quote:

Originally posted by criteeker:
(I could go on and say that's because they're getting their music for free rather than judging it against the idea of $14 for it at a store or $9.90 on iTunes. But anyway.)

I'm pretty sure the opposite is true. THere've been studies that show that the more something costs you, the more likely you are to say you like it. That cognitive dissonance stuff, you know?

quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:

quote:

Originally posted by criteeker:
(I could go on and say that's because they're getting their music for free rather than judging it against the idea of $14 for it at a store or $9.90 on iTunes. But anyway.)

I'm pretty sure the opposite is true. THere've been studies that show that the more something costs you, the more likely you are to say you like it. That cognitive dissonance stuff, you know?

Yeah, I'd say RL is correct. Cognitive dissonance is some fascinating stuff. The most important lesson it has to teach:

If you want a girl to like you, don't do something nice for her. Get her to do something nice for you.

Am I off topic again?

I don't know if anybody else noticed it, but chet from CMG was looking at the forums yesterday, so I'm hoping he comes back to discuss this topic.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
I don't know if anybody else noticed it, but chet from CMG was looking at the forums yesterday, so I'm hoping he comes back to discuss this topic.

Which topic? CMG or cognitive dissonance?

cognitive dissonance - 94%

seriously, as soon as i find some time, i'll try to formulate a decent response for you guys. in the meantime feel free to throw out any other questions/concerns/whatevers, and i'll do my best to touch on all of it.

we do need more good writers, that's for sure.

cheers,

Disappointed to see that one of my favorite albums of the year, Black Moth Super Rainbow's Dandelion Gum, got slagged on the Glow. I'm not a bad writer, but I do not have enough imagination to write reviews at any kind of respectable pace. Also, I'm lazy. Shit, I wish I did have the chops to write reviews, 'cause then I could finally review Elephant Micah for CMG.

Is that your job application essay?

Application and resignation letter all in one.

I used to get disappointed when some of my favorite albums would get an unfavorable review from CMG, but it has happened so much lately that I just don't care what they have to say anymore. The new Okkervil River and Caribou albums are both pretty excellent (though not quite as good as some of each artist's past work), but CMG awarded both of these albums with a score in the 60s. In my opinion, both works easily warrant a score somewhere in the high 70s to low 80s. Some recent scores have been so out there (Black Moth Super Rainbow, Los Campesinos!, M.I.A.) that I have a hard time taking The Glow seriously these days.

quote:

Originally posted by Chemical Justin:
Cokemachineglow used to be one of my favorite websites for music reviews. The writing was fantastic and in general, their opinions seemed to be in line with other indie-minded sites like Pitchfork, Stylus, and Tiny Mix Tapes. They did a great job, for a smaller site, of keeping up with all of the new stuff coming out; and even reviewed stuff early. It seems as if the site has undergone some sort of transformation this year though. The first thing that annoyed me was that they seemed to take forever to get around to review all of the new albums coming out. Many, if not most, reviews would come weeks after an album's release date.

Hey Justin,

Well, I'm glad that you at least liked us at one point. I'm sorry that we're letting you down, though of course we don't intend to. It's interesting that one of the positives you assert about our earlier self was that our "opinions seemed to be in line with other indie-minded sites." As you might imagine, to be in line with other indie-minded sites was never one of Cokemachineglow's concerns, though neither is the opposite. We're just trying to grow into ourselves, discover our own voice. And I think each of the sites you mention, while certainly covering a lot of the same stuff, has very different opinions about that same stuff, and Cokemachineglow is no different. I will admit that the site's been going through a bit of a crisis in terms of not having any full-time staff and a lot of writers being unable to contribute the minimum due to, well, real life, real jobs, real grad school, real girlfriends/boyfriends (or, in Kate Steele's case, having a real baby). CMG is not a paying thing, and so understandably has to take a backseat to all of that. We've been desperately searching for new writers, and though we get about a dozen applications a week, the editorial staff and I refuse to compromise what we (perhaps foolishly) believe to be a high standard for music writing. So our idealism is costing us, but we do have a few promising new writers and a possible logistic/technical solution that will hopefully mean we'll be able to start updating more often and more regularly. I can only pray, hehe.

quote:

They have since done a decent job of keeping up recently, but what bugs me the most about The Glow this year is that they seem to HATE ALMOST EVERYTHING.
What happened to these guys? They have given pretty crappy reviews to a lot of really good releases this year (in my opinion), including LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire, The Twilight Sad, Grinderman, Patrick Wolf, Low, The White Stripes, and most recently M.I.A., Caribou, and Okkervil River. Some of the bad reviews have been appropriate (Bjork, Modest Mouse, Bright Eyes), but many of them just seem like the writers want to be different and be the one to give the lowest review on Metacritic.
I've also noticed that they have given some uncharacteristically good reviews lately. Is the new Kelly Clarksen album really as good as the latest Shins album, or better than the new Okkervil River?
What does everyone else think? Does Cokemachineglow seem to be giving out more bad reviews than ever before? Is The Glow fair in some of these reviews, or are their reasons for disliking an album suspect at best?

I'm certainly not the best person to respond here because, well, I don't particularly care for any of the albums you just mentioned. Go figure, right. However, a few things: (1) Most of the albums you mention received "average" to "good" reviews on our site. It's important to note that while CMG's rating system certainly bears a strong superficial resemblance to, say, Pitchfork's, how we're trying to use it as defined by the legend at the bottom of our site is quite different. A 60% is a good album with some serious problems, a 90% and up should at least be AOTY for that writer and probably should be in their all-time top 50. What I think you're seeing happen is that where once we had writers who didn't really fit into the rating groove, most of our staff now has kind of adjusted to that sense of reservation. And it's not that we don't love music, can't go apeshit for a new album, etcetera. It's simply trying to take the full spectrum into account and only treating our very favorite albums as being worthy of the higher numbers, because we feel that then the ratings might actually mean a little something beyond being a necessary evil for our own reference and for the benefit of readers' who don't care to slag through some of our more long-winded diatribes.

(2) RavingLunatic accurately pointed out that we claim to focus on stuff that we like or are least interested in... it's just that this year a lot of the stuff that we've been interested in prior to release (a lot of the big indie albums that we're also sort of expected by our readership to cover) is stuff with which we've been mildly disappointed. In most cases the writers who wrote the mentioned reviews were fans of the prior work of the artists, and I think the majority of those reviews do fine-to-great jobs of giving the writers' reasons from withholding really high marks. And most of those reviews are truly "mixed" reactions, strong praise mitigated by thoughtful criticism of what the writers felt could have been done better. I think you'll find that in the Caribou review, the Arcade Fire review, the Okkervil review, and so on. These aren't pans: they're our writers reacting with contrasting feelings and thoughts to what the artists attempted. Is it suspect? Hmm, I mean, I don't know what to say except that the reviews seem evidence enough to me that our writers are being genuine, that they aren't just trying to be different, that they have very definite reasons for somewhat disliking or only moderately liking certain records that are being championed by a few of the other indie press stalwarts. And ultimately it's those reasons that are important, much moreso than the ratings. Peter Hepburn has received some mail criticizing him for the way he vaguely worded portions of his M.I.A. review (though he still takes a clear angle on the album overall that I think is as well-articulated and valid as the record's supporters), and I think he's taken that criticism to heart, admitting that he rushed through some parts of the analysis by relegating them to purely subjective qualitative assessments. Staff Writer Andre Perry (who also contributes to PopMatters and Crawdaddy) is going to be doing a counterpoint on Kala that we're all looking forward to. And this is where we would really benefit from having more writers, so we could do more counterpoints on the big albums of debate and so we could bring the law of averages to bear more on our combined ratings (let's not forget the combined ratings!).

But I can only assure you that Mark Abraham does indeed like the Kelly Clarkson album more than the new Shins or Okkervil River, and so insomuch as our ratings systems is there for our writer's reference, it seems to be working okay. And this is part of why we hope that each of our writers shows their personality in their work -- so that our readers can become familiar with them, with their individual tastes and philosophies and whatever, and think of these reviews less as the definitive CMG opinion on a certain album and more as a given writer's opinion on a certain album as presented within the context of the CMG critical community, since community is really how CMG attempts to function.

Because that's a community based on respect and friendship and a level exchange of ideas, it's pointless for someone as biased as me to defend my fellow writers like Mark, Peter, and Dom, right? But I've met these people and I've read everything they ever wrote for the Glow, so from that perspective let me just say that: Mark Abraham knows more about music than anyone else I've met, it's just that his tastes tend more to the experimental (or, in the case of Kelly Clarkson and New Jack Swing, the blatantly pop) and so a lot of our readers don't always recognize just how much the dude LOVES music; Peter Hepburn is one of our longest-running writers who's many a time bailed us out when were short on reviews, and I think you can see how invested he can become in an album or artist if you read his Madvillainy review or the very thorough piece he just wrote for us on that Magnolia box; Dom Sinacola does have a penchant for being florid or sometimes inscrutable with how he chooses to write, but it's worth it because the guy is actually an excellent writer who packs dense layers of thought into his (yes, sometimes over-stuffed) prose and finds a way to make that say things about music that I'd never even thought of before. I don't like Illinois by Sufjan Stevens, and Dom loves it, but I didn't care about the high rating because I respect the shit out of what Dom wrote in that review, or what he wrote in his review of Tom Waits' Orphans, or in the Menomena review, and the list goes on. And that's what this whole music criticism thing's about: it's not really about how much you and I agree or disagree, it's about how enriching the discourse between us can be.

And that certainly goes both ways; CMG is hesitant to introduce anything like user comments, because we see how that turned out with Stylus, but the Hatebag is hopefully going to become more than people just calling us four-letter words, and most of our staff has enjoyed great one-on-ones with readers through e-mail. Conrad Amenta gets a ton of that plus hatebag stuff because he's a writer that takes very specific perspectives on albums that a lot of people like, and while the Glow certainly appreciates that, it's something that doesn't always sit too well with certain albums' fans because they feel like he's writing off music that has all other sorts of redemptive merits. I think Conrad almost always addresses specific problems that are also fundamental flaws in the music, but hey, I'm the guy's editor, of course I think that. Anyways, RavingLunatic, Conrad wrote the Dandelion Gum review, and he's very good about having thoughtful post-review conversations, so you should definitely drop him a line when you get a chance and explain where you think he missed the point.

Finally, (3): Cokemachineglow has loved a lot of albums this year. Maybe it's just that they're records that less people are checking for, I dunno, but we've really been behind stuff like Stars of the Lid, Pantha du Prince, SJ Esau, Pharoahe Monch, Islaja, Chris & Mollie, Fog, Battles, MoHa!, Nina Nastasia, Deer Tick, Black Milk, Sunny Day in Glasgow, Parts & Labor, Boris with Michio Kurihara, Blitzen Trapper, Shining, Jessica Rylan, Victor Bermon, Pole, El-P, Dizzee Rascal, and even a few of the big indie pop-rock albums this year like Of Montreal, Menomena, The National, and Spoon. The Glow has always been a bit underdog-oriented, we've just grown a tad more eclectic, is all. That's a good thing, right?

Anyways, I just want to thank all of you for even bothering to read us or do so much as check our mainpage. When one of my fellow editors alerted me to this thread, Editor in Chief Scott Reid remarked, "hey, someone cares." Of course, of course, of course, the Glow is a long way off from perfect. But even after four years of toiling away at it, I still feel honored to be a part of it.

P.S. Subtle was totally 2006's best album. i mean, obviously, guys.

Chet,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to this topic. I, along with many others I'm sure, really appreciate the fact that you guys care enough about what you're doing to stand up for it. I may not agree with many of your reviews lately, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you are letting me down, or that I'm going to stop visiting your site. I still think the writing at CMG is top notch. Even though I don't agree with The Glow's Okkervil River review, it's still one thousand times better than that atrocious review at Stylus (worst review I've ever read). The Shins review from the beginning of the year, which I actually thought was spot-on, is probably one of my favorite reviews ever (I can't remember who wrote it). The only times I ever really feel let down, is when you guys give a work that I really enjoy a "tossed off" review, as I felt was the case with the recent Los Campesinos! review. But when it comes down to it, it's all just opinions; and I guess that is what criticism is all about anyway.

I hope you guys weren't surprised by the fact that we care about what you're doing. I can't speak for everyone, but as a music geek, I love reading reviews and other written pieces about music almost as much as listening to it. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that one of the things I look forward to each day is the promise of a new batch of reviews in the morning (that, by the way, is one of the reasons why it's frustrating sometimes when CMG updates late).

So once again I just want to say thanks for responding and backing up your work and the work of your fellow writers. I haven't read a lot of other posts here, but I'm not aware of any other publications bothering to stand up for themselves. I hope you guys can find some more writers and maybe even get back to the twice-a-week updating schedule from earlier in the year. I still think that CMG is giving out a lot more average to good scores than ever before, but I'll buy into the fact that the writers are following the ratings scale more closely than in the past. I will also probably continue to complain about some of these reviews, but I will also continue to read them.

quote:

P.S. Subtle was totally 2006's best album. i mean, obviously, guys.

FO SHO.

I should say that I prefer CMG to about every other site, and I think they, along with Popmatters, probably have the best writers out there. I really like the combined scores, which make their rating system a lot less cryptic than Pitchfork's.

Also, I make a list of the albums I'm looking forward to before every year, and I'm always disappointed with a large majority of them. In this respect, CMG's ratings this year are right in line with what my ratings would look like (generally low ratings for anticipated albums). I see nothing wrong with this. Unless you're a real sheep, you're always going to disagree with any review site's ratings, and CMG is no different. I actually respect their willingness to veer from accepted critical opinion, even if it means they occasionally skewer one of my faves, like Dandelion Gum. We need more variety of opinion, not less, especially among indie sites, which have a tendency to fall in line behind each other. (Heck, I remember last year on these forums when someone complained to Chet that they were giving scores too similar to Pitchfork's, and Chet had to defend CMG against this charge.)

Yeah, it pretty much seems that no matter what opinion you give on an album, someone out there has a problem with it. I really can't stand when people complain about an album they love getting low scores, especially considering most of these people complain about an album they hate getting high scores. In all honestly, I thought all the reviews were pretty fair in explaining why they weren't getting good scores. In fact, I think I'd agree with most of the albums that have been put down at CMG, aside from probably Caribou and Black Moth Super Rainbow. I'm actually glad that a lot of the popular albums critically got bad reviews on that site, possibly because I agreed with most of them, but also because it offers something different. If every review site like the same albums, nothing new would be put on the table, thus ruining the point of these sites altogether. That's why it's always good to have a few sites, such as CMG, TMT or Scaruffi, that offer a new point of few critically.

I'm sorry to be responding so late to RL and MN and the concept of cognitive dissonance, and I imagine that we've all gotten on with our lives since 8/24 so probably no one is going to be looking at this anymore, but I just wanted to say that while I would be dumb to not recognize cognitive dissonance as a totally valid concept, I'm not sure it applies so gracefully in this case. As a movie reviewer, I remember actually giving the movie "Wild Hogs" a not bad review, probably because a) I was at the movies when most people were at work and b) my company was paying for the ticket. Now, if I had paid full price and spent a precious Saturday night watching that piece of crap, I most likely would have told everyone I know to skip it.
If the job of critic is to act as a kind of cultural gatekeeper -- to tell the reader what is worth their time and money and what isn't -- then I think it behooves them to have as much skin in the game, or at least imagine having as much skin in the game, as their readers. I think too many music critics write their reviews, consciously or unconsciously, like "Hey, for a CD that was sitting on my desk when I came back from lunch, this is pretty good."
I think where the cognitive dissonance comes in is when I read a review and, based on certain statements made in that review, get all excited about going out and buying that CD ("Hey, they just compared Wolfmother to Led Zeppelin AND Black Sabbath! How could I not love it?"). Then, as my Zeppelin and Sabbath-loving friends are laughing at me for having spent $14 on a bunch of second-rate hard rock cliches, I maintain that I really like it because I don't want to admit they're right. Meanwhile, the music critic has another free CD on his desk.
BTW, no offense to Wolfmother. They're fine. But "Wild Hogs" is a waste of time.

The Glow finally updated their site this week, and finally posted a review of the new Liars album. Suprise, suprise; another score in the 60s. This record probably would've gotten a score in the high 80s from them a couple of years ago, or a score in the low 80s last year. The Kemialliset Ystävät album that they reviewed does seem interesting though...

I think this is a really positive thing: CMG refuses to ape other indie sites. They've given high scores this year, some of them to fairly obscure albums, which is the way it ought to be.

I agree to some extent, RavingLunatic. But that still doesn't entirely justify giving bad scores to other really good albums that just happen to be from well known groups. This just makes people like me not entirely trust them when they give a high score to an obscure band. I have to ask, if they give a bad score to a group only because they are popular, is it possibly they are giving a high score to a group only because they are unpopular?

quote:

Originally posted by Shadrach:
I agree to some extent, RavingLunatic. But that still doesn't entirely justify giving bad scores to other really good albums that just happen to be from well known groups. This just makes people like me not entirely trust them when they give a high score to an obscure band. I have to ask, if they give a bad score to a group only because they are popular, is it possibly they are giving a high score to a group only because they are unpopular?

Seems a little melodramatic to me. Are they really purposefully giving low scores to albums just because they were made by a popular band?