For this assignment I chose to compare two different concert reviews, the first, a NYT review of the Das Racist show on September 12, and the second, a Star Tribune review of a private Foo Fighters show held yesterday in Minnesota.
The Times piece, “Order Moves In On Chaos, As Rappers Go Legit,” by Jon Caramanica, seems very much like a singular expert’s opinion, which the author makes explicitly clear from the beginning. The basic argument he puts forward in his first few paragraphs, can be summarized in one sentence, “the members of Das Racist are going legit.” Caramanica asserts that Das Racist concerts in the past were frenzied and chaotic spectacles (he calls them “anti-concerts), but that as the band as evolved there’s been a discernable shift in their live performances. Unfortunately (or perhaps not, depending on how much you trust the author), Caramanica doesn’t even attempt to marshal in any outside evidence to back up his claim, but suggests instead that the reader is just going to have to rely on his word. Of their frenetic live shows, Caramanic writes, “It had to be believed to be seen.”
Going forward, Caramanica doesn’t really use any outside sources in this story: he doesn’t speak to any concertgoers to ask what they thought of the performance, interview the members of Das Racist, or even quote past reviews of the hip-hop outfit. What Caramanica does have going for him is an authoritative voice that commands respect from the reader, and he backs this up with strong details from the night of the concert. Caramnica makes the claim, for example, that, “The polyglot group also thrives when toying with its heavily white audience, acknowledging the tensions of inclusion and exclusion.” Here he reinforces that assertion with a comical anecdote from the show: “Midshow Mr. Suri asked the crowd to wish his cousin a happy birthday: ‘Can you various Americans say ‘Divya?’’ The Crowd chuckled, and the D.J. reminded them: ‘W-W-W-White demons.’ Laughs all around.”
I think that in the specific case of music reviews that are written in this style, from the vantage point of an ‘expert’, a lack of outside evidence/opinions can be compensated for if the author really asserts him/herself from the beginning as someone the reader can trust, but again that’s not always easy to do.
By comparison the Star Tribune review “Foo Fighters pick core crowd for apple orchard gig in White Bear Lake” is written in a completely different style. The tone, as one could rightfully assume from the corny headline, is incredibly informal.
The lede is, “The winners didn't know the location until the van came to pick them up. Even 93X's longtime program director Wade Linder -- who will have a lot less friends once they find out he didn't hook them up -- swears he also was kept out of the loop.” In this case, we can tell from the lede that the tone of the article will be very casual, but the focus of the piece is on the experience of the lucky winners who were chosen to attend this intimate concert, not the voice of the author. The author doesn’t even really devote any time to talking about the Foo Fighters as a band, or what their music is like, he really only covers how “cool” the experience was for people who attended.
“"It was such an intimate performance; I was just entranced the whole time," gushed Cool, who sounded even more impressed of what happened afterward. Like when Foo frontman Dave Grohl "photo-bombed" some lucky girls posing for a friend (jumping in the background behind them with his middle finger raised).” While I guess this is a noteworthy detail given the angle of the piece, I’m not particularly impressed with hearing about how Dave Grohl photobombed a couple of teenagers. It’s probably a good thing that the article doesn’t dig much deeper, because based on what I’ve read so far I wouldn’t trust the author farther than I could throw him, and I certainly wouldn’t want to hear his opinions about whether the band’s performance was a departure from past shows, or if they’re continuing to evolve as a band.
Good observations about two very different ways "a concert review" can be approached. As you say, there's the strong voiced reviewer with no outside sources. and then a more featur-y piece that's less a straight up review than a glimpse into what the experience was like. Well done.
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