and then see yourself quoted as saying that Ryan Adams spent his early childhood in hospitals having his stillborn conjoined twin de-grafted from his left butt cheek.
Or something like that.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 20 January 2003 17:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Making up defamatory shit : Dud

Making up funny shit that makes the point more clear : Classic

..That's where folklore comes from.

― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 20 January 2003 17:11 (twenty-three years ago)

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