Album: So Runs the World Away

Reviewer: Jesse Cataldo

Slant, 2010

Writing Disorders: Purple Hemorrhage, Idea Fever








Longest Sentence: 64 words

Most Emo Phrase: “straining for the faded colors of the distant past”

Irony: “ornate surfaces that are largely filled with air”




Jesse, I have a photographic memory, but there’s a line from a review I read last year that stuck out above the rest:

“Mew is not as thoughtful or smart as they think they are”

I couldn’t remember who wrote that stupid phrase or where it appeared, but the words still hibernated until sheer coincidence gave me a name to pair. Now that we’re here together at last, Jesse, I’m going to switch the deck. I’ve got this review of yours so we can test if you’re smart as you think. And save the modesty, son.  You clearly think your brain cooks some brilliant eggs. Otherwise you wouldn’t have written stuff like this:

“The conundrum in assessing a project like this is that there are the two sets of criteria by which it can be approached”

I’ll come back to that breakthrough in musical surgery, but first I want to focus on the writing itself. In any writing class giving grades based on writing, you’d be at the bottom of the curve. The only thing this review really challenged me to do was hold onto subjects long enough to reach the verb. I lost many lives. First things first: I’m going to highlight all the extra crap hedging these sentences:

“But the atmosphere of rough, old conceits scrubbed clean, with just enough dirt left to seem genuine, is ultimately a disquieting one”

“This is unfortunate because Ritter, whose numerous songwriting accolades are trumpeted in the album’s press release, is a more than capable lyricist.”

Jesse, putting the Red Sea between subject and linking verb is…not good. Contrary to popular belief in your field, a two-letter word can indeed collapse under an author’s excess. Imagine those sentences surrounded by others just as hard. That’s your review. Might make for a difficult read, huh?

Thanks to the rating stars and a few rereads, I understand you had mixed feelings about this album. If you’re on the fence about something, fine, but at least spend time looking up words that don’t need silly adverb constructions. Read these phrases:

“the borderline offensive”

“the slightly enthralling aura”

“nearly stuffy compositions”

Dude, how can you be almost offended by something? Slightly enthralled? Nearly stuffed up? Those are all adjectives that describe either/or situations. So…you really need to be on one side of the fence or the other. Sitting with the post up your butt don’t look nothing but ridiculous.

If nothing else, all these modifiers showed me how you avoid brevity like the plague. All music lice suck off other people’s art, but at least some are succinct. Nearly every sentence in your review kicks brevity’s balls. You take the long way round even down to the level of word choice. Let’s return to a previous example:

“This is unfortunate because Ritter, whose numerous songwriting accolades are trumpeted in the album’s press release, is a more than capable lyricist”

Got a couple issues with that sentence, Jesse. First off — when did America fall out of love with the word “many”? I can’t even watch People’s Court these days without hearing someone say his girlfriend cheated on him numerous times. “Numerous” is a clunky modifier and should only end a clause. Second, wouldn’t a more than capable lyricist simply be a very capable lyricist? Readability, Jesse…readability.

There’s even more I could grind here, but I’m just going to run through your musical dissection and end. Take a gander at the criteria you mentioned — you know, the ones binding your assessment of this album:

“The first is the fulfillment of the formula it attempts to emulate, in this case a kind of moody but detached wilderness lyricism, at home with nature but not down-home, smoky Americana crossed with the yellowing allure of old adventure stories.”

“The second is the creation of an individual product, and though World Away scores points for style, it also inevitably appears a little dried out and musty”

Jesse, it’s easy enough calling bullshit on your molecular analysis when you reviewed 10 albums the month of April. Writing a graduate thesis on this guy’s album in three days seems disingenuous to me. But aside from that, it did get me thinking. If anyone reads your review besides me, it’ll be someone who’s never heard the album before. So riddle me this: what’s the point of writing that for a listener curious at best? Is it for his glory…or for yours?

Album: Still Standing

Reviewer: Luke Winkie

Slant, 2010

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease, Detachment Syndrome








Most Emo Phrase: “succumbing to the vanilla, paint-by-numbers soul”

They All Sound Alike: “it’s a usual heart-strong self-helper”

Read it Like ED: “keeps a pretty steady peak going throughout its four minutes”




Luke Winkie. Holy cow, that’s unfortunate. Well hey, if John Boehner can get people to call him BAYNER, I’m sure anything’s possible. Funny thing is that I’d already been working on ripping another of your reviews before this one came along. At least I’ll have something to fall back on when a slow day comes a knockin’.

Luke, the biggest beef I had with your review is that you’re clearly bullshitting most of it. It’s okay though, you’re not alone. I used to do the same thing when I really had no experience in the genre of an album I was nonetheless assigned to review. And like my former self, you’re not exactly humble about it:

“Unfortunately, the rest of Still Standing is immediately forgettable, inhabiting the colorless world that has doomed the majority of mainstream R&B over the last decade”

Oh, right, the decade you started in third grade. Look Luke, I’m not ragging on your age because I think teenagers have nothing to add to the world. It’s just a bit much to believe that someone who writes for Delusions of Adequacy as a high school senior was following mainstream R&B avidly during the decade leading up to it.

What else you got?

“Monica has never been a top-tier R&B diva. Her sixth album, Still Standing, seems to hint at an unflinching resolve in the face of irrelevance but ends up succumbing to the vanilla, paint-by-numbers soul we’ve come to expect from her.”

Luke, you’re 18 years old. Monica’s debut album hit triple platinum before you learned to pee in a toilet. So I imagine some folks who were listening to something other than Barney in the late ‘90s might “come to expect” something different than you do. To clarify, you might note that by “we,” you really meant boys who’d rather listen to Pavement. Or in the interest of not really knowing what the f you’re talking about, you might consider writing “according to the Wikipedia search I did on Monica, it doesn’t appear she was a top-tier R&B diva in the 2.2 section of Contents.”

Here’s something to ponder, Luke. Maybe an R&B artist falls on harder times not necessarily because of her music, but because ¼ of the rating aggregation of her new album comes from a dude in full Ziggy Stardust regalia whose tagline reads “just your average music journo with SERIOUS opinions about Television’s Marquee Moon.” Somehow I don’t envision you keeping heavy tabs on the negro music scene, but I could be dead wrong. I’ll take the risk.

All right, let’s move away from your early childhood PhD in R&B and just take a gander at your closing argument to wrap this up. What I’m doing here might be illegal in some states, so I don’t want to push too hard.

“Monica’s syrupy voice is still undeniably strong, and Still Standing is unquestionably heartfelt, but it’s almost impossible to recommend, particularly when an artist like Erykah Badu is putting out a new record at almost exactly the same time”

Dude, you just DID recommend it. Believe it or not, there are people out there who like their voices strong and their R&B albums heartfelt. And let me see if I have this right. It’s almost impossible for you to recommend this album because another artist’s album you haven’t yet heard is coincidentally being released around the same time? Call me nuts, but I don’t think that kind of logic’s just cause to be pissing on an artist’s heart and soul. In my mind, that’s a dick move, Luke Winkie.

Album: Easton Corbin

Reviewer: Jonathan Keefe

Slant, 2010

Writing Disorders: Infectious Punctuation, Detachment Syndrome, Jargon Palsy








Most Emo Phrase: “those nicer moments are still too isolated to make for a satisfying debut”

Cleft rectum: “stale ’80s arena rock and early-’90s adult contemporary drivel”




Jonathan, I’m going to call you John. If it’s Jon, my apologies, but I feel weird addressing you as Jonathan repeatedly. I tried, but kept thinking we were locked in loving embrace on a spring morn before the Crimean. Don’t worry…I’ll still wait for you in Devonshire, Jonathan.

This is your first time in the chair, John, so I’ll walk you through my motions. First I’m going to show you a bloated sentence here on the monitor and highlight what I think is wrong with it. Feel free to guess at any time:

“Corbin sings well enough (though, again, in drawing such uncanny parallels to another, infinitely more famous vocalist, he doesn’t do himself any favors or announce the arrival of a distinctive new voice), but lacks the maturity and depth of experience to elevate some of the record’s middling material.”

John, why? Why the bulgy parenthetical thorax? It’s not like you had no choice but to cram a huge explanation in the midsection of your sentence. You could have just as easily dropped the word “though” and stuck the whole choad right after the period without the smile lines. It’s clear you didn’t have readability at the fore of your mind, so something else must be afoot. You know what I think happened here? I think you were so uncomfortable writing straightforward praise that you needed an immediate way of speaking to the contrary. Well, thanks for the intermission between “enough” and “but.” I pinched a nice deuce.

I like wearing the shoes, but I’m not just a formatting nanny, John. I’d have beef with your claims even if they were clear.  Let’s move to that bit about Corbin not doing himself ANY favors drawing parallels to George Strait:

“in drawing such uncanny parallels to another, infinitely more famous vocalist, he doesn’t do himself any favors”

Somehow I don’t envision most country music fans being as nitpicky about a dude singing country in a country tenor. Sure, there may be some who’d stick up a Strawberries just to burn Corbin’s albums in an oil drum. But it seems far more likely that folks who like George Strait might be like, “hm, this guy sounds like George Strait. That’s something I would listen to.” Let’s just throw an “m” on your “any favors” and we’ll be straight, capisce?

Well, we know that you have a passion for hyperbole, John. Let’s check to see if there’s any unintended irony scattered about the place:

“a slightly more purposeful variation on an interminable series of rote lists of rural-ish points of reference that Nashville’s unambitious go-to songwriters have been attempting to pass off as songs for the past few years”

John, I’m going to suppress my laughter after reading that mess and try to focus on one point here. Travel back to self-awareness 101 for a minute. Am I dreaming or did you actually write the phrase “interminable series” and follow it with a Dennis Miller rant about “rural-ish points of reference?” Maybe the geniuses behind bit.ly will eventually write some code that condenses obese prose, but until then you might consider keeping it on manual control for a while.*

I’m thankful the Slant editors aren’t as free-love about word count as some zines, but you still managed to pack those 400 words to the brim with anaerobic stink:

“it’s only the four tracks on which Corbin shares a co-writing credit that show any real personality or point of view, with “That’ll Make You Wanna Drink” and “Leavin’ a Lonely Town” demonstrating a promising awareness of genre conventions and a real sense of wit.”

John, I’m always amused when music critics bookend vernacular song titles with stuff that could sterilize a toilet bowl. You know, like:

“Pistash-Yo’s new single “Thumb my Bitch’s Booty” demonstrates a promising awareness of genre conventions and a real sense of wit.”

Priceless, dude. Do you actually listen to music or do you just use it as your brain’s ashtray? Read some of this butt pucker you rattled off:

“there’s precious little here of interest”

“too isolated to make for a satisfying debut”

“stale tropical island shtick”

Speaking of stale, John, you’re reviewing an album featuring a guy kicked back on the porch with a guitar and a cute dog on the cover. Even if you couldn’t bring yourself to relax and enjoy it without Xanax, you might have considered speaking the guy’s language to snip his sack. All right, visit’s over. Here’s your floss.

*For those of you who thought of the trip to Degobah, cheers

Album: Permalight

Reviewer: Kevin Liedel

Slant, 2010

Writing Disorders: Detachment Syndrome, Jargon Palsy

Most Sterile Phrase: “threadbare, pastoral simplicity, youthful exuberance, and warm-blooded nuance”

Ugh: “the most derivative and grating vocal mimicry of Benjamin Gibbard this side of Owl City”




Kevin, have a seat. Grab a Werther’s. Comfortable? Good, good. Now then, let’s start with the positive. You didn’t write a long review.

Now let’s get to the bad. Spit out that Werther’s.

“At times an acoustic, SoCal splendor that illuminates the Oakland quartet’s folksy charisma, the album often commits inexplicable about-faces”

Damn, I was expecting a three-page short story about how the band’s SoCal splendor slays the dragon and bangs the princess. Kevin, when I encounter two commas and 15 words separating the first word of a sentence and its subject, my brain reflexively grabs onto the closest noun as the lead actor. Maybe I should just blame my Polish brain, but would it have killed you to just start the damn sentence with “the album?”

While you mull that over, let’s continue along this particular stretch of the feces brick road, shall we?

“the album often commits inexplicable about-faces, leaving its listeners with jarring electrified pop experiments ill-suited to Rogue Wave’s mien.”

Kevin, what “listeners” are you talking about? Did you put an addendum on the 2010 Census asking respondents to rate their feelings on “inexplicable about-faces?” Did all your friends coincidentally come to the same “jarring electrified pop” conclusion after you lent them the album? Did you have any reason for using the third person plural other than to pad your opinion to make it heavier? It’s a music review, not something engraved on the Voyager disc. Can you speak for yourself, earthling, or is that too ill-suited for your mien?

You crammed this review with a lot of pinched pickles, Kevin, but here’s my favorite collection:

“While the album’s stumbling side is often allayed by the simple rawness of Rogue Wave’s strumming, handclapping sensibility, things still go awry, and often rather painfully.”

You know, Kevin, I once had a history teacher who nearly flunked the whole class for writing juxtaposed modifiers. If only you were so lucky. Unless you set your iPod to 140 decibels, using the word “painfully” to describe a piece of music is a bit melodramatic, wouldn’t you say? Also, what the hell is “handclapping sensibility?” You mean the musicians know the lost secret of enticing listeners into pounding their palms together to a beat? Damn, you must have beheaded an ox on an altar when the Rembrandts cut “I’ll Be There for You.” I thought “pop sensibility” was a bad enough strain of ball pox in music writing, but this about takes the cake.

I’m going to close this on your opening, Kevin. I’d stay longer but I need my beauty sleep.

“To say that Rogue Wave’s Permalight is a two-faced record is critical understatement at its finest.”

Well, allow me to reTORT, Brad. I think a critical understatement at its finest would be to not state the critique at all. However, if you’re unable to completely stave your compulsion to rescue virgin ears from “clumsy pieces,” don’t worry. There’s another way to elaborate how a band’s music doesn’t fit your square hole. It’s slightly higher on the statement ladder too. If an album doesn’t make the warm feelings become a throbbing drumbeat, maybe you write an email to the band humbly asking them to take your misgivings to heart. Something to keep in mind there, captain.

*I’m a hypocrite. Save your energy.

Album: Raditude

Reviewer: Huw Jones

Slant, 2009

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease

Most Emo Phrase: “naïvely holding out for a return to Rivers Cuomo’s melancholic roots”

Dollar Words: libretto, melancholic, lambast, gormless, vacuous

Something only a critic would write: “such an abhorrent cocktail of deluded lyricism and indolent musicianship.”

Hi, Huw. It’s clear from your opening paragraph that you’re not a fan of Weezer’s latest release.

“Weezer’s unpardonable decline into soulless streamlined pop-rock continues with Raditude”

Maybe it’s the contrarian in me pulling the strings, but I’ve got to ask. What’s wrong with streamlined pop rock? I’m assuming you mean that it’s inferior to its counterpart, cumbersome rock that no one listens to. Remind me why exactly that’s good music, Huw.

You really don’t pull any punches after your opener.

“This terribly titled and woefully written record consists of odes to partying, romance, and girls who “got hot”

Yeah, that sounds like an awful time. Screw fun.

“For those who, like me, were appalled by The Red Album’s forays into teen-pleasing power-pop anthems or were naïvely holding out for a return to Rivers Cuomo’s melancholic roots, this album is not for you”

Did you ever stop to think that maybe Rivers Cuomo doesn’t return to his “melancholic roots” because he isn’t melancholy? The guy’s rich as hell and looks cool in glasses. Wouldn’t it be worse if Weezer wrote depressing songs to reflect states of mind they no longer felt just to please critics? Not just any critics, but those who were absolutely orgasmic over a white man singing about an Asian fetish on an album that came out 15 years ago?

You know what, Huw? Let’s play a game. Let’s play “The Kind of Music Huw Jones Thinks Would Be Good Based on His Hatred of Raditude.” Playing is easy. I’ll just take every single negative comment you wrote and use its opposite to paint a picture of what you want music to sound like. Here, I rewrote the first part of your opening paragraph to reflect how it might have been written if Raditude pleased you:

“Weezer’s enviable ascent into soulful, cumbersome unpopular-rock continues with Coypond. This wonderfully titled and nobly written record consists of odes to staying home alone on Friday nights, verbal abuse, and boys who “got ugly,” executed with enough laudable complexity and salient chronicle to bolster interest in their output from here on in.”

Apart from showing you’d probably be just as hilariously longwinded even in positive form, this fun little exercise shows something else. You’re hella emo, Huw.

But jokes aside, you come off like an asshole throughout the entire length of your review, especially when it comes to the ever-popular “it hurts to blast your art” statement:

“It pains me to lambast Weezer with such vitriol”

So don’t do it. If it hurts, don’t do it. Why are you doing it if it hurts? Why are you lambasting with such lambast when you could just as easily NOT write a review of an album you loathed? Or better yet, why did you spend 1-2 hours writing this three-paragraph waste of time when you could have learned the seven basic chords on guitar in order to write your own brilliant collection of music?

First came Blue, then came Pinkerton, then came obtuse comparisons in a baby carriage:

“sporting a stout acoustic riff that owes a lot to the Jam’s “Town Called Malice” as well as John Fred & His Playboys’s “Judy in Disguise.”

Dude, chances are that this Weezer riff owes nothing to those two bands that you happened recognize used similar chords. Just because a band’s riff sounds sort of like another band’s riff does not mean that the newest band “owes” anything to the older. It just means that it’s easy for rock music to sound similar when it’s been 60 years since Chuck Berry first started playing chords in songs.

I’m going to end with this great bit you wrote on Cuomo’s songwriting:

“Cuomo spins a meet-the-parents story that, however sincere he may be, seems a bizarre topic for a man on the verge of 40″

Yeah, almost as bizarre as a grown man yearning for another Pinkerton. And just as funny.