Do you read music reviews? Do you let reviews determine whether or not you listen to a specific album? Personally, I don't like reviews and disagree with those that let a specific person's opinion dictate their music taste. I have thoroughly enjoyed many albums that have gotten low scores on Pitchfork, Needle Drop, etc. When it comes down to it, that's one person's taste and shouldn't be taken as fact. For example, I don't like any form of metal, and if I reviewed albums and my readers/viewers/listeners demanded I review an album from the metal genre, I'm likely to trash it because I simply can't stand that genre. However, that doesn't necessarily mean YOU should not try it out for yourself. Create your own opinion. Not a lot of people think for themselves nowadays. No one is really open-minded when it comes to music and those who say they are are lying to you and themselves, honestly.
I don't think I've ever read any more than one music album review and that was just by accident. I don't really care what anyone else has to say about music. I'll listen to stuff on youtube and if I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I move on. There's nothing more to it because no one else's opinions will change mine.
Music reviews are probably the most biased reviews out of all the media mediums out there. It goes down to the simple fact of either you like it or not. You can't really make a review out of music since there is no real middle ground to that. At least when it comes to games or movies, you can say some things worth looking up towards, but music is better left for people to check out themselves, not let others decide for them.
No, I tend not to read reviews for anything to be honest. I've noticed that there are some great albums that I've listened to that get terrible P4K/Metacritic scores, but that doesn't bother me since it's all down to personal preference. I do think that if you don't like a certain genre, you shouldn't be reviewing albums/artists that fall under that spectrum? I can't see a good, cohesive album swaying someone if they go into it not liking that kind of music. I've noticed that that does happen when I've read reviews in the past.
The only reviews I take into account are the ones done by the holy grail of rap reviewers, Big Ghost. His reviews are all basically satire and are written in slang/ebonics and they make me laugh and he hates almost all of the things I hate so I get a kick out of his writings. But other than that reviews are stupid.
I've never paid much attention to reviews on musical albums (or much anything as subjective as music can be). I recently stumbled upon Pitchfork's review of Sylvan Esso's debut album and got pretty salty about it, since it was one of my favorite albums this year. It wasn't necessarily a bad review, but they panned the album for being generic and called the vocals "languid, sun-weary, and slightly drunk." I'm not pretending this is a ridiculously substantial album, but decrying it for some kind of lack of depth or originality I think is totally uncalled for. It's not the album that's going to change your life or blow you out of the water, and was never presented as such; despite my considering it one of my favorite albums of the year, I don't believe there's some kind of hidden depth to the lyrics or instrumentation here. It's an inoffensive, fun, catchy record, and the review just read to me as "I don't have strong feelings for or against this album so I'm going to give it a bad score for not catching my interest." That kind of self-absorbed, "this album must impress ME because I have the best musical sensibilities out there" is pretty characteristic of Pitchfork, but certainly not all review sites, but is symptomatic, to me, of the emphasis on reviewing every album other than the ones a person really likes. I want to read about how and why a reviewer loathed an album, or how and why it changed their life. Otherwise, it's a fairly useless read. Reviews to me are about sharing experiences and emotions, not endeavoring to pin down an album's objective quality as decided by some rando writer. I feel similarly about game reviews -- I don't want you to review everything because, if you have nothing interesting to say about the game, there's nothing interesting for me to read. I want to read more about human experiences and reactions in "reviews."
That sounds like they're looking for the wrong thing. "This Spice Girls album lacks depth!" I never look up music reviews, listening to an album goes so fast anyway. I do like to gauge the reaction on pop music forums. If everyone's all "YAAASSS KWEEEEN SLAY! SNATCH THOSE WIGS! SERVE THOSE BOPS!" there's a good chance the CD has some fun songs.
Yeah, they are basically the epitome of pretentious writing and attitude regarding reviews, and that's a well-known reputation they have -- and yet, they're this huge tastemaker for people, a standard for so many in music reviews. It's terrible.
I don't see the point of music reviews in the slightest. If you like a song/album/artist or not is such a subjective thing, not anyone will like the exact same things. Also, Pitchfork has got to be one of the worst review sites I've seen. Almost everything I like, they seem to have a negative view on or say its "uninspired and lacking in innovation," talking like they know what good music is or not. If yer gonna write a music review, it should be with your own personal experiences with a work, and not its "broad appeal." Because music doesn't have a broad appeal imo, you either click with it or not.
lol i edited my op. it just sounded whiney when i read it. to add on to the discussion, i just have a hard time seeing how lazy people have gotten, especially when it comes to music taste. it's so hard to hold a conversation with someone my age 80% of the time when they just spew out the same garbage the reviewer planted in their head. half of the **** they say, i'm like, "do you even know what that means?" i hate to be that guy that plays the sheep card, but man... people need to think for -- and educate -- themselves.
After I've heard an album and formed an opinion I may look up what other people thought out of curiosity. If something gets bad reviews it certainly won't affect my liking of it, but if something I dislike gets good reviews it may prompt me to give it a second chance and either reinforce my opinion or change it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I'm not sure that music is something that should be treated as infallible and free from criticism in the name of art, but like everything else that can be reviewed, I don't think that reviewers should be treated as opinion bibles for people to subscribe to. This pretty much applies to everything.