I’ve probably typed this statement more times than my credit card number, but running the card through one more time never hurt – glenn mcdonald is one of the best writers putting words on paper today. The fact that he happens to write about music – well, that just makes his greatness a convenient topic for this forum. Hopefully, your mouse cursor has wandered over to that link for The War Against Silence, an exemplary source of discourse on all topics even tangentially related to music.
But perhaps you need convincing. Well, here’s FeedMag.com’s Stephen Burt testifying. And if you happen to be curious about glenn’s M.O., click on this interview with RockCritics.com’s Steven Ward. Heady, illuminating stuff. Here’s a sample:
It feels to me, from my own limited and subjective experience, like the bulk of mainstream writing about music is just journalism, at this point, and most of the rest of it amounts to a contest to see who can piss on things with the most elegant arc. It seems like everything polarizes into sycophancy or superciliousness. I think it’s incredibly important that there be a intellectual and aesthetic dialog about popular music, but I rarely read anything that seems to be trying to be a part of it.