Indy Jones
Why Independent Music Coverage Has Become Increasingly Positive
Posted by Charlie Recksieck
on 2026-07-14
Has anybody else noticed the decrease in harsh reviews of independent music?
I thought the internet was supposed to be more brutal over time.
Being both a musician and a critic, I don't mind.
Any improvement in civility on the web is a good thing.
But what happened?
My Dual Perch
In my competing roles as somebody who reviews music and whose music gets reviewed, I've seen a lot from both sides of the fence.
Now that I'm walking in the other person's shoes, I've noticed the tension between empathy for the work and the need for honest evaluation.
Or maybe if I was a better person, I would have felt the empathy before now.
When I was younger and the internet was more novel, I ran a humor site called Shtick!
It was ahead of its time, or at least ahead of the time when we could have monetized our snarky takes.
I will say this: we put together a really nice little writing staff of people who wanted to throw shit at the internet while none of us knew how to blog.
A hallmark of a lot of my early (and now Archive.org-only) work, was taking digs at bad art.
That tracks for somebody in his 20s: to think it's fun to shit on somebody else's work.
Was I thinking that it created more room for me to be cool if I illustrated why other people were not cool?
As if it opened up some spot for me.
But this wasn't just me being immature.
Internet message boards were brutal; high-school slam pages became a whole thing.
And then Twitter took flight.
Ouch.
It wasn't just the internet that was mean.
For years, lots of topline critics in a lot of fields made their bones by being catty.
Rex Reed made a living with bitchy little puns about clearly bad movies.
John Simon's theater reviews played themselves off as Noel Coward wit but absolutely savaged some plays and caused early closings.
And the Rolling Stone stable of critics like Dave Marsh thought being unapologetically meant they were "edgy" or "brutally honest."
There's a longstanding tradition of critics having fun taking a dump on something.
The Job of Reviewer
For my money, there are a few effective ways to review.
1) The music is a jumping-off point to make your own art in the review, a la Lester Bangs.
Great, if you can pull it off.
Most can't.
2) Be an advocate for music discovery, almost an evangelist.
3) Consumer advocate - describe what it sounds like, who's it for, if you like X then you might like this.
Most critics fall into category #3 which is fine by me.
I've always read reviews to find out if I should try or buy music.
Once in a blue moon, I just like the writing, with Bangs or Greil Marcus.
And a lot of reviewers sit in an awful 4th slot: Useless rock review cliches.
A couple of places where I review, I've seen some writers churn out useless pablum; I'd be more informed by ChatGPT or Claude than hacks trotting out pet words like "ethereal", "elegiac", "buoyant rhythm", or some similar garbage.
After reading 300 words of that, I know less about what it might sound like than before.
Fossilized rock critics like Robert Hilburn and David Fricke started that shit, and I will never forgive them for it.
What a Band Wants, What a Band Needs
That's all how it goes with established artists and major releases.
But something different happens with DIY or true indie recordings.
Now we're talking about my level or Bigfellas level, you know, bands without a publicist and just hoping anybody reviews it.
It doesn't even matter much if a critic hated it; just spell our name right and put it on the internet.
If we can extract a useful, complimentary "pull quote" from it, so much the better.
The only reviews of my or our music that have ever annoyed me are the ones that don't actually review the record I actually made.
They critique what the album wasn’t, or project in their head what they think I was trying to do.
Bullshit.
Reviewing Indies Ain't Easy
What I intuitively always knew and have re-learned now that I'm reviewing is that it's no fun to take pot shots at emerging or unknown artists.
It's one thing if I want to make fun of the latest Madonna release or go on about how pretentious Bono can be, they're fair game - although being catty even to them is pointless.
A lot of reviewers seem to feel like me: I only want to review an unknown record if I at least kind of like it.
Detailing why a bad amateur album is bad is just punching down.
As soon as we pull our punches though, our reviews get a little toothless, avoid direct judgment, and ultimately don't help the readers at all.
In a fairly recent interview with
San Diego music writer Jim Trageser - he put it very well:
A lot of them think my job is to help promote them. And it's not, I just interviewed a blues musician the other day. At the end of the thing, he said, "Well, thanks for helping promote the tour." And I said, "Well, good talking to you." because that's not my job. My loyalty and my obligation are to the readers.
Also, when a critic reviews with any kind of frequency, there are just a lot of records to listen to.
Sometimes you only do 1 or 2 solid listens before taking out your pen.
As a musician, I naturally give artists the benefit of the doubt on a first or second listen because I understand how hard the process is. That artist has heard the album 100-200 times more than I have; I'm probably not going to have a "gotcha" observation they haven't already worried about.
The Ecosystem
In the lower levels of the music world, reviews are usually from aspiring critics making no money and writing for exposure with albums made by aspiring bands making no money and hoping for exposure.
Most indie reviewers make as little money as indie musicians.
All of that creates subtle incentives toward softer takes, especially about emerging artists.
Keep that in mind when reading a small publication talking about a small album.
Just remember that as a potential listener, you're maybe getting shortchanged out of an honest guide to new music - for the most altruistic reasons.
