Does Criticism Belong in Music?

[Annabelle 0]

Robyn, Brazilian Girls and Kylie are all way cooler than Daft Punk.

you are an idiot.

 

that doesnt even deserve a cmon man.

 

 

[Henry Spencer 0]

Robyn, Brazilian Girls and Kylie are all way cooler than Daft Punk.

 

Yeah, but if he started listening to them, people might mistake him for you.

 

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Robyn, Brazilian Girls and Kylie are all way cooler than Daft Punk.

 

Yeah, but if he started listening to them, people might mistake him for you.

 

Is this supposed to be an insult? idgi. :confused:

[BUTT 0]

Robyn? Nice taste, Perez Hilton.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Hey man. allmusic.com gave her album 4 1/2 stars. 4 1/2! And notorious rockist Mark Prindle called it "not awful" and said it has "nice little synth bleeps and some harmony vocals." So make like a bee and buzz off!!!

[Annabelle 0]

Hey man. allmusic.com gave her album 4 1/2 stars. 4 1/2! And notorious rockist Mark Prindle called it "not awful" and said it has "nice little synth bleeps and some harmony vocals." So make like a bee and buzz off!!!

shut up

[BUTT 0]

Hey man. allmusic.com gave her album 4 1/2 stars. 4 1/2!

It got a rating and no review. If it was really any good my man Steve-Tom would have cared enough to write a couple of 'graphs about it.

[Copper Feel 0]

The reviews on Allmusic often contradict the ratings anyway. ST-Er's army don't have to fall into no line.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Hey man. allmusic.com gave her album 4 1/2 stars. 4 1/2!

It got a rating and no review. If it was really any good my man Steve-Tom would have cared enough to write a couple of 'graphs about it.

 

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...gzfoxzl5ldde~T1

 

For some reason you can access this through the wikipedia entry for the album but not from the website itself. Weird.

[Annabelle 0]

allmusic sucks.

 

its all revisionist bullshit. they give albums that people have told them are good 5 stars. and are scared to give anything new that rating. like you could find a janis joplin album with 5 stars but not a tv on the radio one or anyone new. what the fuck?

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

allmusic sucks.

 

its all revisionist bullshit. they give albums that people have told them are good 5 stars. and are scared to give anything new that rating. like you could find a janis joplin album with 5 stars but not a tv on the radio one or anyone new. what the fuck?

 

Hotel California got five stars. How do you feel about that?

 

[Annabelle 0]

allmusic sucks.

 

its all revisionist bullshit. they give albums that people have told them are good 5 stars. and are scared to give anything new that rating. like you could find a janis joplin album with 5 stars but not a tv on the radio one or anyone new. what the fuck?

 

Hotel California got five stars. How do you feel about that?

exactly.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I knew it was bullshit when I saw that THE BOSS had like a bajillion five star albums. I like Springsteen, but that's just overkill.

[Annabelle 0]

anyone who takes any review from allmusic seriously is a numbskull. sorry, garyfloyd.

[Gary Floyd 0]

anyone who takes any review from allmusic seriously is a numbskull. sorry, garyfloyd.

I only go there for album cover pictures. I'll agree that their reviews are bullshit though.

[Henry Spencer 0]

I don't know of anybody who visits allmusic for their reviews.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

allmovie is worse. No critical pretense; mostly plot summaries.

 

But about allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine could occasionally benefit from a more judicious editor. Was 1400 words on Kevin Federline's Playing with Fire really necessary? Most of it isn't even about the album! Even though his criticism of K-Fed is on the money, should that much space have been devoted to an also-ran?

[BUTT 0]

The thing you have to realize about Allmusic (and I don't take it seriously at all, mind you) is that Erlewine seems to be trying to approach music from the position of a populist critic - the Roger Ebert of music criticism, as it were. Therefore his reviews are less focused on where an album fits into the canon of great musical triumphs and more on just if an album succeeds at what its creators intended for it to be.

 

Also, you can't take those star ratings seriously. Read the reviews of the two Use Your Illusion albums and see Steve Tom pretty well SON them, but they still both got 4.5 stars. And also, Paris Hilton's album is better than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

[Henry Spencer 0]

the position of a populist critic - the Roger Ebert of music criticism, as it were

 

I've always considered Ebert to be amoung the least populist of major film critics.

[Guest Czech please!]

I think Ebert kinda played the populist vis-a-vis Gene Siskel (though I guess even Siskel liked a few big-budget movies that were awful), but started playing the elitist vis-a-vis Richard Roeper (who seems like the kind of guy who exclusively likes big-budget movies that are awful). It could also be that film criticism (at least in mainstream publications) has become the province of the retarded to the point that Ebert seems highbrow in comparison.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I've always used allmusic as more a reference point than a serious critical source. If I'm looking to get into a band and don't know where to start, I go to allmusic and see which of that band's albums get the check mark that indicates a good place to begin.

 

I have, occasionally, read some really solid writing at allmusic. Like Thom Jurek's piece on Miles Davis's On the Corner. I've also read some bullshit, like this.

[godthedog 0]

Kroeger's voice is filled with weariness as he well captures the self-defeated feelings one experiences when being emotionally dissected by a lover. Such words as "'cause living with me must have damn near killed you" painfully zero in on the breakdown of the human spirit when it's badgered enough. Because, sadly, many have found themselves in this situation, the song connects with listeners.

that is just beautiful.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Here's Erlewine on the most recent Nickelback platter, Dark Horse.

 

Nickelback are a gnarled, vulgar band reveling in their ignorance of the very notion of taste, lacking either the smarts or savvy to wallow in bad taste so they just get ugly, knocking out knuckle-dragging riffs that seem rarefied in comparison to their thick, boneheaded words.

 

Later on, there's a Body Count reference I appreciated. The album gets two stars, adding to Kreese's comment that these star ratings can't be taken seriously. I mean, the guy ripped this band/album to shreds. Two stars feels like a mercy rating.

[BUTT 0]

They change ratings and reviews sometimes too. Back in 2001 I was enjoying an ironic fandom of Vanilla Ice's Limp Bizkit imitations, and I distinctly remember that the AMG review of his album Bipolar, after ripping it to shreds of course, stated that "the sad thing is, Vanilla Ice is still better than most of the nu-metal bands on the radio today." You won't find that line if you read the review right now, however. They took it out, I guess because they thought it would wreck their credibility if they suggested anyone, even Puddle of Mudd or Trapt or Adema or Taproot, were worse than Rob Van Winkle. They also downgraded their St. Anger star rating.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I've noticed that as well. Conventional wisdom long held Leonard Cohen's Phil Spector-produced Death of Ladies' Man to be a major-league turd. I don't remember the original one-star allmusic review verbatim, but it was roughly two sentences long, neither which were very kind. Now it has four stars and is a glowing piece of critical revisionism. Which is fine. Not because I like the album myself (though I do like it quite a bit), but that allmusic is willing to reflect opinions that change over time.

 

On a semirelated note, previously three-star rated, certified classic In the Aeroplane Over the Sea now sports five stars. The accompanying piece is still the original kind, if flummoxed, appreciation. I'm sure there's a rewrite in the works.

[Gary Floyd 0]

On a semirelated note, previously three-star rated, certified classic In the Aeroplane Over the Sea now sports five stars. The accompanying piece is still the original kind, if flummoxed, appreciation. I'm sure there's a rewrite in the works.

Rolling Stone did the same thing.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

At one time Jay-Z's In My Lifetime had a 5-star rating, but Reasonable Doubt did not. It appears that they have now rectified that mistake.

 

I don't see allmusic as anything other than what it is: a decent reference source. Whether or not you agree with the ratings, the reviews are at least competent and full of information. I don't know where you guys are going to get superior reviews and ratings. The two obvious alternatives, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, are full of their own quirks and biases as well.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Czech or Agent should spin these posts re: music critcism into its own thread. It could be an interesting discussion.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I think it's agreed that allmusic is better as a reference point rather than a serious critical source. As for superior alternatives re: criticism, the old Stylus site (it hasn't been updated since 2007, but all the old content can still be found here) had some good stuff. I like some of the writing on Fast 'n' Bulbous, too.

 

Pitchfork occasionally delivers, but with who knows how many writers contributing up to 25 new reviews each week and a penchant for pushing an ideology rather than talking about records, it's understandable that a lot of it is garbage and that good stuff is easily lost in the mix. So, given the structure of the site, there could be some fine writing on which I'm missing out. I've mentioned elsewhere that I liked both the reviews for 808s & Heartbreak and Chinese Democracy from Pitchfork, so there's that. The single best review I've read there was Dominique Leone's Da Capo-worthy look at the Beatles's Let It Be...Naked.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

I'd be curious to find out what people are looking for in a review. Are they looking for a star rating that conforms to their own tastes? Do they want a competent write-up that explains what the album is about? Or is just a matter of wanting to read good writing about a subject they care about?

 

What is everyone's criteria for what deserves a 5-star (or equivalent) rating? There was a post earlier in the thread that said it was a joke that Joplin had achieved this honor, but not TVOTR. I don't agree with that at all. I like TVOTR as much as the next guy, but it may take a few years to assess their impact and decide whether classic status is warranted. I sort of think those kind of ratings are earned, but I know that's not the same for everyone.

 

Surprisingly, The Source used to be the best with their rating system. No one got 5 mics and that ended up making their ratings feel very important. Granted, that magazine has fallen apart over the years, but it's a good example of knowing how to show restraint when praising something new and developing a system that has a lasting impact.