I was scanning the CD reviews in Rolling Stone magazine the other day and was taken aback by the one-and-half-star review of the new Editors CD, The Weight Of Your Love.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself a huge Editors fan and would wholeheartedly agree that they can be pretty hit-or-miss from album to album, but to receive a review of less than two stars in a magazine notorious for handing out five-stars to Mick Jagger's "Goddess In The Doorway" (an album Keith Richards would later dub "Dog Shit In The Doorway"), well, that's a major accomplishment.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself a huge Editors fan and would wholeheartedly agree that they can be pretty hit-or-miss from album to album, but to receive a review of less than two stars in a magazine notorious for handing out five-stars to Mick Jagger's "Goddess In The Doorway" (an album Keith Richards would later dub "Dog Shit In The Doorway"), well, that's a major accomplishment.
While I'm not one of those folks who jam on their breaks to gawk at a car crash, I do have a perverse curiosity in knowing what a one-and-a-half-star album sounds like. I mean, I would have thought it sounded a lot like Jay-Z's latest cure for insomnia, but RS gave that album three stars just out of fear Jay-Z might send over a goon or two to adjust the reviewer's face.
I would presume there is no such fear in the heart of reviewer Mike Powell, whose review of the new Editors' CD should stand as a template for how NOT to write a record review. For starters, he actually criticizes the band for lacking conviction and not sticking to the same sound explored on past albums. Oh, the field day he'd have had taking the Beatles to task for such tomfoolery. By such criteria, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club would have surely qualified for the dreaded "no star" review, with Powell chiding them for their inability to "stick to a sound".
Powell then goes on to say, "In the absence of heart, brains or dancing feet, they resort to fists."
Now, I've listened to the album several times and, for the life of me, I don't hear any fisticuffs anywhere. Hell, I don't even hear the cracking of knuckles. Maybe Powell mistook a fight in the next dorm room for a song on the album because all I hear is a band playing their hearts out.
Powell continues:
"Actual rage is out of the question, presumably because it's déclassé (somebody's been playing Scrabble), so track after track they pummel, slowly, aided by vibrato and violins."
Yes, folks, you read that right. Editors bare their fists and pummel the listener with, and I quote, "vibrato and violins". What musical planet must Powell have come from to possibly think that the shy kid in the band room playing the violin is out to pummel anyone?
Sorry Mikey, on a scale of one to five, I give your review zero stars.