Is the Album Review Dead?

[Dexter]

I want to share a very interesting and well-researched article, and I'm sure you will too, which raises valid points and questions. You can read the whole article by clicking on the link below:
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/is-the-album-review-dead

An edited version, done by me, is provided hereunder (I recommend reading the original article though):

"In 1970, Lester Bangs delivered a review of Black Sabbath's debut album, not one was positive. He wasn’t alone. Critic Robert Christgau, called it “bullshit necromancy.” Time proved them wrong. But the reviews bothered Black Sabbath. Why? Simple. In 1970, reviews were a valuable source of information for music fans. Reviews could form opinions. Reviews could sell records.

In the years since, print media has fallen from prominence. Webzines like Pitchfork rose to prominence gaining followings that rivals Rolling Stone and SPIN. Acts like Arcade Fire saw their audiences and album sales grow shortly after their Pitchfork review. But that dynamic is shifting. Meaghan Garvey, who reviewed albums for Pitchfork, agrees. “I don’t think it’s the critics or writers who are tastemakers anymore. People on Twitter or Instagram are doing that” she says. Those seeking to stand out as tastemakers have had to adopt new strategies. Anthony Fantano made very little headway when he ran a music blog/podcast. Now, with over 600,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, The Needle Drop, he is one of the most influential voices in modern music criticism.

Though music criticism may have become more of a personalized operation, the downside is that with so many voices shouting wildly for attention, it has become a veritable trash pit of amateur opinions and toxic discourse. The ushering in of a new generation of free-to-low-wage clickjockeys, outrage-generators, and online opinionistas racing against one another to be the first out of the gate with a piping hot take is largely said to have contributed to the death of the professional critic, and reduced collective feedback of art to a pass/fail, “classic or trash” consensus.

Overtly negative album reviews are becoming an increasingly rare occurrence. Metacritic, a site that aggregates reviews, grades the overall feedback from the press by color. Between the years of 2013 and 2015, not a single record went into the red (bad). Comparatively, in the world of film, over that same period, 17.75 percent of movies released were in the red. So why have album reviews gotten so soft? One argument is that online publications have become too indebted to artists. It doesn’t matter how vapid or void of quality the writing of the article is, a share or a retweet from the artist will send their rabid fans flooding by the thousands to a site, boosting its monthly traffic numbers, which looks appealing to advertisers. This, in part, has been responsible for the resurgence in poptimism—critics bandwagoning for the musical winners instead of sticking their necks out for the deserving underdogs of music. By doing so, artists like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift dominate the daily music content cycle, from extensive thinkpieces about their cultural impact to listicles about cats they’ve Instagrammed, and teen heartthrobs like Justin Bieber land the number one spot on prominent music websites’ best songs of the year lists. Also, websites and their brand overlords will always need favors—artists to play their SXSW showcases or host their award shows, or labels to advertise on pop-up ads, or publicists to help land the big exclusive interview after the artist inevitably hits rock bottom after being caught drunk driving at a Wendy’s drive-thru on TMZ.

Many sites have shifted away from reviews all together. When Ben Westhoff became music editor at the LA Weekly in 2011, one of his first orders of business was to largely stop running album reviews. “Practically nobody was reading them,” says Westhoff. “The other issue is that it's very difficult to describe music in words. I could spend paragraphs describing a sound and it wouldn't compare to even a few moments listening to the track itself.” Premieres have instead come to dominate coverage of new releases. In the weeks leading up to an album’s release, the artist will promote their album in piecemeal in the form of premieres of first tracks, second tracks, lyric videos and so on. There is a trade-off that comes along with premieres. The artist’s publicist is agreeing to direct the artist’s fanbase to a website, and in exchange, there’s an implicit agreement that the website’s write-up will lean positive. Music criticism might also be leaning more positive not just to appease artists, but to avoid their wrath. Wale once called Complex to threaten them after his release, The Gifted, did not make their “50 Best Albums of 2013” list. So perhaps the reason music reviews have gotten less negative is that critics just plain don’t want to be bullied.

While artists and critics play this back and forth game online with each other, listeners are often caught in the middle. Album reviews certainly still matter to artists, writers, and publicists, as they are the ones dealing with them every day, but does the average listener still pay attention? According to Andy Larsen, marketing manager at the New York record store Rough Trade, yes and no. “Customers absolutely search out and question the store about positively reviewed music.” But then “Some artists are beyond the review. It doesn’t matter if they get a good review or bad review on a blog or magazine. If they have a solid fanbase, the worst review won’t hurt them.”

But maybe that’s what people have wanted from criticism all along—to simply be told what they already knew, to reinforce the opinions they’ve long held, and to read positive words about things they like, nodding along gleefully without being challenged. There will always be good music out there, but thanks to this democratization—and dilution—of traditional music criticism, and its creaky old warhorse, the album review, you, the listener, are on your own, left to the mercy of your own opinions. After all, if Lester Bangs could do it, so can you."


...your thoughts?

[luney6]

Well, wasn't this obviously expected to happen? When you forget to distinguish the great from the good from the mediocre from the bad, you're giving the listener far too many recommendations they won't like. The job of the music critic is to inform, to explain why a piece of music may be good, and to distinguish liking something from calling it great The main purpose of these websites is to make money, and when the making money part is given priority over the informing one, this will be the result.

On the bright side, though, hasn't it always been this way? I mean, I don't know much about it, but publications have always received their free copies of the album through the artist, and thus often been obliged to give them a good review, leading to the misinforming of the masses. Dummies that use the criticisms as the final word (thankfully, I don't think there are any on this site.)

Single reviewers have always done better in the past. They've always formed large followings eventually, who understood that the person was authentically giving their opinion to the best of their abilities. Critics such as Lester Bangs, Piero Scaruffi, Anthony Fantano, and to an extent even Mark Prindle (I'm excluding Robert Christgau because I've never met a person who considers listening to his recommendations, after all, he doesn't explain them well.) have always had a large cultural impact, that magnified even more over time. On the other hand, reviews by major magazines only have an impact (that too rarely) on that time period. As the future comes, they fade.

[Dexter]

Well, wasn't this obviously expected to happen? When you forget to distinguish the great from the good from the mediocre from the bad, you're giving the listener far too many recommendations they won't like. The job of the music critic is to inform, to explain why a piece of music may be good, and to distinguish liking something from calling it great The main purpose of these websites is to make money, and when the making money part is given priority over the informing one, this will be the result.

I agree. The sad part is the herd mentality of many listeners. It's all about the hits, view counts and follows now. It's about who is easy on the eyes or who dresses or acts in an outrageous way rather than the music itself. More and more artists are discovered through social media and most of them are garbage. That's why I cringe every time I look into in billboard charts. I'm thinking these artists must have pretty good managers and publicists because their songs are only worth a couple of listen. I know other eras have pretty bad music too but this era is a lot worse in my opinion if we look at releases by major labels.
This is where I miss those critics who I feel are independent and truly focus on the music itself. Bangs, Scaruffi, Fantano, Prindle, although I don't agree with some of their reviews, are fine examples. Their breed might be marginalized but their ability to influence is still there for those who read then listen or in our era, listen then read.

[Dexter]

Well, wasn't this obviously expected to happen? When you forget to distinguish the great from the good from the mediocre from the bad, you're giving the listener far too many recommendations they won't like. The job of the music critic is to inform, to explain why a piece of music may be good, and to distinguish liking something from calling it great The main purpose of these websites is to make money, and when the making money part is given priority over the informing one, this will be the result.

I agree. The sad part is the herd mentality of many listeners. It's all about the hits, view counts and follows now. It's about who is easy on the eyes or who dresses or acts in an outrageous way rather than the music itself. More and more artists are discovered through social media and most of them are garbage. That's why I cringe every time I look into in billboard charts. I'm thinking these artists must have pretty good managers and publicists because their songs are only worth a couple of listen. I know other eras have pretty bad music too but this era is a lot worse in my opinion if we look at releases by major labels. The really good artists are there but I'm saddened by their lack of exposure or commercial success.
This is where I miss those critics who I feel are independent and truly focus on the music itself. Bangs, Scaruffi, Fantano, Prindle, although I don't agree with some of their reviews, are fine examples. Their breed might be marginalized but their ability to influence is still there for those who read then listen (or in our era, listen then read). I think it's one reason why few groundbreaking artists have recently been in the spotlight.

[Maschine_Man]

What will become of music review-reviewers?

I don't think I have ever really paid attention to reviewers of any kind (film, food or travel) but I'm sure I have been influenced by them (directly or indirectly). It's hard to feel sorry for an industry which seems inherently class based, but the alternate is not particularly desirable either. By lending more power to what is popular you don't actually hand it to the people, you hand it to the content creators with the loudest voice/best PR. This has always been the case, but with the division between artist and consumer growing closer it's much easier to target/connect with your audience. News and review websites are just trying their hardest to keep up and remain relevant.

This is where Trump and West have made their fortunes recently. You have to talk about them.

[luney6]

I think what will happen in the end, because of the internet, is that the reviewing websites, magazines, etc (and I'm not talking about Billboard), which are more money oriented, giving good reviews, will continue as they do now, until they lose respect, slowly, which is when the artists will stop referring to them, and their reviews will become irrelevant. These magazines will shut down. On the other hand, the single reviewers are already on the rise. The reviewers I mentioned have already started to gain recognition, as long as they continue to create the content the way they do, as critics whose purpose is to inform, and not as businessmen.

What people don't understand is that there is a difference between a music journalist, or a music listener, from a music critic. It is important to distinguish what you like from what is good.

[Henrik]

It is important to distinguish what you like from what is good.

I, and I think some other forumers too, have a problem with this sentence. I think it's important for a music critic to put music into a perspective, to know the history of the artist and the genre in question, but I think a critic (or any person) is into trouble when making a difference between personal preference and recommendations to others. That just can't be honest imo. If critics praise something that they don't really like its probably because they have listened to other critics and in that case they don't have anything to say on their own. If they say something is bad and they actually enjoy it, that's even worse. Guilty pleasures do not exist.

Edit: I should mention that I haven't always had this opinion. I used to tell my friends about good and bad music, from things I had read in magazines rather than my own true feelings. Nowadays, when discussing music with friends, I am careful to point out if something is acclaimed, popular and/or appeals to myself.

[BleuPanda]

It is important to distinguish what you like from what is good.

I, and I think some other forumers too, have a problem with this sentence. I think it's important for a music critic to put music into a perspective, to know the history of the artist and the genre in question, but I think a critic (or any person) is into trouble when making a difference between personal preference and recommendations to others. That just can't be honest imo. If critics praise something that they don't really like its probably because they have listened to other critics and in that case they don't have anything to say on their own. If they say something is bad and they actually enjoy it, that's even worse. Guilty pleasures do not exist.

I was thinking up a response, but this is about what I was going to say. In my opinion, it's the job of a music critic to argue whether a song or album is good, and that should be based on whether they like it. Of course their criticism should go beyond mere enjoyment, but I can't think of many who don't.

[Nick]

It is important to distinguish what you like from what is good.

I, and I think some other forumers too, have a problem with this sentence. I think it's important for a music critic to put music into a perspective, to know the history of the artist and the genre in question, but I think a critic (or any person) is into trouble when making a difference between personal preference and recommendations to others. That just can't be honest imo. If critics praise something that they don't really like its probably because they have listened to other critics and in that case they don't have anything to say on their own. If they say something is bad and they actually enjoy it, that's even worse. Guilty pleasures do not exist.

Edit: I should mention that I haven't always had this opinion. I used to tell my friends about good and bad music, from things I had read in magazines rather than my own true feelings. Nowadays, when discussing music with friends, I am careful to point out if something is acclaimed, popular and/or appeals to myself.

I am definitely one of those "other forumers". There's simply no such thing as objectively good or bad music. It all comes down to personal taste. How would you even measure or calculate how "good" a piece of music is? There's no such mathematical formula or scientific instrument that can do that. One person's idea of "good" can be radically different from another's. Just as one culture's idea of "good" can be radically different than another's. Who is right and who is wrong? There's no clear answer. Show me the formula or yardstick that can determine the goodness of a work of art. Until then I'll be in the subjectivity camp.

[spiritualized]

Very interesting article. Very.
My story goes along the lines of the death of the album review indeed. In the 90s, I just could not get enough recommendations from the classic magazines - NME / Spin / Melody Maker / Q / Uncut and many more. I was literally devouring these reviews, trying to find the best records and do, in my little corner, what this website is doing in a much grander scale

Slowly, my interest waned and turned towards Pitchfork, Drowned in Sound, and the web versions of the aforementioned magazines. For the last 10 or so years, I have been focusing my interest on "recommendations" engines, based on my tastes. I must say that they are getting better and better in finding new discoveries for me, a thing that I was trying to achieve by reading album reviews in the 90s.

So yeah, the review is probably on its deathbed, but it's replaced - and rather successfully - by algorithms based on your listening history. It suits me just fine, actually, for the moment !

PS - thanks to the forumers, I actually paid attention to the "discoveries of the week" on Spotify - and the selection is simply incredible. I cannot recommend it enough.

[Dexter]

It is important to distinguish what you like from what is good.

I don't think any self-respecting reviewer gives an album a thumbs-up solely because that's the consensus among other reviewers and not based on his or her assessment. Although a casual music-lover might do that, which just comes off as trying to be "cool" and "hip". You should form your own opinion. Someone asked for my opinion about Bjorks latest album. I answered Vulnicura had good reviews (Metacritic score of 87) but the album for me is uneven (of course, after listening to it). Same with movies, Steve Jobs got high praises but it didn't work for me.

So yeah, the review is probably on its deathbed, but it's replaced - and rather successfully - by algorithms based on your listening history. It suits me just fine, actually, for the moment !

I think those curated playlists and recommendations based on algorithms works best for singles. That's one other thing, our music consumption has gone back to the 50's. Sales from singles have trumped album sales (except maybe for Adele) and along the demise of the physical copies is killing the music industry. Consequently, the album review is given less consideration by publications.

[luney6]

It is important to distinguish what you like from what is good.

I don't think any self-respecting reviewer gives an album a thumbs-up solely because that's the consensus among other reviewers and not based on his or her assessment. Although a casual music-lover might do that, which just comes off as trying to be "cool" and "hip". You should form your own opinion. Someone asked for my opinion about Bjorks latest album. I answered Vulnicura had good reviews (Metacritic score of 87) but the album for me is uneven (of course, after listening to it). Same with movies, Steve Jobs got high praises but it didn't work for me.

I'm not talking about echoing what your colleagues are saying, without understanding why.

The first part of my answer consists of what Nick has already said, about tastes and art being subjective.

Once you've considered this, realize that art is not subjective. It is a concept that is completely man-made. It is an act of communication, a VERB, and not a NOUN. I'm going to quote here a critic, who has better explained this:

Art is communication. It is a medium.

Its purpose is communication at a high level of ideas and emotions. Ideas primarily.

This is why bad art often devolves to bumper stickerese. If you've read Moby-Dick, just to use a famed example, you could distill it to a dozen major plot and or political and or ethical points, but it's STILL MORE, because it's art, and can tell you of whaling two centuries ago while also telling you why you cannot get that insult from the fat kid who bullied you in class out of your head.

The greatest art, in another sense, has no purpose and CANNOT have purpose. Realistically, we don't need art to breathe, move, think, eat, fart, shit, and die. But it makes us better, therefore this unnecessary thing is the highest thing we have.

Art is ideas in motion, put to a service.

Understand also that, as humans, we will all glean similar points as others would from, say a song, or a movie. We would experience the similar moments of relatability, we would find the same harmonies, and we would find similar things profound. The critic's job is to understand this. His job is to distinguish between the lazy artist and the great one. His job is to understand thoroughly what the artist is trying to do, and to inform of the great artist.

Hence, at the very least, the critic should be able to separate something that has personal meaning to him, from something that has universal meaning. He should be well aware of the history of the field, so as to add context, and say why it is, or was influential, why it is original, etc. All this stems from personal experience, and from personal thoughts.

[PlasticRam]

In my opinion art can be 100% subjective, but there can be some objectivity to it too. For example we can say that Beatles prolly is objectively better than Nickelback. But some people would argue that Beatles are no more than a boy band, and that is true in a way, at least to them. My point is that IMO it's mostly subjective.