The Roanoke Times, Va., Riffs column Death of a music critic

You've heard 'em all before.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Those who can't sing or dance become critics. Music journalists are people who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read. That, according to Frank Zappa.

My personal favorite assessment of the profession of music criticism comes courtesy of David Lee Roth: "Rock critics like Elvis Costello because rock critics look like Elvis Costello."

If only I sounded like Elvis Costello. Things might've worked out differently.

But I don't and they didn't. My name is Ralph, and I write about music.

And if you believe everything you read on the Internet -- and who doesn't! -- I am the last of a dying breed. The comet has landed and I am the stegosaurus, soon to become extinct.

Who needs music critics in the age of the Internet? Perhaps I should ask, who needs music critics who write for newspapers? Or magazines? These days, Web sites explode with reviews, many of them culled from other people's Web sites, blogs or message boards, and, occasionally, newspapers.

In fact, you can start your own blog and become your own favorite critic. You don't have to take the word of some hoary (and hairy) old dude who sits at a desk all day. It's 2006! You can take the word of some tattooed, multipierced skate rat who sits at a desk all day. The era of elitism and expertise is over! The opinions of individuals carry as much weight as the opinions of crusty old critics. The MSM is as dead as the telegraph!

(For all the crusty old people who read this, and I'm sorry to describe you that way but we know it's true, MSM stands for "mainstream media." You know, newspapers, magazines, TV stations, radio, the Saturday Evening Post, etc.)

Except that the MSM isn't dead, it just has new members. The bloggers, chatterers and Web mavens may not want to hear it, but they have become the new MSM.

Let's look at the numbers. Dirty old Ralph the critic (DORC) writes a column for a paper that has about 100,000 subscribers, not all of whom read DORC. Self-styled insurgent Pitchforkmedia, on the other hand, gets about 170,000 readers per day. So, who's the good-looking, popular mainstream kid in new jeans and who's the dork?

Music sites that got started by doofuses writing for their three doofus friends now get millions of hits per day. Sorry guys. That makes you part of the establishment.

I wonder how the bloggers and e-critics will take the news that they've become the new MSM. Not well, by early indications.

Meanwhile, back to critics. Anybody know what to do with them? Many newspapers don't. Many papers have swept out their movie reviewers with the popcorn and Milk Duds, citing the decline in young readership for reviews. Others, in knee-jerk desperation, have hired younger reviewers who can "write bloggy" in the doomed hope of attracting the beknighted 18- to 24-year-olds who still get allowances.

Movie studios especially don't care what the critics think, because many don't even bother to send early screeners to reviewers. Just get a few friendly bloggers to say nice things about your horror flick and you can squeeze out those pesky reviewers who write mean things about your works of art.

Music critics, likewise, don't get much love from the record companies. E-zines in all their snarkitude assign scores of 7.6 (out of 10, of course) to every no-name indie rock band to stagger into a recording studio, so who needs Rolling Stone?

Nobody listens to critics these days. To which I say, when did they ever?

It's always been hard out there for a critic. All those critic-bashing statements at the top of this epistle are decades old. Artists and writers have hated critics since the days of Guttenburg. Throughout history, they have been stereotyped as smarmy know-it-alls who think they're God -- and we're talking about the artists and the writers here -- whose brilliance is denigrated by smarmier know-it-alls who think they're God with a typewriter.

The influence of critics appears to be no lesser or greater than it's been for the past 25 years, which is to say, their influence is still slight. How else to account for all the critically derided music and movies that have made badabillions over the past quarter-century?

When I was in high school, I can guarantee you that no one else in my graduating class had ever heard of Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh or any other music critic who influenced rock journalism. Today, I doubt many teenagers could pick Chuck Klosterman out of a police lineup, especially if Corey Feldman were standing next to him, and he's been on MTV. Still, rockers rock and critics criticize.

The role of the reviewer/critic/journalist appears to be relevant to those who care about the culture necessary to produce great art and the context in which it can be measured, however subjectively. And I ain't just saying that to make sure I keep a job (not that I don't enjoy attending Rascal Flats concerts every freaking year).

With all the noise rising from the swarm of tapping keyboards, people still turn to those whose opinions they trust. That critic may not be everybody's favorite, they never are, but there's still a viable market and, more importantly, a need for informed opinion-makers, whether they write for a lively newspaper or the new MSM.