ABSTRACT
This chapter asks the questions: what exactly do critics bring to the performance, and what place do critics assume they have within the sonic environment? The wariness, frisson and outright hostility between critic and artist is the stuff of literature and gossip as well as the subject of scholarly investigation. We show that the changing environment—viz. social media and the Internet—have altered the shape of the critic’s playing field. By way of examples, we analyse the changing role of critic when a critique, positive or negative, is open to contestation and comeback from both the artist and the audience.
