Denver Blog

I think the board comments were overall positive about Tuyet's skills as a reviewer. Dave's original letter was quite negative about a particular review, but his criticism is a common one; that a reviewer doesn't have enough knowledge about a genre to make a fair assessment.

Another comment stated that Tuyet has more knowledge of the indie scene that most people on the DenverMessageBoard, which I think is accurate.

My comments were probably the most negative, but I have to say that I really like her Club Scout pieces, and I also like her interviews and knowledge of the history of certain bands.

I find her commentary on music itself to often be either too general, too obvious, or to make references that I find to be odd and not very informative.

That's not to say that she doesn't write well, and that's also not to say that I don't appreciate other aspects of her contributions to Westword. I just find her skill at communicating musically nuances - to ME - personally - lacking. I find some of her "philosophy of the creative process" intros to be irritating.

Perhaps it's just an unfair comparison with Tom Murphy, whose opinion I often share, and whose reviews are of amazing quality.

By no means is Tuyet Nguyen a bad reviewer. She's simply one that doesn't appeal to me.

I guess that's the hard thing about music and taste. Not everyone is going to like, appreciate or get what bands try to do. I think she has written some cool things, but I was bummed she slammed us so hard. It would have been cool that if she didn't have anything positive to say she could simply not review it. We were trying to promote a show and this poor review hurt us. I've never seen westword slam a local band so hard. As a band you have ups and downs. Bad reviews can sting, but they don't keep me from doing what I do.