I’m regularly asked to review new music from folks across the industry, and I take this aspect of “my job” pretty seriously.

My soft rule for reviews has been to write about music I like. This usually allows me to focus on something I believe is worth your time and mine and to stay positive.

Perhaps my approach was shortsighted.

After I stopped recording my interview with Sam Lewis, we started talking about criticism. During this conversation, he pushed me to be more critical of the music I review. His perspective was clarifying.

In short, he suggested that we need more hard-hitting music and cultural criticism. Without it, he suggests that there is no value in a review. Artists need feedback, and critics need to consider the value of the art, beyond whether they like it or not.

Many of the people who ask me to review their music are actual friends of mine. When I launched this project, I asked LA country music insider and newsletter reader, Ryan Posner, what to say when a friend sends you music that sucks.

Find something in it that you like, he said. And if that fails, pick something interesting in it and simply focus on that part.

I’ve stuck with this approach for everyone who isn’t a major artist.

But I think that needs to change — for a few reasons.

Some of the Reasons

Only a few publications are doing this kind of work independently.

Lots of outlets review music, but very few engage in music criticism. And there is a significant difference, which goes well beyond being harsh in a review. Criticism places the work within a broader discussion, while reviews help listeners decide if they might like this music.

While Whiskey Riff and Holler do have negative or honest reviews, a few dollars will change that for an artist. Trigger at Saving Country Music and the women of “Don’t Rock the Inbox” are some of the only folks I’ve seen engage in true music criticism in our little corner of the country music world. Some “important” indie country music news hits the big players, but rarely, and usually as features rather than a true critique.

And while I respect both of these outlets1, there needs to be more independent voices in country music journalism doing this work.

There are real questions of access and whether there is enough time to do this work right. There is also an argument that people should figure out what music to enjoy and how it fits into the world without our help.

But that raises a different question: Is this endeavor worth my time (and yours)?

Last August, the New Yorker published a long essay by Kelefa Sanneh asking how music criticism lost its edge. This exhausting review of poptimism2 and the failure of people to engage in critical reviews of music explored several theories about the current state of popular music criticism.

But this passage stands out:

The idea of poptimism sometimes bled into a broader belief that it was bad manners to criticize any cultural product that people liked, whether it be a pop song or a superhero movie or a romance novel. This is not a new idea—on the contrary, it evokes the Latin adage “De gustibus non est disputandum” and its modern analogue, repeated by kindergartners and, less excusably, by people who are no longer kindergartners: “Don’t yuck my yum.” 3

While there are some weak points in this article, overall, it suggests that accepting popular music as good due to its popularity is not good enough.

We should be discussing the pop art within a broader social context because that fosters society. Perhaps if we take pop music and culture a bit more seriously and review them honestly and critically, society may strive for greater heights. Tired, navel-gazing music writing enhances nothing, serving merely as public relations4.

We need more voices writing these pieces.

This work can be done better.

My reluctance to honestly review music I don’t like, made by people I care about, stems from not hurting careers or feelings. So much music criticism is mean. We don’t need to be mean. We can be more creative with our language.

However, telling the truth that provides a different context for art often isn’t nice.

And that is different from being mean. Back to the Latin equivalent of not yucking yums, no one wants to hear that empty calories diminish quality of life when those guilty pleasures taste so good. Yet, we need to hear it from time to time.

Sanneh concludes the above passage, noting that this non-yucking approach is “quite fatal to the idea of criticism itself.” However, critics like Sanneh are partly responsible for this problem.

Critics falsely believe that they don’t need to respect what they find distasteful.

A critic might believe the subject matter is not art, culture or worth the time to enjoy, but someone might. And that is worthy of respect. Complete and total disdain in criticism must be reserved for those willfully trying to disrupt or destroy culture, while a harsh review — that includes respect — can be given to anything, as long as it’s supported by the argument presented in the review.

Yes, this completely subjective line is incredibly fine.

While biting in my critique of Country Never Dies, the tribute album produced by Gavin Adcock, I tried to keep it on the right side of the line. Some of the track-by-track points slipped towards unsupported dismissal, but I also believe some of these folks have no idea what they are doing — a statement supported by their other music and the way they conduct themselves in public.

However, if we are to take the artists and producers at their word, they were trying to do something good for country music. They just failed. Being respectful and brutally honest isn’t always easy when describing a subjective matter like music.

Artists, fans and other critics want more of this.

If we use my data, critical articles — especially carefully considered ones — perform the best. People share these articles more, comment more regularly and go out of their way to tell me I’m right or full of shit.

It’s also fun to write this stuff. Praising songs you like and cutting down what you believe sucks presents no challenge. True criticism, on the other hand, requires thought, consideration and skill.

I write this piece as my Instagram post about my Country Never Dies review goes viral. The post includes some of the harshest lines from the review. It’s not lost on me that the nuance of my longer piece — which often dampens engagement — is missing from my social media profile, and that was intentional.

But it diminished my point. While I’d love to go viral again, I don’t think I will unless I willfully engage in similar social media sleight of hand (which I might). To enhance the country music space, provide greater context for this music within American society, or help those who dismiss the genre better understand it, requires more than snark.

Balancing the challenging aspects of criticism with the cheap shots required to drive social media engagement presents another interesting challenge to discuss (but this post is already too long).

A new approach

This isn’t a job for me. I do it for fun, writing at night and over the weekends. So I need some new rules for reviews. Here is my thinking — and I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.

I will consider an in-depth critical review when:

1. The work changes my perspective on music, the artist or the style.

2. The work says it will do something meaningful and either delivers or fails (such as Country Never Dies)

3. In my opinion, most other critics or reviewers miss something worth considering.

4. I’ll still do the monthly playlists — but in a simple, straightforward review style.

5. I reserve my right to engage in social media mudslinging, name-calling and baiting.

I’m also not delusional. I don’t expect many people to care about my process. Nor do I think many people will get to the end of this. But if you did, thanks. Fans should get more out of the media covering what they love — even if they don’t always agree.

Until next time, keep on listening to great country music.