Should reviews be written only by genres'

Atomic_Rooster wrote: I think that only official members of The Intelligent Peoples Thread should be allowed to give reviews

Shouldn't that be people's, not peoples? 

I couldn't help myself.... not in conjunction with 'The Intelligent People's Thread'.

Of course, now you know I have to find this thread and take a look at its subject heading! :)

I just read a bunch of Dream Theater reviews.   There were an overpowering number of 5-star reviews, but I found the not-5-star ones to be a bit more helpful for me, so far.



Edited by StarsongAgeless - May 03 2007 at 01:34

Rocktopus wrote: For example: should The T review Dream Theater? Should someone that worships DT review DT albums? Will those reviews be fairer or more just towards the music than reviews written by the bands haters?

I must agree that all reviews giving an opinion (however biased) should be accepted, so long as they do not insult the band, its music, or its fans through needless name calling or stereotyping.  However, it is perfectly valid for someone to express extreme dislike for a band and/or its music, but this only helpful when it is clearly explained why.

Some people are just too sensitive for the hard life of Prog Rock Reviews

Snow Dog wrote: erik neuteboom wrote: StarsongAgeless, we simply disagree about where to draw the line between negative and unacceptable, indeed and now I go to sleep, in Holland it's bedtime  !   Only for some!

Hahaha. :)  Goodnight erik neuteboom.  Yep we just disagree on where to draw the line.

I do have to say, even though I'm not crazy about 2112, I found that review to be ridiculous even though it didn't fit into my definition of unacceptable!

Certif1ed as usual makes great points. 

StarsongAgeless, we simply disagree about where to draw the line between negative and unacceptable, indeed and now I go to sleep, in Holland it's bedtime  !

Edited by erik neuteboom - May 02 2007 at 17:33

I do realize that's what you're concerned about, I just don't see much of what you're concerned about in the Teaflax review.  I thought he/she was very descriptive, just negative.  The only thing I find objectionable in it is the careless and baseless description of the fans as, 'Sci Fi-obsessed pimply teenage fanboy[s]'.  There's no cursing, and no insults directed toward Rush themselves - the reviewer makes it clear that it's this album in particular they don't like from Rush.

It just seems to me like you're including things in the 'venemous' language category that are just 'negative' language to me.  Do you happen to know of a 1-star review that you consider to not have venemous language in it?   I think the difference between us may just be where we draw the line between negative and unacceptable.

I agree, there should be some level of professionalism expected.  But also, how would the site police something like that?  I suppose members could be banned for writing unprofessional reviews, or just banned from reviewing and not the forum.  But that means it's someone's responsibility to go through all those reviews and decide which ones are and are not unprofessional.  Sometimes it's easy... sometimes it's not.  I would have a hard time deciding whether to remove either of the reviews you posted, since they do make an attempt at describing what it was they did not like.  The only thing truly unprofessional about the Teaflax review that I remember is his comment about fans of the album 2112.  The Prophet review was very poorly written, but his point was very clear: he thought there was way too much organ, without enough to make the organ part interesting.  I suppose I should go read it again now to see if the review was truly a flame or not, but my first impression was that it wasn't.  I guess I'll get back to you in a few minutes.

Edit:
Yeah, there were a few comments: 'grants a short relief from that f...ing keyboard player' and 'listener is so pissed off, he hangs himself' that were definitely inappropriate and I would probably have deleted it if it were my decision.  But the rest of the comments were informative if not complete.

But rudeness is not the same thing as a negative review.  I don't think that's what you are saying, but without people telling us what they don't like about an album, we'd be missing a whole perspective on it...


Edited by StarsongAgeless - May 02 2007 at 17:03

debrewguy wrote: I think reserving yourself to groups you like makes it hard for people to figure if they should try a new group that they've yet to hear. For me, that was VDGG. I went through some heavy listening sessions with 5-6 albums of theirs & simply did not find them to my liking, although I could see what others might find attractive. So I figured my reviews would at least balance out the fanatics raves.

This really gets to the point.   A review is always biased, no matter how hard a person tries to be objective, because art can only be objectively appreciated to a point.  After that, it comes down to whether or not it suits your personal taste.

If the only people who reviewed bands in a particular genre were people who were fans of the genre, most ratings would be skewed toward very high, making it difficult for someone who doesn't know anything about the genre to decide what albums in it to try.

Then again, if the only people who reviewed bands in a particular genre were those who do not enjoy that genre in general, ratings would be skewed toward very low, making it difficult for someone who does (or would) enjoy music from that genre to choose an album to try.

I think the solution is moderation (but I doubt that's going to happen) and being aware of the biases of the person writing the review.  Someone who enjoys progressive rock music should not give all of the albums they like 5 star ratings - reserve those for the ones you truly think are masterpieces, considering more than just how much you like it.  If you love the music, but realize the musicianship isn't actually very skilled (something that's important to most progressive rock), maybe that album should be a 3 or 4 rather than a 5.  Or if you're blown away by the skill of the musicians but not by the aesthetics of the song, again maybe that album should not be a 5.

The difficult thing about that is, usually when someone hates the way a band sounds they tend to give 1 star, without considering anything other than how much they like it.  What about the skill level?  Does the singer have a nice voice?  Does the song seem to succeed at what it is trying to do?  I've seen professional reviews that bash and trash bands for reasons that seemed very strange to me.  I recently read (I wish I had the article now, I'll try and find it) a reviewer bash Renaissance's singer, Annie Haslam, calling her an over-annunciating horror.  This person clearly did not even consider the timbre of her voice, how on-pitch she was, the very large range of her voice, or the advantages of singing clearly so the lyrics can be understood.  I will try to find this reference for you all.

Since it's difficult to keep such  biases out of reviews, however, the only answer may be to have information about what the reviewer does and does not enjoy.  If reviewers are willing to submit this information along with their reviews, or at least have it available to their readers, it will give people some perspective as they read.

On a side-note, even people who enjoy prog music often mislead me with their reviews.  Dream Theatre has quite a few adoring fans, but I find most of their work to be uninspiring.  I recognize that they are fabulous musicians.  It's their songwriting that doesn't draw me in most of the time.

erik neuteboom  - I actually found both of the very negative reviews you posted to be mostly valid, though obviously biased.  They described pretty clearly what about the albums they didn't like.  I thought the 5 star review posted on the previous page was much less credible.  The thing is... as long as the reviewer makes it clear what it is that they didn't like, at least they made an effort to be descriptive.  Maybe someone who loves organs in music would actually buy the album based on the Prohpet review.  Someone who likes intellectual and virtuosic music would think to themselves, "Hey, I like music like that, even if this guy doesn't!  I'm going to try that album out."  I personally think non-descriptive reviews are much worse than ones that are just negative.   I grant you, some of their language choices were extremely poor.  I do wish reviewers had a little more moderation, as I was trying to say earlier, but descriptive reviews will suffice when moderation isn't there.

Eh enough ramblings from me!  Hopefully I  made a point... if not... oh well. :)


Edited by StarsongAgeless - May 02 2007 at 15:21

It's not about accepting other views/opinions Sean, it's about Teaflax his sarcastic way of nailing the Rush album 2112, I hope he is not inspirational for other reviewers because personally I don't like that venomous style of him, too artificial, too much focussed on being sarcastic to the ultimate instead of informing the proghead about the compositions, about the music because that should be the goal of the reviewer, not the self-indulgence in showing how funny it is too nail the progressive hardrock and the ambitious lyrics by Rush on 2112.

Edited by erik neuteboom - May 02 2007 at 13:14