This is a great topic, Chris -- thanks so much for bringing it up. Not so much for Kanye or Key Arena shows, neither of which I know anything about (save for I avoid most mainstream pop music due to its banality, and I actually walked out of the line of a Key Arena show once, forfeiting the price of the ticket due to being treated like a feral sheep on the way in to one). But there are good reasons why a band fears a not-high-enough score.
If I'm sitting on the fence on whether to buy something, anything less than a 7.5 from any website I respect might determine whether I actually check it out. At that point the content of the review determines the final decision, but I do take ratings seriously, and hope those that assign them do as well.
If you're in an original but marginal band you might receive a low rating simply because the reviewer or editor deems what you're doing a minority voice and not worth enough mathematical enthusiasm. In the days of the original New Wave I could expect my favorite records by artists like Joe Jackson to get two and a half star or three star ratings, because whoever determined the rating amount probably felt that not "enough" of the people reading the review would be interested in anything so "extreme." Sounds ridiculous now, but those Joe Jackson albums now get four or five star ratings, because time proved them right. (Watch the change in ratings for AC/DC for the next few years, from older record guides to newer ones, due to the perspective towards genre being altered.)
That said, a lot of musicians and record labels are big fucking whiners, too. Oh yeah. I have had the most bum-kissing reviews I've written both argued with by the artist or dismissed as if they were going to get sweetness for the rest of their career. I have seen artists and labels take the good press for granted and in the next year find even their ability to make any kind of living at music dry up. And they wonder why.
I congratulated a label owner the other day on an artist getting a great write up in Under the Radar magazine, and he responded the way I like to hear best, a real compliment to the writer: "Yeah, that was great. It sounded like he really listened to the album." As writers, that would be our challenge -- do we really sound as if we've listened to the album (enough)? Or are we behaving like the UK press in passing along conventional wisdom, or just altering the bios and PR sent our way or on the websites about a release, "personalized" a little? Hey, everyone has done a bit of that when in a rush. The great thing about TIG is that it's based on actually enjoying something, period. That's why I'm here.
Reviews
Chris Estey said on May 3, 2008:
This is a great topic, Chris -- thanks so much for bringing it up. Not so much for Kanye or Key Arena shows, neither of which I know anything about (save for I avoid most mainstream pop music due to its banality, and I actually walked out of the line of a Key Arena show once, forfeiting the price of the ticket due to being treated like a feral sheep on the way in to one). But there are good reasons why a band fears a not-high-enough score.
If I'm sitting on the fence on whether to buy something, anything less than a 7.5 from any website I respect might determine whether I actually check it out. At that point the content of the review determines the final decision, but I do take ratings seriously, and hope those that assign them do as well.
If you're in an original but marginal band you might receive a low rating simply because the reviewer or editor deems what you're doing a minority voice and not worth enough mathematical enthusiasm. In the days of the original New Wave I could expect my favorite records by artists like Joe Jackson to get two and a half star or three star ratings, because whoever determined the rating amount probably felt that not "enough" of the people reading the review would be interested in anything so "extreme." Sounds ridiculous now, but those Joe Jackson albums now get four or five star ratings, because time proved them right. (Watch the change in ratings for AC/DC for the next few years, from older record guides to newer ones, due to the perspective towards genre being altered.)
That said, a lot of musicians and record labels are big fucking whiners, too. Oh yeah. I have had the most bum-kissing reviews I've written both argued with by the artist or dismissed as if they were going to get sweetness for the rest of their career. I have seen artists and labels take the good press for granted and in the next year find even their ability to make any kind of living at music dry up. And they wonder why.
I congratulated a label owner the other day on an artist getting a great write up in Under the Radar magazine, and he responded the way I like to hear best, a real compliment to the writer: "Yeah, that was great. It sounded like he really listened to the album." As writers, that would be our challenge -- do we really sound as if we've listened to the album (enough)? Or are we behaving like the UK press in passing along conventional wisdom, or just altering the bios and PR sent our way or on the websites about a release, "personalized" a little? Hey, everyone has done a bit of that when in a rush. The great thing about TIG is that it's based on actually enjoying something, period. That's why I'm here.