JR Notes: My original Chris Whitley review was one of the more entertaining and unfair record record reviews I ever wrote. I wasn't surprised when I heard from a very unhappy Chris Whitley fan. I felt that many of his points were valid and we got into a back-and-forth exchange. Criticism is too often a one-way street. It's good for me to be held accountable by readers for what I write, and I like the chance to rethink my arguments based on their perspectives, even if things get a little hot sometimes. In truth, a piece of criticism is really a moment in time, and it's not always the definitive take on an artist's merits. For one example of many, look no further than Rolling Stone Magazine, which originally gave Nirvana's Nevermind a lukewarm review. Of course, now the album always has a high position whenever the magazine puts out a list of its "best of" albums of the '90s, all time, or whatever. I certainly hope that my work isn't this trend-driven, but it's fair game to take a fresh look down the line. What follows is the reader's original letter, followed by response in italics and so forth.

Dear Jon,

I know this is probably a little late, but I just stumbled across your review of Chris Whitley's "Din of Ecstasy" and as a fan of his work, I had to drop you a line. I wish that you would remove this from your site. Chris is a man who has spent the majority of his life making audible art. I think that by implying that Chris was "musically masturbating" you have gone overboard. I am a musician. I'm not much into radio. but the first timeI heard Din of Ecstasy, it scared me. It made me want to quit playing the guitar. Chris conquered an entire era of alternative junk music with one mighty swing... and he got completely ignored. I think the chords and rhythms Chris used on Din were not only too much for the average listener; they were too much for 99.9% of the world. I am happy to be in that .1%. If you still have the album, "Can't Get Off" is da shizznit!

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Hi Jeff.

Thanks for your letter. You have sent me a very compelling defense of this album and I will listen to it again with your thoughts in mind. And even though this review was published in the early '90s, on my web site, it's never too late to pick a fight with the author. :)

Honestly, I would be happy to print your letter on my web site, linking right from the album itself, if it wasn't for this line: "I wish that you would remove this from your site." The fact that you and I don't agree on the album would, in fact, make very interesting reading for others. And your letter would round out the review nicely. But no, I can't apologize for my point of view just like I would NEVER ask you to apologize for yours.

I know what it's like to be a fan of an album or film everybody else hates. Heck, my favorite movie of all time is Vanilla Sky, and I grew up listening to music that lots of people mocked as brainless trash. So I applaud you for standing up for Chris and the music you love. But to go so far as to say that my own point of view should be eradicated, well, that's a little much.

Jeff, no one in the world is ever going to agree on anything, especially on something as subjective as music. The best hope we have is to have a constructive conversation find ways of respecting each other's point of view.

I really wanted to like that Din of Ecstasy when it came out, but I just could not penetrate it or connect to it. Honestly, I found it to be self-indulgent. Every good artist has periods of self-indulgence - Prince and Bob Dylan are two that immediately come to mind. But as a listener, I have a right to question that, especially as a fan who paid for the CD myself. As I mention in the review, I respected Chris as an artist for his experimentation, but I just personally couldn't connect to it, and that was that. The fact that none of the other Chris Whitley fans I know liked the album either was NOT taken into account, this was just my own opinion after listening to the CD upwards of 20 times.

I will listen to it again and give it another chance, but I can't abide by your attitude towards my right to free expression.

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Thanks for taking the time to reply to my email, Jon. Sorry if saying "I wish you would remove the review" was offensive, but it was definitely not out of disrespect for your opinion. It's more out of fear for Chris's career. I know he is by no means starving, but he also doesn't get one-billionth the respect he deserves. And frankly, he's getting old. I want to see him in the limelight before he stops touring. I appreciate your opinion and actually I've heard very similar things from people close to me that are also Whitley fans. My brother in particular hates Din. I fell in love with the fact that the album has a twisted sexuality to it that seemed to reflect my own dysfunction. Again, thanks for your reply and feel free to edit my original email.

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Hey Jeff...back on ya.

I liked your second response a lot, and I respect how much you care about Chris and his career. I do plan on adding your letter to the review page so that folks can see another point of view. I'm not going to edit your original comments, but I'll probably include some of our follow ups. I like publishing this kind of interaction because reviews are too often "set in stone" when in fact, they can provoke a good dialogue that is very more interesting than the original review itself.

Two things about my initial review: at the time, I loved Living With the Law so much that I was dealing with my disappointment over that, and wasn't very open to Chris' change of direction. As I have explained elsewhere on my web site, at the time, I was writing very entertaining record reviews that weren't always fair. It's a huge challenge to be entertaining but also completely fair. It's easier just to mock what you don't like, and that's pretty much what I did at the time. Now, I'm trying to find ways to write the same kind of readable and truthful reviews while giving artists - especially those artists who take risks that may jeopardize their commercial appeal - a fair shake.

Although I do stand by what I wrote in the original review, if I were writing it again now, I would probably give Whitley more credit and respect for experimenting with a new sound and approach. After all, it's creative experimentation that keeps an artist fresh. As you know, in the years, since that review, music has become more and more corporate. Especially on the major labels, there's very little room for this kind of experimentation. So those artists who have the guts to play the music they're moved to play, and do it without regards to the "trend of the moment" - those artists deserve more respect now than ever.

One final note on Din: I do think Chris Whitley shot himself in the foot with that record. Perhaps he had to, perhaps that's what he felt compelled to do, but he had really built up a buzz after Living With The Law, and it seems he just shook off a lot of those people. In my mind, it's a smarter career move to wait until you have more of a loyal following before you start upping the ante and doing radically different stuff. I guess what I'm saying is: don't feel too badly for Chris, he made his own choices and I'm sure he knows that and has no problem living with them. It is too bad that so few people know about this amazing performer though. Perhaps our discussion will make a few more people aware.

JR's postscript, April 2004

It's taken a number of months for me to post this dialogue. In the meantime, I did get the chance to listen to more of Chris Whitley's material since the mid-'90s. Through his web site, I came to have a great deal of respect for how Chris has managed his career. If he fell off the map, he did so on his own terms and never stopped producing. If anything, this research gave me an even greater appreciation for Living With The Law, an album whose bitter grace and passionate resolve continues to haunt me. Anyone who hasn't heard that album is missing out on what I consider to be one of the best debut albums ever, and certainly one of the greatest "underground" rock/blues records of all time. The album's spacious but sparse production is the perfect showcase for Chris' Hemingway-esque lyrical efficiency. "I Forget You Every Day" is one of the classics buried deep in this record. Like so many songs he put on Living With The Law, Chris says more by what he leaves out than what he leaves in - probably the most difficult things for a writer to pull off. "I Forget You" is lined with gravel and tenderness and unspoken regrets and I admire it greatly.

In retrospect, I think Chris Whitley might have a place in the discussion I had with a reader about Pulp Fiction, where we talked about how early brilliance can be a real burden to an artist. Perhaps by releasing an album as eccentric as Din, Chris was relieving himself from a level of expectation he felt confined by and had no use for. Whatever the reason, Chris soldiered on. He has toured relentlessly and released several more CDs. To prepare for this update, I did listen to samples from each, and I purchased the live CD Chris Whitley Live at Martyrs' as well. I found some of the newer material interesting, but not on the Living With The Law level.

Although Chris' recent work hasn't pulled me away from my appreciation for his first record and my disappointment over his second, we can use more artists like Chris, not less. One of the best things about doing this web site has been the opportunity to interact with readers and see how defensible my work really is. It's absurd to say that printing these follow up interactions redefines the nature of criticism, but it's fair to say that a dialogue with an informed reader takes my work to places that my original reviews do not. Jeff, thanks for your comments.
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