Well, I don't follow critics - I trust my own judgment. But the site is entertaining. You are right that most albums come out over 60 - that's why I used albums over 80 when thinking about this topic. But I still don't consider something in the 60s a bad rating. I find that many CDs in the 50s-70s here are clearly underrated by critics.

The lowest rated album I've liked so far this year is a 69. Generally it seems I start having a good chance to like them around 75 or so.

Of course, there's an 86 I really don't care for.

Obviously you trust your own judgment, but the benefit of metacritic is to direct you to artists and albums you haven't heard of and might not have even listened to otherwise.

I don't know about this year, but I've got several albums rated in the 40's and 50's that I like. I guess that's why I really don't pay that much attention to numbers, ratings, scores, etc.

Athlete (45), Garbage (53), Ocean Colour Scene (55), the Perishers (57) are all records from this year that I like. They might not be top 20 at the year end, but I like them all enough to keep them. The same cannot be said other, more reputable, records (like the Bright Eyes albums). I'm fast asleep...it's boring...

The kind of music that would consistently rate below 50 just isn't reviewed by most magazines. Good stuff gets missed, of course — Philly's own Man Man, for instance — but a lot of magazines don't have time to devote to Jim and John Nobody from Podunk, PA and their self-released 26 tracks of Garage Band punk rawk. It's best to look at Metacritic as the "best of the what's available," though it's missing some of the better representatives of some subcultures. Not much on Metacritic receives a below average rating for these reasons — most of the discs just aren't that bad.

Yes, I love that Garbage album, too. Although I don't consider the scores, I do find some new artists to try out here.

quote:

Originally posted by m.leland:
The kind of music that would consistently rate below 50 just isn't reviewed by most magazines. Good stuff gets missed, of course — Philly's own Man Man, for instance — but a lot of magazines don't have time to devote to Jim and John Nobody from Podunk, PA and their self-released 26 tracks of Garage Band punk rawk. It's best to look at Metacritic as the "best of the what's available," though it's missing some of the better representatives of some subcultures. Not much on Metacritic receives a below average rating for these reasons — most of the discs just aren't that bad.

I've noticed alot of Britpop, a genre I enjoy a good bit of, gets low ratings here. I guess it's because a lot of mainstream press reviews the stuff but doesn't understand it (Entertainment Weekly) and misses out on a lot of the irony. The US press doesn't get Robbie Williams, and he's always criticized here for the things he does ironically. Britpop hasn't been hip since about 1994, and will always suffer the critical evil-eye from the likes of Pitchfork.

I listened to Garbage and Ocean Colour Scene before I saw any reviews for them and I found them bland and repetetive...also Daft Punk, Moby, Rob Thomas...

I don't consider the scores in forming my own opinion, but albums I hear before they get reviewed that I like tend to get reviews of 75 or higher, and at minimum high 60s, and albums I hear before they get reviewed that I really dislike tend to get lower than 65.

Given how often this happens, it's hard to deny that my honest opinion of albums tends to have a reasonable correlation with metascores. There are plenty of albums with high metascores that I dislike, but none below 60, and not very many below 75 that I like.

I mean, even if you like the new Garbage album..wouldn't you agree that Garbage G sounds about the same, but better? Those kinds of albums -- albums that sound very similar to existing work that's better, tend to get rated down by critics. And I agree with that decision. Why would I ever listen to Bleed Like Me when I own Garbage G?

That's why I'm reconsidering getting X&Y. It's not because critics aren't saying it's so good: It's because critics are saying it's a step backwards toward mainstream.

--

Edit: And, just to satisfy my curiosity, I correlated my best to worst list of the Jan-Mar albums (Among albums I bought) with the metascore, and found a correlation of .57.

Which basically means, among albums I ended up buying, 33% of the variation is accounted for by the metascore. That at least suggests to me that I should take it somewhat into account in determining my purchases.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bobthespirit,

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:

I mean, even if you like the new Garbage album..wouldn't you agree that Garbage G sounds about the same, but better? Those kinds of albums -- albums that sound very similar to existing work that's better, tend to get rated down by critics. And I agree with that decision. Why would I ever listen to Bleed Like Me when I own Garbage G?

I'm not sure I get the logic. A band makes a really good record, one they probably won't top. Why buy any of the future records, if they're not gonna be as good? I can think of at least one good reason: brand loyalty. I'll buy a new Garbage record because I've liked the past one, and they've earned my loyalty. Maybe the new one won't be as good as the first one...but what I might buy in place of it might be worse. If I've got a choice between a Garbage record that might sound like other Garbage records I've liked or something that a bunch of critics have raved about, I'll go with a proven commodity. I'm blessed with enough disposable income to be able to buy what I want and still experiment some. Often, those experiments work out, but just as often they fail.

Since several of my favorite records of 2004 weren't even Metascored, I tend not to really gauge what I purchase based on scores. I'm probably not gonna like many of the Top Ten rated records of 2005. I only have 5 of last years top 30 and I've got 8 of the current Top 30. Often, the stuff I really like isn't reviewed frequently enough to get a Metascore. Just as often, critics hate the stuff I like. Particularly the "important" ones.

I've gotten rid of several of the big critical hits of the last two years...Bright Eyes, Arcade Fire, Devendra Banhart. Failed experiments on my end.

Well, your #1 of 2004 has a 97, no?

Actually, I averaged the metascores for your last 'best of 2005' list. The average is around 77, you have two with lower than 70, and 8 higher than 80. Your tastes probably correlate with metascores less than mine, but I bet they correlate somewhat.

(And I bet, if you only looked at albums whose quality is primarily due to songwriting, you'd find a *much* bigger correlation. For instance, Rouse and Prewitt, while not the highest rated of the year period, are probably among the highest rated songwriting-centric acts, along with Brendan Benson.)

All I'm saying is, it feels cheesy to blithely disown critical opinion when your opinion probably correlates at least somewhat with it. My favorite albums of Jan-Mar got 88, 87, 85, 83, and 80. My favorite albums of Apr-Jun so far have 86, 84, 83...so I would be lying if I didn't admit that my tastes correlated with critical opinion.

--

Oh, and re: Garbage. I just think that if a band has success, they shouldn't retread on the same sound they know is safe, especially if they're not trying to improve on it or tweak it in any way. My favorite Garbage album is BeautifulGarbage. If I love a band, but they keep making the same album over and over, I'm not going to keep buying it.

I understand what Bob is saying. Most of the bands I check out I either don't like (Devendra Banhart, Circulatory System, Dungen, Will Oldham, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Pixies) or I kinda like (Wilco, AC Newman, Architecture In Helsinki, Animal Collective, Yo La Tengo, Pink Floyd, etc). I don't have the time or inclination to listen repeatedly to middling albums by bands I kinda like. I will never listen to most of the Death Cab for Cutie back catalog again. I either do one of two things: I keep the best album by the band (like Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot ) and listen to it regularly or I make a mixtape of the songs I like from that band (as I did with early Mountain Goats stuff and Magnetic Fields). I'm really an album guy, so I usually don't make mixtapes, though I really enjoy the few I've made. Also, it takes forever to winnow down songs for mixtapes and arrange them to burn.

I'll get in on this Garbage talk. They only have one album, and that is their first. It was fresh at the time, with Butch Vig starting a band and bringing Shirley Manson to the spotlight. But, after duplicating their sound over and over with the supposed talent they have, my first guess is that repetition=money...give 'em what they want. I stay with what I know sometimes and before I read the critics, but in such cases, Garbage being one of them, I need the reviews to tell me the direction the new albums are, because I don't want to go out and buy something that isn't at least half-a-step forward. Not to put down Garbage, but they are the same...a singles band with filler.I need to want more than a guitar hook here and some candy-floss there.

Most of my top ten is being made up of middle-of the-road stuff here, and stuff I see forgotton:
1. Jaga - What We Must (not rated here)
2. Lemon Jelly - 64-95 (metacritic score of 71)
3. Caribou - Milk of Human Kindness (meta score 78)

I'm almost finished my top 20 for the first half and will post after full reviews and will note the metacritic scores in as well.

And another note, as something heard and didn't care for: the new coldplay sucks. Can't stand that first single....

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Well, your #1 of 2004 has a 97, no?

Actually, I averaged the metascores for your last 'best of 2005' list. The average is around 77, you have two with lower than 70, and 8 higher than 80. Your tastes probably correlate with metascores less than mine, but I bet they correlate somewhat.

(And I bet, if you only looked at albums whose quality is primarily due to songwriting, you'd find a *much* bigger correlation. For instance, Rouse and Prewitt, while not the highest rated of the year period, are probably among the highest rated songwriting-centric acts, along with Brendan Benson.)

All I'm saying is, it feels cheesy to blithely disown critical opinion when your opinion probably correlates at least somewhat with it. My favorite albums of Jan-Mar got 88, 87, 85, 83, and 80. My favorite albums of Apr-Jun so far have 86, 84, 83...so I would be lying if I didn't admit that my tastes correlated with critical opinion.

I don't think I "blithely disown" critical opinion. My #2 of 2004, Maplewood, wasn't reviewed by enough critics (or in the right places) to garner a Metascore. Another of my top 10, The Stands, didn't get a Metascore until its US release in 2005. Another of my faves from 2004, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, wasn't scored. The Orange Peels record, which will probably be in my Top 5 this year, probably won't get a Metascore, and I purchased it based on my past history with the band, and not based on critical accolades. I don't think I've ever actually seen the band reviewed, sadly. My point was merely that, if I relied on critical accolades to set my buying preferences, I would have missed several of my faves from 2004. And two of those three records (Clyne and Maplewood) were purchased on the premise that I had liked previous records by those artists (in Maplewood's case, it was the connection to Champale).


I do "blithely disown" critical opinions about some things. I like the new Oasis, and I've avoided reading any of the reviews because I just don't care to hear critics telling the same story over and over about their triumphant rise and spectacular fall. I expect the reviews of the new Coldplay to be fair to middling(surprisingly, only 3 stars from the over-generous Rolling Stone), and I don't really plan on reading them because the advance of X and Y that I've been enjoying for a few weeks may be more of the same Coldplay, but it's more of the same that I enjoy. I guess I don't feel the need to criticize artists for making the same record over and over, if they do it well. Changing styles works for some artists, but I don't rag on bands if they don't do it. I don't wanna hear Coldplay go hard rock, or gangsta rap, or trip hop. I wanna hear them do piano-based balladry.

Well, of course you don't base purchases on *only* reviews. That would be silly..just, I think some of the people in this thread agree with the critics more than they let on.

About Coldplay...you can do piano balladry while still sounding new and fresh, and while trying a sound that's new enough that it actually sounds like a different record.

Oasis' reviews seem to be split between 'This is the best Oasis record since What's the Story' and 'This, while slightly better than their previous three releases, is still bland and derivative.' Part of my not liking of Oasis is that they seem to be self-conscious about their image to the point that they want everyone to think they're the Beatles reborn.

I'm getting a little annoyed of seeing reviews bashing the new White Stripes. Half of them are like 'Wow, this is great' and half say 'This is terrible' on the basis of not liking their new wave of experimentation. But what annoys me specifically is the 'jump the shark' mentality which basically says 'Come on, follow me off the bandwagon! Single file.' I'm proud of Pitchfork for even giving it a 7.3.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Well, of course you don't base purchases on *only* reviews. That would be silly..just, I think some of the people in this thread agree with the critics more than they let on.

That is you dude.It seems like evry other sentence you are talking about your favorite from a ceratin 2 month span or whatever.It also seems as many of your "faves" coincide with many various review sources.It is cool.It just seems you talking about not really considering reviews in buying albums seems somewhat contradiciting.Since you yourself review albums on your webpage?

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Oasis' reviews seem to be split between 'This is the best Oasis record since What's the Story' and 'This, while slightly better than their previous three releases, is still bland and derivative.' Part of my not liking of Oasis is that they seem to be self-conscious about their image to the point that they want everyone to think they're the Beatles reborn.

I'm getting a little annoyed of seeing reviews bashing the new White Stripes. Half of them are like 'Wow, this is great' and half say 'This is terrible' on the basis of not liking their new wave of experimentation. But what annoys me specifically is the 'jump the shark' mentality which basically says 'Come on, follow me off the bandwagon! Single file.' I'm proud of Pitchfork for even giving it a 7.3.

I'm happy to hear that Oasis is getting good reviews. I've not read any of them yet, but I've noticed the Metascore was decent, so that's good. Given the transition, I think it's funny you mention Oasis and the White Stripes in the same breath, because I think the White Stripes are as image-conscious as Oasis. They're just not as cocky or British.

Rolling Stone gave RAVES to the new White Stripes and a so-so review to the new Coldplay. I expected the opposite to happen. Shows what I know.

As far as "some of the people" on these Forums agreeing with the critics more than they let on, I can't deny that many of the things I listen to are critical faves as well. I certainly don't AVOID music because critics like it. I bag on some Pitchfork reviews and reviewers because I think it's phony indie cool posturing, but I think most of the people who write for them do a good job. I just think there's a whole lot of bandwagon-jumping among "reputable" indie critics. I know a guy, pretty well I should add, who is a pretty well-known columnist and critic. I once asked him, shortly after the Strokes made a big critical splash, about his rave review and he admitted to me that he had only "really listened" to about 3 songs. Given the critical goo-gooing that happens over certain artists, I worry that there's a lot of that critical peer-pressure going on. But maybe it's an isolated case.

Music critics, particularly indie critics, don't have any more credentials to review music than anyone on these Forums. Most of them got their jobs because they had a friend on the staff of the mag, or because they were in the right place at the right time. I don't really give that much credence to that fact that someone writes reviews, or that they write them for such and such a source. I just read what they write, and evaluate it as such. If my opinions mesh with the critical mass, great. If not, I don't feel the need to wonder why I'm not sitting at the cool table. I chalk it up to either my own tastes not conforming or I consider there might be at least a couple of people at that table who are just faking it to sit there.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
Music critics, particularly indie critics, don't have any more credentials to review music than anyone on these Forums. Most of them got their jobs because they had a friend on the staff of the mag, or because they were in the right place at the right time.

This is a great observation, pE.

My perspective is skewed, no doubt, from a career in the media, but I think a lot of readers would be surprised at how easy it is to get a job writing popular music criticism. The pay is generally poor to non-existent, and your editor is rarely all that informed about the subject matter and is principally interested in filling column inches at the lowest possible cost.

This is not to say that there aren't some terrific writers who work from a position of considerable expertise, but I would offer as an example Randall Roberts from your own local weekly The Riverfront Times. I worked at Streetside with Roberts back in the day. He's a really good writer, but when he first signed on with the RFT as a music critic, I wouldn't say his knowledge of music was any more thorough than many of the rest of us and in fact it was nowhere near as deep as several of the people with whom we worked. The difference was, he really, really wanted to be a journalist, so he was willing to work under a weekly deadline for lousy pay for the opportunity to build his resume and eventually move up to where he is today. It's not an uncommon story.

A great many of today's online tastemakers pay nothing save the promos their writers review and those writers have far less hope of parlaying their work into a professional career given the bias again online media that is pervasive among the traditional media.

Now Playing: NPR's Fresh Air

All the more reason to expect opinions on these forums to be similar to the opinions of critics. They might as well be a random sampling of the type of person who would post on this board.

I wasn't accusing anybody of hipsterism or anything like that, just it seemed a few people on this particular thread were making a point of not caring about the critics.

I don't think there's much doubt that once the critical acclaim for a band gets going it can take on a life of its own, but I'm not sure it's possible to determine how much of an effect the hype factor really has.

If I don't like a record that gets a good Pitchfork review I'm tempted to say that it's really crap and they're just saying it's good to be cool, but there's just no way to know. I mean, I listened to the Microphones' The Glow Part 2 several times, and I thought it was just pathetic. I couldn't really detect anything that even seemed like it could appeal to someone. I wanna say that the record really is crap and the indie writers are posturing because it's cool to be lo-fi and write cryptic lyrics and have an off-kilter voice, but there are a lot of people who like that record. How is it possible to determine whether you just don't like an album because it sucks or your tastes are just different than most peoples with regard to a particular style?

Also, I think there's a rebel streak somewhat neutralize follow-the-leader tendencies. I think some critics like to lambast critically acclaimed albums just to be different and prove they're not echoing the popular line. I've read some reviews at Tinymixtapes that slam an album then explicitly criticize Pitchfork for hyping it (Bloc Party and Out Hud).

There's way too much music being made to hear it all, so reviews steer me towards which ones are probably most worth my time.

I think I've pretty much said everything I have to say in this conversation already...

But fyi, the reason I talk about Jan-Mar albums and Apr-Jun albums and such..

This year, I've already bought 45 new albums. I'm on pace to have 80-100 2005 albums. It's just easier for me to flesh out my relative opinion of each album if I break them into groups. Three month groups is just an arbitrary way to do so that works. It's not really important, just...it's a way for me to look at albums in 20-30 album groups, and pick the best in each group, then look at the best of each group to make my 'best of year' lists.

It's way easier to pick my favorite out of 20-30 albums than it is for 80-100 albums. And that's the only reason I do that month thingy.