Normally I'm not one for musician's complaining about reviews they've received. At best, the effort seems kinda pathetic and whiny.
But the editor in me loves this long and rather eloquent letter from Airborne Toxic Event to Pitchfork writer Ian Cohen, in response to the 1.6 review he gave to the band's self-titled release. It's particularly amazing that they turned it around so quickly, the review posted to Pitchfork earlier today.
Here's the band's response:
Dear Ian,
Thanks for your review of our record. It's clear that you are a good writer and it's clear that you took a lot of time giving us a thorough slagging on the site. We are fans of Pitchfork. And it's fun to slag off bands. It's like a sport -- kind of part of the deal when you decide to be in a rock band. (That review of Jet where the monkey pees in his own mouth was about the funniest piece of band-slagging we've ever seen.) We decided a long time ago not to take reviews too seriously. For one, they tend to involve a whole lot of projection, generally saying more about the writer than the band. Sort of a musical Rorschach test. And for another, reading them makes you too damned self-conscious, like the world is looking over your shoulder when the truth is you're not a genius or a moron. You're just a person in a band.
Plus, the variation of opinions on our record has bordered on absurd. Most of what's been said has been positive, a few reviews have been on the fence and a few (such as yours) have been aggressively harsh. We tend not to put a lot of stock in this stuff, but the sheer disagreement of opinion makes for fascinating (if not a bit narcissistic) reading.
And anyway we have to admit that we found ourselves oddly flattered by your review. I mean, 1.6? That is not faint praise. That is not a humdrum slagging. That is serious fist-pounding, shoe-stomping anger. Many publications said this was among the best records of the year. You seem to think it's among the worst. That is so much better than faint praise.
You compare us to a lot of really great bands (Arcade Fire, the National, Bright Eyes, Bruce Springsteen) and even if your intention was to cut us down, you end up describing us as: "lyrically moody, musically sumptuous and dramatic." One is left only to conclude that you m ust think those things are bad.
We love indie rock and we know full well that Pitchfork doesn't so much critique bands as critique a band's ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don't match it. It's true that the events described in these songs really happened. It's true we wrote about them in ways that make us look bad. (Sometimes in life you are the hero, and sometimes, you are the limp-dicked cuckold. Sometimes your screaming about your worst fears, your most trite jealousies. Such is life.) It's also true that the record isn't ironic or quirky or fey or disinterested or buried beneath mountains of guitar noodling.
As writers, we admire your tenacity and commitment to your tone (even though you do go too far with your assumptions about us). You're wrong about our intentions, you're wrong about how this band came together, you don't seem to get the storytelling or the catharsis or the humor in the songs, and you clearly have some misconceptions about who we are as a band and who we are as people.
But it also seems to have very little to do with us. Much of your piece reads less like a record review and more like a diatribe against a set of ill-considered and borderline offensive preconceptions about Los Angeles. Los Angeles has an extremely vibrant blogging community, Silver Lake is a very close-knit scene of bands. We're one of them. We cut our teeth at Spaceland and the Echo and have nothing to do with whatever wayward ideas you have about the Sunset Strip. That's just bad journalism.
But that is the nature of this sort of thing. It's always based on incomplete information. Pitchfork has slagged many, many bands we admire (Dr. Dog, the Flaming Lips, Silversun Pickups, Cold War Kids, Black Kids, Bright Eyes [ironic, no?] just to name a few), so now we're among them. Great.
This band was borne of some very very dark days and the truth is that there is something exciting about just being part of this kind of thing. There's this long history of dialog between bands and writers, NME ripping apart the Cure or Rolling Stone refusing to write about Led Zeppelin -- so it's a bit of a thrill that you have such a20strong opinion about us.
We hear you live in Los Angeles. We'd love for you to come to a show sometime and see what we're doing with these lyrically moody and dramatic songs. We're serious about this stuff. You seem like a true believer when it comes to music and writing so we honestly think we can't be too far apart. In any case, it would make for a good story.
Mikel, Steven, Anna, Daren, Noah
the Airborne Toxic Event
What do you think? Whiny, or assertive? It makes me want to get a cocktail with the band and see their show. Think Ian feels the same way...?
1 ChrisB said on September 17, 2008
I really don't care for ATE but I really enjoyed this response. It was gracious and classy, much like the way that Fleet Foxes respond to their critics (and my feelings are the same towards both: meh, but if you like 'em, good for you).
This, on the other hand, is exactly how not to respond to a "negative" review in P4k.
2 Rich said on September 17, 2008
I've never heard a note of the band, and all that note did was make me go look at the bad review. Doubt I'd have seen it otherwise. They may be trying to make the best of a bad hand, but it might be somewhat counterproductive.
3 serotonein said on September 17, 2008
i'm impressed with how the band accuses the writer of not getting them, but preceded it with inane drivel misinterpreting/twisting almost everything he wrote. true, his opening paragraph was about L.A., but the rest was an honest slagging of a band he found overly cliched and attempting a poor imitation of bands that had come before.
he didn't like them & did a great job of explaining exactly why, almost song for song (something that occasionally does go missing from pitchfork reviews). i'd need to read more of his reviews to see how our tastes much up & how much weight to give it, but i can't fault the writing. the band came up with a whiny, defensive response filled with extensive preconceptions about the writer's (or site's, i guess) supposed biases.
i haven't listened to the band before, but it's their letter, not pitchfork's review, which would likely lead me to avoid checking them out in the future.
4 Imaginary Shrie said on September 18, 2008
I thought the letter was very well written, and well-deserved in this case. I have heard a couple of songs I liked from the band, but nothing grabbed me. Good for them for sticking up for themselves and trying to get more publicity!
IGshr*e
5 Seattlest Jack said on September 18, 2008
@1 ChrisB: Ha~ that's my interview! Yeah, Sykes was pretty bitter about that review and didn't seem to care that she was on the record about it.
As for this response from ATE, I thought it was classy, well-written, and warranted. I've always thought of p4k writers as a bunch of snobgoblins salivating at any and every opportunity to pummel a band. The 1.6 score is evidence of this. I mean, they gave She Wants Revenge a 5.9 and that band/album is the very essence of fucking terrible.
6 imaginary dana said on September 18, 2008
@Seattlest Jack -- it wasn't in print, but rumor has it Jesse wasn't too pleased about our review either. And it was a decent one!
7 Seattlest Jack said on September 18, 2008
Jesse Sykes is to music what Kenley is to Project Runway. Jesse's voice doesn't make me want to punch myself in the ear, but neither can take criticism.
8 Levi said on September 18, 2008
I pretty much always think it comes as whiny and sniveling when bands attempt to respond to reviews, and this is no exception. They like their band, other people like their band, this reviewer didn't. So the fuck what? Go write a lyrically moody, musically sumptuous and dramatic song about it.
"We decided a long time ago not to take reviews too seriously." Really? So unseriously that within a couple hours you wrote a long, detailed response to this one particular review and didn't just e-mail it to the author but made it public? Ah yes, I can tell how unseriously you take reviews.
Bands: Ignore reviews. Always. If you must complain, do it to your friends and loved ones. Responding in print or in public is just taking the bait and showing that it got to you.
9 serotonein said on September 18, 2008
jack @ 5, if you accept that the writer was giving his honest opinion, then the score completely matches up with his review.
did the same writer also review she wants revenge, and you think his taste in music is off, or are you complaining that pitchfork doesn't fairly weight scores for different writers' opinions?... or that they just don't match up with your tastes? ;)
ATE's letter may have been well-written (i.e., lacking typos or l33t-speak), but i found the content completely lacking in coherence when compared to the content of the review.
10 Seattlest Jack said on September 18, 2008
Serotonin @9: You're absolutely right about the score being the writer's opinion and perhaps not that of Pitchfork as a whole. For me, yes, that is the problem with that site.
To be clear, I'm not arguing with the writer's opinion of the record. He's certainly entitled. I do have a problem with their scoring system, however, because no matter how arbitrary it is (and it is extremely arbitrary), a lot of people out there take it as the almighty word of Pitchfork.
You're not going to hear someone say, "Ian Cohen gave the album a 1.6." They're going to say, "Pitchfork gave it a 1.6." Therein lies the problem. For better or worse, a lot of people put a lot of stock in "Pitchfork's" opinion without realizing it's really the opinion of one writer with a penchant for long paragraphs full of references to every other band in the genre as a means to qualify every negative thing they're about to say.
11 zoe said on September 18, 2008
I am always blown away by how much credibility a so called "critic" receives.. I for one don't really give a rat's ass what the critics say... but, they and everyone else have the right to say it... However, Pitchfork feels they have the right to comment but aren't willing to receive any feedback or comments back. Now, isn't that interesting... It's okay to write anything you want about a person/band.. but they don't provide a vehicle on their website to respond.. HMMMMMM sounds alot like a Hit and Run mentality....
Bravo for Airborne... Your music is great!
Let's all be our own critic's... Here are some people who write and play music and put themselves out there.. They are kind and gracious people.. Go to a show.. watch them perform... make your own mind up.
Really!
12 ChrisB said on September 18, 2008
Zoe, interesting point you make but I, for one, am glad that Pitchfork doesn't allow for comments. This is for a few reasons. Pitchfork isn't a blog, it's a news/reviews site. I don't know if you ever read Brooklyn Vegan, which is an indie rock blog, but the commenters come thisclose to ruining the site - the few intelligent comments are drowned in a sea of idiocy and assholery - could you imagine what kind of lightning rod Pitchfork would be? Also, to be fair to Pitchfork, their writers do sign their names and don't hide behind pseudonyms, so they are also putting themselves out there.
You are, of course, correct when you say "Go to a show... watch them perform... make your own mind up." If you enjoy ATE, wonderful and don't let some asshole at P4K or TIG (see comment 1) persuade you otherwise. Being a music fan is far more satisfying than being a music critic.
13 imaginary dana said on September 18, 2008
"Being a music fan is far more satisfying than being a music critic."
ChrisB, that is the coolest sentence ever.
I just thought of a funny quip: P4K is to TIG as Sarah Palin is to the press at large. Love 'em or hate 'em, they always get people reading and commenting. ;)
14 The Grim said on September 18, 2008
That's what you might think, but the 3,578,383,374,991 indie kids doing review blogs say otherwise.
15 douglas martin said on September 19, 2008
being both a musician and a blogger (or, i suppose, a "critic," with superlative emphasis on the quotation marks) sort of makes me empathize with both sides of the fence on this argument. although the record i made hasn't been heard by enough ears to get a bad review, i can imagine how one could fuck up somebody's day (i.e. tiny mix tapes' 0/5 review of the pwrfl power record). out of the few reviews of my album out there, the one that bummed me out the most was one where it read like the reviewer listened to the record one time, forgot what everything except the last three songs sounded like, and then wrote the review. i'd followed this reviewer's writing for a long time, so i know he's a good writer, but he used his good writing skills to bullshit through a review of my record.
however, in this case, ian cohen (again, a very exceptional writer) listened to the record, and just didn't like it. you can tell that he actually listened to the record, though, with pretty thorough disses on quite a few of the songs. i could only imagine cohen's frustration with having to review a record he really dislikes. we've all sat through bad records before; imagine having to listen to it four or five times, and then being forced to write 800 or more words about it.
what i'm saying is that a bad REVIEW is better than a BAD review. if i were in the band, i would say, "hey, at least he actually listened to the record." we've talked before about how a pitchfork review, even with a bad score, makes for great publicity.
although i never feel responding to a review is a wise move (one person's opinion, even if it's pitchfork, doesn't matter very much in the big picture), it looks as though the band made the smart choice by writing such a formal, polite complaint. it's gotten them A LOT of press over the past couple of days.
16 Who Cares said on September 19, 2008
Really? Do people really care this much about Airborne Toxic Event and thier pissing contest with Pitchfork?
Pitchfork does and says things from time to time that may be a bit out of line but they can't give every "indie" band a good review. This reviewer didn't dig what ATE does, that's his opinion, people can either make up thier own minds or simply take his word for it. At the end of the day, despite P4K's undisputable influence, if ATE is any good, they'll rise above this review and continue about thier business.
At the core of it is the fact that ATE (at this point in thier career) sound a lot like a handful of other "indie" bands and their score reflects that fact.
17 Zoe said on September 19, 2008
Chris
I believe most reputable magazines/periodicals have letters to the editor?? Perhaps that is an old school way of operating.. I think it is vital that we don't allow the Pitchfork's of the world to become "Sacred Cows"... Free speech is basic to our constitution... Funny how everyone is saying that Airborne is being overly sensitive, or whining and should never have tried to sling that stone back at Goliath, I mean Pitchfork. But, it's really a sad commentary that we feel so protective of the guys/gals who wear the badge of critic.. Why can't the reviewee have the same right to respond to the review as anyone else... I really don't see the logic.
I am proud of Airborne for speaking their piece.. Especially when there are slices of character assasination. As they stated in their open letter~ they have received many reviews, good, bad and ugly...It goes with the territory! but this one was a bit beyond the pail.... went a bit below the belt... and yes.... when you get that personal... you want to speak out and set the record straight..
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