The Jezabels’ Hayley Mary: “If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Review It”

The Jezabels‘ frontwoman Hayley Mary has opened up about her thoughts regarding the world of music reviewing, saying, “there is too much hatred in the world to have a job that is based on writing off what other people try and do” and that reviewers should simply ignore albums they don’t like.

Speaking to Music Feeds for an upcoming instalment of Music Feeds Podcast, Hayley explained the difficulty in attempting to gauge the success of an album in today’s musical landscape, saying, “I know [The Brink] was number two on the charts, but I’m not a huge observer of what that means.”

“I’m not entirely sure what that does actually mean anymore,” Hayley added. “It seems like people like the songs when we play them live and that’s the only real gauge of knowing. Oh, that and reviewers, and I’m sorry to say if you’re a reviewer, which you probably are, but I don’t like reviews.”

“F-cking get a real job,” the singer joked, adding, “I just think there is too much hatred in the world to have a job that is based on writing off what other people try and do, unless that person is in a serious position of power. I don’t mind when people criticise politicians, or like the army or something.”

“Musicians are just writing songs. You don’t need to get all vitriolic about the situation,” she added, though she conceded that she “didn’t actually read any” reviews of the band’s second album, as “no review ever satisfies you because the majority of people don’t get your music and that’s fine.”

“The majority of music writers don’t and that’s fine. But it’s kind of annoying because they write about it and their voices are the most heard. But I’d say there’s certain schools of critics in every territory that f-cking hate us and sort of always were going to… Like your Mess + Noise,” she said.

The singer suggested that if a reviewer doesn’t like an album, they shouldn’t review it. “Clearly it’s not for you, so you’re communicating something that’s not that helpful to someone who might potentially like it, or not like it. It’s just hate, and gushing is similarly as uninformative and not helpful.”

“There are a few great reviewers in Australia and the world, obviously, that just do their job really well,” she continued, before concluding, “but the majority of them are just like, they’ve already decided that they hate the band and want to write you off like you’re evil people.”

Watch: The Jezabels – Look Of Love

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