Wednesday, October 17, 2007
D#8, HW#4, Analyze Jon Pareles's Essay
The author of the essay is Jon Pareles. The purpose of the essay is to put his opinion of Coldplay in written form to be shared and recorded. The essay's context was fairly recent being publication was June 5th, 2005, week before release of "X&Y" was out. The author's topic was his opinion of the band. Audience for the author is a broad range centering on anyone that listens to music of similar genre and Coldplay fans. The standard argument claim can be identified as Coldplay is recording to a imaginary set of rules presidented by previous bands through the years to increase sales and fans. This he supports through how careful the band records and reworks tracks to having to delay the release of "X&Y" by 4 months to tweak the songs. Also playing a large roll is the authors picking on the lead singers voice and claimed poor lyric choice. Stating obvious cliches and one liners. The author does engage in the usage of logos in the essay through using of statistics, factual data. It more or less was against his opinion on the essay as trying to turn people away from the band yet the statistics suggest that he just might be an oddball. One objection that the author addresses is the he believes the lead singer has no ability to control his voice, but on page 282, third paragraph down he states "Coldplay is admired by everyone--everyone except me. It's not for lack of skill " (Everythings an Argument 282). He he contradicts himself. Overall, the author seems to just be someone with to much time, that while his essay writing skills are evidently good, it is hard to shoot down a band effectively without sounding like a prick and stuck up.
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2 comments:
I had the same reaction to the author. I think that is typical of professional reviewers in different mediums. They have such high opinions of themselves, and think the readers can't help but agree with them. It totally turns me off.
Contradicting himself made him seem like a fool to me. I'm not a big fan of subjective content, especially when it differs from my own opinion. The one thing I think he might have made a point on is the "imaginary set of rules" laid out by previous megabands. However, I don't see Coldplay as a megaband as they haven't even been around for over a decade.
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