A music critic can't just say "I didn't care for it" and move on - or rather, they could, but then they wouldn't write the article.
I think the lesson here is more for the editors: maybe find someone who's a fan to write the piece? Or maybe we get a better picture now that aggregate ratings (like Rotten Tomatoes) are widespread?
Objectivity in journalism may not exist, but most poor quality journalism I find is directly correlated to how big a fanboy that person is about the particular subject.
You need intelligence when approaching criticism far more than reverence, is I guess what I'm saying. If someone can intelligently relate to me specifically why they might not like the Beatles, or specific song, in a way that I can understand, I would consider that person more trustworthy than the alternative.
But that relies on me, or rather the reader/audience, to be open and receptive to challenging opinions.
I look around on YouTube for recordings I like. There are lots of recordings I don't like for whatever reason. I don't post them. Why bother?
So, nowadays, I'm not sure why anyone should spend time reviewing music they don't like. At all. What's the point? The slush pile is vast. Make the best collection you can of stuff you like. If other people find it good then maybe they'll start to trust your judgement.
Admittedly, I have a tiny audience, a newspaper is a little different, and sometimes people like to read a good takedown. But it seems unnecessary?
If something is extremely popular but you perceive something wrong about it of course that's a good reason to write about it.
At the same time many critics seem to just try to put artists down because that makes it seem the critic is above the artist because he can see the wrongness in the artist. Critics are wannabe artists.
It's different for other media, like an article about how a book or TV show or movie is historically inaccurate is sometimes fun.
I guess it's just the wrongheaded logic of criticism: The critic must prove they are doing their job. They are "critics", right? Therefore they must criticize. :-)
That happens more in video games reviews than in movies but often reviewer reviews some title in niche genre well but it isn't anything worth attention for actual fan because it doesn't do anything special over different games in the title or is outright going backward.
But the "omni-reviewer" that reviews everything that comes their way won't know that, they play say RTS or some strategy game once every 3 years so anything that seems pretty competent gets a good score even if compared to the peers in the genre it might be weak. Ability to communicate flaws doesn't help here really that much if reviewer by nature of their generalism doesn't even have point of comparison.
That's not how it is at all for games, though, is it? I mean, there are very few niche genres that gamers (even if they aren't reviewers) haven't tried.
A games reviewer will at least have already played the most popular games for each of the popular genres. You will find it hard to find a games reviewer who hasn't played the top RTS games, the top FPS games, the top Mobile games, the top RPG games, etc.
> That happens more in video games reviews than in movies but often reviewer reviews some title in niche genre well but it isn't anything worth attention for actual fan because it doesn't do anything special over different games in the title or is outright going backward.
But niche genres don't do well anyway. If the game is not a side-scroller, a platformer, a dungeon crawler, an RTS, an FPS, a point-and-click, an ARPG, a hidden object game, an RPG ... what exactly is it[1]?
If the game doesn't fall neatly into a genre, then it's not going to do well anyway, because ordinary players won't be able to review just like the reviewer won't be able to review it - what exactly do they compare it to?
[1] This is one of the problems that plagued Brigador, which didn't neatly fit into a genre and was a failure.
Funny enough we are actually took a step BACK from marketwide aggregated ratings in recent years.
Using RT as an example, they changed their system in recent years so their shareholders had more control over the ratings, who can rate them and what is said.
They basically shifted from a simple internet movie rating site to slowly becoming another Hollywood mouthpiece with their selection of pro-Hollywood narrative critics and making it harder for normal people to raise opinions, we seem to be reverting back to the status quo.
It'd be a shame if the audience rating became less reliable in that regard.
RT is not such a good example - didn't they recently start weighting reviews (viewer reviews count less and less)?
I think Metacritic still allows you to see the viewer reviews independently of the critic reviews. I remember using Metacritic in the past, and my general experience was that any movie with:
1. High reviews from the critics but low reviews from the viewers = probably trash, expect to be assaulted with some deeper meaning or message which is completely out of context.
2. Low reviews from critics but high reviews from viewers = Probably good entertainment, bring the popcorn but don't expect a deep message from the movie.
3. Consistently low reviews = absolute trash, don't waste your money
4. Consistently high reviews = appeals to a very broad segment of the population, probably appeals to you too.
I think I might be done with news.ycombinator.com, as I can no longer tell.
I am now living in a simulation.
It's not that I'm necessarily going to agree with the negative reviews. But I definitely find them much more useful.
It's a sad state of affairs when we're told that there's only one correct opinion about a particular piece of media and dissenting views are "wrong." We lose the deep insight that comes from looking at who likes and dislikes a piece and why. And it's hard to truly like something when liking it is presented as the only correct choice from the start.
Negative reviews tend to be a bit more articulate and specific about what they didn't like, and why they didn't like it. Pain points tend to stand out a lot more than positive things, especially if you go into an experience with the expectation that you'll enjoy it.
That said, there's also plenty of occasions where I've found nothing useful in the negative reviews, but found some positive reviews compelling enough to try a book.
Movies, TV shows and music I tend to ignore specific reviews altogether, and just go by the description and overall positive/negative average from ratings. There are so many more dimensions that short form reviews generally aren't useful at all.
Wouldn’t that be an entirely solvable problem? Or am I expecting too much from machine learning?
But this is exactly what you look for. How many of the bad reviews are people who seem like they whine a lot, how many are just unlucky, how many have seemingly reasonable complaints, etc.
How dumb are the bad reviews? If most are just stupid, it’s probably a good product, if you can find at least one review that really seems like it was by a real person with a real issue, it’s an indicator that some of the reviews are at least real.
But maybe that’s just a "me" issue ;)
In some cases, I've instead decided that a completely different kind of product can fill the same need in a better way.
That’s what often ends up happening, but then I also don’t want to be wasteful and buy something new before the old thing breaks.
Another is when they had a problem with something external to the item itself such as shipping.
Something like a cross between an issue tracker and a lightweight court of law.
If Amazon were whacked around the head with an antitrust stick like Microsoft was in 2001, this is the kind of innovation that might actually flourish from newer startups.
On the other hand, reviews don't need to do that, and the shorter ones don't, and criticism certainly doesn't need to engage with the question of whether a piece of media is at all enjoyable.
So a review can be right or wrong from my perspective based on how well it reflects my tastes.
Look at a piece like Picasso’s Guernica [1] without any context and in all likelihood you’ll consider it an ugly, confusing mess. But then if you take some time to read the history [2] and it completely changes how you look at the work.
[1] https://www.parisupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Paris...
Sometimes (often?) these critiques contain an element of social or cultural connotation as well. Techno definitly is hedonistic, rap and hiphop are connected to certain demographics and classes within society, as where the Beatles. That means a criticism should always also be seen in that light: Who criticizes whom from what standpoint? If that country fan dislikes the latest and harshest noise rock release that might be a good guide for fellow country music afficionados, but someone who likes noise rock might rather take that negative review as a compliment. Both sides could try to use the border they draw towards the other as cultural capital within their own ingroups.
That means when the Beatles became popular a lot of the criticism they got was also criticism the old generations had towards the younger generations. It was not only about the music, it was also about who decides what good music is.
Today (thankfully) we live in times where objectively good art is revealed as the delussional idea it always was.
Well if you're a critic you're supposed to have an informed opinion, something that is not just your personal, knee-jerk reaction but a well thought-out intellectual construction that explains what's good and what's less good and why.
Otherwise what's the point? I can get an opinion from any patron at any bar, or from dogs even.
I realize that "getting it wrong" could be a shorthand for "being so different from the historical majority opinion" but the piece doesn't seem to approach things that way.
It's significant in a way because I think over time majority opinions have a way of stifling minority perspectives on things that are most popularly seen as "great art". I don't mean to sound contrarian, I'm just suggesting that maybe consensus about a given work isn't quite what it seems all the time, that there are social pressures and dynamics at play that sometimes distort how people might consciously consider a piece versus how they might react to it completely independently without labels.
I also think it points to other things, like art perception being contextually dependent. People change and their tastes change — it doesn't mean one perspective is invalid, just that it was occuring in a different time.
Of course, sometimes people just don't fully appreciate something because it's new and are looking at it with a certain lack of imagination. But I also sometimes think we look back at the past as if it were preordained, more so than how we see the future.