matthew levinson

Blogs, like anywhere, get a bit drab. That’s why I revamped this a while ago.

Today I visited a favourite, Simon Reynolds’s Blissblog. He’s swapped skins. It reminded me a change can be an upleasant shock too. Blissblog’s spartan page was not pretty, but I associated its utlitarian aesthetic with his dry, long-term-hack/quasi-academic style – a kind of blogging for the post-punk proletariat. The new page is more of the same, but plainer.

Would a Basic Channel record be as brutally powerful in a soft-focus Cafe Del Mar Ibiza sleeve?

Emmy Hennings’s story on Wilco, on her Fangrrl blog a couple of days ago, used a picture that surprised me the same way. I always thought her prose was so evocative she had no need for images. Maybe I read too much into these things.

Neumu’s been quiet. Not saying it needs a redesign, just some writing. In the meantime, read this 2004 piece on the challenges of being a creator and a critic.

Every decision has an impact on a real flesh-and-blood human being. I try not to think about the impact of my decisions on them. I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone, but I can’t be a “nice guy” either. If I want Neumu to be a compelling, quality online magazine, with good writing about music that is worth people’s time (and money!), I can’t let that “emotional stuff,” my concern for the writer’s (or the musician’s) feelings, get in the way of my critical judgment.

But what if I’m wrong? What if I was just in a really bad mood the day I listened to five or 10 seconds each of the first three tracks off some album that arrived in the mail? In the late ’60s, the first time I heard a solo recording by Van Morrison, I didn’t like his voice. I have thought about that many, many times over the years.

That gets to the heart of why being a critic is different from being an advocate. I’ve only just come across that column, but I’ve thought about exactly those issues hundreds of times, some of my favourite records took years to get my head around. Who knows how many I’m passing by – even as I type! – though getting into records a few years down the track has always been much more interesting to me than being first to discover an act.