Do you ever wonder if somewhere, teenagers read your reviews and laud or mock them, endlessly debating and comparing them as soon as they are published, buying records on your recommendations and try

I have no sense of who or what my audience is until/unless contacted directly. Like the other day when the sister of one of the dudes in Souled American dropped me a line, which I thought was absolutely peachy keen!

Oh wow. That's just funny.

Daver do you sex your sweaters?

Very few people, I gotta believe, read reviews just to read the reviews and ponder rockism or DeRo's triple chin.

The reason for this was being stuck in a fairly isolated small town where there was nothing to do, so we were obsessed with music, and record reviews were perhaps the only connection we had to a lot of it. The only other thing was late night Alternative Nation and 120 Minutes, which mostly sucked. So if something got a really great review and seemed to have an appeal to me, I might take a chance and go buy it. I probably took the Alternative Press reviews section most seriously because they covered so much. Trying to read the Spin reviews back then, I always had the sense that it wasn't for me, the writing was directed at an audience who had a history and familiarity with the music they covered going back a decade or more. There were so many in-jokes I didn't get, and it made me feel really uncool. :)

My 16-year old son thinks reviews are full of shit. He may read one once in a while, but he cares only if it is about something he already likes, and the reviewer likes it, too.

The exception: Both my daughter and I regularly read glenn mcdonald's blog for years. At one point, we made a deliberate decision to purchase, sound-unheard, something obscure that glenn loved from time to time. I think one or the other of us bought six CDs on that basis, yielding four CDs we both love, none we hate, and three artists where between us we have pretty much acquired the catalogue.

When I was a teenager, I read every word Christgau and Dave Marsh wrote.

NABISCO I CALL YOU OUT FOR NOT SAYING THAT THESE ALBUMS COULD IMPREGNATE THE REINCARNATION OF MARY WITH OUR MOROSE SAVIOR

It's true John, I only gave one shit about you earlier today. I just coundn't muster up more.

Can I assume that one shit might involve some booty bass 'ritin'?

I must read this.

Another mate of mine (who frequents this site too but doesn't post much) reads reviews to and sometimes we discuss them, usually in mockery (see one Mr. Ott) or in trying to gain understanding (for example, me trying to get friend to understand Mr. Kellman's review of LCD Soundsystem, as she thought it sounded hideous from his description -- which was very positive, mind you -- of "Losing My Edge").

Never heard of him. Andy's review of "Losing My Edge" is quite great.

in short, if you write for stylus, there's no wondering if people argue your points at all.

it seems that artists who intend to kill us over our reviews of their electronic music usually send an email, rather than "go public".

occasionally, there will be amazing, thoughtful comments that inspire discussion, but this is very rare. mostly it's like "you just panned my favorite band and this critic doesn't know shit." or we'll get "what is this, pitchfork? i'm taking your site off of my bookmarks now!"

we're hurt. really.

xpost

He left massive rants against me on the comments part of the review (it was for an online site), making hurtful puns on my name and then hunted out my other reviews and commented on them with things like "Terrible review!!!! No stars!!!"

When someone else reviewed a Sneddon single he went on and said "First of all congratulations! Congratulations that [Affectian] of the bitter tongue and anti Sneddon bias has not been given this one. I am relieved, though slightly disappointed I could not lock horns with him again!!" This kind of thing went on for a quite a while, I also discovered lengthy threads on David Sneddon forums where he and a bunch of pre-teen girls would dissect my prose and call me a 'w@nk3r'. It was ace.

Then I searched his name and hometown on Google and discovered that he'd recently been arrested for tickling a young girl and getting sexually aroused by it. I made a sly reference to tickling in one of my later reviews and never heard from him again. But if you're out there, Ian Johnson from Worcester, you are my favourite reader ever!

Yeah, not to discuss Stylus on this board, but me and Josh were obviously partly trolling for comments like that so really can't complain when we get them. The response to Easton et al's country reviews, on the other hand, is heart-rendingly awful.

http://stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=1384

This is my favourite of the Stylus comment-box shitstorms. I find it quite interesting to see how people get personally offended by criticism of bands they really like, and end up coming out with the exact same slightly confused, defensive shit every time. All the schoolmaster style 'oh, where to start....the reviewer clearly has no grasp of...' shit makes me piss laughing as well.

I think the extent of my criticism has been somebody mildly disagreeing with me over how danceable Les Georges Leningrad are, but I've not really said anything especially controversial in my short career. Oh, and John Moore sent me a couple of e-mails after I gave him a good review.

Is there some current lionized useless indie band about to release something? I'll have that. (I realize 'useless' is a flexible term.)

xpost to dom: there are penalties for not kowtowing to indie narrowness, and i think anthony easton shouldered quite a bit in his debut review. but he's handled it well.

GIMME. Especially if it is truly utterly generic and has a vociferous fanbase.

for example, don't mention depeche mode in a dead meadow interview, even if the drummer brought up a mode album in the course of conversation.

and as nabisco said upthread, the internet has really opened up opportunity for publishing criticism that reaches a teeming audience, for better or worse.

Stalker? I don't even know you, so why would I stalk you? But, hey, thanks for keeping tabs on me a full FOURS YEARS AFTER OUR LAST INTERNET EXCHANGE. (Who's the stalker here exactly?) Also, I don't listen to "indie rock," though I certainly wouldn't mind kicking your ass -- just name the time and place, tuff guy!

One of 'em wrote all this.

Shit, I've written lots more than that! Some of it was even half-decent!

Oops, Nate posted that bit about me last year, so I guess it was three years (not four) that he'd been keeping tabs on me (I'm sure he's gotten a life by now and no longer reads anything I've written in the past year...cough!). My bad, as the kids say (do the kids still say "my bad"?). I'll still kick his ass, though, that dirty complete stranger!!!

You just say when and where, pal. Don't worry, I'll bring the heat...

Once in a while, I get pissed at the artist rather than the reviewer. For instance: http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/c/capillary-action/fragments.shtml . This kid is the biggest shmuck in the world, and his band is terrible mathy metal garbage. Additionally, he posted something on his label's website the same day, referencing "constant calls to Mr. Tangari" and the desire to buy Joe "a steak dinner." I wanted to strangle him.

Having fun google searching yourself, I see.

Haha, oh man, I got put on a bill with them once in Pittsburgh. I had to go outside when they started playing as I had no earplugs and I did not deem their music worthy of going deaf for.