We need to talk about bios, y'all.

I don't mean book-length, formally published biographies. Those books are a diverse bunch, and the ones I've read haven't been plagued by any repeating issues — whatever failings they have are idiosyncratic and individual, not representative of the genre as a whole. No, I'm talking about the short little bios that get slipped into concert programs, sometimes as part of the notes for a given piece, but more often as standalone entries in the "About Tonight's Artists" section.

On the whole, these bios are terrible.