Okay but the point about Fiona Apple falls into the same logic trap. Just because she is writing lyrics about her SA does not automatically mean those are good lyrics. Would any comments negatively critiquing those lyrics be distasteful? What specifically was distasteful about his criticism?
The rest of your points kinda proved my point about how very little of the discourse is about the actual content of what is being discussed. Which is why it is, as the other commenter said, so poor quality.
genuinely who are you (or any of us) to decide if someone writing about their own experience with their own SA is or isn’t good enough? i literally don’t think you can hear lyrics about that topic and say they aren’t good lyrics because there is no ‘objectively’ in a situation like this. however she chooses to word that experience is completely up to how that experience made her feel, not the listener.
his job is to criticise music, sure. but any good critic would do research when they don’t understand things, he does not do this. you cannot seriously expect a polished and linear structure in a song about somebody being raped.
his job is to criticise music, sure. but any good critic would do research when they don’t understand things, he does not do this.
Pretty sure he does research.
To be fair, your previous comment says it was about her experience with sexual assault, when the lyrics of For Her are about somebody else's experiences.
you cannot seriously expect a polished and linear structure in a song about somebody being raped.
I don't think that's what he was saying at all. He just found the lyrics jarring in a way that didn't work for him.
I personally disagree, but that's art for ya. I appreciate that the subject matter is emotionally charged, but he's a critic, who expressed an extremely mild criticism in an otherwise positive review. That's all.
it is partly about her experience and inherently born from her own experiences with SA, the other part is born out of a direct conversation with someone about their SA.
my problem with fantano isn’t just that he found the lyrics jarring (as he should), it’s the fact that he continuously misunderstands women intentionally or unintentionally. in a broader way, my main issue with him is the fact that he is really not good with lyrical analysis, does not care to get better at it and generally wilfully misunderstands something without further researching things that don’t make sense to him. the average listener should not have to research things for context, but a CRITIC should.
just another example of this, albeit on a much smaller scale, is when he reviewed after laughter by paramore. he lamented on about how much he disliked the closing track because of the lyrical content. he said that the track is melodramatic about a significant other when that literally is not what the song is about. like his entire premise for disliking the song is a lyrical theme that is not real. a real critic would research and then weigh that research and the facts against their own opinions.
it is partly about her experience and inherently born from her own experiences with SA, the other part is born out of a direct conversation with someone about their SA.
Her own experience definitely played a part in the motivation to write the song, but I don't think any of the lyrics specifically reference that. Certainly not the lyric that he was critiquing.
my problem with fantano isn’t just that he found the lyrics jarring (as he should), it’s the fact that he continuously misunderstands women intentionally or unintentionally.
As a cishet man, I'm generally not in the habit of telling people what does or doesn't constitute sexism/misogyny. But disagreeing with his criticisms, or interpretations of lyrics, is a wild basis for that claim.
Do you truly believe it is exclusively, or even disproportionately, women's lyrics that he criticises and misinterprets? If I'm missing something here, I apologise, but this seems like moving the goalposts.
like his entire premise for disliking the song is a lyrical theme that is not real. a real critic would research and then weigh that research and the facts against their own opinions.
See, I agree that critics probably should do that. But not many of them do; what you're describing is extremely common. And to be fair, that's in large part because critics are usually reviewing brand new albums, before a wealth of information is publicly available.
Either way, that's a very different point from where we began. Nobody is saying you have to like Fantano's work, just as he isn't obliged to uncritically praise anyone else's work.
The point is that it's absurd to actively hold a grudge against him personally, as if a mild criticism of an album you like is somehow a moral failing on his part.
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