Music Critics

Now that Los Angeles has a world-class opera company, it is time for the Los Angeles Times to reconsider the critical coverage it provides to the classical music community. This need was brought home to me when I saw a review of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera production of "Elektra" by Richard Strauss in the arts page of London's Financial Times.

One particular moment stood out during Barack Obama's first four years as a musical-minded president, and he delivered it in sweet falsetto. Offered with casual confidence at the Apollo Theater in Harlem almost exactly a year ago at a fundraiser, the president of the United States cooed the melody from "Let's Stay Together" by the Rev. Al Green. It was a mere three words along with an introductory wail - "Heeey, let's stay together" - but within it lay a quote packed with subtext.

Mark Swed, a music critic for the Wall Street Journal, has been named classical music critic for the Los Angeles Times. Swed--editor of 20th century music for the Musical Quarterly, America's oldest music journal--has been a frequent contributor to The Times since 1988. He is currently completing a biography of the late composer John Cage. Swed wrote music criticism for the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner from 1978 to 1984, and was its chief music critic from 1984 to 1987.

Along with adding the finishing touches to his inaugural address on Monday, President Obama has plenty on his plate. He is consumed by the responsibilities of selecting new Cabinet members and preparing strategies to get them confirmed. He already had his fair share of critics, and the last thing he needs is a music critic telling him how to run the country. So I'm sorry to have to be the one to remind you, Mr. President, that you've left someone out. Secretary of Culture. It's time.

Winthrop Sargeant, an elder of the nation's music critics whose writings in The New Yorker entertained and informed readers for more than for 20 years, has died at age 82. Sargeant died Aug. 15 at his Salisbury, Conn., home. He was a champion of such consonant, directly emotive composers as Gian Carlo Menotti and Vittorio Giannini. He also wrote about jazz, publishing a book, "Jazz: Hot and Hybrid," in 1938.

"Well I guess it ain't easy doing nothing at all but hey man free rides just don't come along every day." --"Why Don't You Get a Job?" by the Offspring * In its hit song "Why Don't You Get a Job?," the Offspring chide slackers who sit back and let others do the work. But some music critics say the rock group is committing that very same sin with the tune.

Your new music critic, Mark Swed, is one of the best in the country. He is--unlike most music critics I have read--knowledgeable about and sympathetic toward the 20th century repertoire. It was interesting to read his reviews of the recent Ojai Festival. Mr. Swed did point out several problems such as the poor acoustics and the bright sun, but he emphasized what was most significant . . . that the performances were inspired and magical. We are quickly approaching the 21st century, and the bemoaning of the "agony of modern music" is surely an anachronism.

I don't get it. Christopher Alden says that music critics are not qualified to judge his work ("Tales of the Unnatural," by Chris Pasles, March 27), yet their praise of his stage direction earned him and Long Beach Opera high respect both nationally and internationally. In an era of hand-me-down set designs, it is a great relief to have any new productions. Let's hope he comes to town more often. ALAN R. COLES Long Beach

Right! How dare Garth try to do something different, something new, something unusual? ("Garth Shows Up at the Wrong Dance," Sept. 28) Music critics hate it when singers try to do that, don't they? Oh, waitaminnit--actually, music critics are always demanding that singers do that. The most common slam music critics use is that a singer's latest work is just a tired retread of the last thing they did. So, to quote Robert Hilburn's article, "Just what is going on here?" I get it. No matter what a successful singer like Garth Brooks does, Hilburn is going to slam him anyway.

The "Shine" phenomenon and pianist David Helfgott have already created a great flow of ink in music columns. One case in point is Times music critic Mark Swed's "The Reality of 'Shine': An Image Distorted" (Calendar, March 22). Why all the sound and fury about Helfgott from critics? Granted that he is no Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz or Andre Watts. Well, there was only one Johann Sebastian Bach, too, but does this invalidate everyone else?

When people turn their backs to you, they're sending a clear message. The sight of a conductor's back is an unmistakable sign that his presence onstage isn't primarily for the audience. He is there to guide the orchestra through the intricacies of a piece of music. Yes, he's aware he's onstage, but any theatrics are collateral. This isn't to suggest that conductors are a self-effacing breed. Leonard Bernstein, with his dashing flamboyance readily soaring into the sublime, was always a prominent part of the symphonic show.

Here are sample playlists put together from my own (admittedly limited) library, each one "arced" for a particular purpose. Then I asked a few folks who can really pick out a tune to share their sample lists. AMINA KHAN PICK-ME-UP: It's siesta time. I feel myself lapsing into food coma, eyelids drooping and motivation flagging. Flo Rida's sunny dance beats shake me awake, and LMFAO'sdriving base gets me going. Calvin Harris evens out the energy level, and Cypress Hill's vibrant melodies with Marc Anthony's soaring vocals send my spirits flying.

At first glance, the Doors seem to be an unusual object of study for Greil Marcus, the music critic and cultural historian who likes to draw connections between punk music and world history ("Lipstick Traces") or Elvis Presley and the American myth ("Mystery Train"). The Los Angeles band is, after all, an act that these days mainly gets airplay for a few scattered hits such as "Light My Fire" and "Break on Through (To the Other Side). " They wouldn't seem substantial enough for Marcus' intense gaze.

Few longtime pop music critics have been as fearlessly unhip in both their likes and dislikes, have been so willing to accept oft-ignored music on its own terms and have been as rock 'n' roll as Chuck Eddy, writer, former Village Voice music editor, self-described curmudgeon, ex-Army captain and hair-metal expert. Eddy's work is compiled in "Rock and Roll Always Forgets: A Quarter Century of Music Criticism," a career overview whose very title is contrarian: The writer's got a problem with the premise of Bob Seger's hit song "Rock and Roll Never Forgets.

If you're going to use a promise as your title, you'd better deliver. In his sixth book, " Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life: A Book by and for the Fanatics Among Us (With Bitchin' Soundtrack)," Steve Almond presents a memoir wrapped in a collection of observations about music and packaged as a source of salvation. The book is a rock fan bildungsroman in which Almond offers personal anecdotes related to his lifelong love of music. His story is interwoven with some cultural analysis of what it means to be a "Drooling Fanatic" in the face of "That Which We Worship With Irrational and Perhaps Head-Banging Glee."

Alan Rich, a longtime classical music critic for a variety of newspapers and magazines who wrote with such unabashed gusto that he helped create a major new music scene in Los Angeles, has died. He was 85. Rich died Friday afternoon of natural causes in his sleep at his home in West Los Angeles, said longtime friend Vanessa Butler. During his long career, Rich wrote for such newspapers as L.A. Weekly, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Variety, the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, and magazines including Newsweek, New West and California.

It's still four days before we'll have the Grammy voters' verdict on album and record of the year, but the nation's pop music critics have already given us their choices. Rapper Kanye West's thoughtful, dynamic "The College Dropout" was named album of the year in the Village Voice poll of 793 critics, while Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand's effervescent "Take Me Out" was judged best single record.

Jean Rosenbluth's ridiculously snide review of Oleta Adams' new album (Record Rack, Nov. 5) prompts me to ask the question: Has she bothered to give a few listens to the new release by Tears for Fears, "Raoul and the Kings of Spain"? Featuring Oleta Adams on the gorgeous "Me and My Big Ideas," this album is a beauty. Perhaps if reviewers such as Rosenbluth weren't so preoccupied with the "star" trip, they could be appreciating art for a change. FREDRIC COOPER Torrance Just two years ago, Robert Hilburn was calling Oleta Adams one of the brightest voices in pop music, and Dennis Hunt was comparing her to legends like Sarah Vaughan.

In a decision that has surely left many in the theater world scratching their heads, the Pulitzer Prize board on Monday bestowed its 2009 drama award to the musical "Next to Normal." The edgy musical, which opened last spring on Broadway at the Booth Theatre, has been a critical and audience hit, but it was not viewed as a favorite to win by industry watchers. At last year's Tony Awards, "Billy Elliot: The Musical" beat out "Next to Normal" for the award for best musical. The Pulitzer board made the rare but not unprecedented decision of ignoring the list of finalists submitted by the nominating jury.

Parallel Play Growing Up With Undiagnosed Asperger's Tim Page Doubleday: 198 pp., $26 Are we who we are in spite of our afflictions, or because of them? This question beats at the heart of Tim Page's brief, unadorned memoir, "Parallel Play: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Asperger's." An odd, obsessive yet intellectually gifted man, Page was diagnosed in his 40s with Asperger's syndrome, part of a cluster of disorders that includes autism. Asperger's is often characterized by extreme awkwardness in social interactions, clumsy motor skills and a compulsive desire to collect encyclopedic details about random subjects.