Critics versus Artists : Duran Duran’s cover of “Perfect Day”

It’s an eternal dichotomy…music critics versus the artists that create the songs or albums. It’s astonishing how different not only critics’ opinions are (and yes, they are opinions and by definition subjective). As far as movies go, it has almost become an unwritten rule that, if you simply watch movies for its entertsinment vaue and as a form of escapism, you should avoid films that are rated highly by critics and/or win awards like Academy Awards. The reason for that is the tide of “woke” where everything is about the “message” rather than just a good story well acted. In music it is not really as much as a problem, but music critics are often biased more because of rheir own preferences rather than some other measure. But that is the problem…there is no objective standard – and even a metric like sales, whether by physical means or electronic downloads, is problematic. Taylor Swift’s sales will of necessity be much higher than a classical artist, simply becuse pop music appeals to more people. Does that mean her music is “better”? Of course not. The long snd the short of it it…ignore the critics. One of the more extreme versions of this farce is the track below. It is English band Duran Duran with a cover of a classic Lou Reed track called “Perfect Day”. I’m always instinctively inclined to prefer the original of any song, but I really like this cover. And I’m not alone…the originsl artist, Lou Reed, likes it too. In fact, Reed said in the music press  that Duran Duran’s version of “Perfect Day” was “the best cover ever completed of one of my own songs”. By contrast, in 2006 the song was called “the worst song of all time” by Q magazine…you make up your own mind…