Top 3
3 - “Iconic”
2 - “Difficult second album”
1 - (by a loooooooooooooong way) “Intelligent dance music” 
4 Likes
Like insert band here on acid
18 Likes
sophomore album
19 Likes
“Dropped”
7 Likes
Hyper-specific example (paraphrasing 'cos I can’t find the precise quote)
“The song starts with an instrumental coda”
NME, in a track-by-track preview of either Suede’s Head Music or A New Morning.
4 Likes
“A true return to form. Might be their best album since xxxx”
Generally means it’s pish, dunnit
2 Likes
You don’t get track by track previews anymore do you, it’s a shame, they used to really expose how shit most music journalists are at describing music
1 Like
‘Like band x meets band y in a really tortured metaphor.’
5 Likes
Sound like Fugazi.
(a very late 90s phrase.)
Yeah. “This band is the love child of x and y.”
2 Likes
comes from bands rather than the journalists, but:
“there’s always been a dance element to our music”
usually holds grim portents
3 Likes
He.
10 Likes
I remember in NME’s review of Hard-Fi they said they were a better The Clash and that The Clash were actually, in fact, a shit band.
They had a time of it mid-00s by being iconoclastic for sensationalism.
“Iggy Pop, James Brown, David Bowie and Shirley Bassey in a lift”
4 Likes
“Iggy Pop turns to the others and says”
2 Likes
I’ve definitely used these to describe music on here and elsewhere before. Maybe I should apply for a job at Kerrang! or summat
3 Likes
Came here to say this.
‘Song cycle’
‘Pete Doherty’
2 Likes
‘Kosmische’… but that’s mainly because I don’t know how to say it.