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. 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?

quote:

Originally posted by Chemical Justin:
Some of the bad reviews have been appropriate...Modest Mouse, Bright Eyes

I think that those are two pretty great albums, especially the Modest Mouse album, which is one of the top albums of the year.

quote:

Originally posted by Chemical Justin:
Is the new Kelly Clarksen album really as good as the latest Shins album, or better than the new Okkervil River?

Duh, of course. Where have you been?

Obviously they're upset about not having two major threads in this topic (one almost 200 posts, the other nearing 800) and they're taking it out on the records they review.

Yeah, I too have noticed that they've been giving a lot of low scores out lately. I remember either last year or 2 years ago they were giving out a lot of high scores, and one of the writers said that it was because they try to review albums that they like and not waste space on albums they hate.

I do like that they occasionally give good reviews to relatively unknown artists. David Greenwald is especially good at this.

Also, I wish that Amir Nezar had never stopped writing for them. That guy wrote the best reviews. I have no idea what he's doing now.

Well, I recently read a thread on another board about how there are too many positive reviews in music criticism, so maybe they're trying to set the curve in the other direction.

I agree though, I think they've been a bit harsh on some really good albums. I mean, they gave a better review to the new Shins than the new Okkervil River. That just ain't right.

I think it's right. I like the new Shins more than I like the new OR.

I agree with the complaints. They don't update the page on any sort of regular basis anymore. The Okkervil River review just came out, a week later than everyone else and they hated it. And of course they thought Subtle had the best album of 2006, so take that for what its worth.

quote:

Originally posted by Hophead:
I agree with the complaints. They don't update the page on any sort of regular basis anymore. The Okkervil River review just came out, a week later than everyone else and they hated it. And of course they thought Subtle had the best album of 2006, so take that for what its worth.

Uhm, maybe that's because Subtle actually did have the best album of 2006.

The Subtle album was good, but not album of the year. That didn't really bother me though. I'm glad they went with something interesting and different.

Not to get sidetracked, but Subtle's "For Hero:For Fool" is totally awesome. I just discovered it a few weeks ago and have been listening to it a lot.

Not album of the year, but it's definitely highly original and artistic... Oh, and ten times better than The Knife, now that I think about it.

I am definetely feeling you on this subject Justin. Cokemachineglow used to be one of my favorite review sites too...and I've followed its evolution for a while now and it has definetely gone downhill. The writers that write the most reviews are usually dicks; ie Mark Abraham, Peter Hepburn, and Dom Sinacola. These three just leak pretensiousness without ever having a clear enjoyment of any music. Clayton Purdom is still my favorite writer, but seems to be getting burnt out. Amir Nezar, who may not have been the best reviewer, was at least always sincere and never haughty. Aaron Newell was the same way, who is also MIA.

But my main gripe is Sinacola is just a dick.

quote:

Originally posted by Robot Tussin:Amir Nezar, who may not have been the best reviewer.

No, he most definitely was the best reviewer.

Chet Betz used to post here. Does he still write for them?

I just got the new M.I.A. and Caribou albums yesterday. The new Caribou is really good, much better than The Glow's score of 60%. I haven't had a chance to listen to the M.I.A. album yet, but based on the reviews from pretty much every other source, I'm sure it's better than the lousy 58% that Cokemachineglow gave it.

quote:

Originally posted by cuneyt81:
The Subtle album was good, but not album of the year. That didn't really bother me though. I'm glad they went with something interesting and different.

Subtle was the album of the year.

Subtle was their album of the year. I'm just saying I don't agree that it was the best thing to come out in '06.

CMG has had that "looking for new writers" notice at the top of its page for nine months now. If you're so worried about what's happened and so mad about the low scores, why not review these discs yourselves?

quote:

Originally posted by criteeker:
CMG has had that "looking for new writers" notice at the top of its page for nine months now. If you're so worried about what's happened and so mad about the low scores, why not review these discs yourselves?

I'm not necessarily mad about the low scores, I just find it odd that they seem to give some really bad or indifferent reviews to albums that almost everybody else seems to like; and they've done it much more this year than ever before. I do actually write my own reviews, but I don't post them anywhere or share them with anyone because I suck at writing.

quote:

Originally posted by criteeker:
CMG has had that "looking for new writers" notice at the top of its page for nine months now. If you're so worried about what's happened and so mad about the low scores, why not review these discs yourselves?

We've lured an undercover CMG writer into our midst!

OK, it's good to know you're not mad about CMG's low scores, because I happen to think, like some others have mentioned, that Pitchfork and Stylus and the like tend to give too charitable scores to too much mediocre stuff. (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 just thought it was odd to see someone observing that the site is behind on its editorial duties when the call for new writers has been there for so long.