with indie/alt music there is a real culture of social media and music criticism plays a big part in that. metacritic just shows you the expanse of websites that review and want to keep relevant and on the cusp of what is fresh. pitchfork is the one that springs to mind. something of a musical bible to many its 'BEST NEW MUSIC' and rating system can make or break many artists.

 

how does this affect your thinking? have you been rightly/wrongly swayed by an 8.5? do you read many reviews or try to keep your head clear?

 

personally i used to be very much affected by the scoring machine, in recent times i've begun to see the flaws in the system (the bias towards hip-hop for example) and am a lot better at being objective on my own terms. i do love a well written review though (pitchfork's beyoyo review recently by carrie batten was excellent imo).

 

+u ?

I'll be more motivated to listen to something that scores 8.5-10 on pitchfork, to be honest. But that's mostly with artists I didn't really know of before and I don't like missing out on good music. The most recent example is Rich Homie Quan's Type of Way which I noticed to be pretty high in GvB's EoY rankings. This was the first time I listened to it and I really liked the song.

 

I don't really read many reviews though - only if an artist I really love is involved. And I agree with the hip-hop bias thing. North of 90% of the times I 'tried to like' (basically just 'listened to') an unknown to me hip-hop song that was praised by Pitchfork et al proved to be unsuccessful.

Hi guys, music HEATHEN here

 

I tend to read the odd review of big album releases/songs by acts I know and love, but to be honest for the most part when I'm reading them their saying a lot of stuff I don't really care about and doesn't influence my enjoyment of music. As I say, music HEATHEN. I don't really tend to listen to music for it's lyrical qualities, I tend to listen for melody and hooks, and a lot of reviews don't really place much emphasis on that at all.

I don't really tend to listen to music for it's lyrical qualities, I tend to listen for melody and hooks, and a lot of reviews don't really place much emphasis on that at all.

Yeah, forgot about that... Me too! Melody is the thing that captivates me 95% of the time (mostly due to my complete inability to understand subtle meanings and look beyond etc.) but if there are lyrics that hit home, I'll obviously love the song as well.

Oh yeah, same here. I mean if the lyrics SPELL. IT. OUT. then I'm all for that and it usually does enhance my enjoyment of a song (very basic example, Defender by Gabriella Cilmi, now an all time fave), but I am almost 100% incapable of deciphering meanings within songs so most of the time I'm just like, 'yeah, sounds good' and that's that. Other people tend to get more worked up by that than I do, I can't say I feel like I've ever really missed out on anything much in life because of it.

I'm basically the same. I keep an eye on reviews but with sites like Pitchfork there's whole expanses of music that they love and I just don't "get", along with a lot of things they give fairly average scores to and I end up loving.

 

I like brave reviewing as well. For instance, I'd probably give 8/10 to Arcade Fire and Arctic Monkeys' last albums, but I have more time for the 6/10 review of the former in Q than the 10/10 review of the latter in NME because it was braver. No one usually dares to mark AF that low, I disagree with both scores equally but I can completely understand where it was coming from.

I don't take any notice of them at all and make up my own mind about if I enjoy songs or albums myself.

Make my own mind up. I enjoy a good review but I take it with a pinch of salt, many critics favour "cool" or "current" or "credible" music (as viewed in any given era) and they may sometimes get precious and sniffy about mainstream music - logic presumably being, people are mostly stupid so anything popular is obviously just record company product and not creatively due merit - but as long as they are genuinely enthusiastic for new music that's great.

 

Mind you, I've seen it all before, punk beloved by the critics and trendy, Queen and Abba sniffed at by the music press of the time. Punk was influential, but Abba and Queen have lasted and still sell bucketloads because they are timeless and were bloody great. Same sort of stick that Coldplay get these days, and the critics will be wrong about them too, they've got better with age and have a substantial body of work....

 

hey ho.

:lol:

 

 

 

I might read a range of reviews about an album but to be honest they are becoming superfluous because it's never been easier to listen to an album (legal and illegal) before purchase.

 

Everone's a critic nowadays.

(the bias towards hip-hop for example)

 

Or your bias against it? If anything I feel like Pitchfork have a bias towards white straight dudes with guitars...though I will agree that w/ rap artists included, it's really just a bias towards straight male musicians.

 

Reviews are slowly becoming irrelevant. Pitchfork is becoming irrelevant. I said this somewhere else recently, but Pitchfork will be seen in 20/30 years as NME + Rolling Stone is now — dated and out of touch (watch Vampire Weekend + Bon Iver continue to top their EOY charts in 2040).

 

Not that I think there's no benefit to discussing music but I think the idea of a score is silly. I'm far more interested in Pitchfork's interviews, cover stories, and features moreso than the individual reviews. Reviews used to be useful as a way of discovering new music and getting a little "preview" of an album before buying it. In the age of Spotify and streaming, the best way to determine whether you will like something is just to preview it rather than read a review about it. There are way better sites right now that are killing it w/ their music discussion far more than Pitchfork as well - The Fader, Dummy, Fact, Bullet.

Make my own mind up. I enjoy a good review but I take it with a pinch of salt, many critics favour "cool" or "current" or "credible" music (as viewed in any given era) and they may sometimes get precious and sniffy about mainstream music - logic presumably being, people are mostly stupid so anything popular is obviously just record company product and not creatively due merit - but as long as they are genuinely enthusiastic for new music that's great.

 

Mind you, I've seen it all before, punk beloved by the critics and trendy, Queen and Abba sniffed at by the music press of the time. Punk was influential, but Abba and Queen have lasted and still sell bucketloads because they are timeless and were bloody great. Same sort of stick that Coldplay get these days, and the critics will be wrong about them too, they've got better with age and have a substantial body of work....

 

hey ho.

:lol:

Coldplay tend to get pretty good reviews, all their albums have 65 or over on Metacritic.

I've read enough reviews in my life that I've thoroughly disagreed with (both for and against) that I haven't given a stuff what 'the critics' say since I was about 20.