the reviewer's responsibility...

[onedeadjet]

Since a decent amount of space on this board goes to running catalogues of reviews and debating Pitchfork's validity, I thought it would be interesting to get everyone's opinion on what the purposes and responsibilities inherent to reviewing a record.

Some points to possibly consider:

THe style of the review. Do you prefer or respect the CMJ New Music style of review, which is purely informational (and generally well informed (at least it was until I stopped reading it several years back)), the hit or miss style of most publications, which may or may not be agreeable or readable, or the cocky (but passionate about music (often to a fault) Pitchfork style review?

Should reviewers shun offerings by their favorite artists, citing objectivity issues, or should they tackle them head on, considering they're probably more knowledgeable than their peers?

Fire away...

[Miss Tasty Princess]

I don't generally think too much of smarmy reviews. Having said that, Conflict used to have the best reviews for pure reading entertainment and they were usually fairly informative at the same time.

My biggest beef with reviews is when a critic reviews something from a genre (s)he hates. What's the point?

[bitterfruit]

Personally, I think it is fairly pathetic to assign numerical values in relationship to art. 10.0's and 5.6's for the most part mean nothing and borders on insulting. This is not ice skating; it's not a sport. It boils down to what's mostly reviewer conjecture and baseless criticism when you read it, especially in Pitchfork.

I feel the same way about things like music awards and other venues where artists compete against each other. It's not a fucking competition to see who's art is better. "Album of the year" is entirely meaningless and usually doesn't prove shit.

Buddyhead has a pretty good and humorous schtick as far as rating systems go.

[onedeadjet]

I think pitchfork's ten pointer would work a helluva lot more effectively if people didn't lob around the 10s so frequently.
Yeah, there is the inherent problem of all of their writers have completely different scales of relativity, but it seems like 75% of the reviews are less than 2, between 4 and 7, or 10.0. It's not evenly spread, so it doesn't seem worth paying attention to..

Personally, when it comes to the reviews I like to read, I give the nod to the CMJ style. They tell me about the record. They compare it to other things I might like, which might make me buy the record, or the other comparisons. It's nice and simple.

But be it CMJ, spin, Pitchfork, whoever, there are writers that are good and are trustworthy (at least to my ears). There are also writers that are shit no matter who they work for.

[johansen smith]

hate to give props to Pitchfork, but this is from a recent review, and is brilliant: "A band name like the Snitches is the world's shortest press kit."