Artists Blog Responses to Critical Reviews

Posted on June 10, 2006

These days authors and musicians can do something about those critical articles and bad reviews. They can simply respond to the review in a blog or on a social networking site like MySpace.com. Guardian Pop critic Caroline Sullivan recently found this out when singer Lily Allen personally responded to an article she wrote about the young star.

Pop critics are used to dishing it out - criticism, that is - but can we take it? I'm not talking about the feedback received from fans when we write something unflattering about their favourite artist, but facing the wrath of the artist him/herself.
When I reviewed a gig by the much-discussed new singer Lily Allen, I knew that if she read it, she was bound to disagree with the gist of it - which was that at this early stage of her career, she hadn't yet proved that the hype is justified. And she did. She posted a message on her MySpace page after the review ran last month, categorically taking exception to most of the points I'd made. Principally, she argued that having made an album (due for release next month) and received 1.3m MySpace plays, she had proved herself.
Well, we will continue to differ on that, but her post impressed me. Pop stars can be legendarily vituperative (one major indie frontman was so put out by a piece in the NME that he wrote a song just for that particular journalist, entitling it something like You Scum), but Allen, despite her pique, came across as decent and likable. And I began to wonder whether, taking into account that she's 21 and it had been only her second gig, I'd been too hard on her.

You can see Lily Allen's response to the article by Caroline Sullivan here on MySpace. It's a whole new world for critics and performers.