Music to My Ears

I’ve mentioned before how difficult, and often rather terrible, music criticism can be—too often it descends into slang posing or discussions of lyrics that don’t actually say anything about the music (faults I’ve no doubt succumbed to from time to time myself). Anyway, good music criticism is worth noting when it comes along, and Rob Mitchum’s Pitchfork review of the new Rapture album, Pieces of the People We Love, is a model of the form. I think he underrates the album, which, to my ears, is many steps above their overrated debut—the VIP room of an exclusive club to their original pedestrian-riddled chain nightspot—but quibbles of opinion aside, his review is as sharp as they come.