Interpreting, Curating, Inviting: An Interview Study with Music Critics

While the role of the critic has been conceptualised as a tastemaker and gatekeeper within sociological literature, Jeffrey Alexander's (2020) work identifies criticism as a 'black box' in our comprehension of how audiences experience fusion with an artwork. Alexander proposes that critics, as interpreters, can influence whether an art object achieves fusion. However, recent research has primarily explored how critics adapt to external factors such as production changes, competition, readership statistics, and freelance work uncertainties. At the same time, with the transition from physical format to streaming services, music critics' role as consumer guides have lessened. This study investigates the critics' role from within the practice of criticism, focusing on how music critics percieve their role in relation to their audiences. Drawing on 14 semi-structured interviews with professional music critics in Norwegian legacy media conducted in September 2024, the study uncovers that critics perceive their practice as inherently social, both towards their audiences and the music world. They attempt to include audiences in the critics' experience of music, whether they agree or disagree with the critic's evaluation. Simultaneously, they aim for audiences who have never heard the music to share the experience and make sense of the text. Furthermore, they see themselves as curators when choosing the music to present for their audiences. In conclusion, the study argues that critics perform two roles for music to achieve audience fusion as defined by Alexander. While critics do act as interpreters between audiences and music, they are also performers on their own right, inviting, mediating and curating with the aim to extend the musical worlds of their audiences.