Artist: Vertical Horizon

Album: Burning the Days

Reviewer: Jonathan Sanders

Stereo Subversion, 2009

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease

Longest sentence: 67 words

Number of album songs mentioned: 2

Adverb foul: “cringe-inducingly bad”

Jonathan, you make a lot of weird claims in this review. Aside from the usual “industry killed good music” arguments, you bring up stuff that baffles my buttons.

For instance, you lost me at lumping Third Eye Blind in with Alice in Chains as two parts of “every band in the genre.” What genre is that? Rock and roll with guitars? Music with words? Aside from AIC effectively disbanding before Third Eye Blind even had a hit, the two bands sound nothing alike.

Then there’s this:

“No, this isn’t as cringe-inducingly bad an album as Third Eye Blind’s Ursa Major, which will go down as one of my five most disappointing albums of the year.”

Jon, it’s pretty clear from this review that you’d rather get a BJ from a garbage disposal than listen to Third Eye Blind. So, it wouldn’t be “disappointing” if you had no inclination towards liking it in the first place. It would be one of your “five albums of 2009 you hated the most.”

And then you start talking like none of this harsh writing is your fault, that you’re not ripping the band, but simply performing your duty to savage its music.

“It’s hard to blame the band”

“for the band’s sake I’m at least respectful of…”

“makes me feel a little bad trashing an album…”

I don’t understand why music critics feel the need to fist-bump the band they’re excoriating. Is it some form of insurance against a beatdown or a libel suit? It seems to me that if you wanted to do something for “the band’s sake,” you wouldn’t write:

“I feel like gouging something into my ears to stop the hook from reverberating”

Maybe you could just be content with having an unfavorable opinion of a band’s album without taking a dump on it with flowery words. Or maybe in the future you could ask Matt Conner to send you an album from a band that might remotely interest you. (Try it, he’s a nice guy.) Or at the very least, Jon, you could be an asshole without apologizing for it.

Thankfully it’s not all pins and barbs. Let’s move on to the lighter side of Jonathan Sanders:

“Meanwhile, if you hear Marcy Playground’s prepping a reunion tour and launching a new album, run quickly in the other direction.”

Dude, if you can A), name me any Marcy Playground song other than “Sex and Candy” and B), explain to me why you think that song was so awful, then I’ll consider running with you. Otherwise I’ll just think you’re sprinting awkwardly out of a Starbucks because the barista wouldn’t let you use the bathroom.

Finally, the nail in the coffin:

“makes me feel a little bad trashing an album that, if the band’s lucky, only 10,000 people will end up hearing.”

Strangest thing, Jon. I have to say that even though, if you’re lucky, only 10 people will end up reading your album review, I don’t feel the least bit bad trashing it. And I guess that’s what separates us.

Tags: Scorn Disease

Artist: Armin Van Buren

Album: Imagine

Reviewer: Shumit Dasgupta

Stereo Subversion, 2008

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease

Most Emo Phrase: “I’d like to imagine a world where music doesn’t feel like someone stuffed your ears with a paste composed of pulverized sorority girls, hair gel, and cheap knock-off cologne.”

Whitest Words: ilk, tawdry, maudlin, redolent

TMI: “Admittedly, I am fickle about the electronica I like – most of it is of the twisted sort, strains you won’t hear at your local club.”

Hi, Shumit. Wow, you really didn’t like this one. I think this phrase sums that up:

“Perhaps I’m being unfair, but the world is becoming more and more a place of finite resources, and I’d like to slap the person who decided that they should be spent funneling this crap over the airwaves.”

Yeah, I’d say you’re being unfair. Because unless you powered your laptop with a bicycle, you probably burned one too many dinosaur bones to type a 600-word review of an album you hated. Heck, at least this Van Buren chap went into a studio and recorded something. Don’t worry though, I’m sure one of these days, your review will get at least one tweet to make it worthwhile. A year and a half later…fingers crossed dude!

But enough funny stuff. You quickly get down to business.

“And on that note, I do have a job to do, and so I must, sadly, address the ‘music’. I’ll try and stretch this out as long as possible, in the spirit of taking one for the team, but forgive me if I duck out early to retch.”

While some will disagree with me, I define a job as something you get compensated for. Otherwise it’s slave labor or a hobby. You might have a paid job, but writing about music isn’t it. I wrote for Stereo Subversion and you don’t get paid. You just get to keep the album you review, and in this case, it’s pretty funny that the only compensation you received was an album that makes you want to puke. And who says you needed to “stretch this out as long as possible?” Is it your duty to write the most loquacious album review possible without even mentioning a single song on it by name? And if listening to music makes you puke, then you must have a pretty weak stomach. Some people get shot at for a living.

“I can only assume Armin has spent the last two decades in a small German hamlet connected to the outside world only via Morse code, and was, of course, the resident DJ, such is this tawdry set of hair-mousse beats.”

So…you can only assume that a musician you’ve never met lived his life according to a bizarre, improbable theory you concocted to explain why you don’t like his music? What’s a hair-mousse beat, Shumit?

And then comes your big reason for why you loathed this experience so much:

“Admittedly, I am fickle about the electronica I like – most of it is of the twisted sort, strains you won’t hear at your local club.”

Oooooh, tell me more, you dark, sexy man. Twisted electronica AND strains I won’t hear at my local club?! Goodness, I need some E. You must have mad dance parties in your room. Can I bring my glow sticks? You can paint my body!

Seriously though, over the course of this review, you managed to inadvertently sound intensely bitter for no reason and more than a little creepy. You can still paint my body if you want. Invitation’s open.

Also, Shumit, if you happen to stumble on this post when you’re google searching your own name, send me a link to your Myspace music. I’d love to hear your bass playing. And I’d love to write about it.

Tags: Scorn Disease