Sound Advice

Greg Kot is one of the today's leading critics covering rock and roll. He's has been the pop music critic at the Chicago Tribune since 1990. Together with his counterpart from the Chicago Sun-Times, Jim DeRogatis, he has created "the world's only rock 'n' roll talk show," "Sound Opinions" on Chicago's WXRT-FM. Like Siskel and Ebert, the two argue playfully about the musical issues of the day and of the past with eloquent passion for the art they have turned over their lives to.\nGreg Kot sat down with the IDS Weekend last Friday to discuss his craft, some of the issues in today's music, as well as the role of the critic in this money-driven, pop music world.\nQ: What sorts of bands or writers made you first want to write about rock and roll?\nA: I think it really started with the writers, reading other writers got me excited about rock and roll and writing, the two things I love best in life. I think reading Greil Marcus' book "Mystery Train" was a real eye opener to me, in terms of what could be said in a piece of rock criticism and how writing about rock could be a springboard to writing about just about anything you wanted. You could bring literature and film, theater and performance art and even your own life experience into that review and make it something sort of beyond a review about a piece of music, but the music itself was the inspiration for the writing. That's what I really like, I like the fact that the music could inspire that sort of writing. \nQ: It seems that the only way to find out about good music these days is by reading the critics; is that the way it's always been?\nA: To me it has. If anything, it's gotten worse. It's gotten narrower and narrower in terms of the way people find out about music. The written word, unfortunately, doesn't have the same pull as MTV or a radio station does, but if someone is really serious about music, I find that they read a lot about music and that's how they find out about stuff. Before I became a rock critic, 75 percent of my record collection was based on what somebody wrote before I had even heard a note of that music, and I've got a pretty good record collection thanks to a bunch of critics.\nQ: In what ways do you think critics influence the recording industry?\nA: Boy, I would say zero. Occasionally, if there is a mass critical consensus on an artist you can see the ripples and the big machine takes over and pulls that to the next level. \nQ: What kind of influence do they have on artists?\nA: Bob Mould was in Chicago on a three-night stand and I reviewed the first show, which was a pretty favorable review. But I had a few problems with it, and I wrote this in the review. I saw him about two months later and he was talking to a bunch of other critics who I think were asking him the same question, and he said, "One time this critic in Chicago wrote this and I was really mad, but then I realized that he was right and I changed my show." He turned around and I was sitting right there and he said, "That was you in fact." It was a validation moment. Stephen Stills of all people, once called me and said, "You wrote that we were all out of sorts and we looked distracted and shouldn't have been on stage. We were all really mad about that, but I got to tell you man we were distracted and we shouldn't have been on stage." So once in a while it will come back to you. These guys read your stuff, but a vast majority of the time though the artists just dismiss them. They just go, "Oh, that fucker he's just jealous," that kind of thing. \n Q: You've wrote a lot about Wilco recently. What makes them such an important band?\nA: I heard some people call them the American Radiohead, and I don't think that's too far off base. I think they're a band, no matter how many records they sell, that other bands have to pay attention to them because they are, artistically, setting the bar as high as anyone right now. They are one of the most important bands of our time because: a) They are a real band with real roots, and b) Because they're never satisfied, they keep pushing themselves. I'd have to say, every album they've made is better than the previous record. I can't tell you how few bands I can say that about. That is almost unheard of. Bands make one or two great records in their lifetime and then the rest of the time they're chasing their tail trying to figure out how to do that again or if they are successful they try to do the same thing again. They'd be an amazing band in any era. \nQ: Can a white critic in his 50s or 60s really relate to hip-hop?\nA: Hip-hop was a huge dividing line for a lot of critics. A lot of critics didn't get it, they said so and they should have stopped writing then. Techno or electronic music becomes the next big wave of the '90s, and a lot of them didn't get that. Like, "What's a -- I'll never be caught dead at a rave!" The big thing is not your age but your level of curiosity or interest. I'm a big believer in that you don't have to be of the culture, you don't have to be a fan. The whole reason for my existence is to not be a part of something you're writing about but to stand outside of it and process it and make sense of it and bring that information to other people who are not of that environment or of that culture and make them understand it. \nQ: Jim DeRogatis once asked Lester Bangs, "What makes your opinion better than any other person off the street?" \nA: I think a critic's opinion is overrated. I think opinions are overrated, everyone's got one. My big thing is I want to be useful to my readers. If my opinion is all I rely on, then I'm a pretty lousy critic. I think the most important thing a critic can do is to explain the music to the people he's writing for. Explain it in a way that will let the person make up their own mind as to whether or not they'd like that music or not. Not too many critics write about how the music sounds. You don't get a real sense of the music from a lot of criticism because it's all about this guy's opinion. No matter how many times I say, "Dave Matthews sucks," 4 million fans are going to say, "no, you suck!" I'm not really convincing anyone with that, maybe I'm just making myself feel better, but that's a pretty piss-poor reason to be writing. This whole opinion thing is just an argument, that's all it is and nothing more.