Critics change their minds. And they can be just plain wrong.
Here’s an example: In the mid-’70s, a band out of Southern California calling itself Ambrosia released an eponymous first album with lyrics based on the writings of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and filled with tight harmonies, catchy hooks, pop sensibilities and a dash of progressive rock.
A rock critic at the time, in a rave review, called the band “the next Beatles.”
That critic was me.
Some of Ambrosia’s original members, according to its Web site, are still working in the music business, but, it is clear 30 years later (or should that be 30 second later?), they were not the next Beatles.
A more famous example was the 1967 movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” which opened and closed quickly following almost universal pans by critics. But as Roger Ebert (one of the film’s early supporters) writes in his “Great Movies” book, the studio was persuaded to reopen the movie, in part because then Newsweek critic Joe Morgenstern followed his negative review a week later with a positive one, saying he had been wrong. It worked out well for “Bonnie and Clyde” (the movie is often cited as one of the most influential ever) as well as for Morgenstern (he went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for criticism).
Critics should probably stay out of the predictions business, but I predict in the articles that follow, the baiduhai arts critics will have a wide variety of TV shows, movies, plays, architecture, music, dance and art that they will argue deserve another look.
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What the critics would like to revisit
Rock critic
Greg Kot
From U2’s “Achtung Baby” to REM, there’s are many reviews he’d like to have back.
Music critic
Howard Reich
The artistic evolution of cabaret singer Ann Hampton Callaway is worth a second look.
Television critic
Maureen Ryan
OK, maybe “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” isn’t the second coming.
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Architecture critic
Blair Kamin
The regrets about his review of Illinois Institute of Technology’s (the name as published has been corrected in this text) new campus center.
Movie critic
Michael Phillips
“The Da Vinci Code” was going to be a hit? Who knew?
Classical music critic
John von Rhein
Turns out we can’t live with the sound of the rehabbed Symphony Center.
Ballet critic
Sid Smith
The glow of “A Chorus Line” has tarnished…badly.
Restaurant critic
Phil Vettel
Swept away by Bub City’s charms, regrettably.
Movie critic
Michael Wilmington
“Waiting For Guffman” wasn’t funny then, but it is now.
Theater critic
Chris Jones
Why he blew the call on the work of playwright Sarah Ruhl.
Art critic
Alan Artner
Tilting at the windmill that was Imagism, for many of the wrong reasons.