Last parenthetical point is easy to thrash out, actually, since I don't see a deep division between us here. I was being generous with the word "critic," and mitigated the generosity with the word "pretend." But anyway, real criticism is what I was doing in these P&J comments and what I try to embed in my reviews, whereas those you're calling "reviewers" I might call "truncated critics" (who can be very good). The reason I'd call them "truncated critics" rather than "reviewers" is that they do branch out beyond reviewing, to aesthetics, the social environment, business, the interplay between themselves and other people, etc.
Truncated critics: what makes this music good/bad? what makes music in general good/bad? how can we serve and promote good music? what's going on in the music and the world that makes it?
Real critics: not only what makes this music good/bad, but why do people similar to me (as opposed to other people) like or dislike this music (as opposed to liking or disliking that music)? why in general do people similar and dissimilar to me act the way we do around each other and towards the music? When we write up the people who make the music, why do we (as opposed to others) choose these people to write up (as opposed to some other people) and why do we write them up in this way (rather than in some other)? Etc.
(Recall my three types of critics in WMS #7; I was suggesting that type 3 - someone who leaps into the convo as a participant - could simultaneously do type 1 and type 2 criticism as well, and that leaping in was a better way of pulling off type 2 anyhow [type 2 being the social critic].)
I think you were simply wrong over in Freaky Trigger* about Lex not being a critic. He most certainly engages the second set of questions as much as the first, at high volume.
*Assuming you're referring to the discussion in the canon poll. Tom put the canon poll in Freaky Trigger but didn't subclassify it under Popular.
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Truncated critics: what makes this music good/bad? what makes music in general good/bad? how can we serve and promote good music? what's going on in the music and the world that makes it?
Real critics: not only what makes this music good/bad, but why do people similar to me (as opposed to other people) like or dislike this music (as opposed to liking or disliking that music)? why in general do people similar and dissimilar to me act the way we do around each other and towards the music? When we write up the people who make the music, why do we (as opposed to others) choose these people to write up (as opposed to some other people) and why do we write them up in this way (rather than in some other)? Etc.
(Recall my three types of critics in WMS #7; I was suggesting that type 3 - someone who leaps into the convo as a participant - could simultaneously do type 1 and type 2 criticism as well, and that leaping in was a better way of pulling off type 2 anyhow [type 2 being the social critic].)
I think you were simply wrong over in Freaky Trigger* about Lex not being a critic. He most certainly engages the second set of questions as much as the first, at high volume.
*Assuming you're referring to the discussion in the canon poll. Tom put the canon poll in Freaky Trigger but didn't subclassify it under Popular.