If I basically view criticism as sort of an interesting form of writing about oneself, an interesting form of autobiography, then I don't feel any pressure to have any kind of authoritative, universal voice. That kind of thing has never interested me.
Chuck KlostermanI guess it really didn't even dawn on me that you could be a rock critic as a job until I was maybe almost out of college. I knew criticism existed. I read Rolling Stone and Spin. Siskel and Ebert were on television. But I had absolutely no idea how to get that kind of life. And moreover, it didn't interest me that much. I just sort of read normal books growing up. I wasn't that media-conscious. I felt like the one thing I was able to do was to listen to a record and decide whether I liked it.
Chuck KlostermanIt's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good. If you're reviewing a film and you decide "This is a movie I don't like," basically you can take every element of the film and find the obvious flaw, or argue that it seems ridiculous, or like a parody of itself, or that it's not as good as something similar that was done in a previous film. What's hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive.
Chuck KlostermanI feel sorry for people who have to edit me. Which is why book writing is by far the most enjoyable. Really the only thing it's based on is whether it's good or not. No book editor, in my experience, is getting a manuscript and trying to rewrite it.
Chuck KlostermanIf I had to make a choice between only writing about sports or only writing about music, I would probably write about music. I'm not sure why that is. There seems to be more to write about with music, just because it's more of a splintered thing. There's more subgenres. With sports, it's more objective in a way.
Chuck Klosterman