Music Criticism Quotes

“The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“They [the critics] deal with Schoenberg’s early works and all their wealth by classifying them, with the music-historical cliché, as late romantic post-Wagnerian. One might just as well dispose of Beethoven as a late-classicist post-Haydnerian.”
― Theodor W. Adorno, Essays on Music

“For the most basic assumption that dictated my early attempts to respond to creative music commentary was the mistaken belief that western journalists had some fundamental understanding of black creativity—or even western creativity—but this assumption was seriously in error.”
― Anthony Braxton, The Tri-Axium Writings

“...there is a void in my guts which can only be filled by songs.”
― Jessica Hopper

“The defining elements of criticism, the theory, the philosophy, and ideas behind it, are the same no matter what type of critique you're writing.”
― Leticia Supple, Music Journalism 101: The definitive resource for new and established writers

“Just because everybody loves The Beatles doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with The Beatles.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“The avant-garde need not be moral.”
― JON CARAMANICA