Marc Hogan's Review of "Stir the Blood" by The BraveryArtist: The Bravery

Album: Stir the Blood

Reviewer: Marc Hogan

Pitchfork, 2009

Writing Disorders: Infectious Punctuation, Jargon Palsy







Hyphen Fouls: “Quasi-big,” “oft-abused,” “Killers-lite,” “soma-dropping,” “Italo-crazed,” “wannabe-Brit,” “woman-unfriendly”




Marc, you have a condition. I don’t have my DSM IV handy, so I’m just going to make up a name for it. I call it “hyphenitis.” It is cause for concern, but you can take some comfort in the fact that you’re not the only rock critic to show the telltale warts. The good news is that the cure is as easy as not using so many hyphens. Jesus man, why the HELL do you need to hyphenate phrases that don’t make sense as a result? Take this example:

“the Bravery are just about the last quasi-big rock band anyone might expect”

UGH. Dude, you can’t have something that’s “quasi-big.” It’s either big or it’s not big. Find another word.

Let’s take a second example:

“the band dialed back the synths for rootsier wannabe-Brit mope on disastrous 2007 follow-up, The Sun and the Moon.”

Forget the hyphen for a minute. What the hell is “Brit mope?” Hold on, let me search for it on the Google. Hmmmm…all I got was a customer review page on Amazon where a guy nearly as longwinded as you posted his review twice. He mentioned British mope-rock.

So my question is, even if this style of music exists, how do enough people know about it [without talking about it] in order to “wannabe” it?

Hyphenitis is a serious condition Marc, but it’s important to remember that the cure starts with you. I’m tempted to say that your technical issues as a writer outweigh your dubious claims, but they might be on the same level.

“Endicott’s voice still alternates between operatic Ian Curtis croon and adenoidal Robert Smith whine”

Thanks for telling us exactly what you think those voices sound like, Marc. Even though we obviously know what Brit mope is, we sure as heck don’t know anything about popular singers. Are you sure Endicott’s voice doesn’t alternate between Win Butler’s croon or Thom Yorke’s whine? Oh, that’s right, Arcade Fire and Radiohead are awesome and not from the 1980’s. Can’t make them sound bad or anything.

This is my favorite claim though:

“Baby, we were born to be adored,” repeats glumly hooky synth-rock opener “Adored”, neatly desecrating the most famous choruses from Bruce Springsteen and the Stone Roses in a single refrain.”

Marc, let’s break down this dumb statement bit by bit, shall we? Bruce Springsteen had a song called “Born to Run” in which he sang “Baby, we were born to run.” The Stone Roses had a song called “I Wanna Be Adored” in which their singer sang “I wanna be adored.” So, you’re bashing a band’s use of subjects and predicates because two songs separated by 25 years happened to use similar, simplistic phrases? And you assert that somehow, by the chance encounter of these two phrases, The Bravery DESECRATED the other two songs. Are you kidding me? That’s the best you have? That’s a notch on the checklist that embossed a 2.3 on this album?

Well Marc, if I believed in rating art any more, then I’d probably punish yours just as harshly. But since I don’t, I’ll just continue to feature your writing on this site so people can laugh at it. Glumly hooky, eh?