EVERYTHING NICE

How music criticism lost its edge.

- KELEFA SANNEH

Writers are increasingly expected not just to take pop music seriously but to celebrate it—or else.

When I was growing up, a critic was a jerk, a crank, a spoilsport. I figured that was the whole idea. My favorite characters on “The Muppet Show” were Statler and Waldorf, the two geezers who sat in an opera box, delivering instant reviews of the action onstage. (One logically unassailable judgment, from Statler: “I wouldn't mind this show if they just got rid of one thing . . .me!”) On television, the film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert structured their show so that at any time at least one of them was likely to be exasperated, possibly with the other one. On MTV, the rock critic Kurt Loder was a deliciously subversive presence, giving brief news reports with an intonation that conveyed deadpan contempt for many of the music videos the network played. And the first music review I remember reading was in Rolling Stone, which rated albums on a scale of one to five stars, or so I thought. In 1990, the début solo album by Andrew Ridgeley, who had sung alongside George Michael in the pop duo Wham!, was awarded only half a star. The severity and precision of the rating seemed hilarious to me, though probably not to Ridgeley, who never released another record.