and they call psychology a soft science!
for shits and giggles i googled “scholarly research on the difference between good and bad art” and the Google AI summary was basically what @captain8 said in that post. didnt get any actual articles or research tho, gonna need better search terms
You are missing the point here …the role music criticism and discourse is not to find out who has the right perception about a piece of work, but discuss it’s workings, it’s relevance and place in the world. To put it in some sort of perspective. and yeah this could mean, me telling you that you are wrong about your perception. That doesn’t mean I’m right. It’s mean we are entering a discourse. This is how evolution/discourse in culture, arts and philosophy used to work at some point and it definitively had its merrits
those discussions definitely still happen though, wouldnt be surprised if they literally happen millions of times a day. i dont really buy that the discussion was any better because it was led by a thought-leader
discourse, yes I definitely agree… I don’t see discourse and criticism as the same thing although I understand that criticism can be a part of discourse of course…
but none of the opinions I shared up until this point included a thought about discourse… I guess I was missing the point to that degree.
I’m not sure all of us are talking about the same thing… so far , we’ve got Criticism, opinion, encouragement, analysis, and now discourse… I’d even add one, the term of fellowship which in an artistic context is what discourse really means to me…
but these things are far from just the question of ‘does a critique/critic’ have any actual value unto itself… does anything that rotten tomatoes says about your movie or soundtrack have any meaning to anyone outside of the folks that agree with that opinion.
I appreciate the extended take you have on the subject including discourse.
this is why this subject interest me, not the art part but the who has the keys part to determine it all
to be continued 
I would hit Amoeba Berkeley and SF regularly (visits two or three times a year, my then-wife’s father lived in Berkeley). Aquarius I was not aware of, but I wouldn’t have regularly been visiting those parts of SF. The Valencia St location I periodically lived within walking distance of, from about 2013 to 2017 (partner lived in the Castro), and would be down in that part of town at least once a week getting something or other, and I must have stuck my head in, but I have no recollection of it. That was probably way too late for me. I visited Amoeba Hollywood once, some time in the '00’s, and bought a metric fuckton of stuff; yes, it was much better stocked.
and they call psychology a soft science!
for shits and giggles i googled “scholarly research on the difference between good and bad art” and the Google AI summary was basically what @captain8 said in that post. didnt get any actual articles or research tho, gonna need better search terms
I’m not saying it’s a “hard science”. Just that humans have been deeply pondering and debating the meaning of art since at least the ancient greeks.
Criticism from an academic point of view means discourse. It doesn’t mean saying mean things about something.
i don’t understand, what a thought leader has to do with it, when someone writes a piece about some music or an artist? how is some writer for the wire for example a thought-leader? is Mark Fisher a thought leader? I’d say his research and his articles on music showed a level of engagement and research that is sorely missed these days.
c’mon, that’s cheap. Every science like philosophy, literature, art and whatnot deals with that exact question
Critic is part of what i called discourse. discourse is something broader.
And how is a review on Rotten Tomatoes a critic? It’s the opposite. It’s a representation of what critic has turned into. atomized shouting into the digital void. There is no interaction, no challenge, no discourse in which this happens.
tbh this conversation is so hard to follow because of the semantics.
by definition, no, music criticism is not dead, people discuss it constantly, like we do here.
people’s interest in reading about other people’s perspectives on art? maybe dying, professional critics hardly exist any more, maybe because the internet is flooded with peoples opinions.
has anything been lost in the music creation sphere because we lost the critics? i’d say absolutely not.
yes.
I don’t think it’s about saying mean things… I think if someone critiques a piece of music highly that it’s still just an opinion… I think critics should be called Opinionitics 
i mention this because it seems to be the general consensus in the thread that people are no longer doing this writing because its not in an established publication. but there is 100% loads of music criticism going on every day online so im not sure what we are talking about. we are speaking of something as if it isnt happening constantly. is it only critique if it has an audience?
psychology is my own field of study so that was more tongue in cheek. i also mentioned it because the scholarly research was used as a response to a question as if the research is out there and isnt basically just further exploring the question that was asked.
Good critique isn’t just offering opinions in a void…It’s not criticism in the classical sense unless you give the “why”. Readers and other critics are free to disagree and offer their own “whys”? That’s the discourse part…It’s an invitation to enter into a conversation.
But don’t you see how it sounds just a little bit ignorant to dismiss the entire centuries long history of art criticism as “well that’s just your opinion man”. Maybe if you actually read some of those opinions you would agree or disagree or learn something new but at least hopefully come away with a new perspective on art that enriches your understanding and enjoyment of it.
I think this is where we’re talking past each other:
I think I’ve just always thought of critiques as something that was supposed to more of a universal while also feeling that nothing artistic can be universal…
This isn’t really what serious criticism is about. There’s always an understanding that the critic is writing from a particular point of view, that they have their own preferences, are familiar with certain genres or traditions and not others, etc. If they’re good, then they relate the work being critiqued to that context that the author understands well. eg: a serious critic who likes dub and reggae will relate their review of a reggae album to other things happening in the genre, and maybe to a context of Jamaica in the 1970s that they have some historical understanding of. They’re unlikely to compare it to a modern metal record or a string quartet, it’s just kind of obvious that there’s no point.
If all this has to be explained in an essay at the start of every piece of criticism, we’d be wasting a lot of time. Maybe modern audiences need a disclaimer: “This work of criticism does not imply the concrete reality of aesthetic value! It is merely an attempt to describe an artwork within its context and provide an individual evaluation of its merits!”
Keep in mind also that opinionated reviews are more enjoyable to read, even if we all know it’s just opinion.
what/who would you recommend reading?
I understand your line of thought, but I still want to reiterate my point / example with Mark Fisher. His articles show a depths that most of the time is not reached when people justshare opinions on a forum for example. Since it isn’t just an opinion.
im not just talking about people sharing opinions on social media and forums, im sure there are loads of people out there blogging just like Mark Fisher did. i just dont understand what we are lamenting: discourse around music and art, or big name critics people recognize.
I agree that there are still blogs worth reading.
I’m lamenting that criticism as a journalistic practice is disappearing. Since even the number of blogs are getting smaller.