ART FROM BEHIND BARS PRISONER CREATIVE ARTS PROJECT PAGE 6B B THE MICHIGAN DAILY THURSDAY, MARCH.29, 2007 MUSIC COLUMN Who's a critic? Not me. think music criticism is pretty much total bullshit. If enjoying music is a subjective . experience, who is qualified to say what's good or bad? I might know more names or own more records, but I can't tell you what to enjoy, only what does it for me. If you think Fall Out Boy isafive- star band, then why let some pretentious, wannabe-musi- cian writer piss on your opin- ion? That's why LLOYD H. I'm not a music CARGO critic. Writing about music can be beautiful, revelatory and touching, and there's a lot of ways to go about a record review that make for an engaging and inform- ing read. Robert Christgau did it by being as direct and to the point as possible, saying more with 50 words than most could with 500. Lester Bangs did it by writing about himself, and occa- sionally mentioning the music he was reviewing - but with a style that ran deeper than your average first-person wankfest. There are more, too, but unfortu- nately it seems the world of music criticism is (mostly) a bitter, nerdy boys' club that turns out the same crap over and over again. There's even a formula that goes some- thing like band A sounds like band B plus band C and are influenced by hip reference X, Y and Z so that Band A fits nicely into whatever -idiculous sub-genre or scene is the flavor of the week. Still, it's not like music criti- cism doesn't serve a certain purpose, it's just a very narrow one. At their basest level record reviews act as a consumer guide. If a so-called critic can estab- lish credibility, usually by being associated with a respected pub- lication like Pitchfork or Rolling Stone, his voice becomes a part of the hype machine that exposes new artists, canonizes old ones and shreds anyone who can no longer be considered cool. Critics want to think they have more power than they do, but the truth is critics don't make their favorite musicians mega-stars. I don't think a respected critic on Earth praised the last Black Eyed Peas albums, but didn't slow down sales one bit. The only realm of the industry that critics have that much power over is the hipper, trendier demographic - the indie world, if you will. If Pitchfork trashes someone (like the time they gave Travis Morrison a 0.0) then that person can say goodbye to all but their loyalist fans. And on the other hand, a grade above 9.0 means Wazoo better order 40 more copies. That system works because sometimes kids need someone to tell them what's cool, and with so much indie-rock totally sucking, it can be tough to sort through for the diamonds. That doesn't mean that critical consensus means you ought to like something, it just means that maybe you ought to check it out and decide for your- self. After all boys and girls, being into things just because they're deemed cool is what makes you a hipster, and these days who wants to be labeled that? Isn't this hypocritical? I've expressed some pretty strong opinions about music in the Daily. See CARGO, page 6B LIST March 29 to April 1 The Daily Arts guide to the best upcom- ing events - it's everywhere you should be this week and why. r r.. We never hear the end of it. "Daily Arts hates everything," it usually goes, followed by a broader condemnation of critics in general. Yes, we nitpick, but we're here because we're completely in love with this stuff. The three writers below deconstruct popular critics and criticism to help make sense of it and what it means for you. EVERYONE'S A CRITIC ByKRISTIN MAcDONALD Associate Arts Editor W e don't need rooftops to shout from any- more. The magic of the Internet has pro- vided us with an ever-growing variety of ways to cast our rulings on the current state of pop culture, and I'm surprised we're not all per- petually dizzy from the sudden power's invigorating rush. Everyone's acritic, and movies are undeniably afavorite subject. When FelliniNut85 and ODoyleRules can go at it on an IMDb.com message board with the same self-righ- teous fervor, lofty cultural opinion (ahem - "criticism") perhaps seems to be slowly stagnating into irrelevance. Wrong. Amid this new, unfettered wealth of opinion, it's only more needed than ever. After all, it is an under-mentioned fact that to be sup- portive of self-expression is far easier than to be receptive to it. Any three minute perusal through YouTube's gallery of fuzzy-pixeled rantings will send you sprinting for the comfortable gravity of the most ponderous of sweater- vested academics. Consider the ponytailed YouTuber who files her official grievance in video clip form under the promisingtitle of"Movie critics anger me." In whatIhope is just a spot-on impression of soul-sanding teen angst, she carps on and on about how somestupid critic was so unbe- lievably wrong that in "Tristan and Isolde" the war (bor- ing) was more important than the romance (sigh). Some decades on from now this chick will realize to her inevitable chagrin that she forgot to take down her bedroom's many posters of Orlando Bloom's simpering goatee before cogsnitting herself to the annals of movie criticism. "Critics these days justdon'tknow whatthey're See MACDONALD, page 4B When I first saw the trailer for "300," I knew I was in trouble. I had no idea the same shot of shouting half-naked men recut from a dozen differ- ent angles could be so gripping, but the listless grandeur got me every time. At one particularly vulnerable moment I even tried to find the metal soundtrack on iTunes. (No luck, thank God.) That wasn't the problem. "300" is totally enthrall- ing as a three-minute clip, but from the first time I saw that preview, I suspected I would hate the movie. It's not customarily a good sign when a trailer doesn't see fit to include dialogue from the movie it's created to advertise, and I have seen enough digital filmmaking to know that pretty pictures can only get you so far. But a trailer this electric was going to make this the fanboy event of the year. "300" was goingto be huge, and every time I would try to talk about it, I would get the same sigh, the same exasperated scold reminding me that I am a purist toad and that the American moviegoer had overruled me with his pocketbook. As you might imagine, then, I met with some reluc- tance a request from this paper's film editor that I write a dueling review with him on "300" to contrast with his hyper-excited response. I agreed, thoughI predicted that like our fabled Spartans, I was fighting a losing battle. He went on to call the movie "gorgeously surreal" and a "visual masterpiece." I was thinking more along the lines of "exuberantly stupid." This wasn't going to end well. See BLOOMER, page 4B A BRIEF ASSESSMENT OF ROCK CRITICISM By MATT KIVEL Daily Music Editor ntellectuals have always been skeptical of rock music. Bill Haley and Gene Vincent's early rock'n'roll singles epitomized a form that was commercially acces- sible and simplistic in musical structure. It's purpose was solely entertainment-based, seemingly unworthy of lyrical analysis or academic study. Musical elitists held onto their Bartok and Stravinsky records as symbols of a refined understanding of classicism and music as a "high- er" art form. From the late 1950s and well into the 1960s, the unspoken boundary separating the elite and ignorant music fan began to disappear, obscured by the integration of classical forms into pop and popular forms into clas- sical works. George Martin's use of the string quartet in "Yesterday" changed rock'n'roll the same way Leonard Bernstein's score for "Westside Story" influenced classi- cal composition. The birth of true rock criticism can be directly linked to the rise of the full-length album as the preferred medium of musicalproduction in the mid to late '60s. Dylan's High- way 61 Revisited, The Beach Boys's Pet Sounds and Leon- ard Cohen's debut album combined innovative musical approaches with lyrics that drew more from poetic form than traditional song structure. Counterculture publica- See KIVEL, page 4B Miller finally at home on North Campus By MICHELE YANKSON Daily Arts Writer In 2004, when the idea of the Walgreen Drama Center was in its nascence, Arthur Miller, just two years before his death, reviewed the designs for the project. The theater within the center was to be built as a tribute to Miller, the iconic play- wright, award-winning writer and perhaps the most-celebrated Univer- sity alum. This plan will be realized tonight as the Arthur Miller Theater has its grand opening with "Playing for Time," Miller's dramatic adapta- tion of a biographical account of the Holocaust. Although the play's sub- ject is somber, the theater's open- ing will be an indelible celebration of theater, community and of Miller himself. Former School of Music Dean Karen Wolff, who accompanied Miller as he reviewed the design, said Miller was pleased with the prospects. "(In dealing with the School of Music, Theater, & Dance) it was always the students he had in mind," Wolff said. "(The theater) will con- tinue to inspire countless students as they learn and practice their skills, similar to Miller's experiences at the University as he honed his ability as a young playwright. " Central to Miller's insistence on inspiring and aiding students was his request for flexibility of space. He envisioned the creation of a space that was not only ideal for present- ing a play but for transforming the actors' scope within that space, Wolff said. With a staggering donation from pharmacy tycoon and alum Charles Walgreen, Jr. and the vision of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blum- berg Architects, Miller's ideas for the theater became reality. The theater displays certain aspects of modern See MILLER, page 5B "Playing for Time" will open tonight at the new Arthur Miller Theatre. AT EAST HALL The Southeast Asian Cultural Night returns to the East Hall atrium and auditorium Saturday evening from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. for a night of traditional cultural performances and unbeliev- ably delicious Southeast Asian food. There will be mini-exhibitions on Singaporean, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian cul- ture. Admission is free, so is the food. What more could a hungry co-ed ask for? ON STAGE The University's only student-run and student-directed orchestra, the Michigan Pops Orchestra, will play popular selections from a variety of movies and musicals Sunday night at 7 p.m. for its Pops in Paris! perfor- mance. The show will include a cho- rus, vocal and instrumental soloists, lighting effects and selections from Gershwin as well as Disney. What more could you ask for from an April Fool's day concert? AT LUNCH When was the last time you dined with amajorPolishsocialactivistand writer? If you overslept last Friday and missed Lunch With Honors with New Yorker magazine cartoon edi- tor Bob Mankoff, be sure you make it tomorrow at noon to talk with Krzysztof Czyzewski. The founder of the Borderlands Foundation of Arts, Cultures and Nations in Sejny (near the Polish-Lithuanian border) will also be lecturing later at 7 p.m. AT THE MIC Coinciding with the sold-out per- formances of Arthur Miller's "Play- ing For Time" this weekend is the Global Miller Symposium, orga- nized by the University's resident Miller and Samuel Beckett expert, Prof. Enoch Brater. Brater's lecture "Drama Matteres: Suitcases, Sand and Dry Goods" tonight is free at the UM Alumni Center, and the rest of the lectures this weekend are free at the Rackham Ampitheatre.