Accentuate the Positive: Why Music Critics Write So Many Favorable Reviews
On the younger end of the diametric, online critics are perhaps guilty extending the long tail of hipsterdom into impenetrably esoteric ends, allowing no gateway for the ignorant or uninitiated to fully enjoy a piece of music writing without feeling like they’re being talked down to. Music writing from this lot often involves a certain deal of grandstanding by writers who live to find the most obscurely (ir)relevant reference point or salivate at the opportunity to demonstrate their acumen by painting targets on what they see as the illegitimate status quo or an imposed hierarchy (this often means deterritorializing a hierarchy erected from hype that is itself constructed by a tiny milieu of online music critic peers).