My vote for best is Mark Prindle. I used to go to his site a lot when it first came around, and although his writing style has gotten more abrasive and annoying over the years, his taste in music is divine. If you’re looking to get into new music, venturing to his site is always worthwhile.

Anyone else hate allmusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine? Just curious.

ACE

I like whatever Dom Passantino hates so I don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing

I'm waiting for the Jim is fat comments. To answer the question, the Allmusic guy is bad.

I don't hate him, I just think he is insane.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&s...2x7gjwr16ib~T1/

Just check out that badass motherfucker.

i don't like ACE's comments.... james brown & white man's guilt and whatnot

that guy's a douche

Anyway Stephen Thomas Erlewine is fine

I dont really care if he likes Paris Hilton more than Sufjan Stevens

Wow tough call on that one- I'm still honestly pondering the musical match up of Glenn Fry vs Ryan Adams.

paves and dan make reading fun.

Nick Sylvester sucks, Prindle is cool. I remember two years ago or something, reading "It's such a pain in the ass reviewing bands that people actually give a crap about. It's not like I'm reviewing Hor or Confront James and can just write "Look at my butt!" and nobody will care," and not being able to stop laughing for ten minutes. Yeah, Prindle.

I like everyone here, I don't think I've read any of Ace's threads...

Prindle is great, yeah. One of my heroes. Massive influence on my music taste/sense of humour/writing style/etc. And his music is awesome.

P-Fork writers whom I like:

Matt LeMay
Brent Dicrescenzo
Mark Richardson
Dominique Leone

Some good Stylus writers:

Chris Smith
Mike Shiflet
Joe Panzner
Julio Desouza
THE GOOD DR. BILL
Todd Burns
Ian Mathers

Fine peoples! Todd Hutlock is good, too. And Southall. And yeah, Dom Passantino comes across as a real piece of shit a lot of the time, but even then, he manages to be wildly entertaining.

I support Erlewine and his cause very much so. Good man. Andy Kellman is pretty great, too. And Mark Deming. Ned Raggett is okay, I guess. I don't like how he gives four and a half star reviews to albums that he awards three stars, though! And in his AMG things, he says some pretty awkward, bizarre shit. But it's cool. Whatever, you know.

And Sask and Sickpup write good shit, of course.

And Dan and I rule at writing about music, obviously. We swear a lot and talk about buttholes. Stefan kind of sucks, though. Sometimes. His Mars Volta review ruled.

Yes, Sickpuppy. Jon has a knack for it.

His PopMatters piece on Mezcal Head is awesome.

Also, Dusted has a bunch of really good writers, but I don't know any of their names. Yay, Dusted.

Yes. I don't remember which one it was but there was some review where he talked about how he went into a debate with this girl stranger at a show. And I could picture it, like 'Yeah, sounds like him.' Who likes discussing music more than the Puppy? He's either that nightmare you don't wanna stand next to at a show or the guy you really want to stand next to at a show.

Jeebus. Just went through a good bit of his back catalogue--damn fine stuff. Hard to believe it's the same guy.

Even harder to believe he's getting hitched. What a girl to endure that, haha.

Erlewine is like the Frank Zappa of music criticism, incredibly prolific, daring, brash, a lot of people are torn on if they like him or not. Also, he died in 1991 and has a son named Dweezil.

The Unterberger family of criticism is great too, everyone should have Andrew's blog bookmarked really. Always a great read. Richie Unterberger is kind of a gay, but I enjoy his writing.

Paves and I are of course great at what we do, but we just don't write enough and admittedly knock a lot of our style of Mark Prindle, who of course, is the man.


EDIT: sombies (brent d, sickpup, sask) are all great, great critics, particularly Sask. but yeah, Good Dr. Bill, he's one of my favorite writers period, to be quite honest. His ability as a writer is really fucking intimidating considering he's in my age group, meaning I have to compete for a job when people like him exist on this planet.


I like his Arcade Fire review, he's just completely different from us in terms of style, still blog-esque but more long-winded and really fuckin bombastic.


OTM. It's awesome that whenever someone mentions Prindle on this board and cites something he's written, I remember exactly where it's from and generally share the exact same reaction.

When you google Brent all the first hits are slams. That Deek one is hilarious just because it's so ridiculously angry.

I really don't enjoy him though.

Haha, yeah I did this too. Dude's as controversial as they come. There was some review he made for PFM where they had to issue a public apology or something, fucking hardcore.

Please pardon my ignorance, but what's the Good Dr.'s name on Stylus?

I think GDB is the one of the, if not the finest music/pop culture writer of his generation. That's no hyperbole...

His blog is absolutely essential reading.

link to the blog, anyone?

Hope he doesnt mind

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/suburbs/

read it, live it, enjoy it.

I like controversial and I'd say others are right up there with him, but sorry, he's just the worst kind of... I don't know what... asshole I guess.

Erlewine is a good guy and a good writer. AMG compares records to other similar albums, so praising, say, Paris Hilton simply means it's good in its class-- 00s pop. And he makes fair points about Sufjan.

Plus he first introduced me to Scott Walker, so for that I am forever grateful.

I never figured out why some of Jon Savage's liner notes are mind-blowingly bad, when he's so good.

Nick Terry, but he's retired now. Woebot, then. And Reynolds.

I mainly go for writers whose tastes are unlike mine because otherwise what's the point? I listen to as much as possible, so rock writers are banging on about stuff on which I already have an opinion. Occasionally they write something worth thinking about/arguing with (Edwin Pouncey, for one). Usually don't read too much online reviewing. Read some Sask and that was good. We disagreed pretty majorly on the last Tool and the fact that I still like him a lot speaks volumes about his writing.

GDB, great but wrong 9 times out of 10.

Eh, reviews, been a while since I cared.

greg kot is one of the worst.

greg kot is one of the worst, along with All of Stylus, Simon reynolds.

The best, me.


Really though i havent read any critics in a very long time. I dont even know who is who anymore.

Check this shit out!!!!

"some guy on MySpace" = me, bitches!!!!

Or was it Dan, who posted the picture on Prindle's MySpace (scroll downwards 2 see)?

Who cares?! I pulled this picture from the DVD and uploaded it to the internets! This is an honor like none other.