31 Jul 2012

Critic hopes Chris Brown's Fortune "will be his last album"


A lot of artists have expressed their disdain for critics.  The disdain if usually a result of a negative review.  Kevin Smith famously gave press passes that are usually reserved for reviewers to his fans for his last movie, Red State with the refrain that their opinion is as good as the critics' if not better and that he was going to tour the movie and do his acclaimed Q & A sessions after the screening.  While Smith was roundly criticised for his decision, it paid off as he was in the black within 15 first screenings.

One of the most respected film critics, Mark Kermode also slated Smith stating that if we lived in Smith's world, his first film Clerks, which was the toast of the critics at Cainnes Film Festival back in the '90s, would never have seen the light of day.  Kermode maintains that without critics, small Indy artist would never get the leg up they desperately need as they don't have the marketing budgets their mainstream counterparts enjoy.  And to a large extent I agree with Kermode, you can't be happy with critics when they're praising you and dismiss them as useless whey the criticise your work.

A lesson Chris Brown would do well to heed, although I don't think he will, after an Australian critic, Chloe Papas, scathingly assessed his latest offering, Fortune.  Chloe wrote the review for the Express Magazine, although internet cannibals Gawker and HuffPost, whose efforts saw it go viral, credited the photograper with it.  I may write about them and their business model in the future.  The review is as insightful as it's funny and I'll let you read it for yourself (above).  Ms Papa will probably get some flack from #TeamBreezy, as Mr Brown's sheeple (see Show Lexicon) call themselves but she's a brilliant writer and will probably get contacted by influential people when Gawker and HuffPost credit her for the excellent review.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Social networking accounts are encouraged but not a pre-requisite to comment here. While we don't intend to censor anyone, anonymous comments may be removed.