Time & Perspective Quote by Andrew Eldritch

Eldritch’s complaint lands because it’s less a tantrum than a diagnosis of a media cycle that still runs on the same fuel: hype, access, and the pleasure of the takedown. “Once they build a band up they just want to do people down” is the key tell. He’s not arguing that criticism is unfair in principle; he’s arguing that the press needs stars to manufacture, then needs new content to replace them. The target isn’t reviewers with opinions, it’s a system where attention is monetized twice: first through coronation, then through the spectacle of deflation.

The subtext is control. Eldritch, famously prickly about interviews and image-making, is pushing back on the idea that a band exists as a character in a serialized story written by journalists. When he says they focus on “the colour of someone’s shirt,” he’s mocking the way style coverage and personality profiling become stand-ins for actual listening. It’s not just shallow; it’s a power move. Reduce the artist to surfaces, and you can rewrite them at will.

Context matters: British music journalism, especially from the late punk into the post-punk era Eldritch emerged from, often treated bands as cultural avatars - political, fashionable, class-coded - as much as musicians. That could elevate an act fast, but it also made them disposable when the narrative soured. Eldritch’s line draws a hard boundary: stop auditioning me for your morality play; judge the work. It’s a plea for aesthetic seriousness disguised as a gripe about shirts.