You know, normally, I find allmusic an extremely valuable resource, which tends to correlate more with my opinions about albums than other sources.

But I really hate their review of Bright Eyes' new albums. For 'It's Wide Awake, It's Morning', they basically go on a huge spiel about how he's overrated and not the next Dylan. Well, I agree. He is overrated, and he's not the next Dylan. But his music is still pretty enjoyable, and definetely deserves more than two stars. At least three and a half, maybe four. He was clearly penalized for the hype, like the reviewer was trying to counterbalance all the critics that love him.

Hey, you know how the music world works. If you're not the next so-and-so, you suck balls. People don't wanna hear new and different music. What, are you stupid? People wanna hear what they've already heard before. That's what makes the Kings Of Leon so great. (Sadly, this prolly isn't too far off from the truth)

Actually, today I went to a Barnes & Noble to use their listening stations to sample a bunch of albums I was considering buying. (So I could go to Newbury Comics, which has better prices and which I just like better in general, and buy them).

Kings of Leon was on that list. My reaction to it is summed up in 0.4 words:

"Meh."

The generic public, and especially all things related to Clear Channel and MTV, tend to reward just doing the same things over and over. There are some critics though who don't.

And to be fair, 'I'm Wide Awake It's Morning' is *extremely* similar in sound to 'Freewheelin' With Bob Dylan', with a more concrete version of Dylan's lyrical style.

Just, one man's 'the next Bob Dylan' is another man's 'Dylan hack'.

calling someone the next dylan is a cliche and is not helpfull since most of the " new dylans" dont realy sound a lot like him and its a hard thing to live up to someone like dylan

Notice that when people are compared to Dylan, it is always "they MIGHT be the next Dylan," as if the reviewer is reluctant to commit. The reason, of course, they are reluctant to commit is because there will never be another Dylan.

Having said that, when I first heard Bright Eyes I was very impressed--especially with the lyrics. If anyone comes close to Dylan, Connor O does. I have no idea why AMG would have given his new album such a low rating.

Jealousy and Opportunity, Methinks!

well ive only heard some scattered mp3s but some of the songs i heard from acoustic jar just rambled with no sense of musical structure whatsoever and no hooks or melodies but like i said it was only one or two mp3s

Hooks are only important if you're trying to sell a lot of records and become really famous. And their only function is to make you remember the song better and sing along more easily.

I agree Bright Eyes has strong lyrics, but his songs could really use a lot more structure.

It's obvious to me though that the two star rating is penalizing him for the hype.

You really think these music review places get off by giving a low rating to an overall well-received album? That seems a little petty...I would think they would rather be on the right side of history and not be known for dissing albums that turn out to be future classics. Not to say you should give a good review to an album just because other people liked it, but if a piece of work has received universal high praise, there is usually a reason.

If I were running one of these places with lots of music writers, instead of giving the album to one person and having them write their opinion, I would try to get more of a consensus. I think this would provide more credibility.

quote:

Originally posted by paxsoprano:
You really think these music review places get off by giving a low rating to an overall well-received album? That seems a little petty...I would think they would rather be on the right side of history and not be known for dissing albums that turn out to be future classics. Not to say you should give a good review to an album just because other people liked it, but if a piece of work has received universal high praise, there is usually a reason.

If I were running one of these places with lots of music writers, instead of giving the album to one person and having them write their opinion, I would try to get more of a consensus. I think this would provide more credibility.

On the former point, I think sometimes the idea of shooting a hot target enters into the review. Objectivity (if it's possible) fails and the "let's take the new critical darling down a peg" mentality can creep in. But sometimes people just don't like the same things.

On the second point, I think you'd be forced to team-author album reviews, which is not easy to do. I've co-authored academic journal articles, and that's hard to do...and it doesn't even involve questions of aesthetics and taste. Some mags (like Under the Radar) sometimes offer two reviews of the same album when it's a big release and there are mixed reviews. But that's the genius of Metacritic...it collects and collates reviews to get to a better consensus. One crappy review won't sink an otherwise great record. Reviews, in general, are somewhat arbitrary, but when you see that 9 out of 10 people really liked record X and the tenth hated it, you'd get a good idea that maybe the tenth had some bone to pick. One of my current faves, Josh Rouse, has gotten almost universally rave reviews, excepting the so-so review from Pitchfork. While the one review does lower the rating, the bulk of the good ones keep the record at a 90. Genius, those Metacritic folks.

maybe they (amg) felt the need to show his flaws instead of neglecting them in favor of being right with the critical community, only time well tell if it was harshly critiszed

Pitchfork and its peers are particularly guilty of over-reacting (see The Mars Volta review today) and hand out absurdly low scores predictably to any artist on the upper tier of a much larger subculture (Nine Inch Nails, Tool). It's a shame these reviews are even counted when the obvious intent is to prove everyone else wrong by "speaking" as loud (and as angrily) as you possibly can. The indie soapbox crap gets tiring. The best you can do is ignore it.

part of the problem in my opinion is there is too many magazines( online or not) that cover the same music and the same bands and for them to stand out they might feel the need to go overboard on there reviews

What Metacritic does is great as far as compiling opinions from a wide variety of mmagazines and websites, but they don't do their own reviews. I would propose perhaps having six writers listen to an album, call it "Album X." One of the writers might think Album X is average at best, while three writers think it is very good/above average, while the remaining two writers think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. An editor in that case would assign a writer to write the review of Album X whose opinion corresponded to the overall opinion of the group: that the album was very good, possibly great. This process would enhance any publication's credibility by phasing out any fringe views.

the thing most people should realize about amg is they hardly write a mean spirited review corresponding to any indie rock usually the only thing that gets the sharp end of there pencil is bad pop music or bad rock commericial rock

quote:

Originally posted by curefreak:
the thing most people should realize about amg is they hardly write a mean spirited review corresponding to any indie rock usually the only thing that gets the sharp end of there pencil is bad pop music or bad rock commericial rock

agree.

thanks rocko and by the way everyone else seems to be giving the new mars volta high marks and it sounds highly ambitious and very musical im very interested in hearing it....

here's to hoping the bright eyes bashing review was just an anamoly and AMG continues to just bring the facts and objective reviews instead of trying to be funny or make a name for the reviewer. we don't need another pitchfork; one is enough.

quote:

Originally posted by Malkmus or Astro-malkmus?:
we don't need another pitchfork; one is enough.

Chuckle, chuckle. Nice one. Don't take my laughter as a revival of my long-forgotten "agenda", though.

Yeah, I always figured Allmusic could best serve the music community by standing for more of an impartial catalogue of the massive volume of music released. They've definitely begun to take the wrong Pitchfork in the road.