Wow, you get to the board a little late in the morning and you miss all the good stuff. Hmm.... where to begin?
First off, I am a member of this board, but it is in no way shape or form affiliated with BY. I promote BY stuff just as Fico promotes Cartel, and Medusa promotes her DJ events. I guess this is as good a place as any to air your complaints about any of the above, but the trend of folks feeling the need to publicly trash us, as opposed to offering some criticism to me personally, continues. Which is fine, I don't really care, it doesn't embaress me in the least. If it makes you feel better to say it out in the open, which it obviously does, I'm happy for you.
To the matter at hand. Celeste and Rhett (mostly Rhett) have never had good things to say about BY, and their criticism in and of itself means nothing to me. I personally think their taste in music is horrible, their favorite artists boring and many of the songs they love physically make me ill. I grew up on country music, attended the Grand Old Opry numerous times as a child, actually like Bluegrass, and have a grand appreciation for the legends of the genre, Loretta Lynn included. But I didn't write that review. On a staff of almost 30 writers, sometimes the wrong person gets the wrong CD. In the case of Jason Ringenberg, that is obvious. It is a pet peave of mine, when writers outwardly say they hate the particular genre of CD they are reviewing, but that is an internal issue. As for Loretta, whatever I think of the new CD -- and I'm not loving it much -- I think the writer's point of why everyone is writing about the CD is spot on. No Jack White, no one cares. Sorry Loretta, it's that simple.
In the end, you can rag on us all you like about uneducated writers, our lack of relevance and whatever else your panties are in a bunch over. Some of your points are very valid, though they often become lost in your blind fury. I've said this before, keeping this site together and functional is not easy, and soetimes things don't always end up the way you want it. This shit ain't easy and it is a huge work in progress. When you start your own website and work with a staff of folks and experience many of the pitfalls we have, let's sit down and have a long talk. I'm not gonna apologize for either of those reviews. They are, as are all the others, personal statements from the writers and do not necessarilly reflect the feelings of the "BY editorial staff." I hope in time we'll have some "highly educated" country music lover who can talk endlessly about every CD released with a steel guitar. Until then, i'm going to continue to try and make it work as best I can. And if you feel that blows, that stop reading the fucking site.
PS- I apologize for the length of this post.
