Why Music Critics Matter
Professional music critics are getting lost in a sea of amateurs. And that's a bad thing. Because the difference between someone who's being paid to do a job and someone who's doing it because he has too much time on his hands is a vast one.
Say you want to know if a specific album is any good. There are countless reviews you could read online. On Amazon.com alone, there are 36 reviews about the debut album by one of country's newer acts. Those comments are from "customers." But with the anonymity of the Internet, those could've come from a record label intern or the act's mom. (I have nothing against mothers; mine was my biggest fan. But you have to admit they are pretty seriously biased.) Then you have all the reviews on countless fan sites and message boards and blogs. And those are just the glowing reviews. Also in that mix are quite a few critiques from the angry fan who didn't get her meet-and-greet pass or from the bitter songwriter whose brilliant song didn't make the cut even though the act had it on hold for months. Anyone with a grudge and a laptop can rant about the mediocrity of an album.
Yes, album reviews are completely subjective. But a professional is most likely writing with a solid grasp of the music. Ideally, they go into every album without any preconceived notions. They try to maintain a neutral point of view -- even if it means giving a bad review to an artist they love. Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. But if those opinions are muddied by favoritism and/or prejudices, the music world might be better off without them.
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Jim from The 9513 says:
Hmmm…I wonder what inspired THIS particular blog ;-)
Dan M. says:
I agree that there are a lot of very bad amateur music critics out here in the internet jungle, but there are also some very good ones - some of whom are noted in this site’s blogroll - who are serious about offering objective analyses of their choice music. I’ve found that good amateur critics often provide more detailed, comprehensive considerations of their subjects, perhaps because they’re writing purely out of enjoyment, or perhaps because they feel they have something more to prove. So I don’t think amateur critics as a whole are the problem; some of them have talent, and as with any occupation requiring talent, everyone needs a place to cut their teeth. The internet can be a great place for that. The cream will rise; I’m confident enough in music consumers to believe that those who aren’t blinded by their fanatacism for a particular artist will be able to tell a good review from an unreasonably baised one, no matter its source.
Leah says:
This makes me laugh….I agree with you Jim! lol
hotelmotel says:
I think this blog post is very good, and sensible.
The amazon or itunes customer reviews are almost never helpful. But many professional critics do write reviews that offer something interesting and important to say.
However, some anonymous blog posters or amazon reviewers are quite good. Its just that they get lost in the sea of bad posts.
I think Dan M makes some good points, but I want to add that customers have to be able to distinguish a press release and a professional review. A lot of press releases and bios vaguely resemble objective reivews, and I think they sometimes fool some potential music buyers.
Jim from The 9513 says:
Can we not lump “blog posts” into reviews posted on an online music store? There are a large number of professional critics who regularly publish in blogs.
Keith says:
unfortunately the PAID critics also tend to have their own biases, I find your blog very naive.I’m sorry! Have you read Billboard magazine reviews??? they think Britney Spears and Rihanna have good voices.They even think Taylor Swift a great songwriter has a good voice and we know that is not true…same with people like Chet here, he’s very obvious when he’s trying to make an artist he likes sound great. I think that at this point the music industry doesn’t have real, fair critics anymore.
hotelmotel says:
I meant the comments section of blogs, not the blog posts themselves.
John Maglite says:
I think it has a lot less to do with professional/amateur than it has to do with reasons for writing and intended audiences. As others have pointed out, quite a bit of what is published through CMT and other professional avenues is aimed a lot lower than some of the stuff coming from indie sources.
Also, I disagree with the characterization of the amateur critic as “someone who’s doing it because he has too much time on his hands.” That’s about as fair as calling a professional critic someone who’s only doing it for the money.
CF from iCF Music says:
There’s a lot of great points being raised in all the above replies. These days with all these blogs and everything, I hold amateur critics to the same standards I hold professional ones. Some professionals just don’t get it, while the “amateurs” do, and vice versa (but usually the former).
I don’t see how professionals can have a better grasp of the music than normal fans would (except for maybe knowing the history a little better and knowing the correct terms to use), but I do see it from both sides of the argument.
I certainly wouldn’t trust a critic who raves on and on about how great Rascal Flatts is to review “country music”, professional or amateur, but I guess there are exceptions.
Ken says:
I prefer judging for myself on music or movies. How many times did you watch shows like Siskel & Ebert or show like this an say “Wow that movie was bad; they are wrong” (of course after you had seen it yourself) and the same for the opposite of loving a movie they hated. My take is be your own critic. If you are unsure you probably don’t want to buy it. If you like everything you are seeing by all means get it. Anyways it is your money you decide if you made a good purchase or not.
Chris N. says:
As a professional music journalist I can assure you that some of my favorite critics these days are bloggers (and it’s been that way for years). I use their criticism the same way I hope that people use mine — to help sort through the overwhelming amount of music out there and figure out what I might like.
The difference between someone who’s being paid to do a job and someone who’s doing the same job because he or she loves music so much he or she will write about it for free (or practically free) is also a vast one.
Craig Shelburne says:
One big difference between amateurs and professionals is the sheer amount of music that you receive as a professional. I absorb about 400 albums a year — country, country-ish, indie, bluegrass, etc. I don’t know if it makes me more qualified, but it definitely helps me stay educated.
So if you’re interested in discovering new music, beyond the radio, keep tabs on what professional writers are writing/blogging about. You might not always agree with their tastes, but they might be giving space to something you might not have found otherwise.
Thanks, everyone, for reading all these blog entries too!
BethAnne Weatherford says:
Point well taken…There’s always room for an unbiased, educated opinion. But I have to add that there are some very good non-professional reviews.
Kelly says:
As an unpaid blogger, I also recieve 150 or so unsolicited Cd’s per year, not to mention the dozens I purchase myself. the blogs i read, along with myself have to work in blogging around busy schedules involving family and “day jobs”, we do it for the love (and free cd’s), not because we have too much time on our hands (if I may speak for the busy bloggers out there). These days, heavily visited blogs are considered a source of real information and analysis, not just a fanboy distraction. I have turned many people on to unknown bands that cant even get a spot of ink on a site such as this, let alone the local newspaper in many circumstances. While i agree that many paid writers (Jim M. and Chris N. for example) have a unique perspective through their experience and knowledge as musicians and song-writers, that isnt the case for many other paid writers, they simply happen to be good writers. You yourself make a point to claim to be just a “fan”. Good for you for getting paid to be doing what many people would love to do for a living, but dont turn the criticism your work recieves into a manifesto for “paid” writers, who are just doing a job. I bet the ad revenue at many of my fave blogs generate quite a nice little paycheck for the blogger, which means many people are going to the site to get informed on music. Doesnt that type of audience make a given blog relevent, regardless of their “expertise” or status of critic or blogger? You just keep on writing about jason aldean’s coffee choice and little big town’s catering table and we’ll just keep on blogging unprofessionaly.
Craig Shelburne says:
Cheers, Kelly. It’s finding that balance between what we like as music fans, and what casual country fans like. (If CMT.com did decide to write about Little Big Town’s catering, it probably would be interesting to a lot of people, me included, as someone who likes to cook.) The real trick is to not be a music snob, or think that your own opinion is right and somebody else’s is wrong. I like that about blogging — there’s room for everybody, and leave it up to the reader to decide who they like to read.
At least we can agree on Reckless Kelly, right? Love those guys. Keep up the good work on your blog.
Stormy says:
Bit condecending isn’t it to assume that a music consumer lacks knowledge of music simply because they do not get paid to write about it. Isn’t it also a bit condecending to assume that we as consumers can’t figure out which reviews are helpful and which are not on our own?
Stormy says:
Oh, and Craig, I buy about 100 albums a year. But I’m just a little know-nothing shopper.
Leeann says:
I wasn’t going to comment, but I just couldn’t resist since some of my cohorts in the amateur blogging world have taken the time to do so.
I completely second Kelly’s comment. Not only do I buy more CDs than I take the time to count within a year, we do get promotional CDs as well. Likewise, most of us bloggers have jobs so that writing about our passion can’t be our job. So, we take the time out of our already busy schedules to blog. So, it is highly unfair to suggest that we’re all people who have too much time on our hands when, in reality, we make the time.
As was asked above, I wish that amazon reviewers wouldn’t be lumped together with bloggers, because they are completely different formats.
While I will not discount the merrit of professional critics, I will argue that amateur critics can be just as unbiased as the professionals try to be. In all actuality, I wonder if an amateur critic might be pretty capable of being objective about the singer’s art because most of them have never met the people that they’re writing about, so they can try hard to solely base it on the music rather than their experiences with the artists. Conversely, most professional critics have more than likely met and even spent time with the people they are critiquing. Therefore, I would think (though I can’t prove) that such critics have to work pretty hard not to allow their personal relationships with the artists to effect their reviews.
So, I concede that their is merrit to both professional and amateur bloggers, but the latter shouldn’t be dismissed or discreditted.
PS. I’m one of Vince Gill’s biggest champions, without being a stocker, and I’m still waiting for a response to a letter that I wrote him back when I was 14 years old.:) His lack of response certainly has not biased me against him in the least.
Leeann says:
“Also, I disagree with the characterization of the amateur critic as “someone who’s doing it because he has too much time on his hands.” That’s about as
fair as calling a professional critic someone who’s only doing it for the money.”
Yeah, what John said.:)
Craig Shelburne says:
Like I said before, receiving 400 albums a year helps me stay educated, but it doesn’t mean I’m more qualified than you, or anybody else, to share my opinion. Buying albums is an excellent way to keep up, and hopefully this blog, and the 9513, and the Gobbler’s Knob, and some other well-done country sites out there, have helped you make some informed buying decisions along the way.
I also think going out to hear live music, if you live in a town where there’s a lot of it, is still one of the best ways to discover music.
And you’re right — a consumer knows what he likes, whether it’s a review or an album. I never would suggest that consumers don’t know anything about music. Of course they do. Just because I like it, doesn’t mean that you will, and that’s why we need a lot of voices. Yours included.
Leeann says:
Well put, Craig. I can definitely concede your points.
By the way, aside from the Jessica Simpson letter (not that I’m a fan of hers in the slightest), I like your work. I wish I could watch CMT more often, but the sound is really funny with my cable provider. It sounds as though everyone is in an echo chamber or something. It’s really quite frustrating, because there are certainly some music related shows on there that I’d love to watch. I’m still sad that I had to miss Can You Duet, because I’ve heard really positive things about it.
Ben says:
No response Alison?
Chris N. says:
I do like to think that the internet will bring a meritocracy to all this. Hopefully the people who write (and report — don’t forget that part) about music well and put their work out there will eventually be noticed and get paid for it one way or another.
I did plenty of writing for free back in the day just to have clips to show people who might hire me. (A few even did.)
tophat says:
This woman clearly thinks she hung the moon. If CMT is paying her more than a dollar, they’re paying too much. The other writers on this site are top shelf, but this woman is nothing but a hack.
Kelly says:
Thanks Craig,
We can agree on loving Reckless Kelly and Kathleen Edwards BTW, and now that you mention it, I get a kick out of “non-musical” stories about musicians also. Since we are complimenting one another, I have also enjoyed your posts that mix travel and food with musical experiences (I even used your austin post as a travel guide on my last trip). I was just hoping to be a tad satirical in explaining that there are tons of blogs that genuinely do care for the music and the discussion of the actual music. I do see a difference in a “typical blog” (mine) and even a really well-done blog (Country Universe & The 9513, even though the 9513 is a real-deal authoratative site that happens to have a blog, IMO). Thanks for speaking up and being a part of this discussion, Craig!
Blogger says:
I think what everyone needs to remember is that there are bloggers and then their are “bloggers.” I too am a paid music writer but I go to many a concert where I see people who positions themselves as “media” just to get free seats. The bloggers posting in this section are probably very good at their craft and it is nice of them to write without pay and to help people get all the input they can about an artist, CD or concert. But the bad apples spoiling the whole bunch are the ones who set up a country webzine and then suddenly they are everywhere. When all they really are is gherms that have publicists fooled. The write their reviews about everything, but its irrelevant because nobody visits those sites anyway. Those are the “critics” you can’t trust because they are not nuetral and they have an agenda: get into concerts for free.
TexasGuy says:
The main difference between professional and amateur reviewers is that when you read amateurs you just need to have a good enough filter to drink from the firehose; when you read a professional reviewer, you have to have enough trust that the reviewer shares your biases, because you are trusting them to filter things for you.
There’s no question that the pros have biases and preconceptions. If they did not, they wouldn’t be human. Amateurs, even those with an axe to grind, maybe especially those with an axe to grind, are pretty upfront about their biases, so you can discount for that. I get a lot out of looking through those types of reviews. “This sticks!!! So-and-so is much better!!!” can be useful if I also like so-and-so, and useful, too, if I do not.
“She sings really well and is also sweet and pretty” is of more limited usefulness, but, as you point out, it’s nice to know Mom is a fan.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but reviews may help me decide what to spend my money on when I’m really not sure; they never really sway me when I am already sure I want to hear it for myself. Reviews mean something, but they don’t mean everything.
Professionals will usually give you more reporting, more information, in addition to the review, and I like that. To Craig’s point, that type of knowledge has a great deal of value. But their opinions are based just as much on taste and bias as the amateurs.
BTW, Craig, we are on the same page (I think) on Donavan Frankenreiter!