Quoting lyrics as an indication of mediocrity: misleading?

It's just so precious!
That being said, I don't really see any problem with people going a bit into the lyrics in their reviews, if anything, with rock music and such there's often so little of notable content on an album that the lyrics are all that makes it stand out a bit; that shows us why we're not listening to Terry Riley or whatever instead.

Shit, I don't even agree with myself now!
This board is REALLY bad for me, I'm becoming all devil's adjunctive

ham on rye's neglecting to hyphenate "well-written" only highlights his inability to construct even a simple sentence, much less a convincing argument. C-

At least I wasn't your "dud of the week".

Why the personal attack? Seems a little bit unnecessary, Curt.

My point exactly. If someone panned an Al Green tune, and used his lyrics as proof, I might think "Shit, sounds like tripe to me..."
But that's a misleading argument, in that particular case. It doesn't matter what he's saying as much as how he's saying it.

Never use hyphens after adverbs, eg genetically modified, politically naive. But do use them to form compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel, three-year deal

Cheers, friend.

(a) Sometimes I like Audio Bullys lyrics; sometimes they're bad but it doesn't matter; sometimes they're bad so I tune them out
(b) At worst, however, they are really really bad
(c) When they're really-bad they're really-bad in a particular way that I think reflects certain qualities of the record as a whole
(d) Therefore:
(e) "About a year I was with her for / and when we broke it left me quite sore." All of the things that are wrong with this are, in my opinion, the same things that go wrong with the guy's lyrics lots of other spots.
(f) I feel weirdly guilty about it, since that is a semi-isolated clanger and certainly not representative of the overall quality of the lyrics, but
(g) I also feel some weird duty to the reader, cause I know plenty of people could read that line and know for certain, right then, that this is not an album they will like, and we might as well save them the time.

there are some "artists" and some people for whom lyrics are just another instrument anyway (ie doesn't matter what's being sung) (obvious example: Can)

yet for some sorts of song the whole thing will hang together or fall on the strength of the lyrics as they seem to provide a cohesion between the sound of the music and the ideas in the lyrics (obvious example: Velvet Underground)

i think that it's different for each "artist", so i think quoting lyrics in some "artists'" cases are going to be crucial if it turns out to be a negative review (obvious example: The Fall)

Or Bjork, for that matter. Read on a lyric sheet: some of her verses don't appear to make much sense:

You'll be given love
You'll be taken care of
You'll be given love
You have to trust it

(from All Is Full Of Love)

Taken out of song context, a reviewer can say, "Why the hell is she so popular? These lyrics are so mediocre", not thinking that she is building a mood. Also, that the fact that fans can relate to that is what keeps them coming back for more.

The "Must to Avoids" at the bottom aren't very deep - the Lauryn Hill quotes from her - in context - to make a (funny) personal attack; the WOW review basically says "They're not bad because they're Christians, they're bad because they're those Christians". Both only give token attention to the music and don't answer what I think is a crucial question, why anyone would listen to it in the first place.

The Ludacris dis goes much deeper - it's an easy one to attack holistically because you can turn on the moral indignation. The Tenacious D is even better because he admits Jack Black's gifts , and then shows how meaningless they are in this context.

Also quoting bad lyrics is often funny.

am i the only person who feels that it is a complete cop-out (and also staggeringly daft) when bands say this?

am i the only person who feels that it is a complete cop-out (and also staggeringly daft) when bands say this?

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Probably not. I think they're one of the few bands for whom that works. Their lyrics are clearly not intended to mean anything, and are used in a strictly abstract manner. Works for me. C'est la vie.

Thing is though, words do have meanings and the meanings multiply when fitted together: Jim is right in that it's a cop-out - in *all* sung music the sound of the words is 'an instrument' particularly if you're not a native speaker, but similarly in all music with verbal accompaniment it's possible to be distracted by the words if you do speak the language.

Besides, isn't Hyde's method to jot down scraps of overheard conversations - i.e. there is some kind of 'meaning' attached, an attempt to reflect the babble of urban existence or some such. I may be misremembering long-ago interviews here though.

I understand that some people might not like it, however.

And of opposite is true, of course. If you go anywhere near Jacque Brel when you don't speak French, I fear for your eardrums. If you do, it's scarily amazing stuff.

Personally, I REALLY dislike bad lyrics - musicians, if you can't think of anything decent, really, make it in instrumental - we won't hold it against you.

Saying that, a lyrics doesn't need to make sense, or even look good on paper, to be good. Be-bop-a-lula is a prime example; fantastic lyrics, bad on paper. Pick a lyric from Astral Weeks - on paper, very bad indeed; sang, great. I think it's more to do with medium - pop music (in its widest possible sense) can accept strange grammar and weird connections with greater ease than poetry or prose (IMHO) and so while "Be bope a lula, I don't mean maybe" looks a bit flaky, in fact it's great.

HENCE . . . if a review quotes a lyric at me, and tells me how rubbish the album is using the lyric to support the argument, it'll come across as a bit of a straw-man argument anyway.

Saying that, I've got broadband, so I get free previews before I buy anyways. Good download beats bad review anyday.

So I think what's being discussed here isn't whether quoting is misleading. What's being discussed here is the idea that there's a sort of active bad faith going on in certain reviews, an effort to make the artist look as bad as possible rather than providing an honest appraisal of what's really going on.

The source of the bad faith: people don't like writing half-and-half reviews that say an artist is just basically okay -- if the record's good, they want to mention all the best parts as evidence, and if the record's bad, they want to point out all the warts and savage it. What's much harder is to take a fair-to-middling band and actually try and capture something true and telling about their averageness, and I certainly don't claim to have any more clue how to do this than anyone else.