I doubt Howler would agree with me, but for those among us who prize both the craft writing about as well as making music, Jazz Monroe’s jeremiad against mediocrity for Drowned In Sound is about as good a record review as you;re likely to ever read.

I know, I’m weird like that – I really and truly do get as much of a kick out of reading a well-formed piece of music writing as finding a well-written piece of music, but honestly, this is just on another level. Especially so, since you consider it’s not coming from the “professional”  sorts of places you’d expect it to – The Atlantic, New Yorker, Rolling Stone, these are the playgrounds in which writers indulge themselves every now and again by deigning to write about daft little subjects like music.

It’s far more than the precision-tooled mauling it appears. It’s a sincere blast against three-out-of-five bands, against masking a lack of talent behind a curtain of beige flacidity, against – frankly – not being fucking good enough. My favourite bit:

“Ours is a violently apathetic, mediocre generation, and as such, it deserves gods, poets and eccentrics for figureheads. Feisty as, oh, a vicar’s washing basket, America Give Up is music for people who think guitar music is dead. Music, without doubt, for people who, whether before or past their time, have given up on music. It’s a lop-sided sex routine in the washed-out toilets of a washed-up toilet venue. It’s McDonald’s apple pie and series three of The OC and Cool Original Doritos without dip on an innocuous sick day”

Anyway, go and read it, it’ll make you worry a bit, especially if you’re in a band. Then go away and work out how to improve what you do, and make it so good that even Jazz Monroe would like it.

You know that debate about whether music criticism is still valid? Over.