Back in the 1970s (print magazines and books) and in the 1980s (early online e-zines), i was writing lengthy detailed reviews whereas most magazines were publishing short superficial reviews. I was very critical of music critics (excuse the pun) and wanted to show that one can treat rock music like an art, not just a product. Readers who have been following me for decades are familiar with my crusade. Now that everybody on the Internet is writing lengthy reviews, i write short ones. Again, this change in attitude stems in part from a criticism of music critics, but also other factors:

1. The simplest explanation would be: because i have less and less time. But it wouldn't be true. I still spend most of my life listening to music and reading books. The percentages have not changed since i was a teenager.
2. The reader has changed: overwhelmed with thousands of names and titles, readers want to know what to listen to. What they need is not so much information (they get plenty of it, whether they want it or not) but selection. They can't find help in magazines or on websites written by more than one person, because it is impossible to compare the opinions of different people. They don't have time to read extensive reviews of all recordings because that is precisely the problem: there isn't enough time. Put the two together: what they need is short reviews by one person.
3. Rock music has changed too: the multiplication of independent labels and the collapse of manufacturing costs are producing way too much crap. The average album contains a few minutes of carefully composed and performed music, and then a lot of casually assembled music. Paraphrasing an old communist joke: the musicians pretend to make music, we critics pretend to listen to it.
4. I have changed too: as my historian's scope has broadened, i am less and less interested in the minutiae of a rock recording, more and more interested in the overall picture. As the body of rock music reached critical mass, i found myself less and less involved in making sure that body is appreciated by the world, and more and more interested in making sure that the world does not miss the rest of civilization.
5. I am interested in seismic events, not in songs that nobody will remember next year. In the 1970s, rock music as a whole was still a seismic event. Today, it is not. If a recording is really good, then that recording is a seismic event. But just because it is rock music it doesn't qualify as seismic. In the old days the mere fact of being rock music would qualify as a seismic event.
6. After listening to millions of minutes of music, i have less and less patience with mediocre releases that we critics are supposed to analyze in a surgical manner, as if it were Beethoven sonatas. Crap is crap is crap: i refuse to spend hours writing about something that is, quite simply, crap. No matter how famous the "crapper" is.
7. I have less and less patience with labels that pressure critics to write extensive (i.e., good-looking reviews) of the crap they put out. Crap is crap is crap.
8. A reader recently wrote on a chat group that i am an anti-rock terrorist bent on steering away from rock music as many fans as possible towards classical, jazz and avantgarde music. Funny, but not completely inaccurate.
9. The quantity of releases makes it physically impossible to write extensive reviews of each of them. Therefore today a critic's mission is not to cover everything by everybody, but to sample an artist's ouvre. I provide detailed descriptions of one or two recordings that i consider particularly meaningful, instead of providing a detailed description of every single track. This is also in keeping with the artist's intention: the reason the artist put out so much music is that s/he doesn't deem it appropriate to select the best only, and be judged by that "best" only, therefore s/he wants to be judged based on a sampling of her/his ouvre.
10. Tenth, i sense that the introduction of the "music download" is changing both the industry and the art in a dramatic way. Reviewing an album today is a bit like reviewing a typewriter in the 1970s (just before "personal computers" came out) or reviewing a temple to Diana in 300 AD (just before Constantine converted the Romans to Christianity and started building cathedrals): in a few years, not many people will care for what we wrote about it. Basically the critic who reviews an album is addressing an aging, anachronistic, rapidly disappearing audience.

If you are not familiar with my work, check out the real stuff:

• History of Rock Music
• History of Avantgarde Music
• History of Jazz Music
• History of Pop music
• History of Blues music
• History of Rhythm'n'Blues
• History of Soul music
• History of Country music
• History of the Musical
• History of Film Music
• History of Latin-American music
• History of modern African music
• History of modern Indian music
• History of Jamaican music
• History of Hip-hop music