Thursday, December 18, 2008

Why I Stopped Listening to Sound Opinions

Jim DeRogatis. Plain and simple.

The idea and format of the show is fine, and it will stay in the links to the right. It's better to have such a show on the air than off. But for my own listening tastes though, I had enough starting about two months ago. After listening for a good year and a half, DeRogatis just proved to be too much. Even though I agree with him more often than I don't, his grating, annoying voice and often obnoxious attitude ruined my listening pleasure.
One of his biggest problems is his repeated citing of the same few artists over and over in comparing just about everything. VU, Brian Eno, Wire, and My Bloody Valentine are mentioned in some fashion practically every week. DeRogatis' partner, Greg Kot, is pretty guilty of this as well but he does it with a little more thoughtfulness and less bitchiness.
Another big problem is that his negative reviews grew increasingly nasty, petty, and redundant. It seemed that 9 out of every 10 negative reviews began with "I HATE this record" and some sort of explanation that this particular record now takes the cake as one of the all-time worst records, unlike anything he's heard in a long time (Vampire Weekend, the Juno soundtrack, Ra Ra Riot, The Walkmen, Black Kids, all come to mind).
It doesn't help DeRogatis that he's so fat. What? What does weight have to do with this (especially considering this is a radio show)? Well, this mammoth, obese whale of a man is so fat that you can hear it in his voice. He has breathing problems. He's so fat that it affects his ability to say certain words. It makes for bad radio. Top that off with a bad Jersey accent and you can't even hear him pronounce M.I.A.'s Kala without groaning while he speaks.

And he does stupid things like this (drummer bashing, not Doors bashing - I'm ok with that).

On the other hand there's stuff like this, which is worth it for the Ryantainment.

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