But anyway, I agree with the other Dan and several other commentators; I think Darius will make for a very exciting country act indeed.

I really, really liked it! I’m rooting for Darius and I’d probably buy his CD. He’s not a novelty act. He’s a great musician.

Check them out… give him a chance… open your mind… the man could sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and it would sound good. The bottom line is he wants to make country music and he should. He’s not just a singer that is buying songs written by someone else and recording them, he is writing and co-writing songs from his heart and putting them out there. If you don’t like the songs… don’t listen to them, but please don’t beat the man down for following his heart and his dreams.

Education forces the process to occur but of course, it’s not limited to occuring only in a school of some kind. Public education forces us to think critically about the many things that makes us who we are; Americans, humans and inhabitants of earth. That is never bad.

Also, my reviews are absolutely somewhat subjective. I would never imply otherwise. Hopefully I am able to keep that in check most of the time, but every journalist, reporter, and critic has his or her own spin and his or her own tastes. That’s just the way it is.

I do think the best critics are those who have lived “on the inside,” at least for some period of time–those who have walked, at least to some extent, in the shoes of those persons whom they are commenting on.

An outsider may be able to effectively communicate the technical details of a musical work, but they will not necessarily be able to do so with due sensitivity and respect unless they understand the creative process from the ground up, and have, indeed, toiled at it themselves.

And I think that it is a critic’s duty to approach every work with great sensitivity and great respect–because it is only when he or she is does this on a consistent basis that the negative criticism has any merit, and, likewise, it is only then that we are justified in the defense of the new.

I would still be able to write about country music if I had never played a writer’s night, if I had never gone through the publishing process, if I had never produced a record. It is, however, because I have done all of those things that I am able to write about it with authority.

There seems to be some posters at the9513.com who don’t think music can be reviewed in any objective way. They may be right about that or they may be wrong.

Or, they might be saying that certain people are not qualified to be valid critics and I think that is definitely true. I hope there is a difference between a good and valid critic and my neighbor Jethro Bodean. Jethro has some skills to be sure but critical thinking and an impressive knowledge of music and artistic expression are not among them.

The good thing about the internet is that everyone is able to express his or her opinion. The bad thing about the internet is that everyone is able to express his or her opinion. I think online critics need to convince us every once in awhile why their opinion matters.

You do that by discussing literary criticism. An education in that area allowed you to see that one of the requirements of criticism is knowledge. The more you know, the better you are able to put some context around a decision about quality. Beyond that, there are some general questions that are standard and a good critic will address those issues.

It’s interesting to read opinion and that makes these blogs/bulletin boards great. Still some opinions tend to have more merit than others and time forces us to focus.