What's all this about?

In early 2017, I got the chance to contribute to a really cool and up-to-the-minute fashion and culture 'zine called ControlForever.com. It was the first time in a while I had taken a serious shot at writing longer-form essays and I had a lot of fun with it. Time went by, I ended up moving away from LA (where CF is based) and up to the Bay Area. I couldn't get over this urge to keep writing and keep creating. While writing for CF, I had come up with an idea called "the Re-Critic", that took another shot at evaluating art with the perspective of the current time factored into the equation. My thesis statement for this mode of thought ran thusly:

First impressions aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be, and hindsight can provide some much needed insight into a work of art’s lasting legacy. The Re-Critic takes another look at widely-held beliefs about art to find out if there’s more to the story.

I figured I could parlay that into a broader-spectrum idea. And before I really even knew what I was doing (and I probably still don't), I was typing the words you are reading now. So we're launching into uncharted territory here with that as our loosely held foundational principle. Over time, we'll expand organically however it makes sense.  

I'm fully committed to it, and I hope you enjoy the work.  

All I want it to be is worth your time.

Thanks for reading.  

                                                                                          - nich

Our Focus

We're starting out with a focus on music criticism, probably with a bit of a bent toward past work that either deserves re-evaluation, or stuff we just want to talk about because it's on our mind. Over time, and with more contributors, we hope to see that focus expand and be more encompassing while retaining our original artistic values of originality, unique viewpoints, and overall quality.

So where do you come in?

If you are reading this, and are in any way digging the site - well, thank you, first of all. But if you found your way to us, we hope that it means you respect opinions enough to shit all over them (in a constructive way). We hope that you found us because you enjoy our writing even if you don't always agree with it. We might make impassioned arguments from time to time, but the goal is not to "change your mind" - if we are really hammering on something, it's because that is our strongly held opinion or belief. We'll respect your right to have your own, and we'll probably try to goad you into a good-natured argument about it. But we're all friends here, because we all love music and art.  

About those opinions...

Are you interested in being a contributor to Re-Critic? Hit us up, we want to showcase other voices and other writers - it's part of our goal. To get in on this, all it takes is an idea.  Do you have an idea for...

- An album from the past that you love or hate and want to re-appraise it using new contextual criteria?

- A current album, EP, or song you'd like to review? A band or artist that is rocking your world right now?

- Challenging a widely held belief about music, or fandom, or pop culture, or any combination of things?

- Anything else you think fits in here?

We're into it. If your piece is fully formed, we'll read it. If you have a pitch for a piece, we'll talk about it. Let's work together.