This actually goes beyond music and includes all popular culture (movies, books, etc.) but we can confine the discussion to music. I notice in the last ~10 years or so, it seems like genuine criticism and especially well-reasoned critical (negative) reviews both formal (eg music magazines) and informal (eg casual comments on boards like this or Reddit) are quite rare, and when they do occur, the feedback is often hostile. If you don’t like something, you are just being a “hater.”
Some anecdotal examples I notice:
On Pitchfork, a “bad” review these days seems to be a 6/10. I rarely read a negative review at all on Resident Advisor. Recently Pitchfork revised a notorious 0/10 review from the 90s and upgraded it to a 8/10 or thereabouts…
On this forum, I criticized the recent output of Fred Again, and I received a comment along the lines of “well, he’s probably a lot more talented than you…”
Not sure if this is a Gen Z “good vibes only” mentality, but I find it unfortunate not to be able to frankly discuss the output quality of artists. Maybe also the power of modern marketing and embedded fan bases of artists also makes criticism more difficult in public forums and publications.
I can’t help but see this trend as part of what contributes to the broader “enshitification” of culture.
Well, to be fair… this review blowed my head off. So positive that you really want this device. While in reality on release there was major issues with it and its not finished. Not even a manual till this day.
I just wish that these outlets being more honest. Critic the damn things. They are not holy. It will only help us, consumers in the end to get better products.
This is an issue that’s older than the internet to be quite honest, and most likely stems from people feeling the need to defend something they like. This combined with the fact that people are generally quite bad at both giving and receiving critique results in people taking a defensive stance whether or not the critique is directed at them or not.
Of course there’s the matter of having the right place and time for giving critique, which is a different thing altogether.
And this is the cookie cutter response to any critique, where the person responding doesn’t actually have anything to say. Makes no sense whatsoever as a response and as such ties very nicely to my previous point.
Yes, and it is not confined to just younger generations. But I also feel that there is and has been a trend towards less tolerance and more ”hostile” reactions to criticism.
Yeah it was always like that, people can get emotional if you criticise something they like. It’s just that in the internet era anybody can post comments about it online.
My personal theory is that this whole ordeal is a backlash against a few things:
actual haters and trolls who spew bile for no good reason
people who don’t use english on a daily basis and are unable to convey their opinions in what would appear a respectable manner even when not meaning any harm
the general mood of the internet has gone ”down”
So when you show up with your comments they’re probably lumped into one of those, and 2+3 will get lumped in with 1 anyways and there you go
This too. Say something bad about an English football team to one of their fans and you have just started the next street fight
Actually with those coming from other cultures it may boil down to how their culture handles criticism. I’d probably expect someone from Japan and someone from Eastern Europe to express the same opinion in completely different ways even though both may speak English sufficiently well.
i think the bento article is ‘news’ not a review, so its basically.a press release.
i’m going to guess that pages like resident advisor, newspaper reviews etc have a lot less staff than they used to , are more selective in their reviews… and so they tend to be what the reviewer is already interested in and are likely to be positive…
as you touch on, if a review is negative then everything is seen as ‘hating’ , not just an opinion but a personal attack , the fans get upset and the death threats kick in.
i’m guilty ot skipping reviews if theyre 6 or lower… although its not directly a ‘bad’ review, its low enough to skip unless its an artists name i’m familiar with and who’s done work ive liked previously…
i think the culture of the reviewer has some validity … i was recently in an interview/podcast with a group , some of which were eastern european… and they themselves mention how they were aware that their language comes across as quite blunt … he had to adjust his ways of feedback… still conveying his opinion, but in a more ‘people friendly’ soft way…
even on this forum… we have many 'what are you listening to ’ style threads… its not a ‘what was so shit that you’d never listen to again’ …ew have critical hardware threads, but not music etc…i’m guilty of posting things i dont like but in my head i’m always thinking ’ well at least theyve finished something and actually released it… .i havent even done that …(musically ).
posting opinion on a forum is also within a small community … posting ‘this is shit’ is common … i do it in the movie thread a lot… but if i were on a commercial website… it’d be very different… eg, Empire magazine dont review everything, and most are 3/5 and upwards.
Good comment and I think this gets at part of it; I think some people find it difficult to differentiate critiquing a particular creative output from the artist or act of creation itself.
On a basic level you can say any act of creation is a good thing and the artist deserves credit for putting their work out there. Especially true for amateurs and hobbyists and I think this group is entitled to more of a shield from critique than professionals.
When it comes to professionals, I feel like there is value in being able to compare and contrast their output and comment on their creative direction. Of course there will be differing opinions, but that is fertile ground for such discussions.
Music criticism certainly still exists. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, and assuming you don’t have one already, get a subscription to The Wire magazine. It might not cover all tastes - but supporting publications like this is important if you want to see content like this flourish. A lot was lost as print publication declined, but some of this is coming back, albeit in less frequent periods ie Quarterly or Bi-Annually.
We also used to see a lot more of this in street press but also - since music is now on tap, perhaps in some ways criticism has become less relevant in terms of commerce. Reviews in the past may have swayed ones buying decisions, whereas now you can pretty much have at anything you want no matter what anyone says.
Still, I’m a fan of this kinda thing and I often say, if you spot a hole for something, why not get out there and contribute to it yourself.
I’m open to someone saying, “I like or don’t like this piece of music and here’s why.” Own up to the fact that it’s an opinion, subjective; not “bad” like dropping bombs on children is bad, or selling a product when you know it’s defective is bad.
The most exhausting aspect of most of the other synth forums, for me, is how easily people posting conflate “I don’t like this artist/genre/synth” (which is fine) with “This artist/genre/synth is BAD BAD BAD, ALWAYS, FOR ALL LIVING CREATURES.” As Herbie Hancock once said, that attitude doesn’t even leave room to change your own opinion later.
So bringing it back to your post … I guess it depends what you mean by “well-reasoned critical (negative) reviews.”
I’m super-opinionated in my own mind, often with very specific reasons why I do or don’t like something I hear, but nowadays I mostly keep the negative to myself, unless the discussion seems to serve some purpose. People don’t want to be told not to like what they like, nor are they likely to be persuaded by a list of what I perceive as flaws. (Multiply by a million if you are talking to someone about their own work. What mom wants to be told she has an ugly baby? I dodge invitations to critique my friends’ art whenever possible. Or God help me, I lie a little.)
You’re onto something for sure. Criticism is a natural aspect of learning (with other people) and many cultures cement weird attitudes towards it. Most people benefit greatly from a for formal structure to be present because reduces the sense of loss of control over the situation when exposure is limited during criticism. A music teacher in a room with a student is a basic form that comes with familiarity, privacy and trust.
OP does seem to focus on public criticism and public discourse online among people who don’t get paid for their opinion like a formal critic. Public criticism is the opposite of that secure teacher-student relationship for the artist - the most exposed pose possible with little or no recourse in case of error or ridicule/abuse. An artist can pay for a tutor but I also struggle to find meaningful music discourse. I saw a comment about wired mag and maybe I’ll check it out.
Since a public critic has the power of a cyberbully it needs to be balanced with accountability and it seems like reputational risk is not enough of a motivator for most people. Instutions or magazines backing a critic seems to provide some reputational stake but that’s really loose and hard to claim in today’s media landscape. As an unpaid opinionator, I feel that all I can do is to engage critically when I have something to say, but watch out so I don’t cause a mess.
eli5 why on earth would you want to read someone objective criticism about art?
what is the purpose? validation/reflection of your own thoughts?
art is subjective and you either like something or you don’t, so what is the purpose of ranking systems?
when I was younger I sure did a lot of “criticizing” as in “this is garbage, trash, this is not music” but as years went by I realized that my opinion worth nothing if someone else likes what I don’t, so what’s the point of objective criticism?
I don’t like Fred Again, never heard anything that moved something in me in his music, but does that mean it’s bad music? people love his output so who am I to criticize his thing?
and who tf is pitchfork to criticize or rank music? these buffoons gave Frances The Mute, one of my favorite TMV albums 2/10:
Smoke a bowl first if you need to, but nothing short of opium will convince me that there aren’t more productive ways to spend 30 minutes trying to fell a redwood with a plastic spoon than listening to this beast.
which part of this is not objective and who this person is to rank or dictate what’s good or bad?
I’d say the devaluation of critical discourse in the Information Age is an example of democracy in action.
In the times of traditional media there were barriers, physical, social, economic, in place to determine who did and didn’t get a voice.
And we didn’t like it.
There were gatekeepers to determine what we got to watch, read or hear.
Those people were white men from Oxford
And we didn’t like it.
Now thanks to the internet all voices and opinions are equal.
And we get told what to read, watch and listen to by orange people from Essex instead.
My point?
God knows really other than that we are humans and we can’t get it right. We just move through cycles of different shit, and the only hope is that this current cycle doesn’t drag us to complete oblivion and we get to have a go at another one in the hope that it won’t be quite as shit (spoiler alert: it will be)
I’m absolutely with this. I never read reviews, never have. I make my own opinion on something. I’ve always thought it was weird to review and judge art.
Having someone describe their thoughts and experience of music makes it possible for you to do something similar, to learn new ways of thinking and feeling. You can do other things to learn too but it can’t easily be bought.
There’s a mental part too but that’s full of knives.
maybe that’s too cryptic. I mean more complex and the source of all the suffering coming from criticism.
